Just hours before tonight’s first presidential debate, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer today described the United States as being on a precipitous decline and chose not to endorse a candidate during his address at the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge luncheon.
“First, I think that we are a nation in trouble,” says Roemer, noting the recent national unemployment number at 8.1%. “Look behind the numbers, folks. There are 14 million Americans out of work. There’s an additional 8 million Americans out of work and [have] quit looking, and they’re not counted in the 8.1%—wow!
“There are another 20 million Americans that can get only a part-time job. And they can’t support their own family. They have to take public welfare, of some sort, to make it to the end of a week,” he added. “That’s 42 million Americans, either unemployed, or underemployed. That’s 22%. Those are the numbers.”
Roemer says the real national unemployment rate is more than 16%. Roemer, who also ran for president and debated other candidates at the Republican primary in Iowa before suspending his campaign on May 31, says there are fewer Americans working today than in 1999, though there are 37 million more Americans: “This is the worst recovery in American history.”
Roemer laments the national decline of manufacturing jobs to 7.8% of the total workforce, as, in the past, manufacturing helped create new jobs.
“And we’ve done it deliberately, beginning with [President] Bill Clinton and NAFTA,” Roemer says. “And then [President] Bush, his ridiculous policies, and [President] Obama: none better. We don’t care about working people. We’d rather get it done cheap in China.”
Roemer blasts Obama on the jobs front. He acknowledges that 96,000 jobs were created in the private sector last month, but with the contraction of jobs in recent years, it takes 252,000 new jobs to break even.
Now 15.7% of our total population is on food stamps, Roemer says: “47 million Americans.”
On national debt, Roemer says both Democrats and Republicans are to blame.
“Obama is going at about twice the rate of Bush,” he says, “and Bush was the worst president in American history in terms of fiscal management. It’s been a team effort.”
But the former governor is optimistic that the country can be turned around.
“We can do tax reform, budget reform, banking reform; we can do trade reform; we can do health care reform,” says Roemer. “Look, Washington is not just broken—it’s bought.”
Roemer says fixing the country begins first with campaign reform: the benefactors of big political donations must be made public in less than two days.
In response to the question of what he would ask President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney tonight, if given the chance, Roemer said,”Where do you get your money? How do you fund your election? They do not want you to know.”
