Full implementation of the economic plans of Romney-Ryan and the Republican Congress would kill 1.9 million jobs in 2013 and 2014, sinking the economy back into recession. President Obama's American jobs act would create over 1.3 million jobs in the next 2 years but Paul Ryan's Republican Congress oppose it. Extreme spending cuts caused by Romney's proposed 20% government spending cap would trigger a shock wave of job losses starting in Washington then moving out into the U.S. private sector. Because the United States is the world's largest consumer of global products and the European Union is struggling to contain its debt crisis, implementation of the Romney Ryan plan could start a deflationary spiral and global economic panic.
• The budget plans put forward by Barack Obama would lead to increased employment of about 1.1 million jobs in 2013 and 280,000 jobs in 2014, relative to current policy. The Obama employment gains would be driven by an increase in spending of $135 billion over the current policy baseline, which is the result of $142 billion in temporary spending under his proposed American Jobs Act.
• The budget plans put forward by Mitt Romney would lead to small job gains of 87,000 in 2013 and a loss of 641,000 jobs in 2014, relative to current policy, if his proposed tax cuts were fully deficit-financed.
• If some of Romney’s proposed individual income tax cuts were revenue-neutral (he has said that they would be, but has not specified what “base-broadening” adjustments he would make to the tax code to accomplish that), his plans would instead lead to
employment losses of 608,000 in 2013 and roughly 1.3 million in 2014.
• The weaker job growth and outright job losses under the Romney plan are driven by his proposal to cap government spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a move that implies very large cuts to overall spending
Romney-Ryan fear-mongering about debt growth under Obama is wrong. The United States has reduced its total indebtedness by 4 trillion dollars under President Obama's leadership.
Total indebtedness including that of federal and state governments and consumers has fallen to 3.29 times gross domestic product, the least since 2006, from a peak of 3.59 four years ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Private-sector borrowing is down by $4 trillion to $40.2 trillion.
The Total Debt of the United States is Down 4 Trillion Dollars in 4 years
Source: The Economist based on U.S. Government reports
President Obama's stimulus prevented another Great Depression. Increased federal spending was absolutely necessary to make up for lost state tax revenues. State and local cuts of jobs for teachers, police and fire fighters would have spiraled out of control without the stimulus. The rapid drop in private and financial debt needed to be offset by an increase in federal debt to avoid a
deflation trap. The Romney-Ryan plan to slash federal spending would implement the same kind of austerity that has pushed Spain and Greece into a deflation trap of increasingly extreme unemployment, decreasing government revenue and increasingly unbearable debt.
Romney-Ryan Medicaid cuts would cause premature deaths, devastating families.
Romney-Ryan's severe cuts to Medicaid would devastate the families of seniors who require long-term nursing care and cause an untold number of premature deaths to seniors with chronic conditions. Nursing home care is Medicaid's largest expenditure. Seniors are eligible for Medicaid coverage for nursing home care after they have used up all of their financial resources. Seniors with Medicaid now in nursing homes would be forced back unto families who lack the ability to give them good 24 hour nursing care and pay for expensive drugs. Romney-Ryan's plan would lead to an untold number of these seniors' premature deaths in the homes of guilt stricken families.
Ryan and Romney have also pledged to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law and cut federal spending on the Medicaid program for the poor. That means seniors would immediately lose several benefits under the new law, including additional aid for prescription drugs and access to preventive care without copays.
Cutting Medicaid would probably affect millions of low-income seniors who rely on Medicare and Medicaid because Medicaid helps pay for nursing home care.
Romney-Ryan's plans to cut government regulation of industry would lead to more death and disease from toxic food and drugs.
Thousands of Americans die every year from contaminated food and dangerous drugs and millions are sickened. Weakening of federal regulation and enforcement of food and drug safety laws has already proven disastrous for Americans. Further regulatory cuts proposed by Romney-Ryan would lead to an untold number of additional deaths and illnesses. A recent Bloomberg report showed that private efforts to certify food safety have failed catastrophically. The conditions described by Bloomberg are horrific. I have quoted only the bare summary points to stay within fair use guidelines. Everyone who cares about their health should read the whole report. The case reports are shocking. Romney and Ryan's plans to further deregulate industry and cut government funding would take us further down the disastrous path that has led to a rapid increase in death and disease caused by contaminated food.
During the past two decades, the food industry has taken over much of the FDA’s role in ensuring that what Americans eat is safe. The agency can’t come close to vetting its jurisdiction of $1.2 trillion in annual food sales. In 2011, the FDA inspected 6 percent of domestic food producers and just 0.4 percent of importers. The FDA has had no rules for how often food producers must be inspected.
The food industry hires for-profit inspection companies -- known as third-party auditors -- who aren’t required by law to meet any federal standards and have no government supervision. Some of these monitors choose to follow guidelines from trade groups that include ConAgra Foods Inc. (CAG), Kraft Foods Inc. and Wal-Mart. The private inspectors that companies select often check only those areas their clients ask them to review. That means they can miss deadly pathogens lurking in places they never examined.
3,000 Killed
Food sickens 48 million Americans a year, with 128,000 hospitalized and 3,000 killed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. The rate of infections linked to foodborne salmonella, which causes the most illnesses and deaths, rose 10 percent from 2006 to 2010.
Wall Mart sells ground turkey after tests find 49.9% of samples positive for salmonella. Our food is unsafe without strong government regulation and enforcement. However, Romney and Ryan plan to further weaken federal regulation and enforcement. Deregulation of the food industry has failed abysmally, but Romney and Ryan would double down on deregulation. Romney and Ryan's plans would literally make Americans sick and die.