This page was last updated on August 26, 2012.
Refresh memories; Charles Loverde; Beaver County Times; August 24, 2012. At the time of this writing, this letter appeared only in the print edition of the BCT. I apologize for any transcription errors.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Beaver Countians, like so many other Americans, seem to be victims of amnesia. I would like to take this opportunity to refresh their memories …”
[RWC] I don’t know how much of this letter is original work. I found Mr. Loverde lifted a chunk of his letter from a 2007 piece on DailyKos and another portion from TwinklePolitics. SalemNews.net published this letter in July. At the time, Mr. Loverde allegedly lived in Negley. This letter lists Mr. Loverde’s address as Raccoon Township.
“As Bush began his takeover of the White House in January 2001, the big debate in Washington was over what to do with a projected budget surplus of $2.2 trillion that President Clinton left behind. That's more than $2.2 trillion, not billions. The surplus was trillions. Remember? Unfortunately, when ‘Mr. Mission Accomplished’ left office he had the U.S. economy in the worst state since the Great Depression. After taking over the worst economy in modern times what has Obama accomplished …”
[RWC] The “projected budget surplus of $2.2 trillion that President Clinton left behind” is mostly a Democrat fairy tale, simply an estimate based on estimated budgets for the following 10 years and – surprise! – they are never remotely accurate because we can’t predict the future. Even then, the budget surpluses were already dropping (by 50% in Mr. Clinton’s last budget). Further, the budget projections were made before the recession that started toward the end of the Clinton administration, 9/11 and its aftereffects, and the insecurity caused by the uncovering of accounting scandals (Enron, etc.) that flourished during the Clinton administration. Had President Bush done nothing, the deficits would still have occurred as a result of the decrease in tax revenue caused by the recession.
There were tax RATE cuts, not tax revenue cuts. Before the current recession began to kick in, tax revenue peaked at $2.6 trillion in 2007, an increase of $577 billion (29%) since 2001. By the end of fiscal year 2007 (the last before the recession), the deficit was down to $161 billion. Once again, tax revenue wasn’t the problem, spending was. I’m sure Mr. Loverde would like us to believe his “tax cuts and loopholes” were for the “rich.” Several years back the Tax Foundation reported, “Despite the charges of critics that the tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the ‘rich,’ these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers.” In 2010, Democrats finally had to admit the “tax cuts for the rich” BS was a lie. On December 6, 2010, President Obama said the following about the Bush income tax RATES: “Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.”
In any case, employment grew for 52 consecutive months (9/03 - 12/07) adding more than 8.3 million jobs and GDP grew in every quarter from the fourth quarter of 2001 through the third quarter of 2007. Unemployment went from 6.3% in June 2003 to 4.4% in May 2007. Later in 2007, unemployment began a slow increase as we entered into the early stages of the subprime mortgage mess we’re still in.
Mr. Loverde seems to forget what got us here. It was the subprime mortgage mess and that was a leftist program. We’re here because of government meddling in the mortgage market and spending too much. While he served in the Senate, what proposals did Mr. Obama make that would have averted the mess?
“Within days after taking office, he signed an executive order demanding an audit of government contracts and combating waste and abuse. On his first full day, he froze White House salaries. He implemented an auto industry rescue plan and saved as many as 1 million jobs. He brought bin Laden to justice. He brought our 401ks back from the mud to respectability. He eliminated “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” in the military. He eliminated the Bush-era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. And he relates to the working class, unlike the elite Mitt. I will vote for Obama.”
[RWC] As for Mr. Loverde’s list of Mr. Obama’s “accomplishments,” most go in the “who cares?” bin. You’ll note none of the “accomplishments” involve jobs or the economy, or “hope and change.”
Regarding bin Laden, what relevant intelligence/military actions/policies did Mr. Obama employ that former-President George W. Bush did not?
Regarding “Bush-era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research,” there was no ban on embryonic stem cell research. The prohibition was only on federal funding of research using embryonic stem cells collected after a certain date in 2001. The private sector and local/state governments could fund embryonic stem cell research as much as they wanted. Then-President Bush was the first president to approve federal funding of any stem cell research.
As for Mr. Obama “implemented an auto industry rescue plan and saved as many as 1 million jobs,” all Mr. Obama did was throw our taxpayer dollars at Chrysler and GM to protect labor union management from traditional bankruptcy proceedings while screwing-over the bondholders. GM alone received “$50 billion in TARP bailout funds, a special exemption waiving payment of $45.4 billion in taxes on future profits, an exemption for all product liability on cars sold before the bailout, $360 million in stimulus funds, and the $7,500 tax credit for those who buy the Chevy Volt.” Of that, President Bush directed about $13 billion of our paychecks, pension checks, etc. to this improper use of tax dollars. Just as happens all the time, Chrysler and GM would not have gone out of business had Mr. Obama left our traditional bankruptcy laws play out.
“And [Mr. Obama] relates to the working class, unlike the elite Mitt?” Based on what? Mr. Obama’s maternal grandmother (who raised him for several years) was an evil <g> bank vice president, he attended private grade and high schools, Occidental College (private), and Ivy League colleges Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Michelle Obama attended Princeton University and Harvard Law and she earned $316,962 and $273,618 in her final two years of full-time employment according to FactCheck.org. According to CNN, the Obamas’ net worth was between $2.8 and $11.8 million (including their $1.7 million house) as of January 2012. How many in Mr. Loverde’s “working class” attended Mr. Obama’s $40,000-per-plate campaign-fundraising dinners hosted by George Clooney and Sarah Jessica Parker? Or the $35,800-per-plate dinner hosted by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein? Or the $20,000-per-plate dinner hosted by Michael Jordan? There are more examples, but you get the idea. Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing wrong with any of this and Mitt Romney’s campaign holds similar events. I point these things out only because Mr. Loverde wants us to believe Mr. Obama is something he isn’t.
© 2004-2012 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.