Voting Against Self-Interest
Voting Against Self-Interest
I am confused by the U.S. midterm elections of 2014. We live in a country where corporate profits are at record highs, the we're adding 200,000 jobs per month rather than losing 600,000, which is where Bush left us. Unemployment is 5.8%, down from 10.3%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is at record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there's no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years. U.S. oil imports are declining, while oil production is rapidly increasing as are renewable energy sources, the deficit is down 65%, and more millionaires and billionaires have been created since President Obama took office than in any other time in our history.
America is leading the world once again and respected internationally in sharp contrast to the Bush years. Obama brought soldiers home from Iraq, killed Osama bin Laden and decimated Al Qaida. He kept us from going into a depression, established a health care system presidents since Teddy Roosevelt have been trying to get past Republican opposition. He convinced the Swiss government to allow banks to drop their secrecy rules in order for the US to prosecute draft dodgers, and arrested more people for Medicare fraud than any president, again, in our history.
All this despite the most mean-spirited opposition of the Republicans to everything the President does or says, including raising the minimum wage which would create about 2 million more jobs.
Despite the remarkable job done by the Obama administration:
--The people of the 10th and 11th districts making less than $10 an hour voted against getting a raise to that level. (Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage)
--People on Social Security voted against getting a raise. More and more Democrats are speaking of expanding Social Security and using some of the $2.674 trillion (yes, that's right TR) surplus. (Don't listen to the 50 years of Republican whining that there is a SS crisis.)
--Unemployed people voted against an extension of unemployment benefits and FOR the party that cost them their jobs!
I can never understand how voters in the US cannot see the connections between their personal lives and the political party they vote for. We complain about politicians and the congress; so, who elects them?
