Pick a Roosevelt 2022
For prosperity, pick the Roosevelt of your choice
By Bill Street
In the words of James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid!” Twenty years later it still is. Our opponents understand this and are spending millions to convince voters that a global inflation caused by: a global pandemic that has killed 6 million globally and over 1 million in the US; a major European war involving both food and fossil fuel exporting nations; a revitalized OPEC; lingering global supply-chain gaps; and massive global economic inequality is somehow proof that Democratic Party policies don’t work.
Yet even a shallow review of the above inflation drivers document that our policies are in fact as effective as any other nation’s and better than most. Republican efforts to block: Build Back Better; the expansion of health care for all; legislation to undo the disastrous Trump tax cuts for the rich; and student loan forgiveness are proof that the GOP is guilty of permitting millions of Americans to suffer for Republicans’ own political gain.
When GOP obstacles are coupled with a Federal Reserve Bank response based on a 20th Century version of the economy, it is a miracle inflation is as low as it is. Trump’s tax cuts alone put more than $250 billion per year into an already growing economy. When they were proposed, economists from both sides of the aisle noted that in two to three years they would be significant drivers for inflation. Tax cuts for the rich, like military spending, are more prone to trigger inflation since they increase spending at a greater rate than they increase consumer goods/services, creating an imbalance that puts upward pressure on prices. Yet, the media has yet to remember what it reported in 2017, so it falls on us to remind them.
What history tells us is that Republican Administrations create the conditions for economic slowdowns, and Democratic Administrations get elected to clean up the mess. As you can see from the following statistical modeling, the economy grows strongest when Democrats control both the White House and Congress.
Of course, looking backwards, while helpful, doesn't predict the future. What is clear is that Democrats have a vision for the future based on the science of climate change, a recognition of the income inequality gap as a drag on future viability and the need for a vigorous social justice agenda.
When we run away from our values to attract votes that cannot be won, we lose elections. When we embrace our values, our base is mobilized, and those pesky Reagan blue-collar Democrats come home.
The path forward for a vigorous and environmentally sound economy requires embracing the Roosevelt of your choice. Either Republican Teddy, who understood the need to bust trusts and monopolies and created the National Parks system, or Franklin, who recognized that “economic royalists” were a problem and not to be catered to, while strengthening unions to help workers get their fair share.
I, of course, would choose Eleanor, but that’s another story at another time.