Tea Party Voters Unhappy With Results, Blame Obama

On Monday, the Washington Post published an astounding article on economic hardship affecting deep-red, conservative districts. Understandably, the people in these districts are unhappy with government. Unfortunately, instead of rethinking the conservative policies of the Republicans they’ve placed in local and state offices, they blame Obama. Specifically, some seem to honestly believe that the Affordable Care Act is to fault for their region’s poverty and unemployment. (Wonder where they’d ever get that idea.)

Take Tom Hackett of Rome, Georgia, for example. Forced to close his high-end butcher shop  after 5 years of a weak local economy, he holds President Obama personally responsible. (Not that he can bring himself to say his name.)

Hackett stood behind the case and lamented that in a few hours he would be closing the store he has run for five years. The weak local economy killed it, he said, and so did the new chain grocery store down the street and the bank that said it couldn’t lend to him anymore. But the biggest culprit, he said, was a man in Washington whose name Hackett could not bring himself to speak.

“I’m going to go hide for two years,” he said, until “he” — President Obama — is on his way out. “It’s sad. People are hurting. There’s no reason for it to be happening, other than what he’s doing.”

‘No reason’, Mr. Hackett? Au contraire.  Thing is, these ultra-right districts just aren’t doing as well as the rest of the country. On average, their median income is 7 percent lower than the nation as a whole, and unemployment is two points higher. If it were in fact all attributable to President Obama and his health care law, shouldn’t we expect to see the same pain all over?

When Mr. Hackett loses business to the new chain grocery store down the street, how is that Obama’s fault? And as for the bank that won’t lend, according to Hackett because of new regulations? Hackett himself says this was after sales had fallen off. In other words, the business was now a much higher risk. While we should certainly empathize with Tom Hackett — who, like many Americans, lost his retirement nest egg and a successful real estate development business in the housing crash — his anger is also certainly misguided. Let’s look at some facts.

On the broadest front, the entire U.S. economy took a pummeling during the Great Recession, which economists now know actually began in late 2007, long before Obama was even elected. This was precipitated by a financial crisis brought about by banks running wild in a system woefully unregulated. (Which I shouldn’t have to remind anyone, is a keystone of conservative, not liberal, economic policy.) Government response to the crisis has for years now been handicapped by a Republican party none too keen on allowing a Democratic president to head a robust recovery. Even the recent government shutdown (which Hackett thought was swell) has contributed to the pain.

But why are things so much worse in tea party districts? Again, the culprit is conservative policy going back way before Barack Obama ever took office.

The Deep South was the epicenter of job loss before anyone heard of Barack Obama or the tea party, because of conservative economic policies that have dominated the region for decades. The success of the GOP’s “Southern Strategy” wasn’t just getting more conservatives elected to Congress, but electing conservatives to state and local government, and implementing conservative economic policies in state and local governments.

Rather than positioning itself for a 21st century economy, politicians in the South spent the better part of the last century relying upon low wages and depressed standards of living to attract businesses such as the textile industry. But in an era of globalization and off-shoring, not even those wages were low enough to keep jobs in the region.

Do they ever learn? Don’t hold your breath. Today’s Southern pols are busy crushing labor protections and giving away the store through tax incentives, free land, and taxpayer-paid infrastructure to attract the likes of Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Caterpillar. How’s that working out?

Those huge corporate tax subsidies ultimately did not benefit state or local economies, or come close to replacing the jobs lost due to the same push for globalization that gave rise to such deals. States even handed out corporate tax subsidies at taxpayers’ expense. Some diverted taxpayer dollars away from vital services, and gave away millions to foreign automakers while cutting low-income citizens from Medicaid rolls and cramming children into overcrowded classrooms.

In Georgia specifically:

All of this played out in Georgia much as it did in other states. From 2000 to 2009, Georgia lost more than 200,000 blue-collar jobs, making it one of the 10 states where blue-collar jobs were disappearing, and one of the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates….

Corporate tax breaks during the years leading up to the recession drained $3 billion from the fund Georgia uses to pay state unemployment benefits. The state had to borrow from the federal government in 2009 to keep up payments to the unemployed. Georgians are paying off that loan with their state tax dollars.

Naturally, Georgia’s Republican governor, Nathan Deal, has responded with deep cuts to social services and tax cuts for the wealthy. Rather than investing in schools and infrastructure, rather than promoting financial and employment protections to bolster the local economy, Deal’s policies, like those of conservative Republicans throughout the South, are instead padding corporate pockets. If folks like Hackett want someone to blame, they should look a little closer to home.

By: Sandi Behrns

Sandi Behrns is a noted policy nerd, new media & web developer, and consultant to progressive organizations and campaigns. She is a senior contributor to Liberaland, and the Executive Editor of Progressive Congress News.