"Newt" Romney 2.0

I kept wondering where I had seen this debate before. One of the debaters spouting an endless series of lies and misrepresentations, all in a condescending tone of voice. I thought of "Dick" Cheney debating Joe Lieberman, talking down to him in a condescending tone of voice while he spouted complete bullshit. But that was a different type of nonsense. But worth remembering.

But the flood of misinformation, delivered in a forceful and blindly self-confident way? That felt more like Newt Gingrich, except on steroids. Others will make the comparison I am sure.

Okay, so now we know how Romney did his business deals. When he wants something he can push people (and facts) around pretty well. Where his listeners were wanting to have someone forceful take over and "lead" them, then Mitt would fill the bill. But there is just one problem here; the "facts" and "plans" used in this first Presidential Debate simply didn't add up. We heard a flood of assurances, evasions, claims and rewrites of history. That may convince those who want a President who is "tough" and "forceful", but I'd rather have a President who is intelligent and who levels with the American people. I would NOT like to have to listen to Romney's laundry list of bullshit for four years. Oh, and that Medicare thing? His pledge to not change Medicare for older voters? Any older voter who believes that is a fool. The goal clearly is to gut Medicare and Medicaid, along with as many other social programs as possible.

Food stamps? Food stamps are bad, right? Really? Romney's father's family lived on public assistance for several years after bailing out of Mexico early last century. Was that assistance a bad thing? And if many more families had needed it, wouldn't it have been better to give it to them than have them hungry and in distress? It is bad that people NEED public assistance, but it is not bad that it is there as a safety net to help them. What the President said about job training was to my mind far more intelligent. We live in a world where a lot of jobs are changing rapidly, which only works when there is a widespread system of worker retraining. But that approach would be too fussy for Mitt, after all, he is not really a manager, he is a "takeover artist". Once he has taken over a firm he was an expert in deciding whether the business could be grown, or whether it would be more profitable to run up huge debts and drive it into bankruptcy, while his company kept the borrowed money.

If that's the character that you'd like our President to have, you can stop reading. I think Romney's approach to government would be very similar to "Dick" Cheney's, which makes sense given each of their business backgrounds. Cheney ran a major defense contractor and oil equipment supply company. Guess which industries he lent support to as Vice President? Those two pointless wars? Check. Unchecked and poorly regulated oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? Check. Huge tax breaks for the wealthy and businesses? Check. Shoddy regulation of banks? Check and check.

And the impact on our economy and the world economy? Devastating.

Personally, I doubt that the effect of electing Romney as our President would be much better. We're still cleaning up from the last Republican administration, so I'm not inclined to let that same group of morons into power again.

Now, what about Romney's unexpectedly fired-up "performance" in this debate? Will that sway a lot of "undecided" voters? Maybe, we'll just have to see. I see Paul Ryan as a youthful clone of Romney, wedded to the same anti-regulation, anti-tax, anti-government philosophies. For the record, I don't see the rich as "job creators". I see them as "money grubbers". Romney's investments in a host of Cayman Island trusts does not convince me that he is a great fan of "progressive taxation". I say that because I paid a higher tax rate than Romney did last year. Given our wildly different economic circumstances, one might even go so far as to say that Romney believes in "regressive taxation", where the poor pay a significantly higher percentage of their income in taxes. Those "loopholes" that Romney talks about, but does not reveal the nature of? Would you expect a Vulture Capitalist to (a) protect and massage his peers, or (b) screw the other 99% of us over, because he can? That is pretty much what he is already doing, so why should anyone imagine he is likely to change? He LIKES being an economic aristocrat, seeing the world through gilded glasses. He is no friend to the poor, I am afraid, unless they are Mormons. That's okay, as long as he doesn't gut our Country's social welfare net, but Mitt seems to think it should be privatized, then perhaps be outsourced. Trust him, he can't explain yet how it will all work, but you are really, really going to like it.

Honest!

Um, no thanks.

Arthur