Which Middle Class is Romney Referring to?

I haven’t been on Romney’s website for a while but yesterday I was back at it, scrutinizing it as usual. I feel embarrassed that while there I saw what at I believed it was Mitt Romney's announcement of his choice for VP.  I was wrong and I do apologize for my mistake, I'll be more cautious in the future.

Moving forward, today's subject will be Mitt’s “Plan for a Stronger Middle Class”. Yes, you didn’t misread… Romney has a plan or so he says. But I wonder which Middle Class is this plan for? I know it is not for our Middle Class. It must be for the ones in his circle, since the people at his financial level have different wealth categories: Poor (≥$1,000,000 ≤$29,999,999), Middle Class (≥$30,000,000 ≤$999,999,999) and Wealthy (≥$1,000,000,000) – I guess Romney is talking about his Middle Class, definitively not ours.

His plan consists of five points: Energy Independence, Skills to Succeed, Trade that Works for America, Cut the Deficit and Champion Small Businesses.

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: Romney says that he will increase access to domestic energy resources and streamline permitting for exploration and development. All this means is that he will allow more offshore and onshore drilling, lifting restrictions that are currently in place to either protect the oceans or our forest and national parks. This also means fracking and endangering our water reserves everywhere. We are constantly watching the consequences of fracking, but even though there was a time when Romney was against anything that would endanger the environment but that Romney is a thing of the past if he ever existed, especially if by “fracking” the environment he gets elected. There will be no limitations to where the oil moguls can extract the fossil fuel that keeps our umbilical cord forever attached and dependent of oil. And that is what Mitt Romney calls “energy independence.”

Further on the same issue, he promises to eliminate the regulations that are restricting the coal industry. Once more he will be helping the middle class group in his world. The environment can go to hell; our air can be contaminated as long as the coal industry is happy and their campaign dollars keep pouring in.

Last on this point and just to reinforce his complete disregard for this planet and its inhabitants he promises that he will approve the Keystone XL Pipeline project!

SKILLS TO SUCCEED: Romney offers what he thinks is his educational plan but it is not, since it has been proposed before. He mentions that he wants to give every family access to a great school and quality teachers. How many students will be able to go to a “great school” if everyone has access to it? What he is proposing is nothing more than a voucher system that will benefit those kids from wealthy neighborhoods but do nothing for kids from the ghetto. Quite the contrary, while the schools that are considered to be the best will attract the best teachers and the largest quantity of kids and therefore more substantial funding the schools in the poor districts will hire those teachers that are not as good hence receiving less funding than an A school, providing a mediocre education to children in the poor neighborhoods.

He also mentions that he will make higher education more affordable and effective. Is that what he meant when he replied to a student that he should shop around to find, not the best college but an affordable one? I guess the access he mentions must be a list of crappy colleges that the poor (our poor) kids can afford. No more Pell grants or financial aid.

For adults, Romney says he will focus on job training programs, which by the way, it already exists so all he will be doing is continuing it instead of eliminating it… Unless he will eliminate the funding of these programs and charge the unemployed to receive the necessary training which wouldn’t surprise me. These job training programs are nothing more than vocational schools which are offered at many vocational schools and at night at most high schools throughout the country and which will prepare you for a blue collar job.

Romney also wants to “attract and retain the best and the brightest from around the world”, not being content with outsourcing our jobs to foreign countries now he wants to “insource” the workers from foreign countries. This means that we will be losing our jobs both to abroad and in our country as well. These “best and brightest” will work for less than an American with the same skills would, since for them coming to America with a work permit and the promise of a green card a few years later is incentive enough to accept the job for much less, actually it would be their dream come true.

I would love to know how does this help the REAL American Middle Class? So far, all these points benefit Romney’s “middle class” not ours.

TRADE THAT WORKS FOR AMERICA: On this topic, Romney, once more, singles out China. I agree that China has taken advantage of us and that something must be done; I just don’t think that being so openly hostile during the presidential run will help at all in dealing with China, who practically owns us, in the future if, may the FSM protect us, Romney becomes president. This constant attack on China can be dangerous, China might demand we pay them what we owe them and we all know we can’t pay back at this time. Of course, maybe Romney is planning to pay our debt to China with his own money in which case I will be all for it.

Romney wants to open new markets for American goods and services. He fails to mention that thanks to him and Bain Capital we barely have “goods and services” that we can sell to anyone. Besides oil, movies, automobiles (most parts are made overseas) and Monsanto’s poison… what “goods” are we currently manufacturing that we can export?

Latin America seems to be very attractive to Romney, he keeps mentioning that he wants to build stronger economic ties there. I guess he is probably thinking that is a good place to outsource more jobs; they’re closer which will mean cheaper import charges and cost and a place where he might find those “bright and best” workers that he wants to attract and retain.

Last on this issue is the damn “Reagan Economic Zone” which is nothing more than a group of countries that will trade among themselves, but excluding those that might not be in agreement with us such as Cuba, Venezuela, China and perhaps Russia. There is already a group that does not restrain countries: The World TradeOrganization.  Romney seems not to like this organization since it does not have the ridiculous nonsensical name of “Reagan Economic Zone”. Wait, I get it! Reagan was senile and had Alzheimer, is he talking about creating an Old and Crazy Economic Zone? Yes, that’s probably it, encoded!

CUT THE DEFICIT: Romney promises to reduce non-security discretionary spending by five percent and Cap federal spending by 20% of the economy. That means cutting on Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and all the public services offered to the poor, our poor, and the elderly – the parasites of society according to the GOP. Once more the ones that need help the most will be the one “saving” the economy while the fat cats rejoice in their good fortune.

He also wants to delegate to the States the responsibility for these programs, and we know what a disaster that would be. We have seen how compassionate some of these Governors can be towards our seniors, our poor and our veterans; all we have to do is take a look at Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, etc.

Mitt Romney is also proposing to align the salaries of federal workers with those in the private sector. Will that include members of Congress? If it does, I am all for it but I seriously doubt it!

CHAMPION SMALL BUSINESS: Taxes (which Romney refuses to show) will be once more reduced for job creators through individual and corporate tax reform. This is nothing more than the so well known trickledown economics that have yielded so many jobs during the decade they’ve been in place. This is nothing more than a permanent extension or increase of the Bush tax credit for the wealthiest Americans. He is also proposing to get rid of taxes altogether and instead increase the sales tax across the board to approximately 23%, this sounds very nice and fair until you start thinking about it. Let’s say you want to buy a new car.  The price of the car is $25,000 and the sales tax would be $5,750 plus interests. If your salary is $51,000 (average middle class salary) the sales tax you will be paying for your car represents 11% of your net salary. Now, let’s assume you are among the wealthiest American, those that enjoy having one billion dollars or more and you want to buy the most expensive new car in the world, the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport with a price tag of $2,400,000.  The sales tax for this baby would be $552,000 and most likely you would not pay interests because you can buy it on the spot without the need to finance it. Assuming you only have one billion dollars and not a penny more, you will be paying 0.06% of your net worth. The same goes for everything else, from eggs to a home. Does this “tax reform” still look fair to you? I don’t think so.

Romney will eliminate regulations because according to him it’s damaging “job creators.” Mitt wants Wall Street, the Oil Industry, the Coal mining industry and any other industry currently being regulated to do as they please. I can’t believe that deregulating is back on the scene, it  barely has been four years since we experienced the worst global economic collapse since the Depression as the result of this dangerous tactic and from which we haven’t emerged yet but apparently Romney believes it worked just fine.

Unions didn’t go unnoticed in Romney’s plan, after all they work to protect and defend the rights of workers against greedy and unfair employers. That is unthinkable in Romney’s world! So in his plan he promises to protect “workers” and businesses from labor unions. What he will really be protecting is the corporations not the workers.

And finally, Romney promises to replace Romneycare… I mean, Obamacare and replace it with Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” where Medicare and Medicaid will be privatize and only the wealthy will be able to afford excellent insurance coverage while the true middle class and the poor will have to content with a second-rate health care plan since the voucher they will be getting will not allow them to afford a good or excellent insurance coverage.

Latin America: The Insanity Tactic

Political Cartoonist: Matt Wuerker

Moving forward reviewing Mitt Romney’s observations about current Issues, I opened the tab  "Latin America."

Romney opens the subject with what is rapidly becoming the Republican’s trademark: fear. He claims that the current administration is jeopardizing the “security, democracy, and increased economic ties with America.” Romney, of course, fails to mention why he believes that. Instead, he places the blame on President Obama for taking him three years to sign the Colombia Trade Agreement. To be honest, I am not thrilled with this or any other Trade Agreements; so far all they have been good for is to destroy our industries.

However, this particular agreement was already approved when President Obama took office.

Colombian workers and union members have been killed for 25 years by groups that oppose unions, and only a handful of people have ever been convicted for these crimes. The trade agreement signed by President George W. Bush required no action from the government of Colombia to protect Colombian workers and Unions. It took all this time for President Obama’s administration to negotiate with the Colombian government to secure the protection for these workers and the unions as well as the commitment from the government to investigate and prosecute crimes against workers and unions. As a result, the Colombia government agreed to the terms demanded by President Obama and the agreement was finally signed. As it is usual not only with Mitt Romney but with all republicans, he conveniently failed to mention the reason, after all it was related to the safety of workers and unions, which for Romney and republicans are both worthless. In the same paragraph Romney talks about Cuba and Venezuela, drug trafficking and the violence that is eminent in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Again, he fails to mention how or why the current administration is to be blamed for what is happening in the Americas.

On the next paragraph he outlines what he considers President Obama’s “failures.” Romney holds the President responsible for not reversing what it is happening throughout Latin America and bluntly accuses President Obama of worsening the situation by “reaching out to those nations that are working against our interests and values.” Those nations, I am assuming, can only be Cuba and Venezuela.

As every single republican has done in the past – with no results – Romney advocates the same strategy, which is to strengthen the embargo to Cuba and apparently severing all communications with Venezuela. After half a century since the implementation of the embargo that has yielded no beneficial results neither for the dissident Cubans in Miami nor for the Cubans in the island, Republicans criticize President Obama for making it easier for the exiled Cuban population in the United States to visit or financially help their relatives trapped in the island. I have always found it odd that republicans, who claim to own the sole proprietorship on family values and the likes, can't understand what it means to have a child, parents and loved ones suffering when you can help and have a government telling you "let them eat cake!"  And those Cubans holding a seat in Congress are the worst of them all, it is easy to be adamant to help the people in the island when you have no one there and you are living in the lap of luxury.

Fifty years later, republicans still support the failed embargo; I think they have never heard the definition of insanity… Perhaps, that explains their erratic, demented and illogical approach to the problems of this nation. Maybe they repeat the same tactics, over and over, expecting a different result to proof that they are insane in the eventuality that the citizens of this country ever accuse them of treason and demand their incarceration. I don’t know, but the embargo is the biggest failure that has been beneficial to one person: Fidel Castro. It is thanks to the embargo that the world sees Castro as a victim, a hero, an inspiration and a role model. It is due to the embargo that the world sides with a tyrant, viewing this tyrant as a martyr – the modern version of the biblical story of David and Goliath. Republicans know this too well, but they will never vote to lift the embargo.  There has always been a trade with Cuba but restricted to only food and medicine.  Only  big corporations can benefit from this trade, Cubans in exile, Americans and small businesses cannot. Click here to see a list of companies that were issued a license to trade with Cuba from 1985 to 2001 as well as other pertinent information dating back to 2001.

I have tried to find a current list of licensed exporters to Cuba, but it was impossible. I suspect that republicans have special interest for them to refuse to lift the embargo; they never do anything for nothing. So far, it hasn’t worked and you would think that after half a century they would try something different, but that is not the case. We all know that the only thing that motivates republicans is money and their immovable position on the matter makes me think that they must be getting some sort of rewards from the few companies authorized to trade with Cuba, which are all large corporations and many pharmaceutical companies.

The Venezuela-USA relationships are not the friendliest; I guess that Mitt Romney is following the ballistic obsession of most republicans.   Negotiations and a cold relationship between the countries is considered by Romney to be reaching out, nothing but invading to destitute the elected President of Venezuela is valid.  

Romney continues his relentless attack on President Obama by accusing him of siding with Honduras’ ex-President Manuel Zelaya. Apparently Mitt Romney has no idea what diplomacy is or that the United States will never accept or intervene in a coup d’état, which is what happened in Honduras. Romney doesn’t understand how diplomacy works or that the United States can comment, negotiate, recommend but should not interfere in matters from other countries. At the same time, unless resolved by the country in question, the United States can’t recognize a government taken by force, militarily as it happened in Honduras. That concept is unbeknownst to him.

Romney's “Plan”

“Mitt Romney will chart a different course. Under a Romney administration, the United States will pursue an active role in Latin America by supporting democratic allies and market-based economic relationships, containing destabilizing internal forces such as criminal gangs and terrorists, and opposing destabilizing outside influences such as Iran.”

The above is the core of what his “plan” is.  Apparently, it is his opinion that President Obama doesn’t do any of these things. He insinuates that President Obama has ignored Latin America or the violence that is infesting the continent. Romney insists in free trade, which I am sure will have no demands for workers, concentrating only in the profits corporations can obtain. He dreams of the day when, through these free trade agreements, these countries can become members of the “Reagan Economic Zone.” The “Reagan Economic Zone” is a fantasy of Mitt Romney and republicans which is nothing more than a conglomerate of countries where the lucky members [corporations] can enjoy doing business without regulations, crushing unions and paying less to their workers. The ultimate republican fantasy!

Mitt Romney also wants to create a “Unified Hemispheric Joint Task Force on Crime and Terrorism.” That's a mouthful! Romney wants military-to-military training between the United States and Mexico to combat the narco-trafficking and narco-terrorists. Every administration has failed on this absurd "war on drugs," including President Obama and so will any president that comes after unless the strategy changes. In countries where the vast majority of people live below the poverty line, the only possibility these people see to come out of the slums is by trafficking drugs. We, as a country, are largely to blame; we are the consumers. As long as there is a demand there will be a supply and Romney, who claims to be a savvy businessman, should know this. The only way the violence associated with drugs and the lure of wealth will cease is by legalizing drugs, tax them and control them. If we were to dispense the drugs as we do alcohol and control it as we do with any prescription drug the demand will greatly diminish. The income produced by the distribution of these “legal” drugs, could be used to provide rehabilitation for the addicts and the ease our debt. That is the only way we can, once and for all, end the drug-trafficking violence and reduce the drug addiction, nothing else will work.

Mitt Romney closes this section stating that we will use the “full power of the presidency” to complete the border fence. That fantastic and super expensive fence that, just as the “war on drugs,” will serve for nothing but an exaggerated waste of funds that we don’t have but that is a immense selling point to the greatest oxymoron in this country: The Right.