The two-party system dominates our election process even though any candidate from a third party organization can run for office. In general terms, Republicans are considered conservatives while the Democrats are largely defined as liberals. For instance, President Obama is a Democrat while Mitt Romney is a Republican. They have very different views on how to fix the economy. You will find it very common that the candidates running for political seats within the same party have similar views. Thus, many of the Democratic politicians fully support President Obama’s methods in his addressing the economy through increasing government spending and raising taxes. The Republicans have a very different strategy which is nearly opposite of the Democrats.
The last era in which the economy was in a similar condition President Reagan (Republican), inherited an even worse economy from Jimmy Carter (Democrat). Reagan’s approach, which is essentially the opposite of President Obama’s was extremely successful in growing the economy back to excellent health. By the third year Reagan had the GDP at 8% growth while after three years Obama is at 1.5%. Reagan recorded 92 straight months of growth.
Obama (Democrat) Reagan (Republican)
Decreased Military spending Increased Military spending
Increased taxes on businesses Tax cuts for business
Increased taxes on individuals Tax cuts for individuals
Increase non-military spending Decreased non-military spending
Increased industrial regulations Decreased industrial regulations
Bailed out banks & auto industry Anti inflation monetary policy
Most people will agree that during the 2012 elections the primary focus is on the Economy. When the economy suffers in this country, many people, businesses and organizations here and around the world suffer. As the economy has taken its toll on the vast majority of businesses, many operators find themselves without the financial cushion that they once had and worse yet are struggling to stay alive. High unemployment, massive government spending and inflation are devastating to the economy. These are just some of the negative influences that paralyze our economy and have led to continued layoffs. It is important for employees to realize how much they can assist in keeping business alive by understanding the forces that are working against the business they work for. Like it or not, employees and employers are on the same team in this struggle to survive!
It is extremely important to pay attention to various news agencies for information. TV is the most accessible media and is widely used to gather information. One television outlet will not offer you a broad enough perspective on the issues.
Liberal TV Media – ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN
Conservative TV Media – Fox News
In our country the TV coverage is dominated by the liberal media, (etc.) while the conservatives have one main organization which is Fox News. Radio and Newsprint are more evenly represented than TV. The internet offers electronic versions of the newspaper and TV versions. Unfortunately too many people do not expose themselves to both sides. It is nearly impossible to get the facts and an accurate story on issues when you fail to seek out both liberal and conservative news information. Most people that follow conservative media will get a good view of what businesses and their staff are up against. People that only pay attention to the liberal media won’t.
Many times statistics get used by the media and by candidates with the intention of influencing the voters. Unfortunately they don’t always tell the whole story. For instance President Obama recently claimed that during his administration 4.5 million jobs were created. When a person hears this they may think that this is fantastic and we are moving in the right direction for the economy. However, in this same time span, 2 million less people are actually employed. How can that be? He stopped short of telling us the number of jobs lost and the amount of people who dropped out of the work force as they just gave up looking. The rosy picture that the president painted did not accurately reflect the actual statistics on job creation.
