I write this missive in the year 2014 from my small, poorly ventilated office in the Shandong Province of China where my job and millions of others have been outsourced by President Mitt Romney and his Republican allies in Congress.
Now that we are half way through President Romney's first term in office, I'm sending this note to you through time and space in the hope that it paints a picture of the path we've taken since the 2012 election.
In all honesty, some Americans couldn't be happier with Mitt Romney in the White House. Wall Street bankers, millionaires, and billionaires are doing even better than they did under President Obama, which for the record was pretty frigging great.
The rich got a very handsome 20 percent tax cut on top of the Bush tax cuts being made permanent, all paid for by drastic cuts to programs the middle class depend on and the elimination of vital tax deductions like the homeowners' mortgage interest deduction. Good luck buying a home any time soon if you're a member of the middle class.
During his first year in office, President Romney also removed the Obama era Wall Street regulations designed to keep America from falling into another massive economic recession. Once again, the big banks and special interests are making risky bets and gambling with our retirement accounts while the government turns a blind eye. Worse still, the 34 straight months of job growth we saw through the end of Obama's only term in office has come to an end.
We are hemorrhaging jobs just like we did under George W. Bush. That being said, some sectors of the economy are booming -- the F.B.I. for example.
No, not the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but the Female Body Inspectors.
Romney has cut off funding for Planned Parenthood leaving millions of women without vital healthcare services, contraception, and life-saving cancer screenings. He and Vice President Paul Ryan have changed the definition of rape to make it more difficult for women to seek abortions after being assaulted. With a nod and a wink from Romney's White House, dozens of conservative states have banned all forms of contraception, mandated transvaginal ultrasounds for women contemplating abortions, and passed personhood amendments that open doctors up to criminal prosecution if an embryo does not survive in vitro fertilization and subjects women who suffer miscarriages to criminal investigations to make certain a "human life" was not murdered.
Now that the Romney administration has been successful at reforming Medicare, seniors will soon begin receiving a fraction of their old benefits through the mail in the form of vouchers conveniently attached to their regular coupons from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. As promised, these vouchers won't come close to providing seniors with the benefits they need.
For now, gay and lesbian Americans are lucky to remain second-class citizens. That will change next year when Romney's constitutional amendment kicks in barring LGBT people from the same rights and responsibilities that their straight counterparts enjoy. You can expect your gay friends and family to join millions of undocumented immigrants as they self-deport to greener pastures leaving behind a country once seen as a beacon of freedom and equality.
Speaking of immigrants, now that the immigration reform law President Romney crafted with the help of Kris Kobach -- who wrote Arizona's draconian "papers please" law -- is in place, millions of law abiding Hispanic Americans are regularly stopped on the street and asked to present identification for doing nothing more than looking "illegal." They'd self-deport if they weren't already living in the country of their birth.
Instead, many have escaped to the armed forces and are now fighting with distinction on the front lines in Russia, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
I remember watching the 2012 presidential debates and thinking, "there is no way America would elect Mitt Romney and risk a return to the Bush years." But America was desperate for more progress and they were willing to risk it on a guy with impeccable hair and a corporate raider's sales finesse.
With President Obama in the White House, life for hard working Americans was getting better month-by-month however slowly. That isn't true today.
Perhaps this message can point us in the right direction before you risk it all in November and set a course for the uncertain future from which I write.
Karl Frisch is a syndicated columnist and Democratic strategist at Bullfight Strategies in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at KarlFrisch.com. You can also follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, and YouTube, or sign up to receive his columns and updates by email.
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