Don't Vote Against Yourself

It frustrates and angers me when I hear people complain that there’s no difference between the two political parties. I know that these are people who have not taken the time to examine the information they’ve obtained from the media or from television ads. The truth is readily available in the Congressional record or, thanks to our computer age, on the internet if you’re careful about the source of the information. If you doubt the truths below, feel free to document your conflicting information.

TRUTH: Democratic presidents have proven to be the more financially prudent ones. In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran for president promising a balanced budget. But between 1981 and 1989, with the support of Congressional Republicans, the government ran huge deficits, adding $2 trillion to the debt. In 1998, under Democratic President Bill Clinton, the U.S. had no deficit for the first time in three decades. By the time President George W. Bush took office, we were on track to eliminate the national debt in about a decade. Instead President Bush ran enormous deficits, adding $5 trillion to the debt. In 2009, President Barack Obama inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit and a Great Recession. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the national deficit has decreased by $195 billion in 2014, below the average for the last 40 years. Under President Obama, the deficit is falling from 10% of GDP to just 3%.

TRUTH: Private sector surveys and a government report reach the same basic estimates that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) reduced the number of Americans without health insurance by about 25 percent this year — or eight million to 11 million people. This number would be even larger if those states under Republican leadership had agreed to the expansion of Medicaid.

TRUTH: Obamacare prohibits participation of illegal immigrants.

TRUTH: Republicans in Congress voted against allowing Americans to renegotiate their student loan rates.

TRUTH: Republicans are opposed to increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour. Could you support your family on $15,080 a year? Today millions of Americans, working full time, are living in poverty. The Senate voted in April against going ahead on a bill that would gradually increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The final vote count was 54 to 42. (Yes, normally a majority vote would pass a bill but Republican Senators have used a record number of filibusters to prevent the passage and often even the debate of bills. Senate rules require 60 votes to override a filibuster but that would require a yes vote from some of the 45 Republican Senators.)

TRUTH: Republicans voted against equal pay for equal work. Currently, in America, a woman earns 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man doing the same job.

TRUTH: Republicans voted down a measure for carbon credits to control carbon pollution of our air, a contributing factor for climate change. The use of credits was a concept we used successfully starting in 1995 to control acid rain and lower air pollution.

The conservative media and legislators, influenced by their wealthy supporters instead of their constituents, have managed to spread lies so that the citizenry believes that Democrats have run up the debt and have increased the size of government. A search of the facts will show the opposite to be true. You can thank Democratic administrations for Social Security, unemployment insurance and Medicare. They are not handouts. We contribute to these programs. They are meant to prevent us from suffering when we are old or if hardships occur.