Arithmetic makes a comeback - Republicans receive Failing Grades

By Columnist, TRB - Last night former President Clinton took TV viewers all the way back to elementary school to explain the simplicity of the deficit and how to fix it. He was endorsing President Obama for another term. Clinton, known for his long speeches and his tendency to go a little too deep in his definitions of how government works, chose his Arkansas hayseed persona last night to explode the myths of Mitt Romney. Everyone seemed to agree that the smiling former Fullbright Scholar revealed Romney's stated economic plans as silly, unrealistic and even stupid. And leave it to Bill Clinton to bring back the long defunct. but pleasant sounding word "arithmetic." with its visions of chalk boards and addition, substraction, divsion and multiplication. It was Bill Clinton reminding the country that two and two is still four.

Strangely it did not seem as though the former President was talking down to us. He even made the whole 45 minute speech seem a little funny, and as long as it was, it seemed to go by too fast. He hit all the important points the Big Lie that TV networks continue to show on the air as a political ad stating that Obama has plans to relax welfare-to-work standards. Not true. Certainly racist - designed to appeal to the angry white guy. Perhaps the second biggest lie they told was that Obama "stole" $700 billion from the Medicare program, a complete fabrication.

Clinton also came prepared with some interesting statics on job growth over the past half century and which political party was responsible for creating the most jobs. Turned out the Demorcrats were, and on a two to one basis, even though the Republicans spent four more years in office during that period. He used ther word "hate" to describe what these current do-nothing Republican Congressmen think of our President. He told the story once again that the entire Republican agenda over the past four years has been to defeat Obama in this election. They have not taken time for anything else. No compromises. Everything Obama has accomplished, including the rescue of the auto industry, he has done on his own.

So now comes Romney with his special brand of "arithmetic." Right off, Romney has said he plans to give 5 billion more in tax breaks to himself and his friends, which would cause the middle class family's tax to go up appoximately two to three thousand a year. It is all in the arithmetic Clinton was saying. If Romney gives enormous tax breaks to the rich - which he has said he will - someone will have to pay for it. The numbers don't lie.

And what are the Republican plans for women? How soon will it be before they are declaring them witches and burning them at the stake? The Republicans want to take us back to the Dark Ages. which they imagine was a better time of angry white men and no regulations. They want to deplete all our finite resources, either because they don't realize they are finite or they just dont care about future generations. Gas and oil will run out. Clean water is becomming scarce. Hundreds of species of creatures are becomming extinct every year. Whales are disappearing. The oceans and seas themselves are poisoned by our waste. Global warming is real.

You can apply good old basic arithmetic to all of these problems and more. And you won't like the answer you get.