Mitt Romney and his plan for ‘the little people’ out there
“Mitt Romney held up the waiters and waitresses serving donors at a fundraising event Monday night as examples of people who aren’t doing well under President Obama.
Addressing 300 contributors who paid $2,500, $10,000 or $50,000 to hear him speak in Jackson, Miss., Romney acknowledged that the people in the room were well-off compared to many Americans. It was the middle class that had been let down by Obama, Romney said, and he pointed to the wait staff serving finger foods as an example.
“It’s tough being middle class in America right now,” Romney said. “The waiters and waitresses that come in and out of this room and offer us refreshments, they’re not having a good year. The people of the middle class of America are really struggling. And they’re struggling I think in a way because they’re surprised because when they voted for Barack Obama … he promised them that things were going to get a heck a lot of better. He promised hope and change and they’re still waiting.”
Let’s overlook the condescension in Romney’s description and instead focus on what the GOP nominee and his party propose to do for “the waiters and waitresses that come in and out of this room,” serving his contributors drinks and food at Jackson’s River Hills country club.
More than 30 percent of Mississippi residents live in poverty. Some 650,000, including no doubt some of those waiters ferrying drinks and food, feed themselves and their children in part on food stamps, which Republicans want to slash drastically. The House Agriculture Committee just approved a measure cutting food stamps by $16.5 billion over 10 years. Among other things, the change would force some 300,000 children out of the free-lunch program at school.
One in five people in Mississippi — again including much of that wait staff, I’d suspect — have no health insurance. Romney is intent on repealing the only real hope they have of attaining health coverage that citizens of almost every other industrialized country somehow enjoy, and he has offered no plans on how to replace it.
In fact, Romney proposes to make it worse. To help finance his plan to cut individual tax rates by 20 percent, Romney proposes to slash projected Medicaid funding, a step that would significantly increase the number of poorer Mississippi citizens without health insurance.
On the other hand, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, the resultant tax cuts would produce average annual tax savings of $231,971 for the richest 1 percent of Americans, including many of those in Jackson who contributed more than $1.7 million to the Romney cause Monday night. But it will have almost no impact on the take-home pay of those waiters and waitresses.
Births to unwed mothers are a major social and economic problem in Mississippi, where more than half of all births are to single mothers. Romney proposes to address that problem by eliminating Title X family planning funding, producing a savings of $300 million.
Federal support for worker training programs in Mississippi and other states would also be slashed. And if those waiters and waitresses serving Romney’s donors have a particularly bright child waiting for them back home, someone whom the family has high hopes of sending to college, that dream will have less chance of coming true under a President Romney, who proposes funding cutbacks in federal student loans and tuition assistance.
This is the deal that the compassionate Mr. Romney proposes to offer those for whom he expressed such concern Monday night in Jackson. But not to worry.
“We’re accused, by the way — in our party — of being the party of the rich,” Romney told the crowd among the tinkling of glasses. “And it’s an awful moniker, because that’s just not true. We’re the party of people who want to get rich. And we’re also the party of people who want to care to help people from getting poor. We want to help the poor.”
He just has a peculiar way of showing it.
– Jay Bookman
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518 comments Add your comment
Oblama
July 17th, 2012
1:21 pm
Tiredofit – A lot of people that aren’t “rich” invest in the stock market and real estate. A 40% cap gain ta would cause the stock market to take a nose dive. There would be no incentive to invest. I understand that you are out to punish the “rich” but your plan would be a disaster. Obama is rich and you have my blessing to take 40 % of everything he has.
GT
July 17th, 2012
1:26 pm
Aren’t we exempt from the Hague and all that international law. Maybe the Republicans could get one of those Charles Taylor books on governing people you don’t like since we have a pass from civility. We see no business plan for these GOP if they happen to get elected, just abusing anybody that is not like them, this could easily be the plan they so sorely are missing. Charles Taylor or General Djordje Djukic could instruct these fine people of common cause in how to get rid of undesirables. America what a country where hate can grow and be unimpeded. We just about got there with Bush, we lied to the UN, trashed the French and pulled people off the streets of Greece to torture them and ignored arrest warrants. Obama is too dull for these people, he is like Indiana Jones being bored with the swordsman pulls out his gun very unceremoniously and shoots the guy dead. What I want to know is when you dispose of all these minorities who is going to do the work, you claim they aren’t doing. Who is going to pick your food out of the field, serve your drinks and keep you fat, dumb and happy?
Joe Hussein Mama
July 17th, 2012
1:27 pm
Doom — “Joe mama doing his mind reading again.”
Oh, stop crying.
“I know lots of LDS folks Joe and they and the church do in fact take tithing very seriously- you’re not dispensing some secret info that people don’t know.”
“You’re just trying to take a cheap shot at Romney by implying that he does it only because the church demands it.”
FAIL, mindreader. (laughing)
“You’re not a mind reader Joe and you cannot see into the man’s heart to determine if he does it because its his free will or he does it because of the church’s strict adherence to it.”
Well neither can YOU. (laughing)
“Last on that point is the fact that even after tithing Mitt Romney has given millions to various charities. In my world I judge people by their actions- not their words. And judging by the overall charitable giving of Romney vs Obama and the shameful Joe Biden I think the actions of the 3 mean speak volumes about their character.”
And there you have it. Doom measures character by the size of the donation.
And you know what they say about people who are obsessed with SIZE. (pointing, laughing)
Joe Hussein Mama
July 17th, 2012
1:31 pm
Doom — “Reading comprehension issues again Joe?”
Nope. Just your crappy writing skills.
“The facts that I speak of are independent of the correlation that I spoke of- they do not make the correlation a fact.”
I know that. That’s what I told YOU. (laughing, pointing) ;D
“Just one helluva correlation. For example the latest stat was that 72.5% of black births are out of wedlock. That is an independent fact that holds in and of itself.”
Which you dishonestly tried to attribute to liberal social policies, despite the fact that you had nothing but the aforementioned correlation. (laughing)
“Same with the fact that in decades past going back to 1925 that black out of wedlock birth rates were substantially lower. Way lower. That is a fact sir. But I guess I should never underestimate your dishonesty in trying to twist and contort what folks are saying.”
No dishonesty from me at all, Doom. Just a statement of FACT that you are trying to assert a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy as evidentiary fact. Y’know, as much as you hang around with Bruno, I’d have thought you’d have figured out some of these logical fallacies by now.
Joe Hussein Mama
July 17th, 2012
1:33 pm
Doom — “But all you have to do is look at the empirical evidence of the minimum wage on a historical basis and like most economists you would probably agree that it has the net effect of overall harming employment levels.”
That’s the theoretical effect. There’s no objective, empirical evidence of it.
You know how conservatives sometimes get about scientific “theories?” I treat this conservative theory of Minimum Wage the same way. Show me evidence or take a hike.
Joe Hussein Mama
July 17th, 2012
1:34 pm
Doom — “Both made their own money and Romney especially. This is widely acknowledged that Romney built Bain capital and earned his money. Please show where and how their money was “handed to them”. Its not as if they inherited untold amounts of money like the Kennedys or married a billionaire like John Kerry did.”
Um, Romney DID inherit money.
HOT AIR
July 17th, 2012
1:37 pm
Illegal alien – good luck with becoming a legal citizen. We would welcome you paying income taxes like the rest of us. I will try to explain how a flat tax would work for you. With a flat tax every income producer pays the same percent of taxes – say 10%. There are no tax shelters, no deductions and no loopholes (created by politicians). If you earn $50,000 you will pay $5,000 in taxes. If you earn $5,000,000 you will pay $ 5,000,000. No exemptions, no deductions, no loopholes. The average person would not have to hire someone to prepare their taxes. Politicians would no longer be able to use the tax system to punish those that oppose them or reward those that support them. Thousands of lobbyists would flee D.C. like rats running from a flood. That would be a good thing.
Oblama
July 17th, 2012
1:45 pm
Mama – You keep using the word “conservative” interchangeably for republican. They are not the same. Some conservatives will vote republican and no true conservative will vote for the current democrat philosophy of “redistribution of the wealth”. However, a true conservative is not the same thing as a republican. I am a fiscal conservative but not a member of the republican party that has been looking and spending tax money like democrats here the last few years. A true conservative would not have us in this debt crisis we are facing.
GT
July 17th, 2012
1:46 pm
HOT AIR good name, have you seen how few people in this country pay taxes? The poor haven’t got money and the rich just say we don’t play that game. Now you have found someone willing to work for slave wages so the rich can get richer and not pay taxes and these guys take the jobs the poor can’t do but the poor legals get their food and services cheater because of them. Seems to me the illegals are doing more than most of us.
Lucifer
July 17th, 2012
1:47 pm
I assume those posting here don’t make more than $250,000 a year. Why would anyone want to vote for a presidental candidate that is so clearly a sycophant for the rich and powerful? That said, I will be among those voting to see Obama win a second term. He’s done some things that have displeased me; but he has also done a great deal for the good of us all. He’s a known quantity. Willard is also a known quantity, that that knowledge should prevent anyone in their right mind — unless of course they are members of the U.S. ruling class — to vote for this wingnut.
HOT AIR
July 17th, 2012
1:49 pm
Oblama – Thanks for correcting those that call republicans conservatives. The reason some conservatives vote republican is because they vote for what they consider to be the least destructive candidate towards the economy and that wouldn’t be Obama.
G.I. Joe
July 17th, 2012
1:57 pm
Not everyone votes democrat or republican. I am for a 3rd party called the Common Sense Party. Stop the destructive government waste of our tax dollars. I too would welcome a flat tax. I know the wealthy would oppose a flat tax. Obama opposes a flat tax. Nancy Pelosi opposes a flat tax, Why? They are both millionaires. Voters have a voice. Pelosi only gets to vote once (legally) at the polls. Every working person should be for a flat tax – no matter if you are liberal or conservative.
Oblama
July 17th, 2012
2:00 pm
As for class warfare – our topic today – I believe that a flat tax favor the lower income and middle income people equally. Tax cheating would be greatly reduced.
TiredOfIt
July 17th, 2012
2:04 pm
Class warfare is using your money, status, etc to attempt to have more than your single individual vote.
GT
July 17th, 2012
2:06 pm
Lucifer the Republicans have done a job on us. They have us looking at Obama and his weakness and not comparing what we have in store if Obama is voted out of office. We are comparing O to some perfection that doesn’t exist, and in fact we are talking about substituting him for someone with weak character as shown in Romney’s flip flopping to please and soft upbringing. He is another Bush, nothing is ever his fault, which is is making loud and clear as people are escaping burning buildings or drowning in the streets of N.O. You seen any of that in this administration, but this adm. is paying for the ghost chasing of that administration, the mistakes of mass weapons of destruction and “we will get to the health issues next year”. Bush had eight years to do something about the health care, subject never came up. These people don’t do they just tell ya what the other guy is doing, like a nosy old neighbor peeping out windows.
Lucifer
July 17th, 2012
4:58 pm
GT: You hit the nail on the head. I have really grown disgusted with the GOP’s Big Three: McConnell, Boehner and Cantor. McConnell reminds me of an old wrinkled turtle; Boehner is nothing more than a big bawl baby; and Cantor’s remark that House legislation be written into law without the approval of the U.S. Senate, shows what an arrogant A-Hole he is. To tell you the truth, GT, I’ve stopped watching the propaganda machine of Fox News because those people make my skin crawl.
Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
July 17th, 2012
6:47 pm
July is pretty early to run out of things to talk about, Jay, and have to resort to this.
President Kardashian has already done more things to destroy the poor and the middle class than Romney could ever think of in ten lifetimes, and the Supreme Leader has more in store for us prior to the election.
Swiggy
July 23rd, 2012
4:04 pm
I used to be a waiter. Back then, the average tip consisted of 15%. Today, it’s around 20%. At a gala that runs from $2,500 a plate, those folks should have paid a tip of between $450 to $500. The folks that paid the $50,000 should have paid between $7,500 and $10,000 a plate.
I wonder how much of a tip Mitt left for those hard working waitresses and waiters.