In a recently-publicized video, Mitt Romney criticizes people in the United States who rely on government programs such as Medicaid and argues that they don't "take personal responsibility and care for their lives." This group includes the elderly, the underemployed and a significant number of young Mormons like me.
Last year the Salt Lake Tribune reported that "44 percent of births to parents who listed 'student' as their occupation" in Utah in 2008 were funded by Medicaid. About 39 percent of those births occurred in Utah County, home to a population that's about 80 percent Mormon and to LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University. As the wife of a BYU graduate student, I know that using Medicaid to finance childbirth is a common decision among our student peers. LDS student families also take advantage of low-income housing, WIC vouchers and other assistance. Restrictions on student employment, caps on student loans, and the high costs of insurance premiums and maternity deductibles don't leave many other choices.
These students aren't relying on government aid because they are irresponsible or careless. Young Mormon couples who have children are simply trying to live their faith. For decades, LDS Church leaders have instructed members to marry and have children early, without waiting for financial security or to complete an education. In fact, young Mormon men have even been chastised for postponing marriage for financial reasons.
The commandment for LDS faithful to "multiply and replenish the earth" is coupled with teachings that, ideally, mothers should not seek employment outside of the home. Mothers who choose to work face messages from church leaders that they are acting contrary to their divine natures, introducing conflict into their marriages and contributing to the disintegration of the traditional family.
Young LDS couples view government assistance as a way to bridge the gap between religious proscriptions and economic realities and as a stepping-stone toward the goal of self-reliance. In my own BYU student family, we too have wrestled with the economic difficulty of having children. We've experienced employers that are not family-friendly, part-time jobs without benefits, student loan debt and high medical expenses. We used WIC to obtain Pediasure when our daughter wasn't thriving. We've made compromises, lived frugally and accepted help from family as we support one child on part-time salaries, and we plan to use 401K disbursements to help finance the birth of a second child. But not every young family has those options. I wish that Romney better understood that many of us in the 47 percent he disdains are doing the best we can in a world where our hopes and obligations don't always match up with our opportunities and resources.
Joshua Shulman: Pastors vs. IRS -- Do You Want to Pay for Right-Wing Lobbying?
Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson: Marriage Equality: A New Heaven and a New Earth
Jacques Berlinerblau: A Secular Voting Guide: Romney or Obama?
Gregory A. Prince, Ph.D.: Mitt Romney Is Not the Face of Mormonism
From The Life of Colonel David Crockett,
by Edward S. Ellis (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1884)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/ellis1.html
Balderdash.
Mitt Romney is a slick opportunistic politician who is saying whatever he thinks necessary to appeal to whatever group he happens to be addressing at the time. He obfuscates, he lies, and he morphs.
The "47%" comment was typical "divide" strategy.
You said we used this, "as a stepping-stone toward the goal of self-reliance." That is the difference. When we were in gov't housing the office manager told us she saw families just live there for generations without ever trying to get out. If you earned money, then you had to pay rent. If you just did nothing, you paid no rent and got a check for utilities. There were perfectly capable people living there, they just didn't want to work because they would have to pay their own bills. Those are the people who are draining the country and totally dependent upon the govt programs. The people using it to get a leg up are just a great investment for the government!
One also should take into account the audience he was speaking to.. in Utah no less. A large portion of which were LDS in nature, which explains some of the "mormon speak" he used in that informal setting. That's rather uncommon when he speaks to those that do not know the inside of the LDS faith so well.
I'm not concerned about this misunderstood comment as much as I am about lies coming out of the white house. I don't want a president I can't trust. Thus far I have not seen any evidence of Romney being an all out liar. Therefore I'm far more inclined to vote for someone who isn't outright lying to their country, and who just MIGHT go to their security briefings and care what goes on in them.