Romney Isn’t Concerned | Krugman - NYT
Romney Isnt Concerned | Krugman - NYT
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 2, 2012
If youre an American down on your luck, Mitt Romney has a message for you: He doesnt feel your pain. Earlier this week, Mr. Romney told a startled CNN interviewer, Im not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.
Faced with criticism, the candidate has claimed that he didnt mean what he seemed to mean, and that his words were taken out of context. But he quite clearly did mean what he said. And the more context you give to his statement, the worse it gets.
First of all, just a few days ago, Mr. Romney was denying that the very programs he now says take care of the poor actually provide any significant help. On Jan. 22, he asserted that safety-net programs yes, he specifically used that term have massive overhead, and that because of the cost of a huge bureaucracy very little of the money thats actually needed by those that really need help, those that cant care for themselves, actually reaches them.
This claim, like much of what Mr. Romney says, was completely false: U.S. poverty programs have nothing like as much bureaucracy and overhead as, say, private health insurance companies. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has documented, between 90 percent and 99 percent of the dollars allocated to safety-net programs do, in fact, reach the beneficiaries. But the dishonesty of his initial claim aside, how could a candidate declare that safety-net programs do no good and declare only 10 days later that those programs take such good care of the poor that he feels no concern for their welfare?
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rurallib
(62,483 posts)"At this rate, we may soon have politicians who admit what has been obvious all along: that they dont care about the middle class either, that they arent concerned about the lives of ordinary Americans, and never were. "
very true, very true
Stuart G
(38,458 posts)Boombaby
(139 posts)Rec
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)DallasNE
(7,404 posts)Fine" is a pants on fire lie. His proposal on taxes is wildly skewed to the very rich. The top 2% would receive over 50% of the tax benefit. This means that the very rich are the only people he truly cares about. Can anything Romney says be trusted?
CAPHAVOC
(1,138 posts)The Gop is going to nominate Romney. This could be the first 50 state win.
DallasNE
(7,404 posts)Even Goldwater carried 6 States in 1964. http://presidentelect.org/e1964.html
Current polls nationwide do show Obama up by more than the margin of error and after today's employment report the spread should only edge up.
Something I think is under reported is that Romney not long ago gave each of his 5 sons $100 million tax free. (More special loupholes available only to people like Romney). That means that the immediate Romney family is worth roughly $750 million. Not too shabby for 15 years of work -- a cool $50 million a year.
GTurck
(826 posts)on Facebook and added that an aristocrat's carriage in Paris killed a child and that had been the last straw for the French poor; it started the French Revolution. Apparently the rich are not only tone-deaf they are also historically illiterate.
malthaussen
(17,241 posts)n/t
GTurck
(826 posts)Glad someone caught my allusion. Apparently they don't make preppies read "A Tale of Two Cities".
Response to BootinUp (Original post)
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