By CECIL BOTHWELL

As I write this column, the 2012 election is a long two weeks away, the finale to what seems to have been a four year campaign — at least on the part of the GOP. 

Republicans announced shortly after the 2008 race that their top priority was making Barack Obama a one-term president. 

To that end, conservatives in Washington conspired to block any truly substantive effort to stimulate the economy. In bumper sticker parlance, they were willing to keep 20 million people out of work in order to get one man out of a job.

There is some truth to the idea that the administration might have done more in the first year, up until the death of Senator Edward Kennedy eliminated a filibuster-proof majority in the upper house. But the presence of Blue Dog Democrats weakened what could have been a decisive governing force.

As it happened, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stopped much of our economic bleeding but fell short of the transfusion needed to reinvigorate our national life.

While the stimulus money lasted, states and municipalities were able to maintain far more of their projects than would otherwise have been possible, given the collapse in tax revenues following the Bush recession.

Here in Asheville, the brightest evidence of ARRA funding is the replacement of all of our street lights, a change-over that will save upward of $300,000 per year in the city’s electric bill.

What we have seen in the course of the past three decades is a remarkable demonstration of the success of advertising. 

Conservative politicians, abetted by FOX News and radio talkers, have hammered on the themes of tax reduction, shrinking government, fewer regulations, and the purported threat of deficit spending.

Despite a complete lack of proof that their agenda has ever worked in a modern economy, the advocacy has worked to the point that even so-called liberals repeat the mantra. 

“No new taxes. Get the government off our backs.”

Enough Democrats bought the arguments for deregulation, that we lost the protection of the Glass-Steagall Act while Clinton was in office. (Glass-Steagall refers to the Banking Act of 1933, a law which restricted commercial bank securities activities and the linkage of commercial banks and securities firms. It was written in reaction to the wild Wall Street gambling that brought down our economy in 1929, in a successful effort to prevent a recurrence. I hate to say “We told you so,” but we told you so.) 

During the G.W. Bush administration, a Republican majority enabled tax cuts that still cripple our national government, particularly when combined with two very expensive wars.

We managed to pretend that everything was all right because security firms merged with banks and pumped huge amounts of money into the economy in the form of fraudulent loans. Of course, it all hit the wall in 2008.

Unfortunately, the same conservative noise machine has convinced a whole lot of our fellow citizens that the cure for our economic malaise is more of the same policies that ripped our lives apart in the first place.

That the presidential election is even remotely close at this point is a testament to the success of Madison Avenue. Any lie repeated often enough seems to become a truth for a disappointingly large portion of our populace. If Flat Earther’s had friends at FOX, it is apparent that half the country would avoid boats for fear of falling over the edge.

The economies that have best survived the global recession of these past four years are high-tax states in northern Europe with robust social welfare programs.

The economies that have been most devastated are the European states which have been forced to adopt austerity budgets by European Central Bankers (led by Germany.) Modern economies have repeatedly and successfully spent their way out of recessions.

Government spending puts people to work, puts paychecks in pockets, builds infrastructure that enables business growth, and results in the higher future tax revenues that pay down the resulting debt. Pretending that somewhere, somehow, cutting taxes and spending has resuscitated an ailing economy is a fairy tale, pure and simple.

By the time you read this, it’s probable that Barack Obama will have been re-elected, together with a narrowly divided Congress that will continue to prevent meaningful change.

Somehow, I’m sure, we will survive.

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Cecil Bothwell is a member of Asheville City Council.