Will we make an informed choice?

Ok, I admit it. I’m ticked off about the debate. Why?

Not because media pundits, who live for a good figurative shoving match, gave Round 1 to Romney. I’m angry because I see an unengaged citizenry refusing to acknowledge this stuff matters.

What set me off? Facebook.

Yeah, I know it’s a social networking site. People routinely post stupid things. I annoy people by sharing articles with an alternative perspective on politics and religion. I’m well aware most are probably ignored. But as one of my college professors used to say, “Even a blind pig occasionally finds an acorn.” Sometimes I get a person’s attention.

But I blew a gasket the morning after the debate because too many intelligent people I know refused to watch. Really, you’re going to opt for Honey Boo Boo?

Is it any wonder the American people get nothing from their representation in government?

The whole idea of a democracy is citizen involvement, but when citizens refuse to do their work, they have no right to complain about the product. Americans only want to show up every four years for the main event – the election of the President. And then the best we bring is some vague impression of who is “likeable” or “presidential.”

If we know anything about policy or the issues, it probably comes from an ad – TV or direct mail, like the one I received from the Romney campaign recently.

In the past year, both my husband and I were inexplicably registered as Republicans. The only response I got when I marched into the auditor’s office to correct that error was a shrug and a “wishful thinking, I guess.”

As a consequence, we now get Obama and Romney campaign literature. I tend to toss both, preferring to use my own research to evaluate records. However, this flier caught my attention, first, with a large photo of president Obama.

Next came the headline: “President Obama will continue to grow government. More runaway spending. High taxes. More jobs lost.”

That stopped me before I made it to the trash can because these claims are wrong.

First, let’s take the claim President Obama has grown government with runaway spending.

As Factcheck.org notes: “The truth is that the nearly 18 percent spike in spending in fiscal 2009 — for which the president is sometimes blamed entirely — was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office.” http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-spending-inferno-or-not/ Yet this article goes on to explain at length the complexity of government spending and our current situation, making it clear no one party is to blame.

Second, will taxes increase under President Obama? Well, as this article on Think Progress notes, income taxes under Obama are at an historic low. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/11/514384/taxes-30-year-low-obama/?mobile=nc%C2%A0 Factcheck backs that up. http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/tax-facts-lowest-rates-in-30-years/

And in the future? Well, the Romney flier didn’t specify which taxes, but I’d guess they are including the cost of the Affordable Care Act. Again, I’ll defer to Factcheck: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/biggest-tax-increase-in-history/. Brooks Jackson writes: “In short, there are too many moving parts in both the ACA and in earlier tax laws to make simple comparisons that are valid for all purposes. . . . Despite all these uncertainties, one thing is abundantly clear. There’s no way the ACA’s tax and other revenue increases come close to being the largest in U.S. history.”

Finally, declaring President Obama will lose more jobs denies reality given reports this month that indicate he may finish this term with net job creation, as this Bloomberg article outlines: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-27/payroll-revisions-signal-economy-has-created-jobs-under-obama.html The Romney ad’s claim also makes no reference to the horrible economic conditions President Obama inherited. To deny his efforts to prevent greater economic turmoil is to deny reality.

But then acknowledging reality would mean admitting policies under the previous Republican administration led to the current economic uncertainty.

As Stephen Colbert once said, “It is a well known fact that reality has a liberal bias.” Unfortunately too many citizens pretend what they do won’t make any difference, so they can watch crappy reality TV without guilt.

If you plan to vote, do your homework.