Who Wrecked it?

I read yesterday again one of the many partisan statements completely misrepresenting the President’s “You didn’t build that” statement about the societal infrastructure that entrepreneurs enjoy here when building a business. The Republican convention used a distorted “We Built This” theme and Romney, Ryan and others have tried to build an issue around this misrepresentation.    

I have also started and built my own business. And I thank God every day that I was able to do it in a country as great and supportive as the United States. It provided me with the environment and everything I needed to be successful. Then it was up to me to take the risk, add the creative ideas, and work incredibly hard to make it happen. And that was the President’s point. I am not insulted by the President’s words. I am their embodiment.

Romney’s positions on real issues are often (intentionally or otherwise) hard to determine. And much of the specifics about his business and tax activities are also unknown or disputed.  But Rep Paul Ryan (the VP candidate) and Rep Chris Smith (the Congressional candidate) have real records and they are political and policy blood brothers.  Romney and the Republican platform effectively endorse and adopt Ryan and Smith’s past records and recommendations.   

So here are real facts that you can consider when voting. Rep Paul Ryan admitted in his acceptance speech that the President was handed an “economic crisis”. (A historic understatement!) What he didn’t say was what or who created that crisis. Smith has been in Congress for 32 years (and Ryan for 14 years.) and we have had increasing spending and debt for all those years. And the Republicans have had the Presidency for 20 of those 32 years, the Senate for 16 of those 32 years, and the House for 14 of the last 18 years. During that time Paul Ryan and Chris Smith voted for the all the spending and the tax cuts (that simply added to the debt). So, given the many years of Republican work that produced that ever growing debt and “economic crisis”, perhaps it is not surprising that it will take more than 4 years to fix it. The Republican convention theme should have more properly been “We wrecked this”

And the latest Ryan (Romney/Smith) Plan is quickly falling into disfavor even with fellow Republicans. David Stockman, President Reagan’s Director of OMB, said the Ryan Plan was “preaching the same empty conservative sermon,” that it was “devoid of credible math or hard policy choices,“ and that it will “do nothing to reverse the nation’s economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse.”  Senator Coburn called the Republican tax cuts nothing more than a tax on future generations since they simply increase the debt.

Meanwhile over 100 Democrats and Republicans have been moving toward the bipartisan and balanced Simpson Bowles Plan (SBP). SBP bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate with bipartisan support. In short, if we work together, we can build that!