Romney: "I'm not concerned about the very poor"

[TheL]

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.

[sandman]

I was just hitting a few recent highlights.

[Cataclysm]

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.

[MaybeNever]

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.

[ironbite]

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?

[Jack Mann]

They know it, but they're trying to fix that.

[m52nickerson]

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.

[sandman]

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.

[Captain Jack Harkness]

This is related, and I want to punch Rush in the face.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BUMIW8QM5g" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BUMIW8QM5g</a>

[Eniliad]

Okay point I disagree with. Worst possible way to say it, ever.

[StallChaser]

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.

[TheL]

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]

[clockworkgirl21]

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?

[kefkaownsall]

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

[e13]

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?