Romney is all about style over substance.
Some Romney quotes and my reactions to them.
"I believe with all my heart and soul that we face another time of choosing, one that will have profound consequences for our country" and underscored his belief that "America will remain as it is today, the envy of the world."
I believe that we are facing a time of choosing. There is nothing profound in saying that, it's called an election year. This election will have "profound consequences". I agree. We will either have business as usual or we will have an opportunity to change the road we're on.
The road we are on is one to ruin. For politically connected insiders it is a gilded road. The American Empire isn't likely to fall this year, or even this decade. There is still time to milk America. There are still sweetheart deals, no bid contracts, and shovel ready lucre to be had. If you are an "elite" or an "insider" or anywhere near the government gravy train, there is still time to enjoy sucking off Uncle Sam's tit.
What happens if a truly independent person gains control of the White House? What if the man with the hair gets in? What if he actually does, or even tries to do some of what he has promised? That would lead to "profound consequences", like maybe less room on the teat for the parasitical class.
And then he got to the point: "Let me put it very plainly: If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished."
He probably should have added, "for me and my buddies that depend on working the inside track for our lifestyle".
What will be "less safe"? Our military has bases in 130 countries according to Ron Paul. There are only 189 countries, meaning we have a military presence in 68% of the planet. Alexander the Great never had such power. How would Trump make us less safe? His "plans" aren't much more than expecting the nations of the world, who have been free loading on Pax Americana for over 60 years, to start footing more of the bill for their individual nations. Imagine that, expecting Japan and Germany, our former enemies, for those of you who graduated from public school, to pay for their own defense. How radical. How dangerous.
Trump's economic plan would "sink the country into depression," launch a trade war, and "balloon the deficit," he said.
Balloon the deficit? The only way the deficit grows is by spending more money than the government takes in in taxes. FWIW on Bush's last day in office the national debt stood at $10.6 trillion dollars; today its over $19 trillion. Obama is still an "establishment" approved candidate.
Launch a trade war? How? Do you mean industry, manufactures, employers and employees right here in America would get a shot a fighting back? The last year real wages grew in the United States was 1973. Our manufacturing and industrial base has shrunk every decade since then. To me, a war means fighting back. Fighting back, in my book, is better than rolling over and dying.
Is sinking the country into a depression really a concern at this point? By "depression" what does he mean? Less than 50% of the folks in America earn enough wages to pay federal income tax. Over 1/3 of people who are able and would work are out of the work force. Government bureaucrats continue to throw up roadblocks to economic growth.
He then said: "But you say wait, wait, wait, isn't he a huge business success, doesn't he know what he's talking about? No, he isn't and no he doesn't. His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them."In case anyone has missed it, America is broke. No matter who the next president is, America will still be broke. We have a on the books national debt of $19 trillion. We have an additional $205 trillion in unfunded entitlement obligations, for a total of over $224 trillion in outstanding future payments.
In comparison the value of all work for the entire year, the GDP in the US is $16.7 trillion. Total tax revenues were $3 trillion in 2014. If interest rates were just 3% the interest owed on just the debt would exceed $500,000,000,000 each year. If we were paying (and we will be if nothing changes) interest on the entire $224 trillion it would exceed $6.72 trillion, or more than 2 times the entire tax revenue of the country.
The only way to fix this economic reality is to drastically cut government spending to levels that are significantly below tax revenues, then pay off debt and radically axe entitlement programs. Doing that (Trump hasn't said he will) requires leadership and a willingness to go against the establishment self interest.
This kind of radical fiscal action isn't on anyone's, including Trump, list of campaign promises. America is playing an economic game of musical chairs. The music is going to stop. The question is do we let elites keep milking us dry or do we try to reduce the damage by facing yesterdays failures today?
Mitt Romney's preference is clear, anyone but Trump. But why? Trump wants to temporarily halt mass Muslim migration into the US. His reason? He wants to screen out people who are coming here to kill us. According to Romney this policy would make us "less safe". Trump wants to cut tax rates. His reason? To provide an economic self interest for people to participate in growing our economy. Trump wants to kick out folks that come here illegally. The reason? The labor participation rate is less than 66%. Maybe if we had less illegals we would have more citizens working instead of increasing the cost of entitlement programs.
America there will be profound consequences. Why not pick the guy who is at least saying some of the right things?
The other amusing thing about this is twofold. One is that Romney had a tech intern delete the 2012 tweets praising Trump for endorsing him and donating.
ReplyDeleteTwo is that Trump totally took the air out of Romney's bike tires here by preemptively letting it slip that not only did Romney praise him, he BEGGED for Trump's endorsement and a hefty donation.
After what Conservative Treehouse has written about this subject today, Romney is going to wish he never opened this Pandora's Box. Romney is going to finally get the boot to the curb.
When people dissed Romney's work at Bain, I scoffed a bit. No longer. I did not realize that Romney was such a corrupt man. He has destroyed more jobs and companies that other people built than anyone else in government could do.
At least Trump BUILDS, whereas Romney destroys.
Res Ipsa: "If we were paying (and we will be if nothing changes) interest on the entire $224 trillion it would exceed $6.72 trillion, or more than 2 times the entire tax revenue of the country."
ReplyDeleteYou word it as "tax revenue"... but is it really just taxes, or is that all Federal revenue? Meaning, does that also include things like interest earned, user fees, tariffs, fines, etc?
Not that it matters in the overall picture... just that it would change the math somewhat.
It's all revenue, not just income taxes.
DeleteLast night an interesting thought came to mind. At least I thought it was interesting.
DeleteThe reason Trump has so much support in this country from US the voters is that he is wielding a big stick and chasing the moneylenders out of OUR house(DC). People may not realize the reason they are so supportive of him, but his honesty and forthrightness has been such a huge blessing this cycle.
Trump is a flawed candidate who has played the DC big money game for at least 30 years. He even gave money to Hillary when she was running against Obama. He is not as pure as the driven snow.
DeleteWhat he is doing and saying is that America should belong to Americans and that American policy should benefit the people living here. The last guy with that message was Regan. America hasn't had a major pro American politician running since the 1980 election. The message sounds new and promising, even if the speaker hasn't always walked the walk.
He never claimed to be that Res. Not one time. He has never claimed to be anything other than a concerned American patriot who has some conservative and common sense IDEAS.
DeleteOTOH, he did openly and honestly talk about something endemic to NYC called Pay to play.
If you care to research Tammany Hall, you will see that not only has this practice been around since BEFORE the Civil War, the graft is so deeply ingrained in NYC that NO business would ever get done EVER if you did not grease palms on both sides of the aisle.
Anyone who has paid attention knows this now, and they do not care. It would take a total nuclear leveling of NYC to get rid of the graft I suspect.
While he was talking about this subject, he admitted he had to PAY the Clintons to come to his wedding with a sizable donation to their "Foundation". Oh my did that get Hillary all stirred up the next day. Very amusing entertainment.
If we had not had Obama and his devastation for 8 years, enabled by the GOPE, I do not believe Trump would have even bothered to run for office.
The establishment built this Frankenstein's monster and he is now destroying them and laying waste to it all. Millions of us average Americans could not be happier. Or more entertained.
My first vote as an adult was proudly given to Reagan. My hubby and I lived through the ruinous 4 years of Carter. This has been much worse.
Susan,
DeleteI like trump. I just don't have blinders on when it comes to our political system. He is saying some of the right things. Regan said some of the right things too. Remember his promise to close the department of education? That boondoggle was only 4 years old when he got in. He still wasn't able to close it down.
There has been one candidate since Regan that actual believed and probably would have done the things he talked about. He even had a track record of staying pretty close to what he promised to get elected. His name was Ron Paul.
How far did honesty, consistency and strict constitutional principles get him in a general election? Exactly nowhere.
Trump is getting as far as he is, in part because things are so bad that people are waking up, and in part because he has played ball in the past with the PTB and they think he will play ball in the future.
Which to some degree he is going to do if he gets elected.
If he gets the nomination, he will be the next president. Hillary has made too many enemies on both sides of the aisle. I suspect she will be doing jail time if there isn't some sort of plea arrangement.
Given who the democrats were that controlled congress at that time, those crooks were never going to shut down that department. Democrats are genetically incapable of shutting down anything, even if proved it doesn't work.
DeleteAs to Ron Paul, he was not as honest as he would have voters believe. He always claimed he didn't vote for earmarks. That part was true technically. But what he did was stick his earmarks on bills he knew were going to pass without his vote so he could claim he didn't vote for earmarks. That is dodgy.
But he took plenty just the same. That money was there for the taking, might as well spend it in his district too. He is on record for having said that.
Then there was the fact that he backed down on his demand for auditing the Fed when he finally got into the position to actually do it. But he ran the other way. Paul had a few good points, but he associated with some not so good people that I just did not like at all.