There’s no joy watching Mitt Romney’s march toward the GOP nomination. The man is uninspiring. I won’t hold that against him. In 2008, Barack Obama was inspiring, but no one knew what they were inspired to do. It was campaign about nothing. Not only is Mitt Romney uninspiring, he talks in the same platitudes as Obama. It’s a campaign about “believing in America.” What the hell does that even mean? As usual, Mark Steyn sums it all up better than I can.
Romney’s is a benevolent patrician’s view of society: The poor are incorrigible, but let’s add a couple more groats to their food stamps and housing vouchers, and they’ll stay quiet. Aside from the fact that that kind of thinking has led the western world to near terminal insolvency, for a candidate whose platitudinous balderdash of a stump speech purports to believe in the most Americanly American America that any American has ever Americanized over, it’s as dismal a vision of permanent trans-generational poverty as any Marxist community organizer with a cozy sinecure on the Acorn board would come up with.
After half-a-century of evidence, what sort of “conservative” offers the poor the Even Greater Society?
Mitt Romney will be raked through the coals for his comments about not caring for the poor, but the deeper issue is that “safety nets” have helped create this mess. It’s not just the safety net for the poor, but it’s the safety nets for everyone. The nation is running a textbook example of moral hazard. If there’s no incentive not to fail what’s the incentive to succeed? Over the last 30 years consumption is up 50% among the very poor in the United States. Oh, to be poor in the United States of America in 2012! I believe in America!
The goal of any conservative should be to do things to encourage economic growth. Ultimately that helps the poor more than a safety net. If Mitt Romney’s idea of leadership it be a caretaker for a nation staggering towards insolvency then what’s the point in defeating the President? Obama’s policies will simply help us get to a dystopian Mad Max version of the state much faster. Let’s give Obama the second term that Jimmy Carter was never able to have.
It appears that Romney is trying to plot the same course to the White House that Obama used in 2008. The Romney strategy is to say nothing for the next ten months and hope the other guy is so unpopular that he wins by default. If Romney is unable to convey any kind of real message now why does anyone think he’ll be a good President? What is Romney’s big idea? What does he intend to do when he’s elected? I’ve been following this closely for months and I can’t tell you a single specific thing that Romney intends to do to solve our fiscal crisis.
What do I know about Romney? He likes to fire people, he believes in America, and he’s not worried about the very poor. Awesome!
Ben Franklin would be labeled a right-wing extremist if he was alive today.
I hardly have the energy to write about the ongoing debt ceiling debate that has been going on for months. What is there that I can add? Democrats want to raise taxes and not cut a single dime of non-defense spending. It’s amazing how invested the Democratic party is in the status quo. They will fight to the death to defend entitlements as they are, not matter how outdated and not relevant to 21st Century America they are. What happened to Hope and Change? Can I at least get Change?
Raising taxes of any kind during a recession is ridiculous. It’s just bad economics. Over the last three years almost every part of the United States has cut back, except the federal government. Businesses have reduced payrolls. City and State governments had to make cuts. Yet, liberals believe the the federal government is immune to cuts. Once a government job is created it’s eternal.
The nation’s debt problem is too big for taxes; however, the American liberal fails to see the problem. They would rather punt it down the road another decade. Happy days are here again! How can a problem as dire as this be solved when so much of population is detached from reality? The War on Poverty has bankrupted the United States.
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Ben Franklin wrote that 245 years ago and he is right. Over the last 70 years the left has incrementally passed well-intentioned legislation to help the poor. Poverty hasn’t been eliminated. In fact, the poverty rate was decreasing until the War on Poverty was enacted. For 4o years the poverty rate has remained unchanged. The cost of this grand experiment has pushed our great nation to the brink of financial ruin.
Entitlements haven’t lifted people out of poverty, but have made the poor, students, and the elderly dependent on government services. Now we all face economic uncertainty.
John Edwards was right. There are two Americas. The problem is that those two Americas make up the constituency of his party. The very rich are attracted to the Democratic Party because they’re able to “do something” to help others without lifting a finger themselves. Plus, their wealth insulates them from the consequences “progressive” policies have on the average American.
The poor, meanwhile, become dependent on the government, which is the way government and the aristocracy prefers it. It helps ensure the perpetual power and wealth of those in power as the rest of us are forced into dependency by the policies of the powerful.
I happened across a Q&A in USA Today with Andrea Jung, Avon’s CEO. As you may already know, Avon sells cosmetics. But more importantly, Jung is a big supporter of “change”, particularly since the consequences of change are unlikely to affect her since she’s taken home about $36 million over the past five years.
“Without being a political pundit, each one of us has come into a leadership role knows that the first 100 days will be looked at. President Obama’s 100-day plan is pretty impressive. I think it’s a Wow 100-plus days. The administration is not operating from fear, it is trying to drive change for the future, and that’s a good thing,” Jung said.
Good lord. Jung’s missive about the first 100 days totally misses the mark. What the hell is a “Wow 100-plus days” anyway? You mean ramming trillions of dollars in unnecessary spending down our throats without giving anyone a chance to read the 500-lb. bill? You mean the litany of tax cheats and other ethically-challenged people Obama tried to foist on our system?
Then she has the nerve to say “the administration is not operating from fear…” Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel said it best: “You never want a serious crisis go to waste.” It is obvious the administration was operating from fear, and playing on the fears of the American people in order to implement its left-wing agenda.
Given this foolishness (and the response to her foolishness could fill volumes), how can you possibly trust anything else she says, whether it’s about politics or business? But again, Jung represents the new narcissistic aristocracy in America. When cap-and-trade and a new health care program goes down, Jung’s millions will shield her from the consequences.
When energy prices double and triple all in the name of reversing mythical, magical “global warming” (now called “climate change”) through cap-and-trade, Jung will continue to jet around the world, burning petrol like no tomorrow. Meanwhile, everyone else better figure out how to squeeze into those freaking clown cars, or add another two hours to their commute as they mount their bike for the 20-mile ride downtown. It’ll be like China, but without good Chinese food!
But it’s all worth it… this change that Jung is helping foster through her support. We’re all going to have to make adjustments. Well, maybe Jung won’t have to make any adjustments. I very much doubt that Jung will face the same health care system enjoyed by the average American. There will be no rationing, no interminable waiting lists, and no being subject to the whims of a faceless bureaucracy for Jung.
In Jung’s brave new world, everyone else must pay the penalty to make her feel good about “doing something”. Jung gave $30,800 to Obama’s campaign in 2008. Something tells me that if you can throw around $30,000 you’ll probably do just fine when the inflation, high interest rates, skyrocketing costs of fuel and health care, and all the other you-know-what hits the fan when the Obama administration’s runaway spending starts to pay dividends.
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