As Americans go to the polls today in their presidential election - in what is said will be a cliff-hanger - Juan Cole puts into clear perspective what America might end up with a Romney-Ryan team in the White House.
"What will the United States look like in 2016 if Mitt Romney wins? While predicting the future is of course impossible, actually my experience is that if you play out known possible scenarios in your mind, you can often get a fair idea of the likely course of events.
1. Austerity does not work– it produces massive unemployment and deficits. The tight money policies tried in Europe, predictably, have produced spiraling unemployment and ballooning deficits with a continued mortgage crisis in Spain. US corporations are sitting on trillions that they are refusing to invest in the US economy, and only government can continue to get money into the economy. If Romney follows through on his pledge of austerity policies, US unemployment will likely increase and we will replicate many of the Rajoy government’s mistakes in Spain.
2. Romney will abolish the Affordable Healthcare Act or “Obamacare,” throwing tens of millions of Americans back out of health insurance programs and leaving them, as he suggests, to the mercies of emergency room treatment. Emergency room treatment is much more expensive for taxpayers than would be the ACA, and having 30 or 40 million people dependent on it is highly undesirable. It cannot provide, e.g., pregnant women with prenatal care, which in turn is correlated with better health for mother and child. And, there simply are not enough ER doctors and nurses to care for that many people. With ACA, we have a chance to forestall the current 26,000 deaths a year resulting from people lacking health insurance. If ACA is repealed, they’ll still die, and over the four years of a Romney administration there will be 104,000 extra needless deaths among the uninsured.
3. Romney-Ryan want to further lower taxes on the rich. As it is, income inequality has been growing enormously in the United States. the top 1% have captured 93% of the country’s increased income during the recovery from the Depression of 2008-2009. Romney’s policies will accelerate the gap between the rich and the poor. With Citizens United and other Supreme Court rulings allowing the wealthy and corporations to buy elections, the growing concentration of wealth and power is deeply undermining American democracy. Even now, 400 billionaires have almost as much wealth as the bottom half of the country. That inequality will get worse under a President Romney.
4. Romney-Ryan are determined to outlaw abortion. Ryan does not even make any exceptions for it. Romney does, but he still wants to deprive women of choice and of the right to control their bodies. There is no scientific argument for the personhood of a cytoblast, and Bishop Willard Romney simply wants to impose religious doctrines on all women in contravention of the First Amendment of the US constitution. Romney will likely have the opportunity to appoint one or two Supreme Court justices, and will attempt to ensure that they are anti-choice."
Continue reading here.
"What will the United States look like in 2016 if Mitt Romney wins? While predicting the future is of course impossible, actually my experience is that if you play out known possible scenarios in your mind, you can often get a fair idea of the likely course of events.
1. Austerity does not work– it produces massive unemployment and deficits. The tight money policies tried in Europe, predictably, have produced spiraling unemployment and ballooning deficits with a continued mortgage crisis in Spain. US corporations are sitting on trillions that they are refusing to invest in the US economy, and only government can continue to get money into the economy. If Romney follows through on his pledge of austerity policies, US unemployment will likely increase and we will replicate many of the Rajoy government’s mistakes in Spain.
2. Romney will abolish the Affordable Healthcare Act or “Obamacare,” throwing tens of millions of Americans back out of health insurance programs and leaving them, as he suggests, to the mercies of emergency room treatment. Emergency room treatment is much more expensive for taxpayers than would be the ACA, and having 30 or 40 million people dependent on it is highly undesirable. It cannot provide, e.g., pregnant women with prenatal care, which in turn is correlated with better health for mother and child. And, there simply are not enough ER doctors and nurses to care for that many people. With ACA, we have a chance to forestall the current 26,000 deaths a year resulting from people lacking health insurance. If ACA is repealed, they’ll still die, and over the four years of a Romney administration there will be 104,000 extra needless deaths among the uninsured.
3. Romney-Ryan want to further lower taxes on the rich. As it is, income inequality has been growing enormously in the United States. the top 1% have captured 93% of the country’s increased income during the recovery from the Depression of 2008-2009. Romney’s policies will accelerate the gap between the rich and the poor. With Citizens United and other Supreme Court rulings allowing the wealthy and corporations to buy elections, the growing concentration of wealth and power is deeply undermining American democracy. Even now, 400 billionaires have almost as much wealth as the bottom half of the country. That inequality will get worse under a President Romney.
4. Romney-Ryan are determined to outlaw abortion. Ryan does not even make any exceptions for it. Romney does, but he still wants to deprive women of choice and of the right to control their bodies. There is no scientific argument for the personhood of a cytoblast, and Bishop Willard Romney simply wants to impose religious doctrines on all women in contravention of the First Amendment of the US constitution. Romney will likely have the opportunity to appoint one or two Supreme Court justices, and will attempt to ensure that they are anti-choice."
Continue reading here.
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