By now you’ve seen or heard of the surreptitious video from a Romney fundraiser in Florida last May, in which he denigrates 47% of U.S. citizens as “people who believe they are victims” and who are “dependent on government.”
These dependent leeches, Romney said, believe they are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
Left unsaid was the fact that a large percentage of the cited 47% are retirees utilizing Social Security and Medicare (which they have paid into all their working lives), or students seeking government loans. All are apparently dependent victims.
“My job is not to worry about those people,” Romney added. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
The video was an excerpt from an hour-long recording obtained by Mother Jones magazine. In another released excerpt, Romney was quoted as saying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not be resolved because the Palestinians have “no interest whatsoever in establishing peace”. As I write this post, the magazine has just released the complete video, which places Romney’s remarks in context. It’s available at the link above. (The candidate claims his statements were taken out of context; they were not.)
The Republican ticket grows more unbelievable each day.
Wednesday Sep. 19th
Tom Pletcher
I have had a reasonably successful life. I didn’t become a multi-multi-multi-millionaire by sending American jobs to China, but I still have had a reasonably successful life.
I have had that reasonably successful life in large measure because I got a lot more education than either of my parents ever got; and I was able to get that education thanks to what I received from the federal government under the G.I. Bill. Now I am retired, and now I receive a modest disability pension, also from the federal government.
If Mitt Romney wants to call me a moocher, let him say that to my face. That will be a great opportunity to discuss the fact that, while he was bicycling around France dodging the draft, I was slogging around Viet-Nam doing what the nation had asked of our generation.
Let him say that to my face: let him look me in the eye.
Sincerely,
Jim Eckl
PS: And as concerns federal income tax, I pay my fair share; and I wonder if Mitt Romney pays his fair share, hmmm? in which case, maybe I pay more than my fair share to make up for his avoidance. Teapartiers say, “TEA” means “Taxed Enough Already”. How might they respond if they came to believe, the reason they are overtaxed is because the aristocracy is undertaxed?