Monday, January 30, 2012
Posted in
Politics
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There are many reasons why Mitt Romney would not make a good president.
Romney Doesn't Have a Clear Ideology. Romney started out as a liberal Republican in a liberal state. He supported abortion, gun control, gay rights and universal health care. But then, when he decided to run for president, he morphed into an ultra-conservative in order to get the Republican nomination. What that means is pretty simple: He doesn't have a clear system of beliefs, and he lacks ethics and integrity. No one knows what kind of president he would be since he changes his mind to suit his political ambitions. However, once he became president, he would probably cleave to the conservative party line in order to get re-elected.
In a very good article by Paul Krugman in the New York Times ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/opinion/krugman-romneys-economic-closet.html?_r=2&hp
Krugman points to various indications that Romney has moderate economic views which he is keeping hidden. Indeed, Krugman comes right out and says that Romney is lying about what he believes. If Romney has moderate views on the economy, but is pretending to be a conservative, how would he govern as president? Nobody knows, and that's the problem.
Romney Is Too Ambitious. Mitt Romney is one of those politicians who wants to be president, not because he has a clear vision to offer the country, but because he is simply an ambitious man, and becoming president is the ultimate achievement. Politicians who have nothing to offer but ambition are dangerous because they are more concerned with advancing their careers than coming up with good laws and policies. Both presidents Bush were ambitious men who had little in the way of vision, and neither was a particularly good president -- indeed, the junior George Bush was a disaster.
Romney ran to become Massachusetts governor as a stepping stone to becoming president. He was governor for only one term, and he wasn't a very distinguished governor. Midway through his term, he abandoned the liberal positions he had assumed during his campaign, and he became much more conservative. Being governor was just a pit stop for Romney, and in the process he short-changed his constituents. Romney doesn't understand that, as a public figure, the positions he takes have consequences for other people. Taking a particular position to advance his career seems naturally right to him. Promoting himself is Romney's No. 1 job.
Romney Has the Insensitivity of the Super-Rich. Romney has been so rich all his life that he doesn't understand what it's like to be poor or middle-class, and thus he has no sympathy for the average working American. That becomes clear when he says that people who are concerned about income inequality are just "envious", or when he says that the foreclosure crisis should simply "play itself out". Romney has also said that he's not concerned about the very poor because they have the "safety net" programs, but those programs are very inadequate -- besides which, Romney wants to scale them back.
Romney believes in a merit-based society. Thus, if you have the ingenuity to make it in the competitive business world, or if you have a high skill-set or an extensive education (such as doctors and lawyers have), then you can expect to do well. But if you aren't highly skilled or competitive, you should expect to be poor all your life. Democrats, on the other hand, believe that all hard work should be rewarded with a livable wage. That's not to say that a janitor should make as much money as a doctor, but a janitor who works hard should expect to make enough to support a small family.
Romney Doesn't Have the Right Experience. Yes, Romney was the governor of a state for four years, but he wasn't a particularly good governor. The economy of Massachusetts did not improve under Romney. Because he wasn't a good governor, Romney is running on his experience as a businessman, claiming that it will make him a good "job creator". But the role of his company, Bain Capital, was not a good one for workers. Bain would buy up distressed companies and either close them down or revitalize them. If they were closed down, everyone would lose their jobs (and the assets of the liquidated companies would enrich Bain's partners). Even in those companies that were not closed, the workers did not fare very well. To make the companies more profitable, Bain would reduce the salaries and benefits of the workers, or would outsource jobs to other companies or countries. What Romney is experienced at doing is making money for himself, and I can't see how that would make him a good president.
Romney Doesn't Have the Right Ideas. As I said above, Romney may be a closet moderate, but he has adopted conservatism to get elected, and he will probably stick with that in order to get re-elected (if he wins this election). As with all conservatives, Romney wants to weaken the social safety net, and he wants to scrap most government regulations. But both the safety net and government regulations were created for a reason. Social Security was created because large numbers of elderly citizens were living in poverty. Medicare was created because the elderly could not afford the end-of-life medical care that they needed. Medicaid was created to provide health-care for the poor. The food stamp program was created to prevent hunger among the poor. Housing vouchers were created to provide housing to the hard-core unemployable.
As for regulations, the Great Depression occurred because there was no regulation of the stock market, and fraud was rife. The housing crisis in 2008 was the direct result of a lack of regulation of the mortgage market. Regulations are needed to keep businesses honest, and to prevent periodic crashes in a boom-and-bust economy.
Romney's reaction to the housing crisis was nothing short of astonishing: He said that home-owners should not be given help with their mortgages, and that the housing crisis should be allowed to "bottom out" on its own. Unfortunately, the housing crisis did bottom out, and the result was that hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their homes. There are now abandoned houses all over the country, houses that are being stripped of their pipes and other structural components by thieves. Some cities have taken to tearing down the abandoned houses. What a waste!
Romney, like all Republicans, thinks that the rich should be taxed at a lower rate because they are "job creators". This is a variation on Reagan's "trickle down" economics theory in which the benefits given to the rich supposedly trickle down to the rest of us. But there is a serious flaw in this idea. One of the definitions of being rich is that you already have everything that you need. If the government gives a $50,000 tax break to a wealthy person, that money will probably go into the bank. The likelihood is that the wealthy person already has all the maids, clerks, secretaries, chefs and gardeners that he needs.
Romney himself is a good example of this. Beyond the jobs created by his run for president, he isn't hiring anyone. Instead, he has squirreled away his money in foreign bank accounts. Giving Romney more of a tax break would not create a single job.
Large companies don't tend to create jobs when they come into more money. Rather, they will hoard money during a bad economy. Such companies are very careful not to hire more employees than they absolutely need -- and indeed, they will lay off workers at the drop of a hat. On the other hand, small businesses do hire employees when they come into more money. However, very few small-business owners are wealthy enough to benefit from the tax breaks to the rich that the Republicans are pushing. Most of them make well under the $250,000 cut-off that President Obama is proposing. Thus, tax breaks for the rich don't do much to help small businesses, and they don't result in the creation of many jobs. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that the top tax rates were higher in the 50's, 60's and 70's (much higher), yet our economy was in better shape back then, and the middle class was doing much better than it is today.
Romney Is a Liar. Much more than most presidential candidates, Romney's campaign has been full of lies, misrepresentations and pretenses. Romney blames Obama for the poor economy and high unemployment when it was the Republicans in the House of Representatives who wouldn't pass Obama's jobs bills.
Romney claims that Obama will raid $716 billion from Medicare to fund the Affordable Care Act, but the money that Obama intends to take from Medicare will not affect patient care in any way. Rather, the money represents a variety of savings that will allow Medicare to remain solvent for a longer period of time. In fact, Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, released his own budget which contains the exact same Medicare cuts. Yet both Romney and Ryan continue to lambast Obama for "robbing" Medicare, when Obama's actions were designed to strengthen Medicare. The great irony is that the Republicans want to turn Medicare into a voucher program, which would change Medicare fundamentally and reduce the amount of care that seniors would get from Medicare.
Romney claims that Obama ended the work requirements under welfare, but all that Obama did was to allow the states to set their own work requirements, something that many states were asking for. In fact, when Romney was the governor of Massachusetts, he made the same request.
Most recently, Romney and Ryan have been blaming Obama for the sequestration cuts to the military that will occur in January, 2013. Yet it was the Republicans in the House of Representatives who negotiated those cuts in the summer of 2011. At that time, the House of Representatives refused to raise the debt ceiling and demanded that cuts be made, and those were the cuts that they agreed on. To now blame President Obama for them is the worst kind of bald-faced lying, especially since Ryan is a member of the House and was one of the people who wouldn't raise the debt limit.
Paul Ryan also told a doozy of a lie before the Republican convention in late August. He claimed that Obama's policies were responsible for the closure of a General Motors plant in his home town of Janesville, Wisconsin. Yet the decision by GM to close that plant was made in 2008 before Obama took office. The irony here is that Obama later saved GM from bankruptcy with a government bailout, a bailout that Ryan opposed. If Ryan had gotten his way, GM would either be out of business or it would be reorganized under the bankruptcy laws -- and in the process of reorganization, GM's workers would have probably lost their pensions (as usually happens in such reorganizations).
In that same speech, Ryan said, "The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves." The unmistakeable implication is that the Republicans care for such people more than the Democrats do -- yet the the opposite is true. Romney and Ryan would cut almost every safety-net program by 40% or more, including food stamps, Medicaid, Social Security (for those 55 and younger), SSI, aid to education, veteran's benefits, transportation aid (including support for Amtrak), public television, and more. Yet at the same time they would lower taxes on the rich to the lowest level in our country's history.
Romney keeps criticizing Obama for going on an "apology tour" in Europe in early 2009 in which he made apologies for America. The problem is, Obama never did such a thing. Rather, he made several thoughtful comments that could be made to seem unpatriotic. For example, when asked if America was qualified to lead the world, he said, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional." That statement is NOT an apology. It may not express the jingoism that the Republicans demand, but those words are both moving and patriotic.
Romney claims that oil drilling on public lands has gone down 14% during Obama's term in office. In 2010, due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, drilling decreased by 14%. But overall, drilling has increased during Obama's four years in office. This distortion of the facts -- i.e., claiming that a statistic from one year of Obama's term applies to Obama's entire term -- is typical of the types of distortions that Romney makes freely and on a daily basis.
The lies even extend to personal matters. Paul Ryan was claiming on the campaign trail that he once ran a sub-3-hour marathon, which is quite an accomplishment. But then Runner's World Magazine dug up the records, and it turns out that Ryan's time was 4:01.
Romney has been known to contradict himself within the same interview. During an interview on 60 Minutes in late September, he said, "I will not raise taxes on middle-income folks. I will not lower the share of taxes paid by high-income individuals." Yet earlier in the same interview, he said that he would lower tax rates for everyone by 20%, including on the very rich. He said, "So the top rate, for instance, would go from 35% to 28%." So in that interview he said he would lower taxes on the rich, and then later he said he would not lower taxes on the rich. This kind of mental disconnect is very worrisome. (Please note that Romney has never explained how he would keep the government going with 20% less revenue coming in.)
Late in the campaign, Romney started to claim that Chrysler was planning to ship production of Jeeps to China, and he blamed that on Obama's policies. Although it is true that Chrysler is planning to open Jeep plants in China (for the Chinese market), Jeep is also expanding production of Jeeps in the United States (for the U.S. market). So the implication in Romney's claim (that Chrysler is moving plants to China) is false. One of the reasons that Chrysler is opening plants in China is that China charges high tariffs for imported automobiles.
Chrysler has openly rebuked Romney for making this false statement, yet Romney continues to repeat the lie, both on the stump and in his advertisements.
Going back to the primaries, Romney has made many more lies than the ones mentioned here. The astonishing thing is that Romney continues to repeat lies even after they have been exposed. His lies are so clumsy that the media debunks them immediately, yet Romney and Ryan continue to repeat them at every campaign stop, hoping that most people won't bother to find out what the truth is.
Some of Romney's Positions and Statements:
* Romney, like all Republicans, was against bailing out General Motors and the other car companies during the economic crisis of 2008. If Romney had gotten his way, General Motors would have gone into bankruptcy and been "reorganized" (which would have included reneging on its pension obligations to its former employees), or it would have been purchased by another company, or it simply would have gone out of business. Instead, with the government's help General Motors got itself on its feet, paid back the bailout money, and now is highly profitable. General Motors is a major and iconic American manufacturer, and we cannot afford to lose more manufacturing jobs.
* As stated above, Romney was in favor of letting the housing crisis that started in 2008 "bottom out", and he was against helping home-owners with their mortgages. He is also against any federal law that would set minimum standards for mortgages and/or make predatory lending practices illegal.
* Romney supports legislation that would declare that life begins at conception and would outlaw contraception. Such legislation would be an affront to the privacy of all Americans, especially women, and would fuel the population explosion. This is one of the extremist views that Romney adopted in order to get the Republican nomination.
* Romney also wants to end any funding for family-planning services, services which are relied upon most heavily by the poor.
* Like all Republicans, Romney thinks that throwing more money at the rich will end all our ills. He wants to reduce taxes by 20% for all Americans (which would mostly benefit the rich). He wants to repeal the alternative minimum tax (which would benefit only the rich). He wants to repeal the estate tax (which would benefit only the rich). And he wants to end the repatriation tax (which would be a boon to rich corporations). We already live in a plutocracy, but Romney won't be satisfied until we are all renting our homes from dukes, earls and counts like they did in feudal Europe.
* Romney has praised Wisconsin's governor Scott Walker for being a "hero" and a "man of courage", but Walker is best known for union-busting and for repealing a Wisconsin law that enables employees to sue their employers for discrimination in state court. The group that will be most affected by the repeal of that law is women, who were suffering persistent wage discrimination in Wisconsin before the law was enacted. Romney has also refused to come out in favor of the Lilly Ledbetter Act, a new federal law which outlaws pay discrimination against women.
[More items to come.]
What Republicans Stand For:
(I started this list in late April and will add to it during the course of the campaign.)
* For at least 50 years now, Republicans have been trying to cut taxes on the rich, and they persist in trying to do that even though the taxes that the rich pay are at a historically low level (not the lowest level, but close to it). The Bush tax cuts were enacted a few months before 9/11/2001 (when the U.S. was attacked by Bin Laden). In a sane world, those tax cuts would have been repealed in order to pay for the war in Afghanistan. Instead, in 2003 the Republicans again lowered taxes on the wealthy despite the fact that the U.S. was then waging two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq). Thus, both wars were completely unfunded so that the rich could enjoy a better lifestyle. When the Bush tax cuts were set to expire in 2011, the Republicans fought tooth and nail to extend them even though those two wars were still being waged!
* Republicans believe that almost every social program should be scaled back or eliminated. This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and housing vouchers for the poor and disabled. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has repeatedly voted to cut social programs while protecting tax cuts for the rich and subsidies for oil and gas companies.
* Republicans would stop all funding of Planned Parenthood, which provides family-planning and medical services to the poor (not just abortions).
* Many Republicans believe that the Department of Education should be eliminated.
* Republicans believe that financial firms (i.e, Wall Street) should be less regulated. A lack of regulations on Wall Street caused the Great Depression, and it also caused the economic downturn in 2008. We can't allow banks and other large financial firms to play dice with our economy.
* Republicans were against the creation of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is charged with protecting consumers against the dishonest practices of banks and other financial institutions.
* Republicans believe that occupational and safety regulations which protect workers on the job should be scaled back. That would most certainly result in more job-related deaths and injuries.
* Generally speaking, Republicans believe that the right to sue for damages or injuries should be sharply curtailed. In some states where Republicans are in power, the amount of money that an injured person can win in court is limited, so much so that many lawyers will no longer take certain types of cases.
* Republicans believe that environmental regulations should be scaled back. That would result in more pollution in the environment, which would in turn result in more pollution-related health problems among the public (including cancer, respiratory problems, endocrinological and neurological diseases). In fact, one of the first things that George W. Bush did when he got into office was to try to relax restrictions on mercury emissions. Many Republicans believe that the Environment Protection Agency should be eliminated altogether.
* Despite the fact that there is a strong consensus among scientists, Republicans dispute climate science. In other words, they don't believe in global warming. Yet the evidence of global warming is all around us. The entire world is experiencing more extreme weather: more hurricanes, more droughts, rising temperatures in cold climates, melting glaciers, rising sea levels. It is all happening now -- yet the Republicans would have us believe that nothing is wrong.
* Since the Republicans don't accept climate science, they are gung-ho when it comes to fossil fuels -- unlimited oil exploration ("drill, baby, drill") is what they want. Yet in order to end global warming, it is absolutely necessary that we develop alternative energy sources, such as wind energy and solar energy. Yet the Republicans don't want to invest in new energy technologies. At the same time, the Republicans are in favor of fracking, in which water and toxic chemicals are pumped into the earth to release natural gas. Yet there is a great deal of evidence that fracking is ruining our ground water supplies. The time may come when all well water is polluted, and the only water we'll be able to use is rain water. Yet about half the country depends on well water.
* Republicans in many states are actively trying to suppress the vote by enacting voter ID laws. They claim that voter ID laws are needed to prevent voter fraud. However, voter fraud occurs in very small numbers and has never been shown to swing an election (I am talking about fraud by individual voters, not ballot-box stuffing). Voter ID laws may seem to be a reasonable thing, but in many cases the ID that is required is not easy to get, or the voter must pay money to get the ID. Rural residents in particular must often travel tens of miles to get a state ID card, and that can be a burden on the poor and the elderly and on people who do not drive or own a vehicle. There is nothing more un-American than making it hard for people to vote.
* Republicans are in favor of the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court which allows unlimited political spending by corporations, organizations of all types, and wealthy individuals to influence elections. Since most voters are uninformed and gullible, and are influenced by advertisements, the candidate which has the advertising advantage is usually the one who wins. We need to remove the influence that money has on politics, not to increase it. Since 2010, the wealthy have indeed been "buying" elections.
* Republicans are against transparency. In other words, they want the rich to be able to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns without anyone knowing where the money is coming from. Such secretiveness is not good for our democracy.
* Republicans believe that the Postal Service should be a self-sustaining agency built on a business model. If that means that the Postal Service has to shutter hundreds of post offices and mail-sorting centers in the face of declining mail volume, the Republicans have no problem with that. The Democrats believe that the Postal Service should receive funding from the government to keep post offices and mail-sorting centers open.
* Republicans want to eliminate funding for PBS (public television) and Amtrak.
* Republicans are against any kind of gun control, including the control of automatic weapons that have no place in our society. They are also against any efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, such as gun licenses and programs to track guns. As an example, outgoing Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, a Republican, pardoned more than 200 criminals in January of this year so that they could once again own guns, and he pardoned many more criminals during his terms in office. Republicans are unwilling to require licensing of guns at gun shows, though that is an easy way for criminals to get hold of guns.
[More items to come.]
Romney Doesn't Have a Clear Ideology. Romney started out as a liberal Republican in a liberal state. He supported abortion, gun control, gay rights and universal health care. But then, when he decided to run for president, he morphed into an ultra-conservative in order to get the Republican nomination. What that means is pretty simple: He doesn't have a clear system of beliefs, and he lacks ethics and integrity. No one knows what kind of president he would be since he changes his mind to suit his political ambitions. However, once he became president, he would probably cleave to the conservative party line in order to get re-elected.
In a very good article by Paul Krugman in the New York Times ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/opinion/krugman-romneys-economic-closet.html?_r=2&hp
Krugman points to various indications that Romney has moderate economic views which he is keeping hidden. Indeed, Krugman comes right out and says that Romney is lying about what he believes. If Romney has moderate views on the economy, but is pretending to be a conservative, how would he govern as president? Nobody knows, and that's the problem.
Romney Is Too Ambitious. Mitt Romney is one of those politicians who wants to be president, not because he has a clear vision to offer the country, but because he is simply an ambitious man, and becoming president is the ultimate achievement. Politicians who have nothing to offer but ambition are dangerous because they are more concerned with advancing their careers than coming up with good laws and policies. Both presidents Bush were ambitious men who had little in the way of vision, and neither was a particularly good president -- indeed, the junior George Bush was a disaster.
Romney ran to become Massachusetts governor as a stepping stone to becoming president. He was governor for only one term, and he wasn't a very distinguished governor. Midway through his term, he abandoned the liberal positions he had assumed during his campaign, and he became much more conservative. Being governor was just a pit stop for Romney, and in the process he short-changed his constituents. Romney doesn't understand that, as a public figure, the positions he takes have consequences for other people. Taking a particular position to advance his career seems naturally right to him. Promoting himself is Romney's No. 1 job.
Romney Has the Insensitivity of the Super-Rich. Romney has been so rich all his life that he doesn't understand what it's like to be poor or middle-class, and thus he has no sympathy for the average working American. That becomes clear when he says that people who are concerned about income inequality are just "envious", or when he says that the foreclosure crisis should simply "play itself out". Romney has also said that he's not concerned about the very poor because they have the "safety net" programs, but those programs are very inadequate -- besides which, Romney wants to scale them back.
Romney believes in a merit-based society. Thus, if you have the ingenuity to make it in the competitive business world, or if you have a high skill-set or an extensive education (such as doctors and lawyers have), then you can expect to do well. But if you aren't highly skilled or competitive, you should expect to be poor all your life. Democrats, on the other hand, believe that all hard work should be rewarded with a livable wage. That's not to say that a janitor should make as much money as a doctor, but a janitor who works hard should expect to make enough to support a small family.
Romney Doesn't Have the Right Experience. Yes, Romney was the governor of a state for four years, but he wasn't a particularly good governor. The economy of Massachusetts did not improve under Romney. Because he wasn't a good governor, Romney is running on his experience as a businessman, claiming that it will make him a good "job creator". But the role of his company, Bain Capital, was not a good one for workers. Bain would buy up distressed companies and either close them down or revitalize them. If they were closed down, everyone would lose their jobs (and the assets of the liquidated companies would enrich Bain's partners). Even in those companies that were not closed, the workers did not fare very well. To make the companies more profitable, Bain would reduce the salaries and benefits of the workers, or would outsource jobs to other companies or countries. What Romney is experienced at doing is making money for himself, and I can't see how that would make him a good president.
Romney Doesn't Have the Right Ideas. As I said above, Romney may be a closet moderate, but he has adopted conservatism to get elected, and he will probably stick with that in order to get re-elected (if he wins this election). As with all conservatives, Romney wants to weaken the social safety net, and he wants to scrap most government regulations. But both the safety net and government regulations were created for a reason. Social Security was created because large numbers of elderly citizens were living in poverty. Medicare was created because the elderly could not afford the end-of-life medical care that they needed. Medicaid was created to provide health-care for the poor. The food stamp program was created to prevent hunger among the poor. Housing vouchers were created to provide housing to the hard-core unemployable.
As for regulations, the Great Depression occurred because there was no regulation of the stock market, and fraud was rife. The housing crisis in 2008 was the direct result of a lack of regulation of the mortgage market. Regulations are needed to keep businesses honest, and to prevent periodic crashes in a boom-and-bust economy.
Romney's reaction to the housing crisis was nothing short of astonishing: He said that home-owners should not be given help with their mortgages, and that the housing crisis should be allowed to "bottom out" on its own. Unfortunately, the housing crisis did bottom out, and the result was that hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their homes. There are now abandoned houses all over the country, houses that are being stripped of their pipes and other structural components by thieves. Some cities have taken to tearing down the abandoned houses. What a waste!
Romney, like all Republicans, thinks that the rich should be taxed at a lower rate because they are "job creators". This is a variation on Reagan's "trickle down" economics theory in which the benefits given to the rich supposedly trickle down to the rest of us. But there is a serious flaw in this idea. One of the definitions of being rich is that you already have everything that you need. If the government gives a $50,000 tax break to a wealthy person, that money will probably go into the bank. The likelihood is that the wealthy person already has all the maids, clerks, secretaries, chefs and gardeners that he needs.
Romney himself is a good example of this. Beyond the jobs created by his run for president, he isn't hiring anyone. Instead, he has squirreled away his money in foreign bank accounts. Giving Romney more of a tax break would not create a single job.
Large companies don't tend to create jobs when they come into more money. Rather, they will hoard money during a bad economy. Such companies are very careful not to hire more employees than they absolutely need -- and indeed, they will lay off workers at the drop of a hat. On the other hand, small businesses do hire employees when they come into more money. However, very few small-business owners are wealthy enough to benefit from the tax breaks to the rich that the Republicans are pushing. Most of them make well under the $250,000 cut-off that President Obama is proposing. Thus, tax breaks for the rich don't do much to help small businesses, and they don't result in the creation of many jobs. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that the top tax rates were higher in the 50's, 60's and 70's (much higher), yet our economy was in better shape back then, and the middle class was doing much better than it is today.
Romney Is a Liar. Much more than most presidential candidates, Romney's campaign has been full of lies, misrepresentations and pretenses. Romney blames Obama for the poor economy and high unemployment when it was the Republicans in the House of Representatives who wouldn't pass Obama's jobs bills.
Romney claims that Obama will raid $716 billion from Medicare to fund the Affordable Care Act, but the money that Obama intends to take from Medicare will not affect patient care in any way. Rather, the money represents a variety of savings that will allow Medicare to remain solvent for a longer period of time. In fact, Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, released his own budget which contains the exact same Medicare cuts. Yet both Romney and Ryan continue to lambast Obama for "robbing" Medicare, when Obama's actions were designed to strengthen Medicare. The great irony is that the Republicans want to turn Medicare into a voucher program, which would change Medicare fundamentally and reduce the amount of care that seniors would get from Medicare.
Romney claims that Obama ended the work requirements under welfare, but all that Obama did was to allow the states to set their own work requirements, something that many states were asking for. In fact, when Romney was the governor of Massachusetts, he made the same request.
Most recently, Romney and Ryan have been blaming Obama for the sequestration cuts to the military that will occur in January, 2013. Yet it was the Republicans in the House of Representatives who negotiated those cuts in the summer of 2011. At that time, the House of Representatives refused to raise the debt ceiling and demanded that cuts be made, and those were the cuts that they agreed on. To now blame President Obama for them is the worst kind of bald-faced lying, especially since Ryan is a member of the House and was one of the people who wouldn't raise the debt limit.
Paul Ryan also told a doozy of a lie before the Republican convention in late August. He claimed that Obama's policies were responsible for the closure of a General Motors plant in his home town of Janesville, Wisconsin. Yet the decision by GM to close that plant was made in 2008 before Obama took office. The irony here is that Obama later saved GM from bankruptcy with a government bailout, a bailout that Ryan opposed. If Ryan had gotten his way, GM would either be out of business or it would be reorganized under the bankruptcy laws -- and in the process of reorganization, GM's workers would have probably lost their pensions (as usually happens in such reorganizations).
In that same speech, Ryan said, "The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves." The unmistakeable implication is that the Republicans care for such people more than the Democrats do -- yet the the opposite is true. Romney and Ryan would cut almost every safety-net program by 40% or more, including food stamps, Medicaid, Social Security (for those 55 and younger), SSI, aid to education, veteran's benefits, transportation aid (including support for Amtrak), public television, and more. Yet at the same time they would lower taxes on the rich to the lowest level in our country's history.
Romney keeps criticizing Obama for going on an "apology tour" in Europe in early 2009 in which he made apologies for America. The problem is, Obama never did such a thing. Rather, he made several thoughtful comments that could be made to seem unpatriotic. For example, when asked if America was qualified to lead the world, he said, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world. If you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional." That statement is NOT an apology. It may not express the jingoism that the Republicans demand, but those words are both moving and patriotic.
Romney claims that oil drilling on public lands has gone down 14% during Obama's term in office. In 2010, due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, drilling decreased by 14%. But overall, drilling has increased during Obama's four years in office. This distortion of the facts -- i.e., claiming that a statistic from one year of Obama's term applies to Obama's entire term -- is typical of the types of distortions that Romney makes freely and on a daily basis.
The lies even extend to personal matters. Paul Ryan was claiming on the campaign trail that he once ran a sub-3-hour marathon, which is quite an accomplishment. But then Runner's World Magazine dug up the records, and it turns out that Ryan's time was 4:01.
Romney has been known to contradict himself within the same interview. During an interview on 60 Minutes in late September, he said, "I will not raise taxes on middle-income folks. I will not lower the share of taxes paid by high-income individuals." Yet earlier in the same interview, he said that he would lower tax rates for everyone by 20%, including on the very rich. He said, "So the top rate, for instance, would go from 35% to 28%." So in that interview he said he would lower taxes on the rich, and then later he said he would not lower taxes on the rich. This kind of mental disconnect is very worrisome. (Please note that Romney has never explained how he would keep the government going with 20% less revenue coming in.)
Late in the campaign, Romney started to claim that Chrysler was planning to ship production of Jeeps to China, and he blamed that on Obama's policies. Although it is true that Chrysler is planning to open Jeep plants in China (for the Chinese market), Jeep is also expanding production of Jeeps in the United States (for the U.S. market). So the implication in Romney's claim (that Chrysler is moving plants to China) is false. One of the reasons that Chrysler is opening plants in China is that China charges high tariffs for imported automobiles.
Chrysler has openly rebuked Romney for making this false statement, yet Romney continues to repeat the lie, both on the stump and in his advertisements.
Going back to the primaries, Romney has made many more lies than the ones mentioned here. The astonishing thing is that Romney continues to repeat lies even after they have been exposed. His lies are so clumsy that the media debunks them immediately, yet Romney and Ryan continue to repeat them at every campaign stop, hoping that most people won't bother to find out what the truth is.
Some of Romney's Positions and Statements:
* Romney, like all Republicans, was against bailing out General Motors and the other car companies during the economic crisis of 2008. If Romney had gotten his way, General Motors would have gone into bankruptcy and been "reorganized" (which would have included reneging on its pension obligations to its former employees), or it would have been purchased by another company, or it simply would have gone out of business. Instead, with the government's help General Motors got itself on its feet, paid back the bailout money, and now is highly profitable. General Motors is a major and iconic American manufacturer, and we cannot afford to lose more manufacturing jobs.
* As stated above, Romney was in favor of letting the housing crisis that started in 2008 "bottom out", and he was against helping home-owners with their mortgages. He is also against any federal law that would set minimum standards for mortgages and/or make predatory lending practices illegal.
* Romney supports legislation that would declare that life begins at conception and would outlaw contraception. Such legislation would be an affront to the privacy of all Americans, especially women, and would fuel the population explosion. This is one of the extremist views that Romney adopted in order to get the Republican nomination.
* Romney also wants to end any funding for family-planning services, services which are relied upon most heavily by the poor.
* Like all Republicans, Romney thinks that throwing more money at the rich will end all our ills. He wants to reduce taxes by 20% for all Americans (which would mostly benefit the rich). He wants to repeal the alternative minimum tax (which would benefit only the rich). He wants to repeal the estate tax (which would benefit only the rich). And he wants to end the repatriation tax (which would be a boon to rich corporations). We already live in a plutocracy, but Romney won't be satisfied until we are all renting our homes from dukes, earls and counts like they did in feudal Europe.
* Romney has praised Wisconsin's governor Scott Walker for being a "hero" and a "man of courage", but Walker is best known for union-busting and for repealing a Wisconsin law that enables employees to sue their employers for discrimination in state court. The group that will be most affected by the repeal of that law is women, who were suffering persistent wage discrimination in Wisconsin before the law was enacted. Romney has also refused to come out in favor of the Lilly Ledbetter Act, a new federal law which outlaws pay discrimination against women.
[More items to come.]
What Republicans Stand For:
(I started this list in late April and will add to it during the course of the campaign.)
* For at least 50 years now, Republicans have been trying to cut taxes on the rich, and they persist in trying to do that even though the taxes that the rich pay are at a historically low level (not the lowest level, but close to it). The Bush tax cuts were enacted a few months before 9/11/2001 (when the U.S. was attacked by Bin Laden). In a sane world, those tax cuts would have been repealed in order to pay for the war in Afghanistan. Instead, in 2003 the Republicans again lowered taxes on the wealthy despite the fact that the U.S. was then waging two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq). Thus, both wars were completely unfunded so that the rich could enjoy a better lifestyle. When the Bush tax cuts were set to expire in 2011, the Republicans fought tooth and nail to extend them even though those two wars were still being waged!
* Republicans believe that almost every social program should be scaled back or eliminated. This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and housing vouchers for the poor and disabled. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has repeatedly voted to cut social programs while protecting tax cuts for the rich and subsidies for oil and gas companies.
* Republicans would stop all funding of Planned Parenthood, which provides family-planning and medical services to the poor (not just abortions).
* Many Republicans believe that the Department of Education should be eliminated.
* Republicans believe that financial firms (i.e, Wall Street) should be less regulated. A lack of regulations on Wall Street caused the Great Depression, and it also caused the economic downturn in 2008. We can't allow banks and other large financial firms to play dice with our economy.
* Republicans were against the creation of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is charged with protecting consumers against the dishonest practices of banks and other financial institutions.
* Republicans believe that occupational and safety regulations which protect workers on the job should be scaled back. That would most certainly result in more job-related deaths and injuries.
* Generally speaking, Republicans believe that the right to sue for damages or injuries should be sharply curtailed. In some states where Republicans are in power, the amount of money that an injured person can win in court is limited, so much so that many lawyers will no longer take certain types of cases.
* Republicans believe that environmental regulations should be scaled back. That would result in more pollution in the environment, which would in turn result in more pollution-related health problems among the public (including cancer, respiratory problems, endocrinological and neurological diseases). In fact, one of the first things that George W. Bush did when he got into office was to try to relax restrictions on mercury emissions. Many Republicans believe that the Environment Protection Agency should be eliminated altogether.
* Despite the fact that there is a strong consensus among scientists, Republicans dispute climate science. In other words, they don't believe in global warming. Yet the evidence of global warming is all around us. The entire world is experiencing more extreme weather: more hurricanes, more droughts, rising temperatures in cold climates, melting glaciers, rising sea levels. It is all happening now -- yet the Republicans would have us believe that nothing is wrong.
* Since the Republicans don't accept climate science, they are gung-ho when it comes to fossil fuels -- unlimited oil exploration ("drill, baby, drill") is what they want. Yet in order to end global warming, it is absolutely necessary that we develop alternative energy sources, such as wind energy and solar energy. Yet the Republicans don't want to invest in new energy technologies. At the same time, the Republicans are in favor of fracking, in which water and toxic chemicals are pumped into the earth to release natural gas. Yet there is a great deal of evidence that fracking is ruining our ground water supplies. The time may come when all well water is polluted, and the only water we'll be able to use is rain water. Yet about half the country depends on well water.
* Republicans in many states are actively trying to suppress the vote by enacting voter ID laws. They claim that voter ID laws are needed to prevent voter fraud. However, voter fraud occurs in very small numbers and has never been shown to swing an election (I am talking about fraud by individual voters, not ballot-box stuffing). Voter ID laws may seem to be a reasonable thing, but in many cases the ID that is required is not easy to get, or the voter must pay money to get the ID. Rural residents in particular must often travel tens of miles to get a state ID card, and that can be a burden on the poor and the elderly and on people who do not drive or own a vehicle. There is nothing more un-American than making it hard for people to vote.
* Republicans are in favor of the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court which allows unlimited political spending by corporations, organizations of all types, and wealthy individuals to influence elections. Since most voters are uninformed and gullible, and are influenced by advertisements, the candidate which has the advertising advantage is usually the one who wins. We need to remove the influence that money has on politics, not to increase it. Since 2010, the wealthy have indeed been "buying" elections.
* Republicans are against transparency. In other words, they want the rich to be able to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns without anyone knowing where the money is coming from. Such secretiveness is not good for our democracy.
* Republicans believe that the Postal Service should be a self-sustaining agency built on a business model. If that means that the Postal Service has to shutter hundreds of post offices and mail-sorting centers in the face of declining mail volume, the Republicans have no problem with that. The Democrats believe that the Postal Service should receive funding from the government to keep post offices and mail-sorting centers open.
* Republicans want to eliminate funding for PBS (public television) and Amtrak.
* Republicans are against any kind of gun control, including the control of automatic weapons that have no place in our society. They are also against any efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, such as gun licenses and programs to track guns. As an example, outgoing Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, a Republican, pardoned more than 200 criminals in January of this year so that they could once again own guns, and he pardoned many more criminals during his terms in office. Republicans are unwilling to require licensing of guns at gun shows, though that is an easy way for criminals to get hold of guns.
[More items to come.]
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