There are two pesky myths about Democratic
presidents. One is that they are inherently dovish on foreign policy and they
are anti-big business in their domestic policy. The GOP myth that Democratic
presidents were chronic foreign policy pushovers got some traction in the early
going with the GOP attacks on Democratic presidential candidate Obama and for
as short time immediately after his election as President. He quickly slayed that myth with
his hit on the Somali pirates, his troop ramp up in Afghanistan, the expansion
of the drone war, and his authorized hunt down and take out of Osama Bin Laden.
But the myth that he's anti-business, even a closet
socialist, and wealth redistributor, has stubbornly hung on aided by a
politically self-serving and distorted slur of him from ultra-conservatives,
right wing bloggers and radio jocks. There
hasn't been a moment in the more than four plus years that Obama has been in
the White House he hasn't had to hear that everything he's proposed-- financial,
and health care reform, ending tax breaks for the rich, curtailing some tax
perks for corporations, backing stronger consumer protections, and defense of
unions--has been socialist tinged if not part of a larger conspiracy to topple
free enterprise. Like any other lie, if it's repeated often and loud enough, it
becomes fact in the minds of those that hunger to think and believe the worst
about Obama.
But even before the skyrocket in the stock market
that has made Wall Street and corporate coffers fatter than ever, Obama's
record and indeed the record of past Democratic Presidents in making Wall
Street and Big Business richer has been plainly evident. Going back nearly a
century, as measured by the major indicators of economic and financial growth, the
stock market and the GDP, business has done better, and at times spectacularly
better, under Democrats than Republicans. During those years, there has been a
recession during the presidency of every GOP president. Since World War II, there
have been three two term presidents dogged by recession. They were all
Republicans. Big business had the best of it under Clinton. The stock market
surged by a double digit percent during his two terms, and corporate profits
leaped off the charts. The GOP hit on Obama was that he undid the business gains
under Clinton, and even those under President George W. Bush. This is an even
bigger GOP self-serving myth. Corporate profits have leaped more than 50
percent under Obama. That's the biggest jump under any president since 1933. By comparison, corporate profits increased 12.5
percent and 14 percent during Clinton and Bush's tenures in the White House.
Obama gave lie to the rap that he
was business hostile from the first moment of his first presidential campaign. He far exceeded GOP presidential rival John McCain in bagging
and bundling millions from the giants among Wall Street bankers, investors, and
corporate PACs, and executives. In an ironic twist, while Obama has been
knocked hard for being anti-business, he's also been lambasted for being too
cozy to big business, even willing to wink and nod at some of the alleged
corporate tax dodge abuses and the shipping of jobs and capital overseas of the
top corporations. Some of the alleged worst offenders are prominently
represented on the 26 member Jobs Council he set up in 2011. The most prominent
corporate exec that drew heat was the Council's chairman, GE Chairman and CEO Jeffrey
Immelt. The charge is that GE made billions by exporting jobs to China while
paying zero corporate taxes. GE pushed back hard against both by citing figures
on the taxes it paid and the jobs it created in the U.S.
But this is little more than a political
footnote to the bigger story that Obama supposedly was still out to strangle
big business with draconian business killing regulations, reckless hyper-inflated
government tax and spending, and the wild expansion of entitlement programs. This propelled Wall Street and corporate campaign
money bundlers and GOP connected corporate super PACS to dump more millions
into GOP presidential foe Mitt Romney's failed campaign than into Obama's.
This was no surprise. The mildest
criticism of big business and the wealthy have long brought howls of socialism.
The American economic sacred cow is that laissez-faire wealth is tantamount to
a divine right of kings, and any attempt to touch it is economic heresy.
Politicians know that's it is a kiss of death to be seen as an advocate for tax
and income fairness.
Obama has spent much time during his first term and
again this go round in assuring the GOP, Wall Street, and corporate leaders
that he is willing to cut government excess and compromise on tax reform that
targets the rich and tougher financial regulations. This isn't enough to stop
the veiled talk that he's still the sworn enemy of business. But this talk can't
scrub away the fact that Obama and Democratic Presidents have been far better
friends of big business than GOP presidents have ever been.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His
new ebook is How the NRA Terrorizes
Congress--The NRA's Subversion of the Gun Control Debate ( Amazon ). He is an associate editor of New
America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban
Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM
Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
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