CG: As an independent, I thought this was a pretty good read.
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The expected Republican upset at the voting booth today is bound to leave many inside the Beltway confused. What on earth do the American people want? After all, just two years ago they threw out the Republicans, and now they are throwing out the Democrats.
What Americans want is a government that stays out of their pocketbooks and out of their private lives. Under Presidents Bush and Obama, we've gotten just the opposite: government program after government program created with our money to socially engineer the economy.
Evidence of voters' desires lies in the huge swing we are seeing in the so-called independents. They are leaning heavily Republican in every poll. Pundits and political observers use the word independents frequently, but rarely do they define it. Now would be a good time.
I believe independents are fiscally-conservative, yet socially-liberal. How do I know? I'm one of them. I don't want to be taxed to death, and I don't want to tell other people how to live their lives.
Yet, for decades the choice has been either A.) a party that didn't want to overtax me, but seemed awfully concerned about what happens in people bedrooms, or B.) a party that was far more tolerant on social issues but loved spending taxpayer money to "fix" things.
But many believers in small-government think it is a concept that should dictate every aspect of Washington, not just the size of say, the Department of Commerce. Laws designed to legislate social values run contrary to the idea of small government because making laws about peoples private lives is about making government bigger, not smaller.
Now to today's election and the supposed flip-flop of the American public. To independent voters, Presidents Obama and Bush look awfully similar. Both have presided over enormous increases in government spending, and deep government intervention into large portions of the economy. From President Obama we got health care reform, from President Bush we got the largest federal intervention into education in the nations history, and huge subsidies for people to buy homes. Both have given us protectionism. Both bailed out the banks. Both bailed out the auto industry. For 10 years now we've had no difference in governing policies regardless of who was in power.
So now what?
After the Republican sweep of 1994, President Clinton was forced to find fiscal religion, and independents finally got policy changes they wanted: welfare reform, an embrace of the free markets with the passage of NAFTA, and a balanced budget driven in large part by less spending. (Thank you Newt Gingrich.) With the glaring exceptions of the tax-hike of 1993 and the Defense of Marriage Act, President Clinton looks pretty good to the independent voter of today.
Will President Obama learn from President Clinton? Only if he corrects his view of history.
Right now, the President consistently blames a lack of government oversight and regulation under the Bush years, as one of the key reasons for the nations economic woes. The truth is just the opposite and the American people know that. President Bush may have been Republican, but he didn't preside like one. We haven't seen a Republican president who truly believed in keeping government small in the lives of its people since Ronald Reagan.
Despite an enormous amount of new legislation (the stimulus bill, health care reform, financial regulatory reform, and education finance reform) President Obama's ratings have never been lower.
He needs to ask himself why.
The answer: because he is doing exactly the same thing his predecessor did. Spending too much, regulating too much, and intervening too much, with little to show for it in the way of economic improvement.
To the American people, less is more. They know exactly what they want. Now if only the politicians they vote for would give it to them.
Mic e Caruso-Cabrera is an anchor of CNBCs Power Lunch and author of 'You Know I'm Right, More Prosperity, Less Government.'
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Heres-...&asset=&ccode=
It's ridiculous that anyone could think Clinton looks good in retrospect after shipping our jobs to Mexico and China and turning Wall Street loose.With the glaring exceptions of the tax-hike of 1993 and the Defense of Marriage Act, President Clinton looks pretty good to the independent voter of today.
It's all relative.
Besides, the trend of manufacturing jobs heading overseas started long before Clinton, and just like every other president we've had/will have, it's something that's completely out of his control.
Bottom line. Independents want a REAL Conservative government.
total bull .
what The American People have got for the last 35 years is a VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY of the super rich against everybody else.
The VRWC, including their hired tools at CNBC, puts out like this article to hide their own crimes and aggressions.
I"ll finish reading it, but the 2nd paragraph opening line is complete and utter horse considering none one's pocket book has been invaded in either administration.
Attributing these waves to wanting the government out of your pocketbook shows an immense disconnect with reality.
Yeah, sorry CG this may be what you want the American people's justifications to be but I just don't see it. And I understand the sentiment, because 2 years ago I thought that the American people had finally had enough and were voting in Obama for reasons I felt were important.
This time I see it for what it is. A mass of people who see the economy is in shambles and who are trying to do something to fix it. They're the panicking person hitting every button as quickly as possible trying to hit the right one to fix the problem because they have no ing idea what the problem is or how to fix it.
Reaganomics would put this country into a depression today. It would be a disaster.
CNBC arguing against financial regulations? I'm shocked.
I don't think the OP is a 'independent' at all, tbh.
You might call him a historical democrat (what dems used to be back in the 30's), or merely a conservative that's disillusioned with what the GOP has been doing for the last 30 or so years.
small govt is a 100% dishonest euphemism for "do not obstruct the crimes and predations of the Haves against the Have-nots"
In other words, this guys is as much an independent as, say, Wild Cobra...
Here's the Real Reason for the redistribution/concentration of wealth at the top, while everyody else stagnates or becomes poorer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/op...gewanted=print
The it was. He bent our nation over the table giving China most favored nation status, lying to our faces and telling us about what a great export opportunity it would be to sell to billions (who of course were dirt-poor and could never afford our exports). And his blind support of financial ``innovation'' is the direct cause of the enormous mess we're in now. Clinton, Greenspan, and Newt ed us all good.
The real reason people view Clinton so well now? They remember a burgeoning economy and a time before terrorism caused the dude at the airport checking your luggage to know that the exteneze in your luggage isn't working.
They're assocating Clinton with a happier time in this countries history much in the same way people look back at their teenage years with fondness after their innocence is lost.
NAFTA is the single worst thing to happen to the American economy in my lifetime. Bar none.
Sad to say, I disagree with the narrative that the fiscal probity of he parties has much to do with the way people vote.
The GOP lost mostly on perceptions of incompetence and venality in 2006. Medicare part D really didn't figure into it, nor did deficit financed tax cuts, nor did the off-books budgeting of war so much as the crappy results.
The Dems are losing this time around because of the severity of the economic downturn and the snail's pace of the technical recovery, i.e., the perception that their policies are incompetent and out of touch. Also, the promised change did not materialize: what materialized was continuity with GWB.
In the main, self-described liberals and conservatives alike have trouble identifying what particular gov't programs they'd be willing to do without. The portion of voters who actually want smaller government is exaggerated by both sides.
Just curious, since you say it's Clinton's fault. Let's assume that is true.
Bush had 8 years to fix it, and didn't.
And now Obama is being blamed for not being able to fix what Bush couldn't?
It's amazing how tired of a rhetoric the blame game is, and yet people keep clinging to it because they can't see past partisanship to rationally examine the problems. Clinton did a lot of good for our economy as well.
They turned against Democrats because unemployment is still relatively high.
That's pretty much it.
...oh, and I can never take any article by anyone seriously when they use lines like this:
What Americans want is......the American people know that.Never try to speak for "Americans". Too many people with very different wants and needs. Take boutons then look at Yonivore. Both Americans, and apparently, this broad thinks shes got them both encompassed in her one page essay of old tripe.To the American people, less is more. They know exactly what they want.
It's true that it might have the longest-lasting influence, yes, but that isn't nearly as devastating a blow to the economy as the de-regulation of the financial sector has been. Nothing really compares to that. When you are talking about hundreds of trillions (or even quadrillions) of dollars in assets being thrown around like they're candy, there's a huge problem there.
I thought Clinton had a great presidency. The manufacturing jobs were either gone or going anyways. He actually helped nurture a services economy and make it blossom.
As far as the Wall Street conundrum, it has many parents. You can pin it on Clinton or Greenspan, but every congress and administration that came afterwards played along, including this one.
IMO, Manny had it right. The economy is for everyone but the rich and invested, unemployment is high, the leadership in this country is a contradiction of terms and btw, the future doesnt look very bright either. In fact, it looks to be worse tomorrow than it is today.
So the monkeys are hitting switches, ANY switch, in the hopes that by random chance Shakespeare's Opus will materialize on the other end.
Fat chance. We're rounding the bowl, some know it, most deny it, a very few do not care.
Wait, what? I thought you were just giving me about how Clinton did good for our economy? Why don't you look at who signed Gramm–Leach–Bliley.
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