DLN Letter of 11/20/14

I had a letter to the Daily Local published yesterday, but before I post a link to that one here, I should go back a few weeks to the one that was published around 11/20/14 that the Daily Local never posted to their website. People who don't get the Local have asked me to let them know when they get in so they can read them, and so here it is:


Along with the appointed experts on the election last week, I thought I might add my non-expert observations of last week’s elections. It seems that except in the case of our wonderful new Governor, voters rejected the Democratic party almost across the board. That is, we rejected the party responsible for 65 straight months of economic growth, a record 56 months of consecutive private sector job growth, unemployment falling from 10.1% to 5.8%, (after losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month when Bush left office, the country is now adding a minimum of 200,000 jobs per month) the budget deficit reduced by two-thirds, and almost daily records in the stock market. Corporate profits are at record highs and the U.S. gross national product growth is now among the best in the world.

The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, gasoline prices are falling, there’s no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, and the wealthy, as opposed to most of the rest of us, are still making astonishing amounts of money.

So, in summary, Americans voted for the party that got us into the mess that Obama just dug us out of. And we, the people, rewarded the party who, last time they held the White House, gave us an almost total world economic collapse, the worst terrorist attack in history, the two longest wars in US history, the worst record of job creation since Herbert Hoover, a complete collapse of the stock market and a budget SURPLUS that they turned into a trillion dollar annual deficit.  

And in the absence of any actual reasons that republicans have to explain these incredible accomplishments by President Obama, the best they can do is hope that it is a bubble, so somehow, someway, their economic theories of trickle-down economics that have thus far only had disastrous results, will finally prove to help us. I also hear some people think Ryan Howard is going to turn it around next year. Well actually, their economic theories do benefit one group - the upper 1% who bankroll their favorite republican politicians through dark money, to the surprise of no one, as the Daily Local exposed last week.

And if we had any doubt as to the continuing lurch to the extreme right, it was confirmed by the ouster of a “moderate” (by republican standards anyway) Dom Pileggi from his Senate leadership. Elections have consequences, indeed. I was encouraged at least to see in Michael Rellahan’s excellent interview with Ryan Costello this past week that he pledges to be non-partisan and listen carefully to his constituents to hear all our concerns regardless of party affiliation. I hope this is a promise he can keep despite the pressures he will be under from his far-right party leaders these next two years.

I wake up every morning grateful that Barack Obama is in the White House so that the extreme right doesn’t continue to try to eviscerate our environment, ruin our economy and get us back into multiple wars. And I am also grateful that so many thousands of moderate Chester County voters have switched to the Democratic Party and gave a majority of their votes to Tom Wolf, whom Corbett has left with a $2 billion deficit and our ability to borrow completely maxed out. This after Corbett, according to the state 2011 fiscal year financial statement, entered office with a $1 billion surplus, There is still a long way to go to get more competitive balance in the more local elections, but at a state level, we are clearly headed in the right direction with Tom Wolf, and for that, I am most thankful of all.

Jamie McVickar
West Vincent Township

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