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More Thoughts on the Election

The stock market is moving higher, unemployment is consistently sliding, oil prices are down, the deficit is declining, and we have disengaged from unpopular conflicts.  So why did the GOP do so well?

The biggest reason in my opinion is the stagnation and loss in middle class incomes.  It is the 55 year old who was laid off who now has to take a job at a much lower pay.  It is the 30 something who sees little opportunity for promotion.  The very wealthy are doing fine, and the dependent class has had benefits expanded, but the cost of the welfare state largely falls on the middle class taxpayer. That is a broad sector that is taking the brunt of a slow growth economy.  The problem is not the minimum wage,  it is the stagnant and declining middle class wages.

The supply siders of the Reagan revolutions were criticized for their trickledown economics.  But the supply side was not about trickle down- that was a label used by its critics.  Supply side was about stimulating greater investment.

Ironically it is the Obama Fed that has practiced trickle-down economics though lower interest rates, and it has not worked.  They have proven unable to counter the stifling fiscal policies as it has in the past.  It has come at the cost of retired seniors and savers.  It has stimulated large corporations and Wall Street, but it has not translated into better wages for the middle class.

Almost equal in tipping the election was the perception of lying from the president over Obamacare.  Just as George H Bush lost the re-election when he betrayed his read-my-lips-no –new- taxes pledge; Obama lost a lot of valuable credibility when his assurance made repeatedly that you could keep your doctor and your health plan proved to be blatantly false.  Voters do not like to be lied to.

The loss of credibility was compounded by the perception of corruption from the billions lost on the Solyndra type loans.

The Democrats’ play to racist and sexist paranoia also fell on deaf ears. This perpetuation of the 60’s is lost on the young who just do not see the problem remaining to the degree it is played. In a sense they feel that by electing a black man twice they have proven that period has passed.

This certainly does not indicate a new found infatuation for Republicans- far from it.  In spite of these major problems with the administration there was only a shift of a few points that turned the tide as drastically as it did.

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