“Ann Romney’s Inconvenient Facts”: Other Than tax Returns, “There’s Nothing We’re Hiding”
As a rule, family members of candidates shouldn’t be considered political players, but once those family members become campaign surrogates and enter the political sphere making partisan arguments, there’s nothing inappropriate about scrutinizing their comments.
Take Ann Romney’s latest defense of her husband’s secrecy, for example.
Ann Romney sat down with NBC’s Natalie Morales and when the subject turned to the still-hidden tax returns, the Republican became quite agitated. Romney insisted that her husband’s campaign has done “what’s legally required of us,” which is true, but fails to meet accepted norms, standards, and expectations.
She added, “There’s going to be no more tax releases given.” I assume that means outside of the 2011 returns Mitt Romney has promised to release, but has not yet disclosed, though Ann Romney didn’t elaborate.
She went on to say, “There’s nothing we’re hiding.” Except the tax returns, the tax rates paid, and the explanation for the Swiss bank account, the shell corporation in Bermuda, and the cash in the Cayman Islands. Other than hiding all of that, they’re not hiding anything.
And why will the Romneys refuse all additional calls for disclosure, even from Republicans? According to Ann Romney, it’s because Democrats might use the materials to make Mitt Romney look bad.
I continue to marvel at this deeply odd argument. As Dahlia Lithwick and Raymond Vasvari recently explained, “[Romney] isn’t actually claiming that his opponents will lie. He’s claiming he’s entitled to hide the truth because it could be used against him…. These are tax returns. Factual documents. No different than, say, a birth certificate. But the GOP’s argument that inconvenient facts can be withheld from public scrutiny simply because they can be used for mean purposes is a radical idea in a democracy.”
And yet, this radical idea is now the Romneys’ only talking point on the issue.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 15, 2012
“Unconnected To A Concern With The Truth”: Mitt Romney’s Implausible Bid For The High Road
Politics is tough, and most politicians—including President Obama—are willing to bend the truth to win an election. But there’s a difference between the small distortions of all campaigns, and the brazen dishonesty we’re seeing from Romney. In a 48-hour period, Mitt Romney has doubled-down on the false charge that Obama has ended work requirements for welfare, lied about the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cost savings, and kicked up a storm over comments made by Vice President Joe Biden. That last one is noteworthy for the sheer chutzpah of Romney’s complaint.
During an event in Danville, Virginia (pronounced Dan-vul) with African-American supporters of the president, Biden deployed somewhat unfortunate language in attacking Romney’s promised repeal of financial reform:
“Romney wants to let the — he said the first 100 days — he’s gonna let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street,” Biden said at an event in Danville, Va. “They gonna put y’all back in chains.”
“Unchain” was a reference to Paul Ryan’s promise to “unshackle” the economy by repealing financial regulations and health care reform. And while Biden’s message is clear, it’s probably wise to avoid an allusion to slavery when talking to an audience of black people. Even still, it’s not a huge deal.
Wrong.
Team Romney wasted no time in jumping on the vice president’s rhetoric. “Well, there’s going to be folks across the country that will try and take that as some kind of code word that is going to suggest that the Republicans are trying to be racial in their programs,” said former New Hampshire governor John Sununu. Yesterday evening, while campaigning in Ohio, Romney referenced Biden’s remarks, attacking the Obama campaign for its “divisive” campaign:
“This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like. President Obama knows better, promised better, and America deserves better,” Romney told a roaring crowd of about 5,000 supporters in Chillicothe. “His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then try to cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose.”
Romney added, “Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”
It’s hard to take this seriously. As I said earlier, Romney began this week with two huge whoppers. In an ad called “Long History,” Romney repeats the charge that Obama has ended welfare’s work requirements, “On July 12th, Obama quietly ended work requirements for welfare. You wouldn’t have to work, and wouldn’t have to train for a job.” Romney used this line last week, and was promptly denounced for his mendacity, and not just from the usual collection of fact-checkers; both Ron Haskins (who built welfare reform) and Bill Clinton (who signed it) weighed in to dispute Romney’s claim, which Clinton called “not true.”
The most disgraceful thing about Romney’s welfare attack—which he continues to use—is that it’s an obvious ploy to associate Obama with “handouts.” Welfare is one of the most racialized issues in American politics, and Romney’s attacks are a clear callback to the “welfare queens” and “young bucks” that punctuated Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric. It’s only a little more subtle than Newt Gingrich’s declaration that Obama is a “food stamp” president, and serves a similar purpose: to erode Obama’s standing among white voters who reflexively oppose anything that might hand benefits to the “undeserving.”
The same idea (and goal) underlies Romney’s attacks on the Medicare savings in the Affordable Care Act—“The money you paid for guaranteed health care is now going to a massive government program, that’s not for you.” With the backdrop of a white senior, the message of this ad is plain to see: Obama is giving your tax dollars to minorities.
(Since this is bound to inspire protest from readers, I will point you in the direction of research detailing the tight connection between racial attitudes and support for government programs.)
This is why it’s hard to stomach Romney’s complaints about “anger” and “divisiveness”; they come less than two days after he has renewed his attempt to split white voters from Obama with tired tropes about the undeserving poor. And when you look at the whole of his general-election campaign—which includes regular attacks on Obama’s fictional “apology tour,” and routine lies about his job-creation record—there’s no way in which Romney is in a position to take the high road.
Philosopher Harry Frankfurt famously defined “bullshit” as a statement made without regard to its truth value. Whether it’s true or false is irrelevant—the point is to persuade. “[B]ullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true.”
If this doesn’t describe Mitt Romney, I’m not sure what does.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, August 15, 2012
“Private Fears”: How Ryanization Threatens The GOP
There is the idea of having Paul Ryan on the Republican ticket, and then there is the reality.
If conservative ideologues are over the moon at having their favorite conviction politician as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate, many Republican professionals — particularly those running this fall — are petrified. They freely express private fears that Democrats will succeed in Ryanizing the entire GOP.
What’s striking is not just that down-ballot Republican candidates are distancing themselves from Ryan’s proposals, particularly on Medicare, but that Romney won’t take ownership of them either, except in vague terms. Worse, the Romney apparatus is forcing Ryan to distance himself from his own budget. It was sad to watch Ryan dancing around these issues on Fox News Tuesday night and having to say that Romney is the boss. How long before conservatives start producing “Let Ryan Be Ryan” bumper stickers?
Oh, yes, and Ryan could not explain when his fiscal plan would balance the books (presumably because the right answer is somewhere past 2030). “I don’t know exactly when it balances,” Ryan told Brit Hume. So much for specificity.
To understand the elation Democrats feel about the Ryan choice, it’s useful to canvass their reactions in what will be one of the hardest battleground states for President Obama to hang onto. In 2008, Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate in 32 years to carry North Carolina. Now it is, with Indiana, one of the states most likely to move back to the GOP. “We’re at the pink end of the spectrum,” Rep. David Price, a Democrat who represents the Research Triangle area, said in a phone interview.
To Price, Ryan offers a double opportunity for the Democrats. The swing voters in his own district, he says, “are pretty practical and not enamored of the doctrinaire, ideological approach that Ryan exemplifies.” The very reasons that ideologues admire Ryan are the reasons that independents and moderates may be put off by him.
On top of that, Price said, “the issues of Medicare and Social Security are toxic for Ryan.” White voters in the current over-65 generation, more conservative than the New Deal era electoral cohort that has largely passed on, are now the base of the Republican Party. By putting Medicare on the ballot, Ryan threatens to push away core Republican voters.
That’s why Romney went up so quickly with advertisements attacking Obama for reducing spending on Medicare. One longtime Democratic organizer of senior citizens I spoke with here — his organization doesn’t let field staff speak for the record — noted that John McCain defeated Obama by eight points among voters over 65. “If Obama can cut that margin from eight to five, he wins,” the organizer said. “He doesn’t have to win that demographic. Closing the gap is a win.” His analysis is especially apt in North Carolina, where McCain beat Obama by 13 points among seniors.
Already, the North Carolina Democratic Party is out with lots of numbers — in other circumstances, Ryan might appreciate its wonkery — showing how the Ryan budget would hurt certain voter groups in the state. The party says that “1,368,646 North Carolinian seniors would be forced onto vouchers when they retire,” referring to the number of near-elderly citizens who would be affected a decade from now by Ryan’s idea of changing Medicare into a premium-support program. Repeal of the Obama health-care law, the party says, would move “154,884 North Carolina seniors back into the prescription drug ‘donut hole.’ ”
Walton Robinson, the Democrats’ state communications director, has his eye on a very specific demographic group that Ryan might move: older white rural women without college educations. Obama remains competitive in this state because of a large lead among female voters. Shifting this “one holdout group” Obama’s way, Robinson says, “could drive that gender gap even further apart.”
State Sen. Linda Garrou, a pro-business Democrat who has represented Winston-Salem for 14 years, is retiring after a Republican reapportionment broke up her district. She agrees that Ryan will help Democrats among older voters but is especially worried about Republican education cuts at all levels of government. She casts the choice as fundamental.
“The Romney/Ryan plan,” she said, “seems to say, ‘I’ve got mine, you get yours the best you can, the heck with you.’”
Americans often oppose government in the abstract but actually want it to do quite a lot. Thanks to Paul Ryan, this year’s debate will be anything but abstract.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, August 15, 2012
“Bain-Man”: Mitt Romney’s The “Angry” One, Not Obama
For months Mitt Romney has been a flip-flopping, all-over-the-map kind of guy, telling everyone who will listen whatever they want to get their vote. He was prochoice, now prolife. He imposed a healthcare mandate, now he thinks it’s unconstitutional. He wants transparency, except where his tax returns are concerned. He claims jobs creation, with no facts to back it up.
Speaking on the steps of a courthouse on his final stop of a four day bus tour, Romney is sounding more like the Republicans who are now pulling his strings. He was harsh in his criticism of the president, specifically about his campaign tactics. He accused President Barack Obama of “diversions and distractions” and “defaming others” in order to win re-election this November.
Obviously Romney has forgotten who his buddies are, and who are pulling his strings: the Republicans who are bending over for the Tea Party and Grover Norquist and for their rich financial campaign backers.
Has Romney forgotten the “diversions and distractions” of those who were questioning the president’s citizenship and place of birth long after he was elected? Has Romney forgotten the “defaming others” like what was done when House Speaker John Boehner said the president hadn’t worked a day in his life?!
Romney also accused the president of being “intellectually exhausted, out of ideas, and out of energy.” Hmm… Does Mitt Romney have any ideas? Of his own? Are there specifics? And is saying the president is “out of ideas” a “fresh idea” as Romney says the Obama campaign cannot offer?
I must say I was most shocked, although not surprised, by Romney’s accusation of the president “dividing us all in groups.” Isn’t wanting a baby born here of an undocumented immigrant not receiving citizenship divisive? Isn’t not wanting healthcare for the poor divisive? Isn’t wanting to cut programs that benefit middle- and lower-income women and families divisive? Hmm…sounds like Romney and his camp to me more than Obama. And with the addition of Rep. Paul Ryan as Romney’s vice presidential candidate, the race has become more polarized, more—dare I say—divisive?
“He demonizes some. He panders to others. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose,” Romney said. “So, Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago, and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.” Those were Mitt Romney’s words. Funny, I don’t remember that campaign ad slogan to smash America, etc.
Bottom line—it’s obvious in his rhetoric that the one who is angry is Romney. It is obvious by the rhetoric that Romney no longer speaks for himself but rather for the GOP—for they’re the ones writing his speeches.
By: Leslir Marshall, Washington Whispers, U. S. News and World Report, August 15, 2012
“Ryan’s America”: Here’s How Much It Would Hurt To Be Poor Under Paul Ryan’s Budget
There are many different ways to talk about Paul Ryan’s Roadmap, but maybe the most useful is to imagine how his budget affects your budget.
How much more money would you keep under his broad tax plan? How much more would you have to save to pay for health care?
And for the low-income, whom—as we’ll see—bear the brunt of Ryan’s cuts: How alone would they be in Ryan’s America?
But let’s start with a bit of basic arithmetic.
There are two ways that the government’s budget can affect yours. Clearly, one is taxes. More than 80 percent of government revenues comes from individuals’ wages and income. (The rest comes from corporate taxes and things like excise taxes on gasoline, which also affects our budgets, but less directly.)
Two is spending. Although most of us might think of government as providing public goods like airports and security, $3 out of every $5 Washington spends is basically insurance—a transfer to those who are old, sick, and poor. Social Security writes checks equal to 20% of government outlays. Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP account for another 20%. Safety net programs and benefits for veterans and federal retirees account for another 20%.
So, a full accounting of how Ryan’s budget would affect your budget must consider how much he would cut our taxes and how much he would cut our transfers.
TAXES. Ryan cuts income tax rates and abolishes investment taxes to reduce government revenues by about $450 billion* per year over the next ten years. (That’s after he makes permanent the Bush/Obama tax cuts.)
We don’t know exactly how Ryan’s tax cuts would break down by family income level, but the Tax Policy Center has published an estimate based on the Ryan-inspired budget passed by the House of Representatives this year. The upshot is that the federal income tax code—the one highly-progressive part of our tax system—would become significantly less progressive. Taxes would barely change (or even rise) on the low-income Americans, and the top 1% would see a windfall from the elimination of taxes on most of their investment income.
“Those making $1 million or more would enjoy an average tax cut of $265,000 and see their after-tax income increase by 12.5 percent,” TPC found. “By contrast, half of those making between $20,000 and $30,000 would get no tax cut at all.”**
SPENDING. Ryan is most famous for his Medicare plan, but if his budget became law at midnight tomorrow, the most dramatic changes over the next ten years would be everything but Medicare. That’s because Ryan’s long-term plan to move Medicare from a defined-benefit fee-for-service system (where government is your insurance) to a defined-contribution system (where government writes you a check to help you pay somebody else for insurance) is truly a long-term plan. It wouldn’t begin to take effect until the early 2020s. The typical family might prepare for a more modest Medicare by putting more money away. They might leave more of their salaries in a savings account. They might invest in the stock market, with the understanding that any gains wouldn’t be taxed. They might use their modest income gains to buy a house, with the intention to sell at a tax-free gain later.
Ryan slashes deeply, but he spares defense and Social Security, which, together, account for 40% of the budget. That means his $4 trillion in cuts come mostly out of health care spending, income security spending, and basic government duties. By 2023, Ryan would spend 16 percent less than Obama on income security programs like unemployment benefits and food stamps. He would spend a quarter less on transportation, and 13 percent less per veteran, according to Brad Plumer.
Medicaid spending would be shaved by about a third, and the Urban Institute calculated that a similar proposal would force the states to drop between 14 million and 27 million people from Medicaid by 2021 (note: that’s an extreme prediction). It’s not clear exactly what programs would be cut, or by exactly how much. What is clear is that everything within the bundle of government responsibility—from subsidizing science research to subsidizing education to keeping up national parks and law enforcement—would come under pressure for cuts to make room for the massive and regressive cuts to taxes.
What does that budget mean for your budget? It rather depends where you fall on the income ladder. Romney is relieving the richest Americans from some of their duties to pay for the risk-protection of the poor, and he is asking some of the poorest Americans to accept less help from the government in exchange for … well, the virtue of independence from government. It is stark, but broadly accurate, to say that the less you benefit from Ryan’s tax cuts, the more you would potentially suffer from Ryan spending cuts. It is possible—and, in Ryan’s vision, duly hope for—that devolving responsibilities from the federal government to the states and the private sector will drive efficiencies. But, as the GOP likes to point out about the president, “hope is not a policy,” and it is definitely not an inevitability.
Remember when Romney said he’s “not concerned about the very poor” because there’s a safety net for them? Well, there wouldn’t be the same safety net after Ryan’s plan took root. Romney doesn’t have to embrace every detail of Ryan’s plan, and he won’t. But he has embraced the philosophy of Ryan’s vision: That true freedom means freedom from government dependency, and that the poor are somehow richer, in spirit or in literalness, if they take less money from the government. Ryan believes that his budget could unlock spectacular growth and increase lower-income wages. And it might! But most of what we know about the impact of technology, emerging markets, and off-shoring suggests that gaping income inequality is a side-effect of global capitalism more than an outcome of progressive government.
This budget would have a very predictable outcome: It would make poor families poorer, and more exposed to the risks of medical or financial calamity, all under the banner of “Responsibility And Freedom.” Ryan is free to march under his banner. But don’t ask me to call it responsible.
By: Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, August 14, 2012
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