Singer, actress, director, composer and activist Barbra Streisand. (photo: AP)
19 September 12
n
this election, the people of America have to make a choice between two
candidates with very different values, visions and solutions to the most
pressing problems facing our country. The question voters need to ask
themselves when they walk into the voting booth on November 6th is:
"Will the country be better off returning to the policies of George W.
Bush's Administration?"
Like Bush, Governor Romney believes we need more tax
cuts for the wealthiest 2% and fewer rules for Wall Street. He wants to
roll back financial reform and set Wall Street free to write its own
rules again. He wants to repeal health care reform and leave 30 million
people without a safety net. And the trillions in tax cuts he wants to
give to millionaires and billionaires will only force more devastating
cuts to critical programs that serve the middle-class.
It's hard to believe that Mitt Romney would campaign
on policies that nearly destroyed the country and virtually eliminated
so much of America's middle-class. With stagnant wages, escalating
medical costs, foreclosures, rampant unemployment, loss of good paying
jobs and the disappearance of retirement savings due to deregulation and
manipulation by Wall Street, Mitt Romney and the Republican narrative
fail to address the key concerns of everyday Americans.
Time and again, Republicans' policies put
corporations, not the people, first. They challenge current regulations
and try to block new regulations that help to protect the air we
breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Just recently, House
Republicans went to great lengths to block the implementation of a new
food safety law, while also trying to cut the budgets of agencies that
oversee food safety. And many in the party either deny the science on
climate change or refuse to support legislation that will begin to help
mitigate the effects of global warming.
The only budget proposal that Republicans will support
is the Ryan budget, which completely disinvests in America during a
time when the country desperately needs investments to spur growth and
competitiveness. Our country, and the notion of the American Dream, was
built on the bedrock that government must play a vital role in providing
investments that ultimately afford opportunity for all. If everyone was
left to fend for themselves, and government failed to take the lead in
investing in schools, roads, research and development, space
exploration, and the internet, we would have a very different country
where the fate of a person's future would be sealed in the
socio-economic status that he or she was born into. Ultimately, Mitt
Romney and his party see an America where the wealth should trickle
down, instead of building a strong middle class so that everyone can
rise up together.
Here Are The Facts
No matter how much undisclosed money floods into
Romney affiliated super PACs from the likes of Sheldon Adelson, the Koch
brothers, and their friends, the things they cannot change are the
facts.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney became enormously
wealthy, while his company, Bain Capital, bought and bankrupted
companies, laid off American workers and shipped jobs overseas.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney had the 47th worst job creation record as Governor.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney has millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts and secretive offshore investment funds in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda in order to avoid paying his fair share of U.S. taxes. And given his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns (unprecedented for a Presidential candidate), it's clear that the Romney campaign believes that the truth about what is contained in those tax returns is far more damaging than Romney's refusal to release them.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney has millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts and secretive offshore investment funds in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda in order to avoid paying his fair share of U.S. taxes. And given his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns (unprecedented for a Presidential candidate), it's clear that the Romney campaign believes that the truth about what is contained in those tax returns is far more damaging than Romney's refusal to release them.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney has taken both sides on
virtually every issue important to voters. He was for and then against
-- gun control, a women's right to reproductive choice, health care for
all, and the economic stimulus. He once believed that people's actions
contributed to global warming and now he has changed his position. He
was against signing the no-tax pledge and now he is a strong supporter.
It's a fact that Mitt Romney's solution to stimulate
the economy is further deregulation, a tactic that led to the growth of
"too big to fail" banks, the BP oil spill, the housing crisis, and
ultimately, the American and global financial and economic meltdown.
And it's a fact that Republican legislators across the
country are passing new voting restrictions to disenfranchise voters,
shutting down non-partisan voter registration drives, and cutting back
on early voting. They hope that these shameful tactics to subvert the
democratic process will have an impact on the election.
While the millions raised by Mitt Romney's super PACs
to defeat President Obama may not be able to change the facts, these
funds can saturate the media with misinformation and lies in order to
bury the truth and persuade swing-state voters.
Here Are Truths They Will Try To Bury
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the primary
goal of the Republican Party was not to fix the country and get
Americans back to work, but to defeat the President four years later.
They spent these past few years obstructing the passage of important
legislation. Since 2007, the Senate Historical Office has shown that
Democrats have had to end Republican filibusters more than 360 times, a
historic record for what had been a very rarely used parliamentary
procedure.
Compared to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Obama
has been more fiscally conservative than any other president in recent
history, with the exception of President Bill Clinton.
President Obama has been far better at creating jobs
than President George W. Bush. During the 7 years and 8 months of George
Bush's presidency, before the financial crash, only 2.6 million new
private sector jobs were created. In the final month of George Bush's
presidency, the country lost 800,000 jobs, and in the last six months of
the Bush Administration, the country lost over 3.5 million jobs.
However, in the last 30 months under President Obama's
leadership, nearly 4.6 million new private sector jobs were created
(averaging about 150,000 new jobs per month). In President Obama's last 2
years in office, 40% more jobs were created than in nearly all of
President Bush's eight years in office.
The last President who was elected amidst a severe
economic crisis and high unemployment was Franklin D. Roosevelt. His
policies strengthened government so that it would protect the people
(creating Glass-Steagall to regulate the banks, the FDIC to insure bank
depositors, the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock
market, and Social Security to help people build a safety net for their
retirement). FDR's strategy to spend money to create jobs and stimulate
the economy is what ultimately helped pull the country out of a
depression.
Even though the country's most respected economists
have agreed on what history has already proven -- that MORE federal
spending, not austerity, is necessary to stimulate the economy and
create jobs, today's Republicans categorically reject this strategy.
They are running on a platform of further deregulation and cutting
spending to the bone, so that those earning millions will get more tax
cuts, even though it means Americans who need a safety net won't have
it.
Unlike Mitt Romney, President Obama believes we need
to invest in education, energy, innovation and infrastructure and reform
our tax system to create good jobs, grow our economy and pay down the
debt in a reasoned way. He believes in an inclusive country where all
people deserve equal protection and treatment under the law, as well as
equal opportunity, whether they are gay, straight, black, brown, white,
religious, atheist, old or young.
The choice is clear. Would you vote for a person who
pays his taxes or someone who wiggles his way out of them? Do you want a
President who has gained the respect of the world community or someone
who on a recent diplomatic trip abroad provoked the ire and ridicule of
other world leaders? Do we want a country where everyone is fending for
themselves or where everyone is pitching in and working together? Do we
want to go backward with Mitt Romney or move forward with President
Obama?
On Tuesday, November 6th, the American people will
have the power to make that choice. And I hope everyone, young and old,
from red state to blue state, chooses progress over corporate profit.
And over the course of the next four years, I hope we can all come
together to re-build an America where opportunity and prosperity is once
again within everyone's reach.
COMMENTS
+84
#
2012-09-19 11:11
The current
incarnation of the Republican party would be a laughable clown party, if
they weren't fiscally irresponsible, bumbling and dangerous in foreign
relations and policy, and completely unconcerned with the general
welfare of their fellow citizens. Their only concern is money and power.
I hope enough Americans wake up to their dishonesty and eventually
renders them and their ilk irrelevant to decisions made at all levels of
government. Maybe this second "Gilded Age" will create the necessary
catalyst.
+98
#
2012-09-19 11:49
Thanks Barbara for
condensing many great talking points in a well written statement.I find
this political discourse very important and with the Internet I find
lots of opportunities to do do.I have brought up some of the points that
you have shared but you have given me the Cliff notes of Political
speak from ideals that we share.
-54
#
2012-09-19 16:56
I don't think this
article by a popular entertainer has much merit. Barbara still believes
we must decide which of the two corporate parties is the less evil. It
should be clear, especially to all of us over 40 years old, that the
regular search for the lesser evil has made our government more and more
evil. The lesser evil is EVIL. Isn't that enough to get you to look for
another choice. Maybe we could vote for something GOOD instead of the
lesser evil. It is too late for this election. Too many of us share
Barbara's concept of what choice we have. Our only hope is to refuse to
vote for either of the Corporate duo and vote for 'minor party'
candidates or independents. If enough o us do this we may reach the
tipping point where a bad old idea is swept away and we are allowed to
have more than too bad choices.
+17
#
2012-09-19 19:38
The principle you
espouse is fine, but there is NO viable third choice. Barbra (not
Barbara) probably understands quite fully that the lesser of two evils
is still evil. The point is irrelevant. The lesser evil is mostly good;
the greater evil is extremely bad and destructive. Be active if you can.
Find other possibilities. But meanwhile, pay attention to what The R's
say they will do and think about it.
+1
#
2012-09-20 10:44
Why do so many human
beings look at life in such a negative way? Why not see it as voting for
the person who will benefit the people of this country the most? Let's
look at the glass as half full, not half empty, Barack Obama has done
quite a lot of GOOD things for us, what has Mitt Romney done to make our
lives better? Not one thing. wantrealdemocracy
is helping the right-wing cause whether she knows it or not. She
obviously thinks that "popular entertainers" are not elgible to be
citizens, with opinions about politics? That's not the kind of thinking
that will move this country forward. Barbra Streisand is a very smart,
savvy thinker, and she has always been on the side of democracy. Let's
stop disrespecting her and other "popular entertainers", they deserve
our thanks for speaking out in these troubled times.
