African American professor Cornel West once called Obama a "Rockefeller Republican." (photo: Mike Thieler-Pool/Getty)
He'd Be a Conservative Hero (Can You Spell B-I-G-O-T?)
26 December 14
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Ronald Reagan were alive today, he would be one of Barack Obama’s
biggest fans. In the six years he’s been president, Obama has managed to
turn our country’s economy, at its worst point since the Great
Depression, into one booming along with the greatest quarterly GDP growth in 11 years. The Dow Jones closed above 18,000 this week – the highest ever. And yet, despite an apparently surging economy, 95 percent of income gains since 2009 have gone to the richest 1 percent. Not even Ronald Reagan’s economic policies created inequality on that scale.
Since his first inauguration, President Obama has
masterfully steered the benefits of the recovery to only the wealthy,
while the net worth of average working Americans has dropped by 40 percent since before the recession. Today’s middle class is actually poorer than it was in 1989,
when Reagan left the White House. Even though the most recent
unemployment rate is 5.8 percent, most of the new jobs that have been
created since the recession have been in low-paying sectors, like retail and fast food.
The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which most workers
in those industries earn, has less buying power than the minimum wage in
1968.
According to a study by the Center for Economic and
Policy Research, if the minimum wage had kept up with worker
productivity since then, it would be $16.54 an hour today.
This means Americans are working harder than ever, but aren’t getting a
penny ahead. When you use that data to paint a picture with the most
recent quarterly GDP growth surge and the new record-high closing on the
Dow Jones, the image is actually quite ugly. The insane growth our
economy is experiencing, combined with the fact that 99 percent of
Americans aren’t seeing 95 percent of the income gains from that rapid
economic surge, means that our hard work is simply feathering the nest
of the ownership class. Income inequality hasn’t been this severe since right before the crash that caused the Great Depression.
President Obama could be pushing for the pitifully-low
minimum wage for tipped workers to be increased from $2.13 an hour,
where it has stayed since 1991.
He could sign executive orders to pay all federal workers $15 an hour,
to allow government contracts to go only to model employers who pay a
living wage, and to allow all government workers to have the right to
collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. He could
be investing billions of tax dollars into in creating public sector jobs
aimed at rejuvenating American infrastructure – which American
engineers have given a D+ in their most recent assessment – rather than lowering the deficit with cruel austerity like the continued budget sequester.
At the very least, President Obama could have vetoed
the federal budget “cromnibus” bill that was recently passed, sparing
low-income women, infants, and children from another $93 million in cuts to their food assistance. But we’re talking about the president who already approved $8.7 billion in cuts to food stamps
in the latest farm bill. Even the last lifelines of help for the most
desperate Americans have been slashed to pieces and put on hold by the
Obama administration. Even if Republicans are singlehandedly holding
social safety nets like food stamps and unemployment extensions for the
long-term jobless hostage, the fact that President Obama hasn’t even
fought that hard for these programs speaks volumes.
Republicans
applauded Clinton when he cut welfare in the 1990s, but there’s been
nothing but silence from today’s crop of Congressional Republicans for
Obama’s cuts to the welfare state.
Instead of fortifying his legacy with economic
populism, Obama has presided over an economic “recovery” where only the
rich have benefited – the first “recovery” of its kind. If Obama were a
Republican instead of a Democrat, Republicans would be singing his
praises. Instead, liberals and partisan Democrats are celebrating the
news of growth they don’t benefit from, and are the first to shout from
mountaintops about lower deficit numbers. In terms of economic policy,
Obama and his most diehard supporters are Reagan Republicans. But
despite their similarities in economic policy, Reagan would be even more
proud of Obama for his foreign policy.
As Glenn Greenwald has pointed out,
President Obama has extended George W. Bush’s War on Terror from just
Iraq and Afghanistan to Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Libya, and even the Philippines.
The U.S. military has more of a presence than ever in the Middle East
since Obama took office, with the Iraq War alone costing as much as $4 trillion. Obama has been just as steadfast a supporter of Israel as any of his predecessors – standing by them even as they bombed civilian targets in Gaza earlier this year. He recently signed off on supplying the Israeli weapons stockpile with another $200 million infusion;
this is the same stockpile that Israel used to bomb Gaza. And thanks to
Obama’s signature, Israel will now have the capability to refuel
fighter jets in mid-air, which would be necessary if Israel wanted to
launch airstrikes in Iran.
It speaks volumes that President Obama agreed to cut food stamps by $8.7 billion and WIC by $93 million, but committed to spending $1 trillion over the next 30 years
to upgrade our nuclear weapons stockpile. Even while Obama has
supported the idea of equipping police officers with body cameras, his
defense department stands by the Pentagon’s 1033 program
that allows military equipment like grenade launchers, sniper rifles,
and apache helicopters to flow to local and county police departments.
And despite his historic move to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba,
Obama is still stuck in a cold war mentality of the U.S. having to
command the widest array of nuclear weapons. Obama’s record on foreign
policy and the military-industrial complex puts Reagan’s to shame. The
ludicrous “Star Wars” program and the 1983 invasion of Grenada don’t hold a candle to the current administration’s imperialist worldview.
From a policy standpoint, it makes no logical sense
for Republicans to hate Obama as much as they do. He’s simultaneously
expanded the worst economic policies we saw under Reagan and the worst
foreign policy we saw under George W. Bush. The rich are richer than
ever before, the middle class is becoming poorer, and the poor have had
their already razor-thin social safety nets cut to the barest of
margins. On top of all of that, the U.S. military is engaged in
permanent wars all over the Middle East, and the cold war mentality that
drove Reagan and George H.W. Bush is still very much alive in the
current White House. The only reasonable explanation left for
Republicans’ fervent opposition to everything Obama says and does is
that he’s black.
Carl Gibson, 26, is co-founder of US Uncut, a
nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of
thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts
in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and
other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not
Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently
lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at
carl@rsnorg.org, and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.
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