FSTDT Forums
Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: VirtualStranger on February 02, 2012, 01:04:15 am
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http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/02/romneys-not-concerned-about-very-poor/48142/ (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/02/romneys-not-concerned-about-very-poor/48142/)
"I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair I'll fix it," he told CNN Tuesday night after his Florida win
You mean that safety net that you're actively trying to destroy? That one?
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Well obviously the safety net for the poor is broken; it doesn't pander to the rich at all! I hope Romney can fix it, and soon!
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I actually listened to what he said afterwards. What he meant was that he wasn't concerned with any specific segment of American society, but rather American society as a whole. He also said "I'm not concerned about the very rich".
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That was a completely dangerous phrase for him to say.
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I actually listened to what he said afterwards. What he meant was that he wasn't concerned with any specific segment of American society, but rather American society as a whole. He also said "I'm not concerned about the very rich".
And that's a stupid position to take. It's quite possible for you to be concerned about the poor- who have almost no safety net to protect them- AND the middle class.
What, exactly, is his plan to get the middle class back to work anyway? Cross his fingers?
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Why should anyone be concerned for the rich? And of course he doesn't care about the poor, he made $43 million dollars last year.
OT: this reminds me of a quote by John Raese: "I made my money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it. I think that’s a great thing to do. I hope more people in this country have that opportunity as soon as we abolish inheritance tax in this country, which is a key part of my program."
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I actually listened to what he said afterwards. What he meant was that he wasn't concerned with any specific segment of American society, but rather American society as a whole. He also said "I'm not concerned about the very rich".
Sounds like some variation on the Golden Mean Fallacy to me. Not sure if there is a term for this specifically.
OT: this reminds me of a quote by John Raese: "I made my money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it. I think that’s a great thing to do. I hope more people in this country have that opportunity as soon as we abolish inheritance tax in this country, which is a key part of my program."
So, he doesn’t realize that taxes on inheritance don’t apply to most people’s inheritance. It’s not the inheritance tax that keeps people from inheriting the riches. It is the lack of rich relatives.
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The problem as with most Romney gaffes, once I read the full quote I get his point. I usually disagree vehemently but I understand what he's trying to say.
But then he somehow goes and says it in the worst possible way.
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Of course he's not concerned about the poor. The only surprising thing is he came out and said it.
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If he is unconcerned about the wealthy, why does he insist they need more tax cuts? Sounds pretty concerned to me.
He says that he is unconcerned with the poor because there are "safety nets" in place, and when he is President (god forbid) he will "plug any holes" in that safety net. Does he not realize what a "safety net" is? It's meant to prevent death from disaster! When a trapeze artist winds up in the net, it's because something has gone horribly wrong, and the net is there to prevent the spontaneous formation of a human pizza. When the poor wind up in the "safety nets" of society, it is because things have gone horribly wrong! The safety net is not intended to be the normal status quo for life! It is intended to prevent you from dying of poverty, not to support the poor so you don't have to be "concerned" about them. If you're in that safety net, it's because things have gone very, very badly.
And was I the only one slightly offended by a multi-multi millionaire telling a bunch of poor people they're OK because they have food stamps and welfare?
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Looks like Romney got stuck in full-on WAARRGARBL mode with this one.
He not only told the poor "class" that he (and by extension, his party) doesn't care about them, but he actually out-and-out says that the Democratic party does. The man has never spent a day in his life as middle class, never mind poor, yet he's cool with spouting off about how the "safety net" for the poor is not only sufficient, but not worth his further attention? He wants to see more people move into the middle class, yet he (and his party) support removing funds from the very organizations that make this in any way feasible. None of what he said makes sense.
The Republican party has got to learn that you cannot build a house on a shitty foundation and expect it to stand. The (growing) poor and (shrinking) middle class are the foundation, and if their lives become one of subsistence only, they will not have the spending ability necessary to prop up our economy. This will in turn drag everyone else down, and the rich and super-rich will have no one left to buy the products that their money-making corporations produce. This is just simple logic - what happens to the least of us happens to us all.
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Romney: "I'm not concerned about the very poor."
Obama: "Fukken Saved"
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The Republican party has got to learn that you cannot build a house on a shitty foundation and expect it to stand. The (growing) poor and (shrinking) middle class are the foundation, and if their lives become one of subsistence only, they will not have the spending ability necessary to prop up our economy. This will in turn drag everyone else down, and the rich and super-rich will have no one left to buy the products that their money-making corporations produce. This is just simple logic - what happens to the least of us happens to us all.
the Republican party long ago ceased to be concerned with the poor, working, or middle classes. I have become convinced that the party that was originally founded to combat slavery, the party of Lincoln, has undergone several major transformations in its history. In the 80s it was taken over by the religious right when Reagan used blatant pandering to evangelicals to clinch the nomination. Then in 2000 with the election of Bush the neo-Cons took over. While they still paid lip service to the religious right, and still talked the whole Reagan-era "small government" audioporn, they had transformed the party yet again.
I am utterly certain that the core leadership of the GOP, the people who meet quietly behind the scenes to determine the direction, efforts, and ideology of the party have only a single goal now: to transfer as much of the tax burden as possible off of the wealthy and corporations and onto the middle and working classes.
That's their point, now. Everything they do is in some way designed to either transfer the tax burden or to distract the public from how they are transferring the tax burden. They care nothing about encroaching Muslims, or Sharia, or abortion, or gay marriage, or job creation, or any of the other issues they are screaming about. All of these things are just bugbears meant to frighten their base and distract everyone from what they are really doing. The fact that by doing this they are inevitably killing off the middle class and creating a two-tiered society with a very wealthy, privileged elite minority and a vast, dead-ended underclass of the poor doesn't matter to them, because they will be firmly in the first category.
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Typical Republican
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The fact that by doing this they are inevitably killing off the middle class and creating a two-tiered society with a very wealthy, privileged elite minority and a vast, dead-ended underclass of the poor doesn't matter to them, because they will be firmly in the first category.
Ah well, sucks to be them. I'm too poor to end up with my head in a basket - they really can't say the same.
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The Republican party has got to learn that you cannot build a house on a shitty foundation and expect it to stand. The (growing) poor and (shrinking) middle class are the foundation, and if their lives become one of subsistence only, they will not have the spending ability necessary to prop up our economy. This will in turn drag everyone else down, and the rich and super-rich will have no one left to buy the products that their money-making corporations produce. This is just simple logic - what happens to the least of us happens to us all.
the Republican party long ago ceased to be concerned with the poor, working, or middle classes. I have become convinced that the party that was originally founded to combat slavery, the party of Lincoln, has undergone several major transformations in its history. In the 80s it was taken over by the religious right when Reagan used blatant pandering to evangelicals to clinch the nomination. Then in 2000 with the election of Bush the neo-Cons took over. While they still paid lip service to the religious right, and still talked the whole Reagan-era "small government" audioporn, they had transformed the party yet again.
I am utterly certain that the core leadership of the GOP, the people who meet quietly behind the scenes to determine the direction, efforts, and ideology of the party have only a single goal now: to transfer as much of the tax burden as possible off of the wealthy and corporations and onto the middle and working classes.
That's their point, now. Everything they do is in some way designed to either transfer the tax burden or to distract the public from how they are transferring the tax burden. They care nothing about encroaching Muslims, or Sharia, or abortion, or gay marriage, or job creation, or any of the other issues they are screaming about. All of these things are just bugbears meant to frighten their base and distract everyone from what they are really doing. The fact that by doing this they are inevitably killing off the middle class and creating a two-tiered society with a very wealthy, privileged elite minority and a vast, dead-ended underclass of the poor doesn't matter to them, because they will be firmly in the first category.
You forgot the shift to supporting Big Business under Taft.
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I was just hitting a few recent highlights.
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Why should anyone be concerned for the rich?
Cuz they create jobs, duh!
I actually listened to what he said afterwards. What he meant was that he wasn't concerned with any specific segment of American society, but rather American society as a whole. He also said "I'm not concerned about the very rich".
Seems like an afterthough he had so people wouldn't hate him. I'm not concerned about the very poor... but I'm not concerned about the rich either, so I'm okay!
Anyways, Romney is telling the truth. He doesn't care about the poor, he doesn't care about the rich, he only cares about himself and he so happens to be rich.
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The Republican party has got to learn that you cannot build a house on a shitty foundation and expect it to stand. The (growing) poor and (shrinking) middle class are the foundation, and if their lives become one of subsistence only, they will not have the spending ability necessary to prop up our economy. This will in turn drag everyone else down, and the rich and super-rich will have no one left to buy the products that their money-making corporations produce. This is just simple logic - what happens to the least of us happens to us all.
the Republican party long ago ceased to be concerned with the poor, working, or middle classes. I have become convinced that the party that was originally founded to combat slavery, the party of Lincoln, has undergone several major transformations in its history. In the 80s it was taken over by the religious right when Reagan used blatant pandering to evangelicals to clinch the nomination. Then in 2000 with the election of Bush the neo-Cons took over. While they still paid lip service to the religious right, and still talked the whole Reagan-era "small government" audioporn, they had transformed the party yet again.
I am utterly certain that the core leadership of the GOP, the people who meet quietly behind the scenes to determine the direction, efforts, and ideology of the party have only a single goal now: to transfer as much of the tax burden as possible off of the wealthy and corporations and onto the middle and working classes.
That's their point, now. Everything they do is in some way designed to either transfer the tax burden or to distract the public from how they are transferring the tax burden. They care nothing about encroaching Muslims, or Sharia, or abortion, or gay marriage, or job creation, or any of the other issues they are screaming about. All of these things are just bugbears meant to frighten their base and distract everyone from what they are really doing. The fact that by doing this they are inevitably killing off the middle class and creating a two-tiered society with a very wealthy, privileged elite minority and a vast, dead-ended underclass of the poor doesn't matter to them, because they will be firmly in the first category.
You forgot the shift to supporting Big Business under Taft.
Really that far predates Taft. Virtually every Republican (virtually every President) since, say, Johnson has had plenty of pandering. Polishing the knob of big business is an art as old as big business itself. Teddy Roosevelt was one of the few to be willing to stand up to the powerful, and Taft was definitely a dramatic swing back in the other direction - it's what got TR to run in 1912, after all - but I think for him it was entirely personal. He needed to be the biggest dog in the pack.
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Great then the poor are not concerned with you and will go vote for Obama.
Ironbite-does anyone in the GOP realize that even though you're poor, you can still vote?
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They know it, but they're trying to fix that.
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Great then the poor are not concerned with you and will go vote for Obama.
Ironbite-does anyone in the GOP realize that even though you're poor, you can still vote?
That is why the GOP is pushing for those voter ID requirments all over the country. To help solve that little problem for them.
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Yeah, I saw some assclown on TV the other day saying how voter ID is utterly essential to prevent what he called "serious and systemic voter fraud," even though when pressed he could not name a single instance of voter fraud. Voter fraud is a bugbear, a made-up crisis to justify ramming through all these photo-ID voter laws.
The reality is that these ID laws will essentially disenfranchise around 3 million American voters, almost exclusively in urban and far-rural areas. This voter demographic skews overwhelmingly Democrat when taken as a whole.
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This is related, and I want to punch Rush in the face.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BUMIW8QM5g
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Okay point I disagree with. Worst possible way to say it, ever.
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The best thing about this Republican primary is that no matter who wins, all Obama will have to do is play back their own words. No video production, no writing, nothing. Just replay that footage and watch themselves dig their own graves.
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Teddy Roosevelt was one of the few to be willing to stand up to the powerful, and Taft was definitely a dramatic swing back in the other direction - it's what got TR to run in 1912, after all - but I think for him it was entirely personal. He needed to be the biggest dog in the pack.
Well considering the size of William Howard Taft...[/fat joke]
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What is it about Obamacare that Rush doesn't like? That it offered millions of people medical care that didn't have access to it? That insurance companies can't kick people off their policy because of a pre-existing condition? That if you make your insurance payments, they can't deny you coverage when you get sick?
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What is it about Obamacare that Rush doesn't like? That it offered millions of people medical care that didn't have access to it? That insurance companies can't kick people off their policy because of a pre-existing condition? That if you make your insurance payments, they can't deny you coverage when you get sick?
Yes
He loves big insurance
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What is it about Obamacare that Rush doesn't like? That it offered millions of people medical care that didn't have access to it? That insurance companies can't kick people off their policy because of a pre-existing condition? That if you make your insurance payments, they can't deny you coverage when you get sick?
...Death Panels? :-\
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The problem with Obama's health care reform is that the GOP is over-run with Randian Objectivists, Evangelical Capitalists, and McCarthy-style Communiophobes.
The Randians object because in their ethos, if you can't provide it for yourself you don't deserve to have it, so those who can not secure access to health care entirely on their own do not deserve to have any health care. "Are there no workhouses? No prisons?" The Randians think it is right and just for this "surplus population" to die from lack of health care.
The Evangelical Capitalists are so committed to the "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps / God helps those who help themselves" meme that they can't see past it to realize that this ethos screws you entirely if you HAVE no bootstraps to pull up, if the bootstraps were taken by a predatory bank, or if you are stuck in a desperation subsistence job that doesn't pay enough to even take the bus down to the bootstrap store to window shop. Oh, and that God has never been proven to directly help anyone get health care. These people are downright offended by the idea of Obamacare because they believe their patented Capitalist Jesus would hate it. Which is weird, because the Jesus of the Bible personally provided free health care to every single person who asked him for it whether they deserved it or not.
The McCarthyists? Well, they are so terrified of anything that can be even remotely described as "socialist" that they have fainting attacks at the mere word. (Nevermind that the Soviet Union is long gone, and was never "socialist" to begin with. Hell, during the Soviet era, with our food stamps, housing assistance, and Social Security, the USA was more socialist than the Soviets were.) They don't really know what Obamacare even is because at the first mention of it they clamp their hands over their ears and scream "LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA!"
But I think in the end they are all really just Randian Objectivists, and are so deeply resentful of being asked to help others. They just don't give a shit if their neighbor dies of cancer or pneumonia as long as they get $20 more in their paychecks to spend on porn and Bibles.
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If he is unconcerned about the wealthy, why does he insist they need more tax cuts? Sounds pretty concerned to me.
He says that he is unconcerned with the poor because there are "safety nets" in place, and when he is President (god forbid) he will "plug any holes" in that safety net. Does he not realize what a "safety net" is?
………Everything Else is awesome too……
This is absolutely everything I want to say, but I didn’t know how to say it. All this, so much. I love you so much, Sandman! :D
Yeah, I saw some assclown on TV the other day saying how voter ID is utterly essential to prevent what he called "serious and systemic voter fraud," even though when pressed he could not name a single instance of voter fraud.
Well, there is that guy that committed fraud just to show that the fraud was possible. ::)
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What is it about Obamacare that Rush doesn't like? That it offered millions of people medical care that didn't have access to it? That insurance companies can't kick people off their policy because of a pre-existing condition? That if you make your insurance payments, they can't deny you coverage when you get sick?
Sandman did a very good job of answering this question, but there wasn't enough cynicism. So I'll take a stab at it.
Currently, the point of politics is to win. Wait. Let me back up. Everyone here knows that Fox News is the GOP's PR department in fact, if not in name. So when talking about the Republican party, Fox News is tossed in there as well. So the point of politics is to win. Any governing going on is a tool to win like sports plays. I'll use (American) football since that's easiest for me. So for example the Democrats are pushing legislation for SSM. Cool. They are energizing their base. A run play. Well, there's another team who doesn't want the Democratic party running up the score. So they set up for a run defense, energizing their own base. "Obamacare" is a forty five yard pass. And the GOP's safety right now (on that issue) is hauling ass to tackle the receiver. In this case, Rush, Hannity, and the other talking heads would be your secondary defense trying to end the play before a touchdown. And to be honest, they did a good job. With how watered down the bill became, we ended up with a field goal rather than a touchdown.
Romney isn't concerned about the poor people? No shit. They can't help him win. Obama in '08 saw and used the numbers of the not extremely monied.
But yeah. There can only be one winner. The Republicans want to be it and so do the Democrats.
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Yeah, I saw some assclown on TV the other day saying how voter ID is utterly essential to prevent what he called "serious and systemic voter fraud," even though when pressed he could not name a single instance of voter fraud. Voter fraud is a bugbear, a made-up crisis to justify ramming through all these photo-ID voter laws.
The reality is that these ID laws will essentially disenfranchise around 3 million American voters, almost exclusively in urban and far-rural areas. This voter demographic skews overwhelmingly Democrat when taken as a whole.
Aren't a lot of people in rural areas conservative, and also a lot of the elderly?
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Romney says he just misspoke and leave him alone already (http://news.yahoo.com/romney-hannity-misspoke-not-being-concerned-very-poor-061607805.html).
Mitt Romney got his chance to clarify comments he made during an interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien in which he said he was "not concerned about the very poor." In an interview Thursday with Fox News host Sean Hannity, the former Massachusetts governor expressed regret for his comments, saying, "I misspoke."
"I wish I wouldn't have said it that way. I made the same thought part of my speeches over the last year or two, which is that I'm really concerned about middle-income Americans. I want to help middle-income Americans. I want to get people out of poverty, into the middle-income category."
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Romney says he just misspoke and leave him alone already (http://news.yahoo.com/romney-hannity-misspoke-not-being-concerned-very-poor-061607805.html).
Mitt Romney got his chance to clarify comments he made during an interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien in which he said he was "not concerned about the very poor." In an interview Thursday with Fox News host Sean Hannity, the former Massachusetts governor expressed regret for his comments, saying, "I misspoke."
"I wish I wouldn't have said it that way. I made the same thought part of my speeches over the last year or two, which is that I'm really concerned about middle-income Americans. I want to help middle-income Americans. I want to get people out of poverty, into the middle-income category."
Sure is easy to backpedal when you get heavily criticized for your remarks, isn't it?
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I understand if you mis-speak, but Mitt....you want to be President of the United States. The leader of the free world. Arguably one of the most powerful men on planet Earth. The standards for the job are quite high, and include being able to say what you mean clearly the first time you say it.
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I understand if you mis-speak, but Mitt....you want to be President of the United States. The leader of the free world. Arguably one of the most powerful men on planet Earth. The standards for the job are quite high, and include being able to say what you mean clearly the first time you say it.
Hey, if W. can get in, why not Mitt? ;D
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I objected to W, too.
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The problem with Obama's health care reform is that the GOP is over-run with Randian Objectivists, Evangelical Capitalists, and McCarthy-style Communiophobes.
Wasn't Obama's healthcare reform the same one pushed by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation?
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I don't know about it being pushed by the Heritage Foundation, but it was pushed by the GOP as an alternative to Hillary Care.
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I think Gingrich pushed something similar during the Clinton Administration.
Here's what I was able to find about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ugtS60oVts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZiDDd8GsRs
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2010/04/author_author.html
Of course RWingers don't want to assoicate themselves with a Muslim hippie Nazi socialist from Kenya Mars.
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The problem with Obama's health care reform is that the GOP is over-run with Randian Objectivists, Evangelical Capitalists, and McCarthy-style Communiophobes.
Wasn't Obama's healthcare reform the same one pushed by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation?
Yeah, it isn’t about actually passing ideas that might be good for the country. It is about getting the credit for ideas that might be good for the country.