Dear Mr. Romney,
I'm writing to you to let you know that I feel better off now than I did four years ago.
You've been asking people to let you know if they feel like they are doing better now than they were four years ago before Barack Obama was elected president. Well, thanks for asking, I appreciate your concern.
Yes, I feel better now, after three and one-half years of the Obama presidency, than I did four years ago, after almost two terms of the George W. Bush presidency.
Since you have asked, let me tell you why that is so.
First reason -- the family financial situation. The plain fact of the matter is this: it's pretty darn good right now. Well, yes, in mid-2008 the family finances looked pretty darn good, too, but I have a solid memory and I can use it to recollect that at this time four years ago it looked like our investments were starting to topple over, along with the country's whole financial system, and maybe our personal financial security would go along for the ride. And, just a few months later--but still before the November election--the wheels started coming off of everything. It was a frightening time. It makes me think of this: Do you remember slot cars? And do you remember what things would look like when the wheels of one of those racing cars would come off or come out of the track as it was whirling madly around the set-up? Pieces would go flying in all directions. Well, four years or so ago the financial system sort of looked like that. It doesn't look that way now. It looks a whole lot better. No wheels coming off, no pieces flying in all directions.
Don't get me wrong here -- the nation's commercial financial system still needs work and healing. But it's better than it was four years ago, and I expect that it will improve some more under a second Obama Administration. Why do I expect that (you might ask)? Simple: because of positive, helpful and constructive actions that President Obama has sponsored and supported. Things like the Dodd-Frank Act, the Volker Rule, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and an energetic Securities and Exchange Commission.
The SEC is expected to keep an eye on the financial markets so as to encourage them to be open, honest and above-board. (Maybe you already know all this.) That's got to be one very tough job. Did you know, for example, the U.S. Government Accountability office has found that under former Chairman Christopher Cox--a Bush appointee who served from 2005 to 2009--"management at the SEC actively discouraged enforcement attorneys from bringing cases" according to an article in the April 23 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek? By contrast, according to the article, the SEC under Chairman Mary Shapiro, appointed by President Obama in 2009, has vigorously pursued financial shenanigans and won huge settlements in high-profile cases such as Galleon Group, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Securities and others.
Stick with me for another minute here on this SEC thing. We had several years where the SEC, which was supposed to be keeping an eye on a big part of our country's financial system, was in a state of suspended animation. And then the wheels started coming off from that very same financial system, and pieces were flying every-which-way. In the aftermath of the destruction, a re-animated SEC managed to find a whole bunch of bad-boy actions from those previous years. Seems to me like this makes a good case for an energetic SEC and other financial regulatory bodies.
That said, the upcoming implementation of regulations from Dodd-Frank and Volker that will bring the financial alphabet soup of CDOs, CMOs and other derivatives into the light of day gives me an increased measure of confidence that we can avoid a repeat of the financial crisis of 2007 - 2009.
So, yes, I feel better financially than I did four years ago. Thanks for asking.
Second reason -- healthcare reform. Yes, believe it or not, even though we--speaking personally here--were already committed to the concept of--and expenditures for--health insurance, we like it better now than it was four years ago. There's an element of altruism in this feeling because the healthcare reform championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats makes health insurance available to people who could not previously afford it, and that's a very positive and healthy thing, both for those people as individuals and for the American population as a whole. But I'll be selfish about it, too: as things stand now with the healthcare reform law, if we unexpectedly find that we have to switch health insurance plans while experiencing a preexisting medical condition, we know that we will not be discriminated against by the new insurance company. Prior to "Obamacare," as you and some others so cleverly call it, that would not have been true; there would have been a real threat of unacceptability, either financial or otherwise, caused by making a change to a different insurance company.
So, yes, I feel better because of the increased confidence that we can have in our choices of healthcare insurance than I did four years ago. Again, thanks for asking.
Third reason -- President Obama's actions with the rest of the world. It's a big world, and nobody can bat 1.000 when dealing with the endless number of situations that can be conjured up by the leaders and wanna-be leaders of almost 200 other nations, but the man has caused, or been an important part of, a lot of very big changes. To begin with: Osama bin Laden is a part of history now, and no longer a threat to us. If President Bush could use a whole aircraft carrier to take credit for dragging the country into the quagmire that resulted from the invasion of Iraq in 2003, then I am entitled to use this letter to you to give President Obama credit for his leadership in removing Bin Laden from the most-wanted list. (Since you asked.)
Speaking of Iraq, here's another major foreign policy achievement by the Obama Administration: accomplishing a solid and secure military exit from that country. That was done before the end of last year, and it feels incredibly good to have that mess behind us. Same thing goes for the war in Afghanistan: we're still there, and we need to get out, but at least now we have a clear path to the exit on that one, too.
And then there was that pesky Colonel Gaddafi in Libya. His people whacked him last year. They were helped out with some NATO air cover. For the United States and Europe and NATO, Libya was a much different situation as compared to Iraq and Afghanistan, with the need for different decisions and actions; it was cleverly done and I believe that there will be tremendous long-term benefits for the people of Libya, the United States, Europe and a lot of other countries, too.
And so, yes, I feel better than I did four years ago because of the ways that our country has been represented to the world by President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and the rest of the Administration. They are good at diplomacy, and that's a Really Big Thing. America's future depends on cooperation and collaboration with the other nations, more so than at any other time since the end of World War II. President Obama has done a superb job in creating a foundation for the professional diplomacy that is needed for successful cooperation and collaboration.
Nobody's perfect, and President Obama is no exception to that observation. There are some things that he has done, or not done, that do not meet with my agreement, or that I wish could have been done differently or better.
But that's not what you asked me. You asked me if I'm better off than I was four years ago.
Yes, I am.
Come to think of it, these things make it better for you, too.
This has been fun. Maybe we can do it again?
Thanks for asking.
Sincerely,
Garry Herron
LeftWingCapitalist
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