Brian Blanco for The New York Times
Europe’s Woes Give Democrats a New Line of Attack
Brian Blanco for The New York Times
Democrats have begun arguing that Mitt Romney wants to follow the same budget-cutting measures that has Europe in turmoil.
By HELENE COOPER
Published: June 6, 2012
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Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press
Former President Bill Clinton this week accused
Congressional Republicans of embracing policies of “austerity and
unemployment” that have caused protests throughout the euro zone.
Paul White/Associated Press
A man protesting at a demonstration against education cuts in Madrid last month.
In a new line of attack, top Democrats are arguing that Mitt Romney
and the Republicans, with their focus on spending cuts, are following
Europe’s austerity-first example, to dismal effect so far: Greece over
the edge; Italy, Spain, Portugal on the edge; Britain in recession; and the United States suffering through a needlessly weak recovery because of government cuts.
Former President Bill Clinton offered the clearest version of the case
on Monday night, when, introducing Mr. Obama at a fund-raiser in New
York, he listed the steps that Mr. Obama had taken to spur the economy,
and then asked: “Why aren’t things roaring along now? Because Europe is
in trouble and because the Republican Congress has adopted the European
economic policy.”
Mr. Clinton added, “Who would have thought, after years and years, even
decades, in which the Republican right attacked ‘old Europe,’ that they
would embrace the economic policies of the euro zone — austerity and
unemployment now at all costs.”
Mr. Obama has so far declined to take up the line of attack himself, in
part, administration officials say, because it would be unseemly for him
to do so when he is trying to persuade European leaders to move away
from austerity and deal more aggressively with their financial crisis.
But plenty of administration officials, Obama advisers and campaign
surrogates have been quick to take up the argument, making a case that
had previously been relegated to liberal writers instead of Democrats.
At a time when the American economy is looking weaker than it had seemed
only a few weeks ago, the European analogy gives Democrats a story to
tell about why the recovery has been slower than they had hoped.
Romney campaign officials and other Republicans are not entirely unhappy
about the new Democratic message, in part because it keeps the debate
focused on Mr. Obama’s biggest weakness: the state of the economy.
Mr. Romney’s aides respond that Europe is in bad shape all right, but
that is because European leaders have not gone far enough on austerity.
“Europe is facing some terrible choices because they postponed the
effort to get their economic house in order,” said Kristen Silverberg, a
United States ambassador to the European Union
under President George W. Bush and now a Romney campaign official. “The
United States still has the chance to correct course, but not if we
sustain four more years of Obama-styled deficits.”
The prime example for Democrats is the European country that has long
seemed most similar to the United States — Britain — where Prime
Minister David Cameron came into office in 2010 arguing that excessive
spending by his Labor predecessors had spurred the country’s economic
woes. Mr. Cameron, a conservative, slashed spending and eliminated
hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs in a bid to reduce the
deficit. Two years later, Britain’s Office for National Statistics says
the country is experiencing a double-dip recession and is doing even
worse than only a few months ago.
“We have a laboratory experiment going on for what the Republicans want
to do here, and that’s Europe,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer,
Democrat of New York. “Particularly England, because they had the
equivalent of a Democratic government, and Cameron comes in with
austerity, and now they’re in a recession.”
Mr. Obama, Mr. Schumer said, “can point to England as what could happen if the Republicans win.”
Since the depth of the economic crisis in 2009, the United States, which
has put a bigger emphasis on stimulus than Europe, has performed better
than Europe, after the two had suffered similarly from the start of
crisis in 2007 until 2009. Over all, gross domestic product
in the United States was 3 percent higher in the first three months of
this year than in late 2007, according to Haver Analytics, while gross
domestic product in both the 17 countries of the euro zone and in
Britain was still slightly smaller than at the end of 2007.
“Europe has failed trying to do austerity,” said Representative Norm
Dicks, Democrat of Washington. “They took the austerity approach, and
that’s not how you get out of recession. Even Franklin Roosevelt learned
that — we didn’t get out of the Great Depression until World War II.”
Obama advisers argue that the budget proposal of Representative Paul D.
Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, which Mr. Romney has called “marvelous,”
is actually a radical vision that would deepen the inequality in
American society. They say that Mr. Ryan’s call for overhauling Medicare could drive up costs for future retirees and fundamentally change the popular health plan.
“The Republican budget approach is far more extreme than austerity
measures considered in Europe, in terms of both underlying goals and
specific short-run policies, and the lack of any balance in approach,”
said Jason Furman, principal deputy director of the National Economic
Council. “Republican plans in Congress would be even more detrimental to
longer-term growth because their refusal to consider any revenues
necessitates even deeper spending cuts. In contrast, even conservative
governments abroad have taken a more balanced approach to deficit
reduction.”
Mr. Romney recently gave the Democrats some ammunition when he appeared
to acknowledge the connection between spending cuts and recessions in an
interview with Time magazine, saying that he would not make too many
cuts in his first year as president.
“If you take a trillion dollars, for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget,
that would shrink G.D.P. over 5 percent,” Mr. Romney said. “That is, by
definition, throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going
to do that, of course.”
Still, his campaign and Congressional Republicans remain comfortable
making an economic argument that revolves largely around spending cuts.
Polls show that many Americans are skeptical that the Obama stimulus
made a big economic difference.
Europe’s Woes Offer New Like of Attack
By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — Democrats are arguing that Mitt Romney and the Republicans
are following Europe’s austerity-first example, to dismal effect so far.
Clinton Condemns Latest Violence in Syria
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 6, 2012
Updated: June 7, 2012 at 7:39 AM ET
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Providing the first U.S. reaction to reports of what Syrian opposition
groups were describing Wednesday as a new massacre, Clinton said, "We're
disgusted by what we see happening."
"The regime-sponsored violence that we witnessed again in Hama yesterday
is simply unconscionable," she said. "Assad has doubled down on his
brutality and duplicity, and Syria will not, cannot be peaceful, stable
or certainly democratic until Assad goes."
One organization said pro-government militiamen killed at least 78,
including women and children, in the central Hama province, with some
stabbed to death and others burned. The exact death toll and
circumstances remain impossible to confirm. Syria rejected the claims as
"absolutely baseless," blaming armed terrorists for what it described
as a smaller attack.
Some 13,000 people have been killed in 15 months of violence, according
to opposition groups, as Assad cracked down on a national uprising that
began with mostly peaceful protests.
Speaking in Turkey after meeting foreign ministers and senior envoys
from 16 European, Turkish and Arab partners, Clinton outlined a set of
principles that she said must guide the world in trying to solve the
crisis. Foremost among them, it seemed, was Assad's eventual ouster —
and departure from Syria.
The demand appeared nonnegotiable as Washington and its allies seek to
broaden diplomatic efforts and win Russian and Chinese support for a
structured end to the four-decade Assad regime.
But with neither Moscow nor Beijing present at the closed-door meeting
in Turkey late Wednesday, and both remaining hostile to the idea of
global sanctions against the Syrian government or any Libya-style
military intervention, prospects for a breakthrough were unclear.
Later Thursday, U.N. mediator Kofi Annan will propose tasking a group of
world powers and key regional players, including Iran, to come up with a
strategy to end the 15-month conflict, U.N. diplomats said. Meetings
could also take place on the sidelines of this month's meeting in Mexico
of leading rich and developing nations, including a possible private
talk between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir
Putin.
Clinton acknowledged that the U.S. and its partners haven't been
successful yet in bringing international action to end the violence, but
she urged nations to remain united.
"We have to do more to help organize and focus the opposition," she
said, calling on the anti-Assad forces to do more themselves to coalesce
around the idea of a democratic, representative and inclusive
post-Assad future.
She said she was sending a senior envoy, Fred Hof, to Moscow on Thursday
for talks with the Russian government, and she'll meet with Annan on
Friday. Russia and China have twice blocked U.N. sanctions against Syria
and vowed this week during a meeting between Putin and Chinese
President Hu Jintao to oppose any regime change for the country.
Clinton also attended a counterterrorism conference in Istanbul,
pledging $15 million in assistance for transition countries seeking to
improve their criminal justice systems and to rehabilitate and
reintegrate violent extremists in prisons.
___
Associated Press writer Christopher Torchia contributed to this report.copiado : http://global.nytimes.com/
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