President Obama is right to claim that the Republican Party has been “radical” and “extremist” in its approach to deficit reduction. I welcome his refreshingly blunt rhetoric.
The president clearly realizes his re-election hangs partially on his ability to contrast his record and ideas to those of the GOP. Theoretically, that shouldn’t be hard to do.
The president’s legacy throughout most of this great recession has been attempting to maneuver around unprecedented obstruction by the Republican Party positioning to regain power.
The GOP has been clear from the beginning, in the midst of a national crisis, that it would do whatever it took to ensure Obama fails.
Sadly, Republicans have reacted to the recession and Obama’s re-election by moving much further to the right of the political spectrum.
Against all evidence in inflation rates, interest rates and the bond market, the GOP is convinced deficit reduction is not only the top priority, but also a magical key to prosperity. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
In fact, severe cuts in government spending during a recession will suck critically needed demand from a fragile economy, as was seen in Japan during its Lost Decade and in the U.S. in 1937.
Put simply, governments choosing to tighten their belts during times of recession rather than times of prosperity face the risk of cutting off their circulation.
Why the sudden obsession with deficits? A recession climate of high unemployment, slow business and low taxes would seem like an inopportune time to discuss them, considering significantly less revenue flowing in.
After all, Republicans in recent times have rarely cared about running huge deficits when they were busy funding wars and awarding enormous tax breaks to the wealthy.
The answer is that there are deeper motives that have nothing to do with deficits or debt.
It may not be the best time to balance the budget, but for ideological conservatives, it is the best time to force painful cuts to programs that provide security and opportunity for ordinary people.
Therefore, the GOP is willing to hold the nation’s solvency and recovery hostage (as it did during the chaotic debt-ceiling crisis during the summer) to dismantle functions of government that the middle and lower classes rely on.
Following the lead of tea party demagogues like Paul Ryan and Allen West, Republicans clamoring for office rush with new enthusiasm to cut basic safety nets and privatize our basic securities.
Students have become very familiar with the relentless attacks on public education occurring throughout the country.
Equally offensive is the GOP budget coming from Congress that plans to end Medicare and replace it with an inadequate voucher system.
If the true intentions of these cuts could not be transparent enough, the budget plans to redistribute much of the savings to the rich in the form of more tax cuts.
President Obama called this plan “laughable,” taking on the tone of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1936 re-election campaign.
In 1936, the GOP’s own words and actions allowed the president to paint them as a laughing stock. Isolating his opponents, Roosevelt would laugh his way to victory.
Given the state of the GOP today, it won’t take extraordinary effort to re-employ that strategy.
Ford Dwyer is a political science and history junior at UF.
He is also the editorial director of the UF College Democrats.
