Mitt Romney’s credibility gap calls into question his suitability to be President of the United States. Voters have no idea which Mitt would inhabit the White House. His stance on many major policies are ever changing according to the audience he wants to persuade.
HEALTH CARE
It is simply not true, no matter how often Republican candidates declare, that the Obama health care law represents socialized medicine or that it took over one-sixth of the economy. Socialized medicine is a single-payer system, in which the government pays medical bills and controls costs (much like Medicare.). President Obama refused to commit to single-payer health care system,
Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts; this is an inconvenient fact that
Romney tries hard to ignore. Both plans try to deal with the problem of the uninsured by requiring an individual mandate. Originally Romney, the Heritage
Foundation and conservatives over the past two decades felt that the mandate
encouraged individual responsibility. Now it's a government takeover.
And so on day one Mitt Romney will try to reverse Obamacare and in so doing would deny access to health care to 40,000,000 Americans
FOREIGN POLICY
On foreign policy, the President has done everything that Republicans said was important:
- Kept us safe from attacks at home
- Eliminated Osama bin Laden
- Got our troops out of Iraq
- Decimated Al Qaeda, not by going starting an unnecessary war in Iraq where Al Qaeda didn’t exist but by going after them in Pakistan and Afghanistan where they actually were
And yet Romney paints the President as weak on foreign policy. At the same time, in the third debate, Romney said that he agreed with the President’s foreign policy.
On the issue of a two-state solution in Palestine, Romney said in a private recorded conversation that because the Palestinians only want to see the destruction of Israel, the problem will remain unresolved. He said “and we
kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will
happen and resolve it”. And yet, in his foreign policy speech, Gov. Romney said— “Finally, I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel. On this vital issue, the President has failed”.
In a period of a month, Romney’s position on Libya evolved into distinct
contradictory ones. In March of 2011, Romney criticized the Obama Administration for being weak and too slow to get
involved. When the U.S. and our NATO allies enforced a no-fly zone to help rebels oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Romney refused to answer reporter’s questions on his own position. Then in April Romney posted and op-ed at
Nationalreview.com in which he said that he agreed with President Obama’s
“specific, limited mission” but then criticized Obama for getting further
involved in what Romney termed “mission creep”.
First the President is too weak and slow and then he didn’t go far enough. We have no idea what Romney feels on the issue. He is too erratic and inconsistent. Is this the person we want running our country’s foreign policy?
JOB CREATION
As far as job creation, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said during the Republican Primary debates, “Well, Governor Romney left the private sector, and he did a great job of creating jobs in the private sector all around the world. But the fact is, when he moved that experience to government, he had one of the lowest job creation rates in the country. So the fact is, while he had a good private sector record, his public sector record did not match that.”
Perhaps that was true because Bain Capital did not create jobs. It created wealth for its investors. In fact in January of this year, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich called the Romney's former private equity firm "exploitive." The Bain model has meant "leverage the game, borrow the money, leave the debt behind and walk off with all the profits."
Romney refuses to acknowledge the facts of the Great Recession that President Obama inherited. And he offers no concrete alternatives to job creation. In January of 2009, when Obama took office, this country lost 700,000 jobs. The recession killed off 7.9 million jobs, many of which may never come back. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that the recession, which began in December 2007, officially ended in June 2009. Job recovery has been slow but the huge
monthly losses were stopped and reversed by the President. What single man could have completely reversed the job losses in this short period of time? Had Congress done its job and passed some of the American Jobs Act, progress surely would have been faster. Economists today say that no matter who becomes president in 2012, over 12 million jobs will be added in the coming decade
due to policies that were put in place during the past 4 years.
WOMEN’S RIGHTS
On the issue of women’s rights, I’ve seen claims on this website that there is no Republican war on women. However, the facts contradict this. Since the day the Republicans took control of the House in January, 2011 they have attempted to pass legislation that affects our health. As an example, House bill H.R. 358 or the “Protect Life Act” would have amended the part of the 2010 health care that deals with abortion coverage. It would allow hospitals that receive federal funds but are opposed to abortions to turn away women in need of emergency pregnancy termination to save their lives.
Mitt Romney supports the Personhood Amendment that several states have tried to pass into law. In fact, this embryo personhood concept is included in the Republican platform. This amendment to state constitutions would have changed the definition of when life begins. It states that a human being, with all its rights and privileges, exists at the point that an egg is fertilized by a sperm. Besides
outlawing all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest or when a woman's life is in danger, this law would affect a woman’s (and her husband’s) family planning. That is because it would outlaw many forms of birth control including the pill and IUDs since it would ban any contraception that may prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, including birth control pills and the IUD. There are implications of the law that include preventing embryonic cell research and closing fertility clinics.
Other evidence of a war on women include:
- Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really
be home with the kids, not out working. - Congressvoted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country
- Republicans have introduced over twenty bills seeking to mandate that a woman obtain an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion. Of these,
seven states are trying vaginal probe type.
Moreover, no one single vote demonstrates to me the Republican legislators’ and Romney’s opinion of women more than their unwillingness to endorse the Lily Ledbetter Act. This Act, passed by Democrats in 2008, guarantees equal pay for equal work for women.
Newt Gingrich himself weighed in on the question of Romney’s truthfulness in May 2012, on CNN's The Situation Room. Host Wolf Blitzer asked Gingrich if Romney is a liar. Gingrich said "I still believe that the
Romney campaign said things that weren't true,"
Not only has the candidate Romney changed his policy stance on many major issues but he has also misrepresented the truth about President Obama’s record during his administration.
I challenge the readers, no indeed I expect, them to find any errors in this blog. But the caveat is that you must at the very least point to facts from a reputable source that discredit the statements I have made. I will not respond to any comments that do not site a source for the information or that attack other participants on this blog.
