It's the biggest issue in the 2012 Campaign.
A new website addressing the biggest campaign issue in the 2012 presidential election campaign is up and running. The site, www.fixtheeconomy.org, was launched last weekend by Frederick County resident Andrew Duck, who has run for the 6th District Congressional Seat in the past as a Democrat.
Duck says he got the idea for the web page after speaking with a worker in another campaign, who said the biggest issue facing the electorate this year is the economy, but also said there was very little anyone could do about it. "We actually do know what we need to do to fix our economy," says Duck. "It's just that's not what you hear on the media and that's not what the politicians are talking about. But anybody who studies economics know exactly what works and what doesn't and we actually do know how to fix it," he says.
Duck says the country needs to restore growth. "Right now, the economy is no longer cycling down, but it's not cycling up. So the first thing we need to do is to get the economic cycle restored to a growth cycle instead of a deflationary default cycle." He says that can be done with stimulus, and not austerity.
Another idea on the website is to bring back the Glass Steagall Act, which was passed in 1933 and repealed in 1999. "The Glass-Steagall Act says if you're a bank, you can't be a hedge fund. If you're a hedge fund, you can't be an insurance company. If you're an insurance company, you can't be a stockbroker. You got to decide which you want to do, pick a role and stay with it."
Commentators have said that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was an important cause of the financial crisis in the late 2000's, as it allowed Wall Street investors to gamble with customers deposits in commercial banks. Others have said that many of the activities which led to the financial meltdown were not regulated by the Glass Steagall Act.
Duck also says on the website that the country needs to bring the deficit under control, and realize that employment can come from the government as well as the private sector.
"What we've done on the fix-our-economy--dot--org website is we've laid out in clear simple language what the problem is, what happens if we don't fix the problem, and the solution for how we fix the problem," says Duck.
Even though the website is up and running, Duck says he needs volunteers to help with web design, and donations to keep it going.
