As the final days of the US presidential election draw to a close and countless publications around the world announce their endorsement for candidates Obama or Romney, we at Scoop Empire have decide to weigh in as well. To most people the stakes of this election may not be as high as that of 2008, when the world was on the precipice of economic collapse. However, while excitement for the candidates is not as high as it was the previous time around, the stakes are invariably higher. 2012 marks the first time that the Tea Party vision of Society and State will be tested at the presidential level and the prospects of its success are alarming.
The Economist and other publications have asserted, in the past, that this election will be a referendum on capitalism. We disagree. In many ways, this election will be a referendum on Government and whether Government can be efficient, just and useful for its constituents. We believe it can.
Despite the common belief that candidates Obama and Romney are two sides of the same coin, the two candidates represent two mutually antagonistic views of Government and the role it should be playing in Society. Governor Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan, a Tea Party Congressmen, demonstrates the hard shift to the right that the Republican Party and it’s presidential candidate have taken since 2008. The Romney-Ryan ticket has promised to repeal Obamacare, introduce “free-market” economics in Medicare, make permanent the Bush tax cuts and balance the budget solely through slashing spending (resulting in dramatic cuts to hundreds of government programs).
These proposals will be economically ruinous. The negative economic impact that they will cause will fall disproportionately on the poor, youth, women and minorities. They will exasperate the income inequality gap causing larger portions of American society to fall behind. They will weaken America’s competitiveness. They will scale back the safety net that our grandparents fought so hard to instate, making life at the expanding bottom rungs of American Society increasingly arduous.
We have seen the disastrous effect dismantling the social safety net has had on societies around the world. First, in the “third world” and more recently in Southern Europe. In Greece, Troika enforced “austerity” resulted in the repeal of universal healthcare causing thousands of Cancer patients to risk death and forego necessary treatment because they can’t afford it. In Spain, austerity has driven the youth unemployment rate to above 50% and created levels of poverty unseen in decades. While we understand the need to create a sustainable solution for the deficit we believe that to seek it solely via spending cuts, as Romney pledges, will cause disproportionate hardship on the poor, young, women and minorities as has been experienced in Southern Europe. As the state takes an increasingly diminished role and enforces policies that promote the interests of the richest 1% of the population there will be increased strain on American society.
On foreign policy, perhaps the issue that most interests our readers, the Romney-Ryan ticket has combined naivete with doctrinal stubbornness. They have expressed disapproval with the way Obama has handled the Middle East yet failed to viable alternatives. They demonstrated coarse opportunism during the consulate attack in Benghazi and arrogance and hotheadedness when dealing with Iran and Israel. While US Middle East Policy may have not done the quantum shift that was expected following Obama’s Cairo speech, Romney’s comments regarding Palestinians (implying that their culture and not the occupation caused Palestinian poverty) provides insight into how he views the region. Given the current combustible state that is the Middle East, we are naturally alarmed at the possibility of a Romney Presidency.
Over the past four years Barack Obama has advanced a set of policies aimed at providing the next generation with a better future. Obamacare moved America closer to a system of universal healthcare while simultaneously extending the solvency of Medicare and Medicaid. The stimulus package contained significant investments in green power, aiming to tackle the rising threat of climate change as evident by Hurricane Sandy. On foreign policy he has a mixed record, tarnished by the devastating civil war raging in Syria. He has embraced (albeit reluctantly) change in Egypt and Tunisia, successfully led an intervention in Libya and been able to constrain (so far) both Israel and Iran.
Obama’s World View is in line with our values, and for that we support him. The dramatic rein-visioning of Society under a Tea Party Tinted Romney Presidency has further strengthened our desire to see Obama win this election come Tuesday. We strongly encourage those of you who hold US passports to contact the US Embassy in Cairo to cast your ballot. Those of you are in America should go out and vote on Tuesday, even if you don’t reside in a battleground state.
Endorsement Transcribed by TC!