How Voting for Mitt Might be Worse than a Second Obama Term

Tim Bean

7/13/2012

 

Okay, hear me out here, because I know that there will be many out there who are a firm believer in the philosophy in we have got to get President Obama out of the White House ASAP.  Okay, fine, I am not a huge fan of our current President  either (to say the least), but we all need to be very careful not to fall into the hype of the Republican propaganda machine.

I have written more than once about how there is essentially no difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party outside of rhetoric.  I have said that these two parties are essentially two sides of the same coin, and while I cannot say that I “coined” (sorry for the pun) that phrase, all I ask each and every one of us to do is look at the facts.  Many Republicans have called for the shrinkage of the federal government, but in fact the federal government has expanded under Republican leadership, as well as those dastardly Democrats.  Hell, just look at the last Bush administration, No Child Left Behind expanded the Department of Education, which is one of the departments that damn near every Republican has pledged to eighty-six as a federal department.  Doesn’t it seem rather odd to increase the involvement of and grow a department that is supposed to be on the budgetary chopping block?  Then there is the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, which not only expanded the federal government, but created a redundant department, and the name of the department has a decidedly dystopian, “1984,” “Fahrenheit 451” name applied to it, plus there is the rather disconcerting fact that it sounds distinctly similar to the Nazi rhetoric about protecting the paterland and the Soviet rhetoric about their motherland.  Hell, even Ronald Reagan, the modern patron saint of the Republican Party raised taxes in both 1982 and 1984, when combined they were the largest tax increase ever enacted during peacetime.  Those are just a fraction of the examples where the Republican Party has persistently lied to their faithful followers, and I am here to tell you that Mitt Romney is essentially President Obama’s doppelganger.  Sure they may differ on some ancillary issues, like abortion, immigration, and marriage equality, but those are not the pressing issues of the day.   The unsustainable growth of both the size of the federal government, and the ever expanding federal deficit are.  Mitt Romney is every bit about big government as his Democratic twin.  Below is part of an article from Carla Howell, who is a political activist and succeeded in many initiatives to roll back taxes in Massachusetts (whose nick name is Taxachusetts), the state that Mitt was once Governor of:

Taxes

Romney claims to be anti-tax. He even “took” a “no new taxes” pledge when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts in 2002. “Took” is in quotes because he refused to sign that pledge. His signature wasn’t necessary, he claimed. He assured us that he’s a man of his word.

But Mitt Romney has been a champion of new taxes.

Mitt Romney proposed three new taxes while campaigning for governor: a new tax on vehicles, a new tax on campaign donations, and a new tax on building construction. They didn’t get much fanfare in the media and were quickly forgotten.

Right before the 2002 election, he ran millions of dollars in ads portraying himself as a “no new taxes” governor. The media refused to set the record straight.

But that was only the beginning.

Each of the four years Romney served as governor, he raised taxes – while pretending he didn’t. He claims he only raised mandatory government “fees.” But government mandatory fees are nothing but taxes, and taxes are nothing but mandatory government fees. Romney’s new tax-fees raised hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenue for the state government every year.

In addition to:

• scores of new tax-fees,

Mitt Romney also increased several other taxes by:

• “closing loopholes” to enable collection of a new Internet sales tax
• passing legislation that enables local governments to raise Business Property Taxes
• enacting a new tax penalty that raises Income Taxes on both individuals and small businesses.

This, he claims, is not raising taxes.

I suppose you could say Romney merely enacted bills that force taxpayers to hand over billions of dollars – which end up in the coffers of the government.

Quacks like a tax increase?

In 2008, Romney boasted that he was the first presidential candidate to sign a “taxpayer protection pledge,” in which he promised to oppose “any and all efforts” to increase income taxes on people or businesses.

So he’ll call his tax increases “government fees” or “closing loopholes” or “penalties” or something else. But if Romney is president, the IRS will collect this money from you, your family, your friends, and millions of Americans just like you.

Government Spending

Mitt Romney claims to have cut the Massachusetts budget by “$2 billion.” Sometimes he claims he cut it “$3 billion.” The media gives him free advertising by parroting this myth repeatedly. They repeat it so often that even many fiscal conservatives and libertarians assume it must be true.

But these “cuts” were merely budget games. Spending cuts in one area were simply moved into another area of the budget.

In fact, not only did Mitt Romney refuse to cut the overall Massachusetts budget, he expanded it. Dramatically.

The Massachusetts state budget was $22.7 billion a year when he took office in January of 2003.

When he left office four years later, it was over $25.7 billion – plus another $2.2 billion in spending that the legislature took “off budget.” (Romney never reminds us of this fact.)

The net effect of budgets proposed and signed into law by Mitt Romney? An additional $5.2 billion in state spending – and a similar increase in new taxes. Every year.

He claims to have done a good job as governor of liberal Massachusetts in light of the fact that it’s a “tough state” for poor “conservatives” like him. He infers his hands were tied by the predominantly Democratic legislature.

But when it comes to tax and spend policies, he’s not only in lockstep with the Democrats. He leads the way.

Each of the four years Romney served as governor, he started budget negotiations by proposing an increase of about $1 billion in new government spending. Before the legislature even named a budget figure.

Romney initiated massive new spending – without any prodding.

The legislature responded with a handful of line item budget increases. Romney agreed to some of them and vetoed others. The media helped him out again by making fanfare of his vetoes and portraying him as tough on spending – after he had already given away the store!

The Romney-Kennedy Alliance

But his grande finale was the worst of all: RomneyCare, Mitt Romney’s version of socialized medicine.

By his own admission, he didn’t plan his socialized medicine scheme until after the 2002 election.

During Romney’s governor campaign, he convinced voters that his Democrat rival would be worse – because she would saddle us with socialist tax-and-spend policies, he said.

But soon after he was elected, Romney started the drumbeat for socialized medicine. Three years later, he signed RomneyCare into law.

Voters of Massachusetts did not vote for RomneyCare. Mitt Romney foisted the granddaddy of Big Government expansions upon them without warning. He championed it from the beginning. Again, without any prodding from his Democrat rivals.

When Romney ran for U.S. Senate in 1994, his campaign popularized the derogatory term “Kennedy country” to describe the devastating effects of Ted Kennedy’s “liberal social programs” on poor neighborhoods in Massachusetts.

Yet Mitt Romney stood proudly with Ted Kennedy while he signed RomneyCare into law.

Ted Kennedy has pushed for socialized medicine for decades. Romney fulfilled his dream. Kennedy lobbied the legislature hard to get Romney’s bill passed. It was a Romney-Kennedy alliance.

Welcome to Massachusetts: Romney-Kennedy country.

Romney’s socialized medicine law mandates everyone who doesn’t have insurance to buy it – or suffer income tax penalties. Both individuals and small businesses face steep fines if they refuse to give up their freedom to make their own health care choices. There’s yet another “off budget” Mitt Romney tax increase.

Romney’s mandate will cost individual taxpayers many thousands of dollars every year in health insurance premiums for unwanted policies – or force them to pay sizable tax penalties.

The total cost of RomneyCare in mandates and new spending? At least several billion dollars every year – to start. It will rise from there, as socialized medicine programs are wont to do.

Romney’s law went into full effect in 2009. Its harmful effects were not felt until after the 2008 presidential election was over. Romney’s time-release tax increase.

Romney’s Words Versus Romney’s Deeds

Smart moms tell their kids, “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.”

That advice saved me a lot of heartache. And it will do the same for anyone who is leaning towards voting for Mitt Romney.

Candidate Romney campaigns for president with the words we’re aching to hear. Words we want to believe. Candidate Romney tells us that he is a:

• “fiscal conservative”
• “friend of small business”
• “tax cutter”
• “waste fighter”
• “opponent of runaway spending”
• “tough leader who vetoes new taxes and needless government spending”

Let’s follow Mom’s advice: ignore candidate Romney’s words. Look at elected Governor Romney’s deeds.

What does he do when he’s elected?

Mitt Romney hits up taxpayers with a variety of new taxes – while pretending he doesn’t.

Mitt Romney jacks up government spending as much as any Big Government Democrat would.

Mitt Romney champions massive Big Government Programs – that made Ted Kennedy proud.

Now, I apologize that this article is running long, but I think it is important for people to know what they are going to get, even if they choose to elect Mitt Romney, which is where electing him might be worse than re-electing Obama.  As it stands right now the Republican Party has a pretty good chance of retaining their majority in the House, and gaining a majority in the Senate, so should Mitt Romney win the White House they will essentially “own” the federal government, which means that they will be able to act at will on their agenda, which I can assure you will not be smaller government.  Sure, Mitt has vowed to repeal AND replace “Obamacare,” but with what?  Remember Obamacare is modeled directly after his Romneycare (which the citizens of Massachusetts did not have a chance to vote on – it was shoved down their throats), so as I have said in the past, I doubt he (Mitt) is fully committed to dismantling his brain child.  With a Republican controlled government you can damn sure bet that there would be little opposition to one of their own wishing to add bloat to the federal government.  So, if you honestly want to stop runaway government spending, bloat, and intrusion into your daily lives, then the logical choice would be to not vote for either of these guys; instead cast your vote for Gary Johnson, former two term governor of New Mexico, and a proven track record of smaller, less intrusive government.  However, since I know that many out there will not do this, then the only thing that we can really hope for is gridlock in Washington, which will most assuredly slow the growth of government.  To have that we cannot have one party or the other owning all of the power in Washington – remember Obamacare was passed when the Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and The White House, and given Mitt’s track record I doubt things would be much different if he and his fellow Republicans gained a monopoly too.