Bill’s Talk

President Clinton did last night what no other politician in my lifetime could do. He single handedly kept President Obama firmly in the game.

Every so often, I take my little boat out into the gulf about 12 miles where it’s deep enough to catch some decent fish. Last summer, I got caught in a frightening 60 mph squall that kicked up rough seas and almost capsized my little boat. I could imagine myself floating beside that upturned boat for days and nights waiting for someone to happen alongside me 12 miles out in the gulf.

I could see Governor Romney pull up in his yacht and squawk done from his loudspeaker that he was doing all he could to entice rescue boats out into the sea to help me. If I would vote for him, he would go back to the marina and drop fuel taxes to make it less costly for boats to travel. He would eliminate any needless boating regulations to increase demand for fishing boats so that more would venture out. And he would ensure that lawsuit payouts were capped on any mishaps that might occur during a rescue attempt so that rescuers would feel safer if they tried to help me. Then his yacht turned and he left me to bob up and down in the gulf.

Don’t get me wrong. If no other options are out there, I am thankful for what the Governor will do. And during his Republican National Convention, he did convince me of his sincerity. But I am frightened. It’s been days since I first was tossed by world circumstances into the water. I am weak from hanging on. I am dehydrated from the searing sun and each night that goes by in the silent sea, I fear that sharks will finally cut through my dangling legs. I need real, direct assistance. I can get by in life on the rules of capitalism but I cannot swim 12 miles to shore from this unexpected and violent economic squall.

I could see President Obama pull up in his motor boat and attempt to help me too. He literally jumped in the water to swim to me but tired and doggy paddled back to his boat. He tossed several life rings of job programs and housing assistance my way but the tosses always came up short. Mostly, he just seemed distracted by political waves and shielded his eyes from the glaring rays of healthcare and budget derisiveness. I lost confidence in his ability to lend a hand up from the drink.

Then last night, as I anxiously floated in my waterlogged lifejacket losing hope, President Clinton pulled up to my boat and gave the most believable talk. He spoke to the heart and explained compassionately that tossing rings is not an easy task. His experience was that President Obama needed more than 3.5 years practice throwing rings. He promised that the President would not forget my coordinates and would continue to come out to my capsized dinghy and throw rings until he reached me.

So far I am still drenched in salt water with my feet dangling in the deep and no one has shown me a way out. But Bill Clinton more than anyone gave me a reason to keep clinging to the side of my upturned boat with hope. Will anyone prior to November 6th show me a direct way out of the sea, perhaps not? But because of President Clinton, the vote is still anyone’s guess.

Get my free E-Book at thrivingpath.com

Without a Bold Jobs Plan, the Democrats will Lose in 2012

The latest polls predict that the Republicans will maintain a lead in the House and may obtain a filibuster proof majority in the Senate in the 2012 election. With the White House, the Republicans could cause sweeping reforms through Romney’s plan or what is sure to be a new Gingrich “Contract with America”. It will amount to a complete victory of the Republican strategy that has played out since the election of the 112th Congress.

The American people know that Republicans have been stalling. We do not think they put the interests of Middle America first. However, we also intuitively know that a continuation of this political stalemate will not improve our lot and that the Democrats seem impotent to stop it. At some point, staying put by the wreckage on the mountain becomes deadlier than attempting to climb down the icy path to safety. America is ready to risk a change in 2012.

If no major policy changes are introduced by either party, the Republicans will win. As a result, America will get regulation “reforms”, budget cuts in discretionary spending and entitlements, lower taxes and tax holidays on international profits, and more “free trade”. We will likely experience an initial downturn in GDP and higher unemployment, a furthering divide between the wealthy and poor, lesser services, and increased austerity, followed by gradual job growth and recovery as longer term Republican measures begin to affect the U.S. economy.

The outlook is not bright but America will endure the pain because we fear the status quo more than change. We hope the pain endured as a result of a vote for Republicans will be followed by the possibility of gain. Republicans know this and have no interest in any compromises that will change their strategy unless cornered by opposition political spin. This provides a perplexing and difficult strategy ahead for the Democratic Party.

To win in 2012, the Democrats have only three choices. Their first is the continued dangerous path of one upsmanship to see who can make the other look like a worse cretin in the eyes of the American public to eke out a slim majority. The second is to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement in an early 2012 grass roots political campaign that emphasizes the 99 percent. This strategy relies on a hoped for uprising that will result in what the Democrat elites might consider as an unruly Tea-Party-like caucus for the progressive leadership to attempt to corral within the Democratic Party after the elections.

The third path is to ignite the fifty million workers that were marginalized by the 2008 crisis through a bold turn-around strategy. A viable plan initiated early in 2012 including a direct jobs program, a housing debt to equity program that keeps people in their homes, and a rapid recovery of business and personal credit through credit amnesty, will engender the voters to the Democratic Party whether or not it is enacted by the 112th Congress. A bold plan that co-opts the Republican Party philosophy by offsetting its cost with elimination of long term unemployment compensation and by creating jobs within the private, domestic sector, will not only embolden the electorate but will create vote yielding indignation if the Republican Party refuses to participate.

2012 will be an election year unlike any since the Great Depression. Either the Republicans will win through attrition of America’s will, or one bold party will present a viable, rapid, 15 million direct jobs plan to cause the independents and the other party’s faithful to shift their votes in droves. 2012 can be won and residual victories over the next two to four years should be expected for the party that moves first. The lamb and the lion will lay down together in the party that welcomes them with jobs in 2012.

Advice to President Obama from a Middle American That Cares More About Jobs Than Politics…

President Obama has to be convinced through his allegiant social media supporters that he has a much better alternative to win re-election than his current strategy of pushing a weak jobs bill onto an embattled Congress just to have it fail to amass enough votes to pass so that he can then campaign against “do nothing Republicans”.

His current strategy will be heavily countered by Republicans that may partially pass some of his provisions to show that they are working with him. The effect of his bill however, even if Congress passed all the provisions, would be a negligible increase in jobs and might even trap him just as his stimulus package did before, because he might have to explain why it didn’t have any appreciable difference due to being implemented just as the economy was entering into a second dip recession. No, his current strategy will be doggedly dragged through the dumpster of politics before the elections so following it will surely cause him, and his not so merry band of Democrats, to lose in 2012.

If, on the other hand, President Obama tries to go around Congress with executive orders and proclamations as I have suggested, but with left of center policies that attempt to create Keynesian gains through an additional tax burden, Congress will simply refuse to fund his orders and the Republicans will gain fodder to defeat him in the 2012 elections.

Instead, President Obama must issue bold, sweeping executive orders and proclamations that change history, yet that can be claimed to be taxpayer neutral and that therefore cannot be claimed by Congress to be beyond the President’s fiscal authority. My job voucher plan is revenue neutral. Forcing banks to accept equity in exchange for marking down housing debt is revenue neutral. Forcing rating agencies to provide credit amnesty is revenue neutral.

These three bold policies are grand opportunities to create simultaneous, revenue neutral , but implementable dynamos to quickly turn our ailing economy. Yet they are totally defendable against Congress’s whine, and they will quickly bring hope to the American people, swinging momentum of the 2012 election in favor of the Democrats, and giving President Obama four more years to change the course of history.