Republican Tea Party (GOTP) presidential heir apparent Willard Mittens Romney has put his silver foot in his mouth again, saying that he’s “not concerned about the very poor,” citing the social safety net in place for that segment of the populace and adding that he’s focused on the middle class.
“I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Mittens said on CNN, following his victory in the Florida primary.
“We have a very ample safety net,” said Romney. “And we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.”
This sounds very familiar, where have I heard another rich man say something similar? Oh yeah, I remember.
“Are there no prisons?”
“And the union workhouses – are they still in operation?”
The problem is that programs in Mitten’s “safety net” are also suffering during the economic recession. Medicaid, for example faces cuts as states attempt to balance budgets at a time when more people are using the program and the GOTP lawmakers in Congress are eyeing cuts in food stamps as food prices rise, even as more Americans are using the program.
According to the Huffington Post, Mitten’s policies call for cutting federal spending and reconfiguring the “social safety net”, as well as an immediate five-percent cut to non-discretionary spending, hitting those in the “safety net” especially hard. Willard’s also proposing turning Medicaid into a block grant program and undertaking a “fundamental restructuring of government programs and services.” He also calls for capping spending at 20 percent of GDP – a significant cut – and adds that he “will pursue further cuts” as spending comes “under control.” Claiming not to “worry” for the very poor actually appears to mean he “doesn’t care” about them.
This though isn’t the first obtuse thing Mittens has said during the campaign, it’s really just one more misstatement in a whole season of previously poorly phrased remarks, “Don’t try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom,” he said last October in Las Vegas, the hardest-hit metro area by the foreclosure crisis.
In January, Romney said, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me” to explain why he favored competition among health insurers. “If someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I want to say I am going to get somebody else to provide that service to me.”
Mittens isn’t someone who should ever speak without prepared statements; in fact, if I were a handler, I’d rather have George W. Bush speaking off the cuff than having Romney do so. He just doesn’t get it; he doesn’t understand every mic is hot, and every time he speaks there’s going to be a camera recording. On top of that, his statements reveal what kind of man he really is – maybe one day he’ll have a Jacob Marley visit him too.
The Liberty Tree 