Lack of Spine: the ethical question

Does Mr. Romney have a serious flaw that prevents him from making strong ethical statements or decisions?  Is it the lack of a spine, or something less vivid?  Perhaps it is the lack of a strong moral base or a strong set of principles that bespeaks his lack of “taking a stand.”  He often talks a good game, but when it comes to the point where a situation demands a strong response, Romney fades away. 

Let’s take a look at a few examples. 

1)    The Blunt Amendment
A controversial proposal pushed by Republicans that would have allowed religious employers to opt out of providing health care coverage for contraception.  The amendment was sponsored by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a supporter of the former Massachusetts governor. The provision was an attempt by Senate Republicans to confront a simmering controversy over rules governing religious employers and health care coverage they are required to provide.
At first, Mitt Romney said he was against the amendment.  This occurred on Feb. 29th, 2012.  In an interview with Ohio's ONN, Romney was asked whether he supported the Blunt measure.
"The issue of birth control, contraception, Blunt-Rubio is being debated, I believe, later this week. It deals with banning or allowing employers to ban providing female contraception," asked the reporter, Jim Heath. "Have you taken a position on it? (Santorum) said he was for that… have you taken a position?"
Romney responded: "I'm not for the bill, but look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a women, husband and wife, I'm not going there."
The Romney campaign criticized the "rushed" nature of the question and pointed out that the amendment did not "ban" contraception.
For his part, Romney, appearing on the Howie Carr Radio show after the ONN interview, said he misunderstood the question.
"I didn't understand his question. Of course, I support the Blunt amendment. I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception. So I simply misunderstood the question and of course I support the Blunt amendment," Romney said before further outlining his position in support of the amendment.
"I simply misunderstood what he was talking about. I thought it was some Ohio legislation that, where employers were prevented from providing contraceptives so I talked about contraceptives and so forth. I really misunderstood the question," Romney said. "Of course Roy Blunt who is my liaison to the Senate is someone I support and of course I support that amendment. I clearly want to have religious exemption from 'Obamacare.'"

Obama’s campaign responded in a statement that Romney showed in one hour "why women don't trust him for one minute."
"It took little more than an hour for him to commit his latest flip-flop," Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager, said in the statement. "Even worse, he ended up on the wrong side of an issue of critical importance to women.”

2)   Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke
Rush Limbaugh made a very big thing out of a statement by a graduate student at Georgetown University. Wikipedia recalls the controversy:
“In February 2012, she came to attention in the United States when Republicans refused to allow her to testify to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the importance of requiring insurance plans to cover birth control during a discussion on whether insurance should have a contraception mandate.  She later spoke to only House Democratic members. Commenting on her testimony, Rush Limbaugh made inflammatory comments about Fluke on his talk show, consisting of speculation and slurs regarding her sex life.  Now.org picks up the story:

Rush had this to say: "What does it say about the college co-ed Susan [sic] Fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex."
Limbaugh continually misrepresented Fluke's testimony, repeatedly claiming she said that she (and other students) are "having so much sex, she can't afford her own birth control pills."  Fluke said nothing of the kind.
3/1/12: Limbaugh suggests on his show that if Fluke wants contraception to be fully covered, she should post videos of herself having sex online so Limbaugh and others can watch.

During this time, the Romney campaign kept silent about Limbaugh’s comments and his obvious insults hurled at Ms. Fluke.  Although Limbaugh finally issued a non-apology apology, blaming Obama’s socialist agenda for his remarks, Mitt Romney remained silent, never commenting on the situation or on Limbaugh’s comments.  The jelly in his spine simply became more obvious.

3)   No mention of the armed forces
September 20, 2012 from mccall.com:
“When you run for president of the United States, you're also running for commander in chief of our armed forces. You'd think, in the most important speech of his life (the convention speech), Mitt Romney would have addressed the Afghanistan War and the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform (nearly 20,000 dead and wounded). Romney didn't even mention one word regarding Afghanistan, our current heroes or our veterans in his speech. Since he has claimed sole responsibility for its content, it proves he simply cannot relate to common issues like a normal person (this is the bane of multimillionaires living in glass towers).”

Or is it simply because Mitt Romney has no regard for the armed forces; that his major obsession is his own situation and circumstances?  Hard to say, but one might say that his attention is focused elsewhere, not on the sacrifices of young men and women.  Too bad he doesn’t have the foresight to provide positive reinforcement to those who deserve it.

4)    Re-definition of rape and belittling of women

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace argued on Sunday over GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's position on abortion. Warner said that during Ryan's 14 years as a Wisconsin congressman, he backed legislation that would not only ban abortion, but made no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape.
Wallace responded that Ryan supports Mitt Romney's position on abortion, and argued that Ryan has supported exceptions to opposing abortion for "some period of time."

A look at Ryan's record on abortion shows a different path than that Romney will call the shots on abortion 

Last year, Ryan co-sponsored a bill that aimed to give fetuses "constitutional attributes and privileges" and did not include exceptions for cases of rape, incest or life-threatening pregnancies. Ryan and Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), a Senate candidate who recently claimed that women's bodies can prevent pregnancy in the event of a "legitimate rape," were among a group of 54 co-sponsors of the bill, most of whom were male. The measure, known as the Sanctity of Human Life Act, was referred to the House Judiciary Committee and has not reached the floor for a vote.
Ryan and Akin also co-sponsored a 2011 bill identifying cases of "forcible rape" as the only exception to an existing law that withholds federal funding for abortions. Known as the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, the bill would have effectively eliminated funds for victims of statutory rape. Abortion rights advocates said the bill also would have limited the ability of women who are drugged and raped to terminate any resulting pregnancies.
The "forcible rape" language was later removed from the bill. Ryan described it as "stock language" and said in August that he agreed with its removal. In May 2011, the measure passed the House, but it is not expected to reach the Democratic-controlled Senate floor for a vote.
The National Right to Life Committee has said Ryan voted with the group on 78 abortion-related measures considered during his tenure in office. NARAL Pro-Choice America has also reviewed Ryan's voting record and described him as uniformly opposed to abortion rights.

5)    The Ethical Dimension of Global Warming   
Romney has opposed legislation designed to reduce greenhouse gases citing two reasons. In an October 2011 he asserted in response to a question about his view on climate change that he was opposed to climate change legislation because:
He did not know whether climate change was caused by human beings.  Secondly, he has stated that climate change is a global problem and the US should not spend huge amounts of money on a problem that is global in scope.
(See: Romney : We Don’t Know What’s Causing Global Warming, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmfoQZMzsh8)

In addition, during his acceptance speech at the Republican convention on August 30, 2012, Romney commented on climate change by asserting that President Obama said he would try to stop raising seas and heal the planet while Romney would help American families, thus implying that he would not support climate change legislation while he was President (Lacey, 2012).
The potential ethical significance of an unwillingness to act on climate change is obvious once one understands that:
--High emitting nations and individuals are putting tens of millions of the world’s poorest people at risk.
--Tens of thousands of deaths and other harms caused by climate change are already attributable to human-induced warming; that is, climate change is not just a civilization-challenging future problem but the present cause of misery to some humans in some parts of the world.
--Even if the international community could stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions at current levels further warming will continue for as much as 100 years because of thermal lags in the climate system.
--The mainstream scientific view holds that the world is likely running out of time to prevent rapid, nonlinear, and potentially catastrophic warming.

Romney has no idea about such ethical questions.  He mainly sees restrictive regulations as standing in the way of dollars able to be acquired by industries that should not be held to standards that would benefit the earth’s population.  His concerns are that we produce more jobs with fewer environmental regulations; that the energy sector has been stifled; that oil is more important to our well-being than controlling the environment; that EPA regulations target the entire American industrial base.  He says in his “Plan” that “green jobs” might actually hurt employment rather than help it; that the traditional energy sector -- oil, coal, gas and nuclear -- holds remarkable job-creating potential.  He has absolutely no idea of the ethical dimension of this issue.

And that is really the heart of the matter herein discussed.  He has no idea of the ethical dimensions of many issues.  He speaks about taxes and debt and industries and job creators and Chinese trade policies. But nowhere does he speak about human need, human potential, human concerns.  This is a man focused elsewhere, outside the ethical realm that involves community interactions.  His moral energy is focused on individual morality alone, and even there he fails to speak up when a woman is attacked, or when women are demeaned.  If you want a President who cannot be trusted to put himself and his policies on the line for community health and well-being, this is your man -- and you are welcome to him!

NO, He Won’t! Oh YES, He Will!

A major problem with the electorate is that there are just too many people out there who believe that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won’t do what they say they will do once they’re in office.  It is one of the worst attributes that some voters possess: they actually discount what they see and hear.  They think that this man Romney can’t be what he seems to be; that he can’t mean what he actually says in his plans because he flip-flops on almost every issue; that in the end most people just aren’t unfair, detached, untruthful, mean-spirited or other than middle-of-the-road in their beliefs.  

But the truth is that there are politicians who actually do what they say they will because their sponsors demand it.  Romney said he will cut many taxes on the “job creators” (multi-millionaires like him).  He will cut the top income tax rates, the estate tax, the corporate tax, the tax on dividends and the tax on overseas businesses who try to repatriate their profits, but he will never say how to pay for all that lost income.  Ryan says we must change Medicare.  They will, but not for the better because their aim is to diminish that program until it either goes away or ends up with state governments.  They say that Social Security is not going to be solvent in a few years and that they must change it.  They will, and younger adults will be left with their money being filtered through the banks and Wall Street firms (with extra fees) as they try to live in retirement off their individual accounts; at a later age, by the way.  They want another war because war brings new productiveness, sacrifice, and sometimes austerity, as well as prosperity for some who can capitalize on its exigencies.  They will repeal the many good things that Obamacare instituted and women, children and seniors will suffer the most from their losses. 

If Mitt Romney had his way, he might move back to the center of the political spectrum (as he has already attempted to do).  But a Romney presidency will be reduced to doing the bidding of the Radical Right, the Tea Party types who now control the GOP.  They already have proposed the most egregious legislation on many issues that matter to them just waiting for him to win.   Let’s take a look.

1.  H.R.6518 - State Nutrition Assistance Flexibility Act of 2012 
To replace certain Federal nutrition programs with a block   grant to the States
2.    H.R.358 - Protect Life Act
    To amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to modify special rules relating to coverage of abortion services under such Act.  Amends the new health care law so that no federal money could be applied to health insurance plans that cover elective abortions, even if the abortion coverage is paid for entirely with private funds. It also states that a federal agency can not force a health care provider that accepts Medicare or Medicaid to provide abortion services, even in cases when the mother's life is endangered.
3.    H.R.2 - Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act
    To repeal the so-called job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.  Passed the House on Feb 1, 2011
4.    H.R.212 - Sanctity of Human Life Act
    To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization
5.   H.R.6173 - PRO-LIFE Act
    To amend the General Education Provisions Act to prohibit Federal education funding for elementary schools and secondary schools that provide on-campus access to abortion providers
6.    H.R.822 - National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011
    To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide a national standard in accordance with which nonresidents of a State may carry concealed firearms in the State
7.    H.R.25 - Fair Tax Act
    To promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the States
8.    S.3445 - Domestic Energy and Jobs Act
    A bill to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, to provide for the development of a plan to increase oil and gas exploration, development, and production under oil and gas leases of Federal land, and for other purposes
9.   H.R.1135 - Welfare Reform Act of 2011
    To provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs
10.    H.R.5 - Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2011
    To improve patient access to health care services and provide improved medical care by reducing the excessive burden the liability system places on the health care delivery system; provisions regulating lawsuits for health care liability claims

From tort reform, to health care repeal, to limiting welfare programs, to energy excesses, to preventing choice as to abortion or telling us when life begins, but touting gun-carrying everywhere; the Radical Republicans are geared up for a legislative tsunami if and when they take charge of the White House, the Congress and the already pretty much in-their-hands Judiciary.  

For those who think that most of this will not take place, be warned that some of this legislation has already passed the House, but not the Senate.  If both houses contain a majority of Republicans, and Romney is elected, everyone can be assured that much of this legislation will be passed by both houses and sent on to a President Romney who will inevitably sign the bills into law.  It’s a very good bet that the first to be passed will be Eric Cantor’s bill on repealing Obamacare.  Follow that with the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and you have two attacks on the middle class that will be felt from Maine to California.  It’s only a matter of time.
 
So, if you are one who believes that electing Romney is the way to go because his views will moderate, you will be taking the risk of a lifetime.  The change that will come to this society with the ascendancy of this man and this Party is nothing short of revolutionary because that is their aim, their target, their mission.  They believe in a society and government that is built on individual initiative and responsibility, but unlike most of us, they also believe that the “fittest” or the strongest should govern.  That leads to a concept of power that is antithetical to a society governed by representatives of the people who are to reflect the will of that people.  In spite of the name of their Party, and their emphasis on states being closer to the people, and their slogans about individual liberty, they are not immune from forcing their views and ideology on the people from the vantage point of the central government whenever they get that chance. 

One example is all that legislation about “protecting life”.  Their anti-abortion tenets take away choice, life-saving of the mother, and freedom from interference in our private lives by the national government.  They throw out some of their principles in order to protect that one belief.  They even allow the Constitution’s prohibition of non-establishment of a religion to be breached by churches that hold the strongest anti-abortion views when those churches receive federal funds for their institutions, but assert “religious liberty” when the government requires them to carry out certain health insurance requirements.  Another example is their pro-active stance on military intervention in other countries.  They force upon all of us a view that the military must be showered with our tax money to support the strongest military forces in the world.  This ends up giving our money to support ineffective weapons, unneeded weapon systems, contractor abuses, and support of bases spread throughout the world, some of which could be closed without affecting national security. 

The primary flaw in their argument for smaller government, and less intrusive central government, hinges on the fact that they are willing to spend enormous amounts of money to maintain a majority in the Congress and to win the Presidency.  Why is that?  How come they want so much to control the national government if it is such a source of economic and social problems?  Well, it just might be that they want to control every aspect of our lives that it is possible to control so that their concept of society, morality, religion, and capitalism can be manipulated through that government.  Is that why they hate Liberalism so much?  Because liberals are known to be more open, more choice- oriented, more apt to support people in need, and certainly more progressive in attitudes toward most aspects of life?  They vehemently oppose liberal attitudes toward community responsibility for the betterment of life and living.

Let us not get too philosophical.  Let’s stay in the pragmatic mode.  Romney and Ryan are not running simply to make the economy better.  That is a crock.  That would happen eventually anyway, building on the stimulus measures put in place by the Obama administration.  They are not running to broaden and lead the middle class and the working class to greater prosperity.  Their attitude toward health reform and “entitlements” alone denies that.  They can’t be running to improve America’s reputation in the world.  After all, they oppose the involvement of the UN in almost all of our concerns.  Their bellicosity bespeaks a different agenda:  to prove our exceptionalism. 

So why are they running?  To change the direction of America.  To enhance the business community in general.  To keep their donors intact.  To get rid of the concept of a “welfare State.”  To end “entitlements.”  To assert the primacy of the conservative approach to society and to government.  To foster states rights and primacy over that of the federal government.  To return control of the Presidency to the white race.  To keep women “in their place” by rolling back years of  progress toward equal pay, contraceptive health care, re-definitions of rape that favor the perpetrators, and by removing funds from agencies like Planned Parenthood.  To lead us all down the primrose path to believing that Republicans don’t overspend when every Republican administration for the last few decades has shown a deficit and has increased the size of government.  To convince us that Republicans should hold power from now until eternity.

Maybe that portion of the electorate mentioned at the beginning will believe what they see and hear when their children have no Head Start, their children’s education falls farther and farther behind that of other developed countries; when getting a Pell grant for college is impossible, when college is entirely unaffordable except at a very few schools of higher learning.  Maybe they will awaken when they realize that abortion has become illegal, and cannot be performed even to save a mother’s life.  Perhaps waking up will take the fact that grandma can get no support for a nursing home and she has to move in with the grandchildren, or that seniors are having to work until they drop because of the lack of health care and a social security system that is out of reach because of the increase in the age eligibility.  Maybe it will come home to some when their children have children with disabilities and they can’t find affordable help for those children because of program cuts and inadequate, understaffed state Programs that used to be funded by something  known as Medicaid. 

Beware of  ostrich syndrome.  Take your head out of the sand and realize before its too late that they mean what they say.  They are going to do all this, and more, to YOU!

Who Won the Debate? Pinocchio!

It is somewhat exhilarating and affirming that what one says in one week’s blog is confirmed the next week by a presidential candidate.  Mitt Romney, in the first of the presidential debates, made it perfectly clear that what I said on this Blog last week is patently true:  the real platform of the Republican Party is that of lies and distortions.  Romney presented us with no fewer than 15 lies or distortions and probably more (some counted 28).  Let’s start by listing his Ten Most Shameless Lies as contained in an article by Alex Kane on AlterNet.org:

1. An ‘Unelected Board’ Controlling Your Health Care
    In reality, as the Associated Press points out , the board that is tasked with bringing down Medicare costs is prohibited from “rationing care, shifting costs to retirees, restricting benefits or raising the Medicare eligibility age. So the board doesn't have the power to dictate to doctors what treatments they can prescribe.”
2. A Bipartisan Record
    ABC News calls the claim “not quite factual.” Indeed: Romney’s health care plan was enacted with the help of a Democratic legislature. But in general, the body was “frustrated” with Romney “because he wanted to govern like a ‘CEO’ and ‘didn’t pay heed to the legislature and they resented that,’” according to the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation’s Michael Widmer.
3. Dodd-Frank Labels Banks as ‘Too Big to Fail’
    As ThinkProgress notes, this is far from the truth: “the law merely says that the biggest, systemically risky banks need to abide by more stringent regulations . If those banks fail, they will be unwound by a new process in the Dodd-Frank law that protects taxpayers from having to pony up for a bailout.”
4. Obamacare Leads to Loss of Healthcare
    Governor Romney claimed that the passage of the Affordable Care Act will lead to 20 million people losing health insurance.  PolitiFact’s final verdict on the claim is: “That number is cherry-picked, and he’s wrong to describe it as only including people who ‘like’ their coverage, since many of those 20 million will be leaving employer coverage voluntarily for better options. ”
5. The Failure of the Obama Economy
    Romney hammered Obama on the economy’s performance over the past four years. One claim Romney made was this: “[We have] 23 million people out of work...The proof of that is that 50 percent of college graduates this year can't find work.”
    The AP breakdown of the facts on this claim: “The number of unemployed is 12.5 million, not 23 million. ”  And on the college graduate claim, Romney was also wrong. Back to the AP: “A Northeastern University analysis for The Associated Press found that a quarter of graduates were probably unemployed and another quarter were underemployed, which means working in jobs that didn't make full use of their skills or experience.”
6. Obamacare Cuts Billions From Medicare
    This was one of Romney’s favorite attack lines debate night: the notion that the Affordable Care Act is siphoning off funds from Medicare, giving the impression that the law takes money already allocated to Medicare away from current recipients, which is why it gets only a "half true" rating.   The specific claim is that $716 billion was cut from Medicare because of the Affordable Care Act.  "That amount — $716 billion — refers to Obamacare's reductions in Medicare spending over 10 years, primarily paid to insurers and hospitals," says PolitiFact. What the number refers to is money that is saved “primarily through reducing over-payments to insurance companies under Medicare Advantage, not payments to beneficiaries. Paul Ryan’s budget plan keeps those same cuts , but directs them toward tax cuts for the rich and deficit reduction,” ThinkProgress notes.  But perhaps more to the point, because the savings are over a decade, and, since this money is in savings, there will never be a lump sum that Romney can “give back.”
7. Gas Prices Increase
    Romney said that “gasoline prices have doubled under the president. Electric rates are up.” This is true--but to blame it on the president is highly misleading. Instead, as the Associated Press states, “Gasoline prices are set on financial exchanges around the world and are based on a host of factors, most importantly the price of crude oil used to make gasoline, the amount of finished gasoline ready to be shipped and the capacity of refiners to make enough to meet market demand.”
    The AP also skewers Romney’s claim on electric rates going up: “Retail electricity prices have.…grown by an average of less than 1 percent per year, less than the rate of inflation and slower than the historical growth in electricity prices.”
8. Health Care Costs Rising Under Obama
    FactCheck.org was on this false claim back when Romney used it on the campaign trail in September: “Romney says health insurance premiums have gone up $2,500 (per family) under Obama. The actual increase has been $1,700, most of which was absorbed by employers and only a small part of which is attributable to the health care law, which is why it gets only a "half true" rating.
9. Oil and Gas Production Increases Only on Private Land
    The former Massachusetts governor said debate night that “all of the increase in natural gas and oil has happened on private land...Your Administration has cut the numbers of permit and licenses in half.”  ABC News says Romney is playing loose with the facts. Data from the Bureau of Land Management shows that “the number of drilling permits on federal lands approved during the fiscal years President Obama has been in office has decreased somewhere between 20 and 37 percent compared to the years before he became president - not the 50 percent Romney claimed.”
10. No Tax Cuts for the Rich
    To fend off the perception that he’s only concerned about the wealthy, Romney made sure to emphasize that his economic plan would not lower tax rates on rich people.  Think Progress has the details on that claim: “If Romney were to actually implement his plan to reduce tax rates by 20 percent while eliminating tax deductions in order to pay for it, taxpayers with more than $200,000 would certainly see a tax cut. But everyone else — 95 percent of Americans —will see their taxes increase.” The New York Times notes that Romney "has proposed cutting all marginal tax rates by 20 percent — which would in and of itself cut tax revenue by $5 trillion."
   
So, the question becomes:  is an inveterate liar and flip-flopper someone we want to put in the White House as President of these United States? 

Maybe that’s exactly what a significant number wants, so that they do not have to face the reality of today’s economy, or the reality of a global economy, or the reality of having to fight through the worst recession since the Great Depression.  Or, more to the point, maybe they are simply tired of hearing how difficult it is to climb out of the mini-depression we have been forced in to by Bush policies that augured trouble from the beginning.

Interestingly, George W. Bush prepared us for this barrage of untruthfulness.  The original reason for the Iraq War perpetrated by his administration was that Iraq had weapons of “mass destruction” and would use them at a moment’s notice.  Secondarily, it was because Al Qaeda was active there (which it was not, of course).   Then, we were led down a primrose path regarding our individual rights, and all kinds of scare tactics were put into use to keep the American people in support of the War.  The Patriot Act made us more vulnerable to government intervention in our lives: all public travel but mainly air travel, surveillance, including the government’s ability to search our private documents and belongings without cause, or to take our pictures without permission, confiscate our computers or library records or what have you, just to see if we had any terrorist tendencies.

We did, after all, buy into this craziness.  And here we are again, allowing a Presidential candidate to lie to us over and over in order to win a debate and to put himself back in the running for the highest office in the land.  But here are a few of his commitments out of which he cannot squeeze:

First of all, whatever he says to the contrary, Mitt Romney is committed to the people of his economic class.  He is going to see that they are well taken care of.  You can’t say that he won’t favor the rich when he has already promised them:
A reduction in the corporate tax rate to 25%
To reverse Executive orders that favor labor especially the one encouraging use of union labor on government construction projects
To lower and then eliminate the estate tax
To lower tax rates for investment income to 15%
Continue the Bush tax cuts that favor the aggrandizement of the 1% over $250k per year
Lower the marginal tax rates (meaning the top rates) substantially from35% to something around 28%
In the long run, lower and flatten the tax rates (which automatically favors the rich)

Second, Mitt Romney is committed to making ours an austere economy for millions of our people, by:

-Immediately moving to cut and cap spending at 20% of GDP, meaning that many programs aiding vulnerable or poorer citizens will have to be cut.  Even Big Bird will take a hit!
-Immediately cutting non-discretionary spending by 5%, reducing the annual federal budget by about $20 billion, by his own estimate.
-By instituting “entitlement  reform,” which comes down to an assault on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as Food Stamps.  Block granting some of these entitlements - like Medicaid and food stamps -- to the states will have the effect of increasing administrative costs for those states who will then have to cut other  programs in order to maintain even a semblance of the benefits now offered.
-By cutting federal government personnel across the board by 10% or more which will have the effect of gutting some programs and curtailing the services of others.
-By eliminating the Affordable Health Care Act, he will devastate millions of people who had already benefited: young adults up to age 26 no longer on parents’ policies; women - no longer able to receive certain services with no charge; seniors - no more help with their medicines: the donut hole returns; and no more restrictions on private insurance conglomerates who will raise your rates, restrict your benefits and cap your payments for certain procedures and services; to say nothing about the fact that a pre-existing condition can again prevent you from even getting insurance!   

Third, no matter what he says, we can count on Mitt Romney to mess-up our foreign relations.  He’s already shown how well he can do that!  But the devastating conclusion is that a bellicose attitude toward other nations, brought on by a jingoist concept of “exceptionalism,” is bound to get us into more wars.  We may be unique among democracies, we may be a leader in certain areas of manufacturing, we may be a wonderful people, and have a beautiful country with great schools and colleges and health care facilities; we may be many things, but “exceptional” crosses a line between special and outright arrogant.  Calling ourselves exceptional but acting as though we are simply better than everyone else, does not make it so.  We must demonstrate our best intentions in our relations with other countries.  Actions speak louder than words and we can be exceptional only when others come to regard us as such by how we act.

So, let us ask again:  do we really want a President who has shown over and over that he will lie, distort, and change his policies and ideas just to get ahead?  I think we have had enough of that in the previous administration.  Romney will listen to his rich friends.  Romney will act as he is told to act by the radical right controllers of his Party. Romney will not move to the center as many predict because his Party is not there.  But mostly Romney will lie to you whenever he is in trouble on any front.  That is his pattern, in business and in government, and it is not going to change.  In order to be the kind of CEO he was, Romney had to “fit” the circumstances or the constituency with which he was presented.  Distorting the truth for him is a way of life; it leads to his kind of success.  Manipulating people, firing them, stripping them of meaningful jobs was his way of life with Bain.  The aggressiveness, the distortions, the outright lies used at Wednesday’s debate was not just for that moment; it is his modus operandi - his manner of operation. 

An untruthful and vacillating President is a disaster in a free and democratic society.  So be aware, be cautious, be wary.  Here are some questions to ask yourself:

*Can I trust Romney as President to protect Medicare from being diminished or developed into an inadequate voucher program, when he actually has praised his running mate’s budget that intends to do just that?
*Can I trust Romney to keep the plusses in Obamacare, such as no pre-existing conditions, children under age 26 being on parents plan, making drug costs less expensive for seniors, or even the improvement of the quality of health care? 
*Can I trust Romney to advocate for the middle class and the poor when he seeks to cut entitlements, cut government spending, and cut programs like food stamps?
*Can I trust Romney when he says that he won’t raise the taxes of the middle income group to pay for tax cuts for the rich and corporations?
*Can I trust Romney to put in place any protections for consumers, since he favors massive changes in regulations that control businesses, wall street, banks and the environment? 
*Can I trust Romney to invest the funds necessary to improve our environment, to put us on a track toward oil independence, when he talks only about cutting regulations, getting rid of the EPA, and depending on our own limited oil resources?  When he believes “green jobs” actually hurt employment more than help it?
*Can I trust Romney to enhance our public school system when he advocates for state and local control as opposed to federal involvement?  Can I trust him to advocate for teachers as professionals when he opposes unions and supports a budget that does not envision supporting more teachers?  Can I trust Romney to care about school building refurbishing when he stands against government help for such matters?
*Can I trust Romney to do anything about our crumbling infrastructure when he believes that such “intervention” is not appropriate?
*Do we really want a President who lies to us, deceives us, and changes policies every time he confronts a particular constituency?  Do we really want such a man to have the power to appoint Supreme Court Justices, to hold the detonator of hydrogen bombs in his hands, to command the strongest military in the world?

While President Obama has a specific and concrete plan to stimulate our economy, and has already demonstrated the effectiveness of that plan in moving us forward, Romney wants to go back to the failed policies that got us into this mess.  Romney not only won’t discuss specifics on almost any topic, he purports to keep some things secret until he can discuss them with Congress.  Can I trust Mitt Romney in any matter? since it is unclear what he believes; since he changes positions on issues at the drop of a hat; since he lies or distorts facts and data to suit his own purposes?  Not on YOUR life!