"Corporations are people, my friend," Mitt Romney enthusiastically exclaimed last fall at the Iowa State Fair. Romney was referencing legal principles that give business corporations many of the rights possessed by actual human beings. But Romney is more than the exponent of this idea, he is its embodiment. If Romney wins in November, it will be the first time our country has elected a corporation to be president of the United States. Here are five reasons why that's the case:
1. Romney's pitch is a corporation. Romney's central argument for his candidacy is that his successful record as a corporate executive makes him the right person to grow the U.S. economy.  But there's a "question of whether Mr. Romney understands the difference between running a business and managing an economy." The aim of Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney ran for 15 years, was to make money for its investors, and in that regard Bain surely succeeded, earning $2.5 billion on $1.1 billion invested in 77 deals.  But while Bain itself made money from most or all deals, more than one in five of those arrangements ended with the target company in bankruptcy. If the goal is job creation, Bain Capital is probably the wrong president.
2. Romney's campaign is a corporation. As the Romney 2012 campaign has moved into high gear, so has the private equity fund Solamere Capital, which is run by Mitt's son Tagg Romney and Spencer Zwick, who also serves as the top fundraiser on the Romney campaign staff. Solamere was launched with a $10 million investment from Mitt and Ann Romney, and Mitt also has provided strategic advice. "While Solamere has not operated exactly as a subsidiary of the Romney campaign, it has seemed that way at times. The firm shared its first address with the Romney campaign headquarters in Boston. Later, the company was located in the same building as Mr. Romney's leadership PAC, Free and Strong America..."  Some Solamere employees have been Romney fundraisers, and some Solamere investors are also Romney donors. The intertwined nature of the two ventures -- let's make money while running for president! -- shows the prescience of Tim Robbins' 1992 chilling film comedy Bob Roberts, where campaign staff day-trade stocks right from the candidate's bus.
3. Romney's friends are corporations. Romney stepped on his NASCAR message when he told an interviewer that he wasn't that familiar with the circuit but he had some "great friends" who were NASCAR owners.  It appears that most of Romney's friends, great or otherwise, own corporations, and some do business with his ventures and contribute to his campaign. One example: On the trail, Romney has pointed to a for-profit college, Florida's Full Sail University, as an innovative, cost-effective leader in higher education. Nevermind that Full Sail has sky-high prices and, at best, a mixed record when it comes to helping students. Romney did not inform voters that his campaign and Super PAC have received nearly $100,000 from Full Sail CEO Bill Heavener and from C. Kevin Landry, chairman of TA Associates, the private equity firm that owns Full Sail. Nor did he announce that Tagg Romney's company, Solamere, offered its clients a stake in  TA Associates, which owns not just Full Sail but a number of for-profit schools, including troubled Vatterott Colleges, marked by exploitative recruiting practices and high student loan defaults.  When a candidate endorses his donors' businesses, without even telling you they are donors (and business associates), there is legitimate concern that those donors might receive favorable treatment after the candidate is elected.
4. Romney's advisers are corporations. Candidate Romney gets a great deal of policy advice from corporate executives and lobbyists. On February 9, Romney held a fundraising event in Washington, DC. For $10,000 one could participate in a policy roundtable. The energy discussion was led by L.E. Simmons, founder of a Texas private equity firm that invests in energy companies. The infrastructure panel was run by Senator-turned-corporate-lobbyist Jim Talent. The financial institutions component was handled by investment company CEO Richard Breeden. The health care panel was run by former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, now chair of Leavitt Partners, which advises corporate clients on health care issues. Education was addressed by Bill Hansen, president of testing technology maker Scantron, which sits on the education policy task force of the controversial corporate advocacy group ALEC. And so on. The potential for honest government and meaningful reform is threatened when foxes are guarding all the hen houses.
5. Romney's donors are corporations. Romney has praised the Supreme Court's controversial Citizens United decision for opening the door to unlimited election spending for "all corporations."  And Romney has without reservation encouraged the growth of the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future, which can accept endless donations from individuals and corporations. The Super PAC, founded by former Romney aides, has spent more than $53 million on ads in the Republican primaries and, gearing up for the general election,  just announced it's about to spend $4 million for advertising in nine battleground states. Restore Our Future has received $3 million from Texas home builder Bob Perry; $1 million each from F8 LLC and Eli Publishing, two  Utah corporations fronting for former skin-care company exec Steven J. Lund; $1 million from outspoken former Bain Capital exec Edward Conard; and much, much more, allowing a small number of wealthy human people and corporate people to have an enormous influence on the election.
President Obama's campaign network is also full of corporate and lobbyist influence. But with Mitt Romney, the takeover is complete. People who are alarmed about the growing influence of money in politics need to understand this: Mitt Romney is money in politics.
The original version of this post appeared on Republic Report.
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David Brody: Mitt Romney and the Teavangelicals
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Valencia College Professor Jack Chambless asked his students to write an essay about what the “American Dream” meant to them at the beginning of last semester. Students were asked to write the essay on the spot to better capture their initial and sincere impressions, and had about 10 minutes to write. The results were sobering.
According to Chambless, over 80% of the class believed that the “American Dream” entailed the government providing things for them to live comfortably, such as free tuition and health care, down payment assistance on a home, money for retirement and free vacations. Students also thought that the American Dream meant that the government should “give them a job.”
Many Americans have embraced this entitlement mentality, the nanny state Obama is championing. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 48.5% of Americans live in a household that receives some form of government aid. The government which Obama currently presides over has become, as the French economist Frédéric Bastiat once prophetically stated, “the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
Are there enough Americans left who see the destructive direction America is headed to throw Obama from office come November? I think there are.
How do you square your imaginary fears with the record levels of both income and wealth inequality?
Do you really think that proceeding on this path will leave the US as a stable society?
The US is increasingly displaying the classic signs of a third world caste society. Inequality, institutionalized corruption, low social mobility among it: Given it any thought why people are that unhappy?
Redistribution of income to guarantee at least a reasonable level for everyone is a matter of civilization.
Income inequality is a good thing; not bad.
The flowering of talent from the expanded freedom and technological progress ushered in by the Reagan era has also played a role. Inequality is a natural result of the expansion of liberty and the development of new technology and new products. Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Sam Walton and Bill Gates caused the income distribution to become more uneven, but they enriched the world.
To vilify success and the rewards it garners is an assault not just on capitalism but on liberty itself. As Will and Ariel Durant observed in "The Lessons of History" (1968), "freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies . . . to check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed."
It's even bigger than that. The Republican party is aiding and abetting in the cementing of a corporate hegemony by working on dismantling unions, restricting voter rights, spending like corporations preparing for a merger...
The presidency is one goal. Mitt as CEO of the USofC (United States of Corporations). The groundwork to achieve and maintain this is breathtaking.
Mitt Romney bought struggling companies like Staples, The Sports Authority and Pizza Chains and turned them into profitable companies for a profit.
Obama did the same thing with taxpayer money buying out......... bailing out GM........ to save the UAW's contracts from being voided by a bankruptcy judge. Under Obama's green energy plan the Chevy Volt was touted as part of their "balanced approach". The Chevy Volt has been a DISMAL sales FAILURE. The Chevy Volt has been such a sales failure the company Obama gave boatloads of stimulus funds to to develop the Chevy Volts batteries, Enerl1, is in financial trouble and was bought out by .................... wait for it.................... the Russians. State of the art batteries with military applications, the taxpayer paid for to develop, has been sold to the Russians.
Lets hope Obama does not have any more "FLEXIBILITY" to sell us out if he is re-elected.
Faved by mistake. Corporations are sitting on tons of cash that they are not using to expand, build new facilities, and hire more workers. It makes no business sense to do these things when your customers have no money, and the vast majority of customers are the middle class, which has been shrinking and becoming poorer while the rich and corporations have been thriving. The government needs money (taxes) to function, and it makes more sense to collect these taxes from corporations, which would only decrease the amount of cash they are sitting on, than from the middle class, which would further erode corporations' customer base.
Most of my limited wealth is in my 401K, almost all in corporate stocks. I am not afraid that having corporations being taxed more will hurt my 401K. As long as corporations can buy legislators, I know they will do well. The only fear I have for my 401K is a double-dip recession, which will happen if the middle class is not helped.
Unfortunately it's not that easy. If the government raises taxes on businesses, a couple of things happen:
1) earnings and stock prices decline. This directly impacts the middle class by reducing their retirement savings (401k, etc). And as for buying legislators, corporations buy legislators to get their taxes reduced (i.e. GE), so you can't argue that we should raise taxes on businesses and we don't have to worry because they can buy legislators to keep their taxes low.
and 2) - The businesses pass the new costs (taxes in this case) on to the consumer (the middle class). If the government raises Apple's tax rate by 10%, the middle class will have to pay 10% more for that new iPad. And the problem compounds from there - with higher priced goods, fewer people can afford to buy them. As a result, corporations make less money, more companies go out of business, more middle-class workers are laid-off, etc.
Raising taxes is not the answer to balancing the budget. Our corporate tax rates are already much higher than the rest of the world. Federal spending is the problem.
Nothing that you have written in your post is not equally applicable to Barack Obama. All one has to do to verify this is to look at his record in fund raising, in appointments, and in access.
In the 2008 campaign, the number one contributor to Obama was Goldman Sachs. The first overnight guest in the Obama White House was Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs. The inner circle of advisers on the financial crisis were all Wall Street insiders. And so on, and so forth.
Given the total lack of courage among progressives in the democrat party and the capture of the republican party by its lunatic fringe, it is too late to hope for a real choice in the upcoming election. The best we can do is to vote against ALL the incumbents.
People are people. Don't care much where the $$ comes from to fund the campaigns of either candidate.
Good for Mitt. AND the corporations.