It's no wonder my wife has already picked her candidate for president. It could have been any Republican, and she would have voted for him. Of course, with Obama in the incumbent seat, you could have written in steamed broccoli as a nominee and she'd vote for it; "as long as Obama is gone," she says, "broccoli would get my vote."
I'm not so quick to bandwagon. No offense to her. It's the decisiveness and rally cry that I love about her. I don't care if she is one of those crazy Republican nutjobs, nor that such a title is self-imposed. She has true conviction and self-worth. I respect her for that.
But I have to look at Romney and wonder if I would be happy with him as president. I will say most of his speech at the RNC (watch in its entirety on YouTube) had references that were inherently me: student who can't find the work he studied to do, waking up in poverty, not even able to volunteer in my local community, something I've wanted to do for a long time. But it's one thing to say that you'll create jobs, and claim them to be quality jobs, and another to really do that. Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner talks on radio and television talk shows about how the president really doesn't have much control over job creation. He or she can create projects that need workers, but ultimately anything that is so concrete that it creates permanent jobs has more or less been addressed in current departments. The development of the Department of Homeland Security was the last successful job creation initiative, and it has worked on that aspect (I won't go into the rest of its track record for this segment).
Obama creates jobs based on temporary work, namely infrastructure. Most infrastructure jobs are handled by two types of companies: local and national. There is a catch with either type. For local companies to come in and do the jobs, it's likely that local jobs would be temporary, just long enough to take care of the infrastructure projects at hand. Once done, or slowed by budgeting, local jobs disappear. National companies would ensure work for any worker able to travel, but would either require the person to be single or able to be away from family for extended periods. As well, local jobs for those unable to make the trek would be harder to find.
Is there a happy medium? Not really. Best not to focus on infrastructure jobs, though not removing them completely from budgets. Our failing infrastructure is why we are so vulnerable to nature's disasters. The electric grid just by itself could create thousands of jobs if upgraded, but again require a more permanent or other related job to fall back to once complete.
On top of that, Romney, as an investment executive, knows that government cannot create the types of jobs that pull in six figures. Businesses do that by creating demand. A great instance of that is the wind turbine technician. These people get paid very well, but for good reason, namely the hundreds of feet below their office, the access panel on the service deck of a wind turbine. Was this position created by government? No. Government created the market, and created regulations that required specifications to be met before turbines could even be erected let alone turned on. This required a specialized skill set. But it was the businesses that met that demand and regulation requirement that trained and defined the type of person who was so specialized it could make so much money being a rock climber on the biggest stripper poles in the world.
And unlike Obama's experience, he knows what kind of R&D investors want to see to let go of their money. I would be interested in seeing data on how many companies Bain Capital invested in that was helped out by the policies of the Obama administration. No, really, I would. I'd be swayed a little more either way depending on the existence of any at all, the ratio of companies who did as opposed to companies that did not, and the success of those investments. It's more interesting than Romney's tax records.
Just for the record, I could give two dry martinis of poo what Romney's income was. I do think that it is a conflict of interest to be President of the United States while being an active member of any business. This is not explicitly disallowed by the Constitution, but is political grey water to the point that it should be avoided. For instance, if Romney were still running Bain Capital, and was also CEO, he could easily create regulations that benefited investment firms, just like his. And even without his active presence, I am sure watchdogs will be looking for this bias closely.
For that matter, could a wealthy business owner tell his business contacts that he will not be endorsing the decision on tough issues that will make them happy? After the presidency, I doubt he would retire. He would need some sort of business black book to leverage future positions or businesses. To be purely bipartisan and unbiased is fairly impossible for a person who has so many "friends" in white-collar places.
I don't think Obama has been very helpful over the last four years. I can smell the seeds of change being sown. I can see that even liberals don't like the results of some of his policies, even though they may not recognize these after-effects as coming from Obama's policies.
One big example in Washington State is the reduction of qualifying families for the Diversion Cash Assistance (DCA) option of the TANF program. Families who used to be able to depend on this grant to save them from losing their home or utilities, including those on SSI, were told they no longer qualify due to new tighter income limits (you now have to make a maximum of $1472 to meet the half of net monthly income test for qualifying as a family of six, like us). In most examples of the net income limit, families must make less than minimum wage full time or an extremely limited part time income just to qualify for this option. A family of 6 making $1472 would not survive in today's economy unless they were on housing assistance and had other programs involved. Someone like me who may have an unexpected medical, vehicle or family expense that reduced my ability to pay rent (because I live paycheck to paycheck) would not qualify for help in any way.
The cause on the federal side: the unchanging TANF block grant process initiated by President Clinton in 1996. The block grant process does not change based on caseload, as pointed out by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Federal funds also do not require states to use the money for anything specific, like helping families directly. The CBPP offers a good example of this:
"In fiscal year 2007, before the onset of the recession, states used just 30 percent of their federal and state TANF funds to provide basic assistance to families with children. When the economy slumped badly and TANF caseloads began rising, state TANF agencies were unable to reclaim the transferred funds to cover the costs of providing assistance to the growing number of families in need."Obama could make this a priority, especially for a progressive. Restructuring the TANF federal budget to be more dynamic based on individual, or even average, caseload would mean more assistance to those who really need it and a hand-up for families who don't want to rely on TANF long-term but need the help now. Obama's inaction on this issue results in less help for families.
I am torn between wanting to support a conservative who seems to be more aligned with my own views and not wanting to take on a new idiot with new ill effects for an already damaged economy...
I expect, in time, I will find my answer. I refuse not to vote. I just would hate after all this time not being happy with the Obama administration to feel I have to vote for him to prevent new stupidity moving into the White House.
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By the way, speaking of jobs, I am officially to fat to be a DirecTV installer. They won't let my weighted girth on the ladder. This troubles me and saddens my heart. Let the sit-ups and spinach leaves commence.
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