Mitt Romney several months ago, screaming at an Occupy protestor to "move to North Korea" if he doesn't like Romney's national solutions or his tax plan. Now we know it is totally insane!
How is it that anyone with more than air between the ears pays any attention to Mitt Romney, far less giving him as much as 46-47% in polls? Can't they see through this snake oil salesman's shtick at all? Can't they see also that any such salesman, who claims he "can do more for the country" than the incumbent, is full of horse pockey if he was the chief mastermind behind sending more than 2 million jobs out of country? What does a person have to be drinking (or smoking) to poll for this asshole? Or does he need to already be in a coma?
As far as tax plans and reducing the deficit, why the fuck should we believe any guy who refuses to release more than two years of his federal income taxes, and even then only does so grudgingly and partially, i.e. omitting the release of the ancillary form TD-F 90.22.1. As we know, this form (which is submitted separately to the Dept. of the Treasury) is key in that it not only provides the location of all offshore accounts, but the maximum amounts held in each for the particular tax year. So, one must wonder and ask: What is it Romney is holding back? What doesn't he want us to know? Perhaps that given the hundreds of millions he's got stashed away in offshore accounts from Switzerland to the Caymans that he's in no position to mount a sensible or practical tax plan. After all, he's never ever paid in any one year what the average working American has at any time, and certainly not during his tenure at Bain Capital - when he was ditching American jobs.
Now, in earlier blogs I expatiated at length on why Romney's cockeyed tax plan (based mainly on the Ryan budget) can't work, or pare down the deficit. It's therefore gratifying to note here that my take has been fully validated by a Tax Policy Center white paper authored by Samuel Brown, William G. Gale, and Adam Looney. The trio argue that it "is mathematically impossible" for the Romney tax plan to meet its described goals.
To be sure, Romney hasn’t released his specific plan, but he HAS bloviated to the media about his primary goals. Thus, using a "reverse engineering" process - based on the stated goals- Brown, Gale, and Looney have cleverly put together the best case scenario and crunched the numbers, thereby concluding they don’t work. Among Romney's stated goals, in case people forgot:
- Lowering tax rates across the board by 20%
- Increasing military spending by 25-50%.
Note here that earlier GAO estimates calculated up to $820 billion in deficits the first year from Romney's wholesale continuation of the insane Bush tax cuts, and probably more than $3 trillion in deficits by the end of his first 4 years if he gets in. If he also adopts the Ryan budget look for those numbers to triple. As the GAO recognized even then, Romney illogically seeks to keep raising the same amount of tax revenues as before but by removing tax expenditures, or the variety of exemptions, deductions, or credits in the tax code that function as government spending. Trouble is, his plan (based on Ryan's stated goals) excludes expenditures related to investment income and savings from being available for these cuts. Worse, his plan (which will be re-upped by Glen Hubbard who initially designed the Bush cuts) will retain the current level of regressivity where the wealthiest 1% harness 55% of all the tax cut benefits, and the remainder 45% is distributed amongst the 99% who need to spend to keep demand from falling.
Naturally, The Tax Policy Center analysis finds fault, showing that it is impossible to effect Romney's goals using his putative mechanisms (again, based in the Ryan budget plan). Moreover, enacting the Romney plan requires cutting taxes on the top one percent and raising them on everyone else. If Romney also jacks up military spending, which is at criminal levels as it is (and should be cut by half starting next year - except for veterans' benefits) then as Norman Ornstein pointed out, you are looking at massive cuts in Social Security and Medicare to support that.
By way of fixing ideas, if a Ryan- style Medicare "voucher" plan (they call it a bullshit name like "premium support") is approved by a Mitt Romney administration, and amounts to only $10,000 or less per year - a lot of people now on Medicare will suffer since the money savings for military bullshit can't accrue by simply leaving the actual enactment to those now 50 years old (i.e. when they turn 65 or 67- the latter if the age for receiving benefits is also increased.) If this odious plan were in effect right now, I'd already have exhausted my voucher ration, and would be looking at NO options for cancer radiotherapy unless I paid for it myself, out of pocket. Bottom line? I'd have to fucking croak since I wouldn't be able to afford the full cost of the treatment (which Medicare now covers at the 80% rate).
THAT is your "President" Mitt Romney's financial solution, after he gets in, and don't anyone fool themselves that as Moveon.org claimed in an ad (about the Romney's show horse Rafalca), that that steed would get more benefits and treatment - to the tune of $77,000 a year currently - than any working, or retired bipedal American.
To be quite blunt, Mitt Romney represents the worst of both worlds: the extremist social and 'wanna make more war' conservo, and also the monied elite faction which doesn't even know the cost of a loaf of bread or gallon of milk. No wonder, since he can afford to blow people off with assorted half-assed comments that highlight his rich and entitled life. (Including one remark last year that he "only earned $340,000 from speeches in one year" - which represents more than most Americans have in net worth). An entitled life and schema that he's determined to bring to the nation, and implement as its "CEO", if the "99%' are stupid enough to let him.
Worse, the bastard has money by the tens of millions voting his way thanks to the Citizens United ruling. The ONLY way Obama and the Dems will be able to neutralize the effect of this toxic "money speech" is to use at least $45 million to get every youngster, minority citizen and oldster a voter ID to use in those key 16 Repup states when the election rolls around. Get them all their voter IDs, than master the ground war by seeing they all get to the polls to actually vote, each and every one.
Do that, and we may luck out and not have to live under the Reign of Bain Capital II!
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