On April 24, 2012, Mitt Romney delivered his “A Better America Begins Tonight” speech. Today, I decided to construct a tag cloud and analyze the results. What can we say? Mitt Romney says America way too much. It’s one strategy…I suppose.
Is it just me, or does it appear as though Vice President Joe Biden was photoshopped into this picture?
Rachel Maddow had a great segment describing Super Tuesday exit poll results, which showed that increased voter participation among the rich pushed Mitt Romney over the edge. Maddow showed that Romney lost in every other income bracket in Ohio and Michigan.
“I’m not concerned about the very poor,” said Mitt Romney.
What a statement! These polls merely add to the pile of evidence that suggests Mitt Romney is just another rich guy looking out for the rich. If lower and middle class voters feel that Romney does not share their values, they will vote for the other guy. That’s exactly what we are seeing here. The dynamic between the 99% and 1% has never been more stark.
Let’s face it. In the end, this is an election driven by monied interests, and super-secret Super PAC money. It’s merely a playground for a guy like Romney, someone who feels entitled, that the safety net catches all of “our poor,” that “corporations are people,” and that dogs like being strapped to the roof in a kennel.
What’s going on America?
Editorializing would be a waste of time. The videos featured below speak for themselves.
A reactive Romney responds to reporter
A red-faced Romney gets physical with Rick Perry
Romney gets angry at NH town hall meeting
Romney treats Bret Baier like a child in disastrous interview
Romney & Santorum get heated
Romney likes firing people
Corporations are People!
Romney says he wants to “hang” Obama with the Misery Index
Romney campaigns on Muslim caliphate conspiracy
Since S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+, many conservatives have outspokenly blamed Democrats and President Obama for the decision. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said, “But blaming the Tea Party is sort of like blaming the fireman when he comes to put out the fire.”1 On the surface, this sounds great and I’m sure many people buy into this argument, but in reality, the Tea Party showed up to the site of the fire, only to watch the house burn to the ground.
If Paul is merely referring to the $14 trillion debt and $1.4 trillion deficit, he is correct. While the Tea Party is not wholly responsible for the deficit, irresponsible decisions made by both parties over the past few decades pushed the deficit to a level that brought about this debate. Furthermore, the two unfunded wars and tax cuts implemented by the Bush administration, which some Democrats supported, have been shown to comprise about half of future deficits. In the end, both parties are to blame for the present fiscal situation, but not equally.
Here is the kicker, and perhaps the most important piece of information in distributing blame in the debt debacle. First, there is a fundamental difference between being blamed for the debt and deficit, and being blamed for the credit rating downgrade. If Speaker John Boehner was able to convince members of his party in the House of Representatives to sign on to President Obama’s plan for a “grand bargain,” the entire debt downgrade could have been averted. Democrats had already conceded to Republicans on almost every point, yet a minority of Republicans resisted compromise until August 2, which was simply too late.
A recent Politico article by Josh Boak featured comments from an S&P official that echoed this very sentiment:
Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that “people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,” Mukherji said.
“That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable,” he added. “This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns.”
In the end, the S&P downgrade from AAA to AA+ was entirely avoidable.
When Bret Baier asked Republican candidates if they would accept a deficit deal with a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to revenues, every single candidate said they would refuse the offer. At this point, swearing off any and all tax increases, even from eliminating the most damaging and unfair loopholes, is stupid and irresponsible. Is it prudent to believe that every single Republican candidate believes that tax cuts for the wealthy (“job creators”) will create more jobs? I could not help but think that every single candidate looked immature, impractical, and unreasonable standing there with his or her hand in the air.
It’s hard to imagine the current batch of Republican candidates moving from super-conservative to general election mode. One might venture that Republican candidates are vying for the ultra-conservatives in order to win in the primaries; however, they are also generating more and more material for President Obama to use against them. Is it possible for a Republican to get outside of the party talking points for a moment, or are they all the same?
Where are all the moderate Republicans?
In another showdown between Democrats and Republicans, the country is left with a decision that met the political and ideological goals of a minority of individuals, but makes little economic sense. While it is reassuring that Americans were generally disgusted by the behavior of members of Congress, one can only be so hopeful that it was for the right reasons, at least from an economic standpoint. In the end, the debt ceiling-deficit deal does nothing to create jobs or correct the growing infrastructure deficit, and may end up hurting GDP growth and worsening unemployment.
According to John S. Irons at the Economic Policy Institute, the deal will likely reduce GDP by 0.3 percent, and cost the country 323,000 jobs. The EPI article also included GDP and jobs projections for President Obama’s payroll tax holiday, and the extended unemployment insurance package. If the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance provisions are not extended, the EPI estimates that GDP could shrink $241 billion (1.5 percent), along with the loss of almost two million jobs.1
For many years, Republicans have embraced a philosophy that says one must reduce the size of government at all costs (outside of defense, of course). Over time, Republicans learned that it would be very difficult to kill social programs that many Americans have come to depend on. Most importantly, Americans overwhelmingly support Social Security and Medicare, our prized social insurance programs, and fund them directly through payroll taxes. On the Senate floor today, Sen. Tom Coburn said that the government “spent” the citizens’ Social Security money. Might I suggest that Mr. Coburn and his friends go and find that money, as we did not intend for it to be spent on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and two three wars in the Middle East.
In order to reduce the size of government read more…
President Obama
Speaker John Boehner
