LETTER: President Obama Building an Economy Where the Middle Class Grows

As Jennifer Horn knows, women are, in fact, intelligent and tuned into the economy. That’s why we know that when President Obama took office, our economy was losing 750,000 jobs per month, our financial sector was in crisis, our housing sector was plummeting and the auto industry was on the brink of collapse. And rather than blindly swallowing the kind of specious arguments presented by Jennifer Horn, both men and women across this state know that the President has worked consistently to correct this course and build an economy that’s meant to last.

The President's record speaks for itself. His administration has helped support tens of thousands of women, from workers to researchers to small business owners. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act alone was responsible for issuing more than 2,300 microloans and over $3 billion across 12,000 grants to women-owned small businesses. Perhaps most importantly, the President signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, ensuring that women are able to fight back against unfair pay discrimination that had them doing the same amount of work as men, but for less pay.  It is not condescending or demeaning to recognize that such discrimination exists; it is condescending to imply, by ignoring it, that the market will magically correct these inequities or that women passed over for promotions, loans, and raises were simply not good enough.

By contrast, Mitt Romney has refused to say whether he would have signed the same act – surely not a terribly complex hypothetical – and has suggested that he would oppose the Paycheck Fairness Act, an important act to eliminate wage discrimination. He has supported initiatives that would turn women’s health care decisions over to their bosses and has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would leave women vulnerable to be charged more for their insurance simply because they’re a woman.

Mitt Romney is just plain out of touch with middle-class women. This couldn't be clearer than in his positions on equal pay for women and women’s health care decisions. President Obama recognizes the importance of women, in business and the workplace, as integral to the health of our economy -- as he has said himself, "lifting women lifts up our economy." It is indeed, as Ms. Horn says, ridiculous to say that women support the President because we care less. We support him because he supports us.

- Joyce Craig