Mitt Romney has periodic breakdowns when asked questions about the economy because he sometimes forgets the need to lie. He forgets that he is supposed to treat austerity as the epitome of economic wisdom. When he responds quickly to questions about austerity he slips into default mode and speaks the truth -- adopting austerity during the recovery from a Great Recession would (as in Europe) throw the nation back into recession or depression. The latest example is his May 23, 2012 interview with Mark Halperin in Time magazine.
Halperin: Why not in the first year, if you're elected -- why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you'd like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?
Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I'm not going to do that, of course.
Romney explains that austerity, during the recovery from a Great Recession, would cause catastrophic damage to our nation. The problem, of course, is that the Republican congressional leadership is committed to imposing austerity on the nation and Speaker Boehner has just threatened that Republicans will block the renewal of the debt ceiling in order to extort Democrats to agree to austerity -- severe cuts to social programs. Romney knows this could "throw us into recession or depression" and says he would never follow such a policy.
Romney, however, has not opposed Boehner's threat to use extortion to force austerity on the nation. Romney has the nomination sown up, but I predict that he will stand by and let Boehner try to throw us into a Great Depression rather than upset the Tea Party-wing of the Republican Party. Indeed, Romney will attack Democrats who have the political courage to defend our nation against his Party's demands for austerity that would throw us into recession or depression.
What does one call a politician who, solely to advance his personal political ambition, supports his Party's efforts to coerce austerity even though he knows that the austerity would cause a national economic catastrophe and states that he, "of course," would never adopt such self-destructive austerity if he were president? Romney is failing the tests of courage, integrity, and loyalty to our nation and people.
Later in the interview, Romney claims that federal budgetary deficits are "immoral." But he has just explained that using austerity for the purported purpose of ending a deficit would cause a recession or depression. A recession or depression would make the deficit far larger. That means that Romney should be denouncing austerity as "immoral" (as well as suicidal) because it will not simply increase the deficit (which he claims to find "immoral" because of its impact on children) but also dramatically increase unemployment, poverty, child poverty and hunger, and harm their education by causing more teachers to lose their jobs and more school programs to be cut. Fewer children will be able to get college degrees. Austerity is the great enemy of children -- it is the epitome of a self-destructive, immoral economic policy.
Listen for the sounds of silence from Romney in coming months. I predict that he will not act to protect our children or our economy from the suicidal and "immoral" austerity his Republican allies are trying to coerce the Democrats to inflict on our economy and our children.
This post originally appeared at New Economic Perspectives.
Marian Wright Edelman: Tolerance of Poverty
 |
 |
|
| 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 |
The ironic thing is their approach will eventually so destitue the (formerly) middle class that capitalism will be destroyed. That is a shame, because capitalism done properly can provide the best overall economic result. But it is not being done properly. Now, since all the deregulations and tax cuts, capitalism has gone from being something creating wealth and overall prosperity into sometime destroying it.
Those truly worried about govenment debt and spending have to acknowledge the need to raise some taxes if they want to be taken seriously. The only ones in a position to pay a higher tax are the super rich. Romney, Ryan, and the Republican Party, are not to be taken seriously on debt and spending. They should be taken very seriously as a major threat to the overall prosperty of the economy and the middle class.
I think Obama holds a large majority of voters. Minorities, women, and I'll even venture to say about 50% of whites.
To me it's the way the polling companies operate that makes things seem different than they really are.
Obama supporters are much more enthusiastic, and the LGBT community is going to throw a GIGANTIC party.
I'm already picturing Obama's support of Hillary for 2016.
What we'll experience is what all societies go through in war, famine, natural disaster and other calamities. That's why we have "Family and Society" with first degree relatives, second degree relatives and community support. This provides three layers of protection to an individual.
This social structure is not only in humans and primates; but also in mammals and birds. In other words our social system is programed in our genes.
TODAY, we expect the central govt to solve every individual persons' need from cradel to death and sometimes even after death. Then family members who could help, walk-away because govt has supplanted that need and support.
A wise investment should be targeted for longterm growth and not for present social (quality) of life needs. Continuing investement should be predicated on substantial REAL / documented progress. That is an investment everyone will applaud and support.
What we have today in many situations is govt largess, demanded by the recipients or their elected representatives or bureaucarcy, which has no accountability. More the lack of success, more the largess. This is partly incentivized by the middle-men whose own livelihood dependant on failure of the system. This is a vicious cascading circle.