Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans have campaigned with a convenient amnesia. They say how miserable the past four years have been economically, blame it on the president and blame him for not fixing it.
When Barack Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. economy and the global economy were plummeting toward the second Great Depression. It took decades to bring about the collapse, primarily enabled by GOP-backed actions, and it will take years to resolve it, but Obama stopped the plummet.
He did that, extracted us from one of history's dumbest wars in Iraq and from Afghanistan, and created Obamacare despite a four-year war waged on him and the rest of the nation by congressional Republicans, particularly in the Senate. The GOP controlled the Senate by using filibusters to block anything the president suggested. The administration was powerless unless 60 senators voted to end a filibuster and it only had that many votes for two months during his four years.
Economy fixes such as increasing jobs (two major bills, one aimed at veterans), alternative energy, social solutions aimed at helping the poor and middle class deal with the recession and on and on have been blocked or held hostage by GOP filibusters. They are the reason everyone faces increased taxes and program cuts at the year end's fiscal cliff.
That is why voters, including Hawaii residents, will be extremely foolish if they vote to send another Republican to Congress to strengthen obstructionism still killing the economy.
Howard Fields
Lahaina
