Obama has been good for America -- we need him for another four years

There's no way that I'm going to sit here at this keyboard and tell you that President Barack Obama has been perfect.  Nobody's perfect.  But for an imperfect fellow, President Obama has accomplished a remarkable amount of good things for the country.

These are good things for America

He stepped into the job by inheriting the Great Recession from his predecessor.  President Obama guided the government to help the failing domestic automobile manufacturing industry to rebuild itself and thrive.  That action alone saved and eventually created hundreds of thousands of American jobs when taking into account all of the suppliers and subcontractors who would have been thrown into the fiscal junk heap that would have been created by a chaotic bankruptcy of the auto industry.

Under his leadership the bedrock financial institutions--which were plummeting into a black hole of insolvency--have been stabilized, recapitalized and set on a recovery road.  The regulatory oversight that was lacking during the previous years has been revitalized and enhanced as a tool to protect us against the same--or maybe even a worse--financial collapse happening again.

Obamacare is the first nationally-successful action to strengthen consumer protection in the delivery of healthcare services in a century's time of talking about doing that.  It is also the first focused and thoughtful set of requirements for healthcare reimbursements and administration that is aimed directly at reining-in the growing costs of consumer healthcare.  As a nation, we have been talking about doing something like this for over twenty years now, and during that time healthcare costs have grown to a stunning 17% of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and threatening to go higher.  America's per capita spending on healthcare is about 50% to 100% greater than it is in other comparable nations, with no better overall results.  Others have talked about achieving something like the Affordable Care Act; only Barack Obama has done so.

Under President Obama's leadership we have successfully extricated our armed forces from a long, costly, draining and domestically-contentious conflict in Iraq.  With his leadership, we are on the right path to finally end our military presence in Afghanistan.  Obama has skillfully redirected America's overall foreign policy to become one that is more collaborative with other nations, instead of confrontational.  Living as we do in a global community of almost two hundred nations, these achievements are of monumental importance for our future international business, social and political relationships.

Many Presidents have struggled to achieve half this amount of successes in twice the time.  With having accomplished so much, you might wonder:  is there anything else left to do?

Yes, there's plenty.

The next four years

A second Obama term will mean that there will be much-needed investments in major areas of national interest such as infrastructure, education, and leading-edge research and development.  These are things that mean employment, both in the near-term and in the future, as well as also placing America in a leading competitive position in emerging and developing technologies.  Infrastructure investment will support safe, smooth and timely transportation of people, goods and commercial transactions.

All of these things must be done while addressing the issues revolving around governing deficits and the growing national debt in the only way possible:  restraining and stabilizing government spending, augmented by increasing the government's intake of revenues.  It's tempting to talk about simply slashing spending.  The problem with that approach is that it is unrealistic in a growing country, and America is not done with growing yet.  The only realistic approach is one that balances the money that goes out with the money that comes in.  I have confidence that Barack Obama provides the necessary leadership to do that.

Always look for the history

The facts of history must be given their due -- Obama did not create the Great Recession, he stepped into it after it had been created by the business environment and the governing policies of the previous years.  Obama did not create the multi-trillion dollar national debt; he inherited a legacy of Republican-led tax cuts, followed up by excessive Republican-led Federal spending on two overseas wars, that taken together created a multi-trillion dollar national debt.

The work necessary to correct the errors of the Bush Administration is not yet done.  There has not been enough time; the Republican Party made the job tougher by not admitting to the American people that its policies created those errors; and the Republican leadership has failed to cooperate in fixing the problems  created by its faulty policies.

Barack Obama should be reelected President of the United States.

How do small businesses create lots of jobs?

Small businesses create jobs, but it's a lot more complicated than all the political noise would have us believe.

And there's good reason to believe that the Obama and Democratic governing ideas will do more for small business job creation than would the Romney and Republican ideas. 

Any burst of small business hiring will come largely from introducing innovative ideas to the marketplace.  Innovation needs to be first stimulated with ideas and money, and then nurtured by supporting it with people possessing certain vital skills.  The marketplace by itself can provide some amounts of money and skilled personnel, but under today's risk-averse business environment "money is tight" as they say.  Also, skills development is lagging as fiscally austere state budgets are reducing the amount of available public education.

An energetic Federal government that has the insight and the moxey to want to make targeted efforts to compensate for the tightness of private capital and state budgets can address these needs.  Doing that will help create a small business surge in job creation.  These are ideas that Democrats are more comfortable with than are the Republicans.  As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

What's a small business look like?

There are multiple definitions of "small business."  For the most part, they focus on the number of employees and/or the amount of annual sales.  The numbers vary, depending on who is doing the talking about "small business."  We can appreciate that a business that employs 10 or fewer is "small," but is it still seen as "small" if it employs 500 people?  In some cases it deserves to be called small, but not always.  Getting a handle on what makes a business small is not an easy task.

Many small businesses will hire to get themselves off the ground, and then have no need for more employees.

A large number of small businesses are closely-held corporations; visible among these would be certain businesses conducted by celebrities and professional athletes.  Those are likely to be very wealthy people, but mostly they have no need to employ lots of others, either at present or in the future.  This is no knock on celebrities and athletes, but it just stands to reason that--once successful--a celebrity's needs tomorrow or next year will be fulfilled by about the same number of employees as it takes to do those things today.  The same thing is true for numerous other of these closely-held corporations.

In any case, most--and the number is something like 97% or 98%--small business owners don't fall into the celebrity or athlete category because their annual earnings are under the current political buzz-number of $250,000.  That's not celebrity or professional athlete status.

These truly small businesses include places like your local dry cleaner, jewelry store, dentist, bicycle shop, restaurant or cafe, gift store, gardener, car repair shop, and many others.  Since there are millions of these, their total employment adds up and it's important.

Unfortunately, though, small businesses like these, once established, tend to grow to a certain size, stabilize, and then have little to no need to hire any further workers beyond what they already have.  Often, they will contract, sometimes disappearing altogether, sloughing off employees in the process.

This is how small businesses create lots of jobs

Small businesses can contribute to overall employment growth, but the biggest contributors are those that are start-ups or in early growth stages.  To start up and get growing, these companies need to attract some significant amounts of venture funding, seed capital or other subsidy.  Banks and private sources tend to be more risk-averse these days than in prior years.  As a result, the growth of innovative firms is being stifled.

There's been lots of misinformation scattered about regarding the failures of businesses that received Federal stimulus monies under the Obama program of a couple of years ago.  Nobody likes to have failures, but the fact is that some innovations will fail; that's normal.  The incidence of failures of those companies that received Federal money is no greater than the incidence of failure in the innovation universe at large.

On the subject of skilled workers, the plan that President Obama and the Democratic Party have to move Federal funds back into the states for support of education has lots more promise to it than does the competing attitude from the Romney and Republican campaigns of merely talking about how the free market will solve educational problems.  Marketplaces solve problems by taking lots of time to sift through a myriad of options, not by concerted and targeted efforts.  Disbursement of Federal funds can be concerted and targeted.

Time is money

There's a value in timeliness.  The sooner that the public education systems can be improved, the better for all of us.  It will take more than money, of course, because there are some significant other issues of quality to be resolved, too, but the positive results will come sooner with an infusion of Federal funding than they will without it.

And that is something that a reelected President Obama with a supportive Congress is much more comfortable with than are Mr. Romney and the Republicans.

Mr. Romney and the Republicans like to talk about weakening the regulatory environment in order to stimulate small business hiring.  Sure, there are always regulations that can be viewed as the bogey-man; and, in fact, some deserve to be changed or maybe even discontinued.   Obama and the Democrats understand this, too.  But modifying or removing regulations does nothing to solve the problems of the availability of funding and of skilled workers.

Federal investments of this nature have been stymied for most of the last two years by a Republican-dominated House of Representatives that has consistently blocked the President's efforts to implement programs such as we are talking about here.  Essentially, the marketplace has had that time available to it to act in the way that the Romney campaign says will result in monumental job creation.  Well, we are still waiting for something to happen.

Small business job creation in large numbers will come about only with an expensive and well-planned commitment by the Federal government.  Or, without such a commitment, it will happen only with the passage of much more time.

It is better for the country to have action and results sooner rather than later.  It will take President Obama and Democrats in Congress to make that happen.

Some debates are more fun than others

Three things were notable about last night's final presidential debate:

• It didn't have anywhere near the entertainment value of the prior week's debate #2.
• Romney endorsed Obama's foreign policy.
• Federal deficit stimulus spending is in our future (if Romney wins).

The first one is self-evident because nobody misbehaved, and the stage setup meant that everybody kept to the seats.  Last week's feral roaming about the stage was one for the record books.  Holding a future debate in a coliseum might increase the entertainment value of the event, but probably at the expense of devaluing the substance and enhancing the spectacle.  We are not yet ready to descend to that level, are we?

On the second point:  the foreign policy of the Obama Administration is well-known and has been much-criticized by the Republicans and by the Romney campaign, but Mr. Romney surprisingly failed to articulate that criticism during the debate.  Instead, he seemed comfortably agreeable about all of it.

Now, for that third point (you knew the best would be last, didn't you?).  Odd as it may seem, Mr. Romney as President will apparently push for enlarging the Federal debt by indulging in deficit stimulus spending.  He clearly wants to significantly increase defense and military spending, and when pressed by the moderator to explain the sources of funding for such an undertaking, Mr. Romney offered no convincing answer to the question.

Please don't misunderstand me on this; I'm all in favor of Federal stimulus spending.  It's just that some stimulus spending is better than others.  Defense and military spending does not have the downstream economic yield that can be achieved through other types of stimulus spending.

Think about it this way:  let's say we spend an extra billion dollars on bullets; it doesn't matter what kind of bullets, or what size, they are just bullets of any type, or of some mixture of types.  The economic result is a billion dollars of one-time economic activity.  Those bullets are stored and they do nothing else until they are fired.

On the other hand, let's say that we spend that extra billion dollars on fixing some American highway bridges.  As before, it doesn't make any difference what the bridges look like; we're just doing highway bridge repairs and building.  That also has an economic result of one billion dollars of economic activity.

So far, that sounds about the same as buying the billion dollars' worth of bullets (aside from any ethical or practical concerns).  But here's where there's a big difference -- while the bullets sit around doing nothing else, the highway bridges perform important and long-term follow-on services for the nation's people and its economy by improving the transportation system.  This bridge work helps people and businesses by enhancing transportation safety and transportation timeliness.

There's value in safety, and there's value in timeliness.  That means that there's more than a single billion dollars worth of additional economic activity created by that billion dollar expenditure on bridge work.
 
This needs to be said to any voters who still maintain an "undecided" status:  It's clear that our choice for President is between two different styles and two different substances.

Isn't that what the debates and the whole extended political drama--or would it be better to say "trauma"?-- of the presidential campaign cycle is all about -- choosing from among the various combinations of style and substance that are on offer?

Last week's debate provided a different piece of evidence on the choice.

Mr. Romney--trying to look like he was displaying an understanding of the interrelated economics of energy and pollution--complained that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made it too hard to build a new coal-fired power plant.

Mr. Obama correctly pointed out that the EPA is doing exactly what people want it to do when it clamps down on coal-burning because coal is the dirtiest fuel that we have.  And, by the way, the price of natural gas as a power plant fuel has fallen so low in the last few years that energy companies prefer the economic advantages of natural gas as a fuel over the higher costs of coal.

Coal is dirty.  Most people--myself included--don't want any more pollution in our living environments.  Mr. Obama doesn't like coal.  Mr. Romney likes coal.  Mr. Obama has the high ground here.

More to come. 

Voting on California's propositions

There are eleven state-wide propositions on the California ballot this November.

For some authoritative help, check out the excellent Los Angeles Times voter guide.  This is a comprehensive and non-partisan resource.  The guide includes the newspaper's voting recommendations, but only as another piece of information.  If you haven't already visited it and you are looking for facts as well as opinion on these things, then click here to see it.

Here are my thoughts on these propositions, sequentially by proposition number as shown on the ballot.

30 - Gov. Brown's temporary tax increases

Summary:  increases state sales tax by 1/4% for four years; and, increases for a period of seven years income taxes on individual annual incomes greater than $250,000, and on joint filer incomes of greater than $500,000.

Why it's on the ballot:  the Governor made it happen.

LWC votes "YES."

Reason for LWC vote:  The current budget is balanced because it assumes that this measure will pass.  If the measure does not pass, the budget will be out of balance, which will cause automatic spending cuts in the amount of about $6 billion, and so it's still a balanced budget.  Slightly more than 98% of those cuts would be to the various California public education systems:  K - 12 schools, community colleges, California State University and University of California.  California ranks 47th among the states in its per-pupil funding of public schools.  Support for higher education has been cut to the point that some elements in UC are attempting to remove themselves from being considered as "public higher education."  Both UC and CSU tuition charges have increased dramatically.  This condition is not new, the budget cutting has been going on for the last decade, and that's already too long.  It's time to face the fact that either some taxes must increase so that public education can be properly funded, or we accept the reality of a declining educational system that will fail to produce the quality student product in the numbers needed by the State and its businesses for the future.  If anybody opposed to this measure can truthfully stand up and say that California's public education system is adequately-funded given the current and future needs of the state's students and businesses, then they are keeping mum on the subject, because that's not the opposition's spin.  Instead, their campaign is full of misleading statements and other innuendos.  Long-term tax reform that includes bifurcation of the Proposition 13 property tax law so that commercial property ceases to benefit at the homeowner's and individual taxpayer's expense would be better, but that's not what is on the ballot this time.

31 - Changes to state budgeting, and moving state monies to localities

Summary:  makes the state budget a two-year affair; enables Governor to make somewhat arbitrary budget cuts during "fiscal emergencies;" transfers about $200 million annually of state budget monies to localities if they establish differing statutes on how to handle certain state-funded programs.

Why it's on the ballot:  a really rich fellow named Nicolas Berggruen has made it happen.

LWC votes "NO."

Reason for LWC vote:  state budgeting is getting better, but only in the last year or two, and that's a process that is baked-in for a one-year budget cycle; does anybody really think that all of a sudden now is time to try to plan ahead for a two year budget?  Not me.  Maybe someday, but let's have the new and improved budgeting process settle down for a bit before making a big change to it.  Besides, if it's real tough to balance the budget as things are now, does it make sense to make it tougher by pulling a pot load of money away from the balancing act?  No, there's no sense in that one, either.  Finally, this is way complicated, and it's not clear why life would be better if all of the many pieces of this proposition were enacted.  When things like this confuse me, I tend to vote against them; this time is no exception.

32 - Limitations on union and corporate political contributions

Summary:  prohibits labor unions, corporations, government contractors, and state/local governments from spending money deducted from employee paychecks for political purposes.

Why it's on the ballot:  a really rich fellow named Charles Thomas Munger, Jr.--and some other really rich people--made it happen.

LWC votes "NO."

Reason for LWC vote:  aw, c'mon folks, this one is so blatantly anti-union and asymmetrical that this is one of the really easy votes.  Here's the reality:  the only way that unions get funding for anything is via member contributions, which are the result of voluntary member decisions.  Corporations do not depend on deductions from employee paychecks for the money that they need to play these games.  Corporate funding for anything that they do ultimately comes from the revenues that they generate from their customers.  If deductions from employee paychecks for union political activities are to be banned, then the only way to treat corporations symmetrically would be to ban them using whatever money they collect from their customers, and that's not happening here.

33 - "Portability" of loyalty discounts for automobile insurance

Summary:  would create new auto insurance discounting capabilities within California's Proposition 103 structure.

Why it's on the ballot:  a really rich fellow named George Joseph--the founder and chief mucky-muck of auto insurer Mercury General Insurance--made it happen.

LWC votes "NO."

Reason for LWC vote:  voted "no" on almost the exact same thing in 2010, as did most other voters, and the reasons are still the same -- this is on the ballot by Mercury Insurance to benefit Mercury Insurance; it includes no true or measurable benefits for California drivers.  Here's another reason to vote "no:"  this is an example of how the ballot gets cluttered up with self-serving ideas with little or no general benefit to the State.  Take a look at your auto insurance policy and notice all the discounts for which you have qualified; there are lots of them.  If Mr. Joseph wants to increase his company's business--which he does, and that's only natural--then let him do it just like all the other insurance companies do within the existing structure of today's auto insurance industry in California.  It's an industry that is both regulated and highly-competitive, and it works well for California drivers, and has done so for a lot of years, ever since Proposition 103 was enacted.  There's no compelling reason to change things in the way that this initiative does.  

34 - Death penalty repeal

Summary:  repeals the death penalty and replaces it with lifetime imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Why it's on the ballot:  a really rich guy named Nicholas Pritzker--and some pals--made it happen.

LWC votes "YES."

Reason for LWC vote:  moral and ethical opposition to the death penalty.  The proponents make the argument that the death penalty is too expensive for the state, or--at the very least--the state can save big bucks by repealing this penalty.  Their numbers seem to add up--I remember using the same logic during high school debates many years ago; the financial argument was valid then, and it's probably even more valid now.  But that's just a fiscal sideshow for me.  If even one convicted individual is erroneously executed--it's happened--then the death penalty is a failure.  In addition, nobody has ever produced any convincing evidence that the death penalty is actually a deterrent to future crime.  Do we really want to share a truly significant social characteristic with nations such as Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and China?

35 - Expands definition of human trafficking

Summary:  expands the definition of human trafficking, increases some penalties, and adds related law enforcement responsibilities.

Why it's on the ballot:  a fellow named Chris M. Kelly who's apparently rich enough to contribute over $1.5 million (according to the Times) to get this thing to qualify.

LWC votes "NO."

Reason for LWC vote:  we already have lots of laws against human trafficking, and there's no apparent reason for having any more.

36 - Adding some leniency to the state's "Three Strikes Law"

Summary:  would modify the current "Three Strikes Law" by letting it be applied differently depending on whether the third conviction is a serious/violent felony, or if it is something less.

Why it's on the ballot:  more rich-guy support, but also because of all the news over the last few years about how over-crowded the state's prisons are, and how much of the state's budget is spent on incarceration.

LWC votes "YES."

Reason for LWC vote:  as currently enacted, the three strikes law forbids a judge from using judgment (isn't that why we have them?).  Consequently, California has an unusually high percentage of its population behind bars, even as the incidence of violent crime has decreased.  That's whacky, and the existing three strikes law is a big cause of that whackiness.

37 - Labeling of genetically-modified food

Summary:  would require the labeling--in certain cases--of food for sale that is the result of genetic engineering.

Why it's on the ballot:  lots of people have lots of concerns about genetically-modified organisms, including (and especially) food for human consumption.

LWC votes "???"

Reason for LWC vote:  this is an issue that's going to come up again, irrespective of the outcome of this proposition, and when that happens it ought to be with more general public information that has been the case so far.  On the other hand, there's no reason why the public shouldn't be informed of the nature of what they are eating at the earliest possible moment.  This one's up in the air until further notice.

38 - Tax to fund education

Summary:  increases personal income tax rates on almost everybody (all earnings above $7316/year) using a sliding scale (i.e., lower percentage increase for lower incomes, higher percentage increase for larger incomes) for a period of twelve years, with most of the resulting revenues going to public school funding.

Why it's on the ballot:  a really rich lady named Molly Munger, and at least some of the California PTA, prefers this approach to increase school funding over the approach set forth in Proposition 30.

LWC votes "NO."

Reason for LWC vote:  in the short run, enacting this one would provide less funding to schools than would Prop 30--but in the long run it would provide more.  However, for both the short term and the long term, Prop 38 would also blow a bigger hole in the state's general fund budgeting.  It's become clear that ballot initiatives such as this one that siphon tax money into iron-clad special funding buckets is one of the major reasons for the state's perennial budgeting problems.  This would exacerbate those problems.

39 - Modifying tax treatment for multistate businesses

Summary:  requires multistate businesses to calculate their income tax liability solely on the business they do within California; simplifies other aspects of the business tax code; provides some related funding for clean energy jobs.

Why it's on the ballot:  this is interesting -- several years ago the Legislature and the Terminator Governor worked too late one night on a budget bill--admittedly a complex thing--and they did something that was not intended; this proposition will undo what was done at that time.

LWC votes "YES."

Reason for LWC vote:  the mistake mentioned above gives preferential tax treatment to certain businesses that take their jobs outside of California; yes, odd as it sounds, that was the mistake that was made a few years ago.  This proposition would correct that error.

40 - Senate redistricting referendum

Summary:  passage of this referendum is needed to approve the California State Senate redistricting that has been done by the Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Why it's on the ballot:  the state's Republican Party didn't like the newly-drawn Senate districts, so they managed to confuse enough people that this thing qualified for the ballot.

LWC votes "YES."

Reason for LWC vote:  first of all, this is a referendum and not a proposition like the other items on the ballot, and the people who put referendums on the ballot want the winning vote to be the "no" vote, because that's how the intent of the referendum is achieved.  In this case, the people who put the referendum on this year's ballot--mostly the California Republican Party--have announced that they no longer want to achieve the intent of the referendum. . .in other words, they now think that the Citizens Redistricting Commission has done a good job.  So, this is one case where whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or something else entirely, you can vote "YES" and in good conscience feel that you are contributing to bipartisanship, non-partisanship, or whatever floats your boat.  What a waste of time and money it was to put this one on the ballot.

Some ideas for a less polite Barack Obama in the next debate, and why the election is about fruits and vegetables

Mitt Romney scored in last week's debate with President Obama.  In my posting prior to the debate, I commented that Barack Obama is imperfect; I just didn't expect the imperfections to show up the way they did in the debate.

Obama was too polite.  There's no reason for anybody to be rude in these things, but his polite and collaborative style doesn't play well when the challenger is doing what challengers naturally do -- he's trying to tear you down.  Speaking in culinary terms, Romney is throwing lots of red meat on the grill, and Obama is distracted by all the details involved in getting the fruits and vegetables ready for the table.

So, with the benefit of time and of 20-20 hindsight, and with the hope of a more pro-Obama outcome in the upcoming debates, here are some ideas for things that the President might have said differently and more effectively.

On the economy

(With a skeptical look at Mr. Romney) -- "Well, Mitt, it's pretty obvious that even after all this time campaigning you still don't have a clue on how to create jobs because all you do is talk this trickle-down stuff about how lowering tax rates for the wealthy will cause those people to create jobs and boost the economy, but that's never happened before and it looks like you have no idea on why it would work out differently now!"

(Now turning towards the audience and the cameras with a sincere and earnest aspect) -- "On the other hand, the fundamentals of our free-market economy tell us that two big things create growth and more jobs:  investment and consumer demand.  Especially investment in things like infrastructure -- transportation stuff" (he uses the s-word easily; let's not try to change everything!) "like bridges so that people and goods can move more quickly, safely and economically.  That means employment, which means wages, which means more consumer demand, and the consumer is 70% of our economy.  That's the big lever right there!"  (While firmly but quietly thumping the podium for emphasis.)

On the Federal debt

(Again with the skeptical look at Mr. Romney) -- "Mitt, you just don't seem to understand the simple math of taxes and spending.  If you decrease tax rates, and don't bother to explain how other things like tax exemptions will be changed, then the Federal deficit will increase unless you cut lots and lots of spending, too.  And you cannot cut the Federal spending enough by eliminating the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting while increasing what goes to defense and the military, because every year we put out 1400 times as much money on defense as we do on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting!"  (This last part delivered with a wide-eyed and yet steely gaze into the cameras.)   

"However," (while maintaining that steely gaze) "folks, here's the simple truth about the Federal debt:  we can deal with it only by cutting down on all spending, raising more tax revenues from those who can afford to pay while not depressing their consumption, and adjusting corporate taxation and regulatory policies in such a way as to motivate businesses to do things that will cause the economy to grow, because ultimately the Federal debt is managed downward only through economic growth and balanced Federal taxation and spending policies."

(LWC note:  speaking the truth can have undesirable consequences.)

On healthcare

"Mitt,"  (no finger-pointing here, because that's rude, but with a look of pride bordering on strutting, if that's even possible in these staged settings) "Mitt, you and our Republican colleagues have simply made no progress in understanding America's healthcare needs and solutions.  Maybe you had some appreciation for this several years ago when you were governor of Massachusetts" (speaking now with a playful and friendly grin) "and you and your State Legislature put together a similar healthcare program.  But I think that you have forgotten about those days.  Our healthcare reforms are fully based on the same marketplace and the same businesses and organizations that Americans have used for decades.  The changes make it better because now" (voice modulating to communicate triumph) "most of that marketplace's failings that have cheated Americans out of needed and affordable healthcare have been fixed, and they've been fixed by my team working with those same healthcare organizations.  Why, even that $700 billion being removed from Medicare--this is the thing that you keep harping about--is being removed because the healthcare providers agreed that it is not needed as payment for services since they will no longer have to deal with  huge numbers of uninsured patients!"  (Cue to firmly gesturing with a slightly opened and upraised hand. . .)  "Now that's how you make government and business work together for the benefit of the people!" (Say it with a look of great pleasure and success.)

Finished with role-playing now; what's this all about?

None of us is responsible for what other people say.  However, if we intend to let our vote be influenced because of what another says, then we have a responsibility to do some fact-checking on what we hear.

Both presidential campaigns are guilty of misstatements, omissions, deceptions and distortions.  That's not telling you anything new.  American politics have been full of such things since before there was a United States of America.  Possibly the only American elections that have not been so afflicted were when George Washington was elected President, and those were uncontested elections.  That's not going to happen again.

So, my plan is to accept the unpleasant realities of politics and deal with them by recognizing the misstatements, omissions, deceptions and distortions and learning about what's behind them.

It feels better to be running towards something rather than away from something

Much has been made about campaign "attack ads" and "negativity" in general.  Both sides have indulged in this; I wish this weren't so for my side.  Nonetheless, if the Obama campaign is guilty of "demonizing" Mitt Romney--as some have said--for his past attitudes and practices, then it is worth noting that none of this sinks to the depths that the right-hand side of the political spectrum has occupied for the last four years by similarly-demonizing Barack Obama on the subjects of his birth certificate, his patriotism, and a conservative-defined penchant for "class warfare."

Ultimately, though, voters want to elect a President who has a well thought-out and clearly-articulated vision for the future.  It's just natural that it feels better to be moving ahead and towards something, rather than to be voting against something or someone.  The President and his campaign need to work on this and improve the message, both in content and in delivery.

They can do this.  If the economy is the most important thing in this election, then consumer behavior is key to the whole thing, since the American consumer is generally considered to be responsible for about 70% of the nation's economic activity.  Consumer behavior is the result of a fortunate combination of need, cash on hand, and confidence in financial security.  The nation is sitting on a compressed spring of pent-up demand caused by four years and more of paying down debt and consequently avoiding some consumer spending; there's loads of cash squirreled away in savings and money market accounts, and employment has improved and is improving.  Confidence is lacking, in large part because so much of the consumer's wealth is tied up in a housing market that is healing its wounds at too slow a pace.  Devise a way to address that last piece, and the yield from it would be a convincing economic program, as discussed in an earlier posting.

Perhaps some honestly don't know where Obama is going. . .but not many

There's really not much mystery to the goals of a second Obama term as President, except in the minds of the right-wing punditocracy and any others who have been living under a rock for the last few years.  Obama's commitments to using governmental leadership and activism to bring about social justice and equity, as well as economic innovation and prosperity, are already established and well-known.  A second Obama Administration--in its domestic economic actions--will build further on the foundations that have already been established.  These encompass his legislative achievements in healthcare and consumer financial protection, as well as targeting investments in promising national infrastructure opportunities where the risks are too great for the timid leadership that is endemic in contemporary American business.  A second-term President Obama will probably find a more diplomatic way to say that last statement; by contrast, Romney as President wouldn't even want to think about it.

My advice to candidate Barack Obama is, of course, unsolicited and will probably never be seen by him or his campaign.  That's OK with me.  They are very busy--while probably not having as much fun with this as I am--and though they are guilty of faulty campaigning, it just seems to me that the Romney campaign's distortions amount to much bigger whoppers than anything being told by the Obama campaign.  And yet those whoppers make for effective election tactics because busy voters find them easily-digestable since they are served up without a lot of facts and details.

Whoppers are full of red meat and some tasty condiments, so they show well (if you like red meat).  Facts and details, by contrast, are like fruits and vegetables, and for that reason people find it easy to overlook them.

Reelecting Barack Obama as President of the United States can be done if the voters will consume the fruits and vegetables as well as the red meat.  It's up to Campaign Obama to enhance the culinary experience beyond where it is now.  I happen to think that the performance necessary to achieve this result will require offering fruit that is ripe and sweet, as well as vegetables that are highly-seasoned.