Tonight The PBS NewsHour went on an economic fact finding mission in Charlotte, N.C. Paul Solman, the economics reporter there has already moved on from the Tampa tax cuts, deregulation talk and assorted other means of keeping the rich comfortable. The report is called Previewing Democrats Economic Platform: Supporting Small Business, Education.
Jared Bernstein is the chaperone and the tour was actually arranged by the Democratic Party but so many points about the present state of support for the people in this economy are made and so many regular Americans articulate the recovery under President Obama that the whole transcript is a keeper. You have just got to see this.
The first stop was a small business owner, Tim Mullaney who used President Obama’s policies to both acquire a small business loan and deduct the full cost of the equipment in the first year. He has since been able to afford two new employees during the Obama administration.
Then a point about the latest Republican motto, 'We're Not Going to Let Our Campaign Be Dictated by Fact-Checkers'
JARED BERNSTEIN: A lot of people seem to think that President Obama raised taxes on businesses. In fact, he was quite an aggressive tax-cutter, particularly when it came to small businesses.
PAUL SOLMAN: So then it's not fair for the Republicans to identify themselves with small business, in contrast to the Democrats?
JARED BERNSTEIN: It's not fair, but it's also factually inaccurate. You heard about the small business express loan, the 100 percent expensing. These are Obama policies targeted at small businesses.
While touring the NASCAR Hall of Fame Jared Bernstein made a very valid point about Republican vs. Democratic economics. If the Republicans were in charge and the Big Three automakers were liquidated, wouldn't the recession have become another great depression?
But I think the important point, especially with all of these American cars around here, is that had the administration not acted to rescue GM and Chrysler, their liquidation was pretty certain. And it's a stark contrast with the Republicans, who basically argued that, you know, they just should have been able to liquidate.
So it's kind of like this market solution at a time when it really could have meant the end of the American auto industry as we have come to know it. And here in a state like North Carolina, where there are tens of thousands of auto jobs, they would be lost.
This was followed by the mayor of Charlotte, Anthony Foxx explaining some more about what the Obama administration has done for large business.
We have two companies, Siemens, and Celgard, that have gotten investments through the Recovery Act, and they have doubled their capacity in their plants. They're hiring more people at very good price points.
Kristen Clanton, an Obama volunteer who will have borrowed nearly $50,000 by the time she gets her master's remembers how the Republicans wanted to double the interest on her student loans.
PAUL SOLMAN: But it's not just student loans that differentiate the Democrats from the Republicans, says Jared Bernstein, but Pell Grants.
JARED BERNSTEIN: This is financial assistance very important to middle- and lower-income students. The president doubled Pell Grants. The Republican agenda is to cut those quite severely.
PAUL SOLMAN: And, says Bernstein, it would also cut educational aid to veterans like 35-year-old David Miller.
Oh yea the veterans and that Veterans Administration that was an underfunded mess back when the Republicans were in charge and offered so little to our returning heroes. David Miller remembers his life in limbo, trying to live on $500 a month for disability before President Obama.
PAUL SOLMAN: Miller says he wouldn't have been able to afford school without government assistance. Before President Obama, he says, the Veterans Administration was an underfunded mess.
DAVID MILLER: You could not even get anybody on the phone. You could not see anybody in person. You had no clue.
PAUL SOLMAN: But the president reorganized the VA and increased funding substantially. David Miller went back to school.
With President Obama in the news today for signing
an executive order to improve mental-health care for service members and veterans, David Miller pointed out that Romney-Ryan 50-point plan doesn't even mention veterans. A stark reminder of veteran's benefits under Republicans.
If you actually look at the House Republican budget authored by Paul Ryan, it implements significant cuts in the Veterans Administration, something like 20 percent. And that's just this kind of across-the-board spending cuts that hit everybody, including the kinds of services we just were talking about.
There's a good comparison, more tax cuts for rich and less support for the people while undercutting the social safety net or stick with a President who is anything but anti-business and working against the Republicans to provide some support for the the people.
Just about anyone here can come up with hundreds more reasons to vote for President Obama but I think that this is an excellent piece from the PBS NewsHour and a great YouTube to spread around to those who can't come up with enough reasons.