A VOTE FOR ROMNEY IS A VOTE AGAINST YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES

As I have listened to Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan deliver their final speeches this week I am reminded of what former President Bill Clinton said at the DNC referring to the Republican’s relentless attacks on President Obama’s accomplishments and on the economy since taking office.

“…We all know that he also tried to work with congressional Republicans on health care, debt reduction and new jobs. And that didn’t work out so well.  But it could have been because, as the Senate Republican leader said in a remarkable moment of candor two full years before the election, their number one priority was not to put America back to work; it was to put the president out of work.

“…The Republican argument against the president’s re-election was actually pretty simple — pretty snappy. It went something like this: We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough. So fire him and put us back in.

“…They want to the same old policies that got us in trouble in the first place. They want to cut taxes for high- income Americans, even more than President Bush did. They want to get rid of those pesky financial regulations designed to prevent another crash and prohibit future bailouts. They want to actually increase defense spending over a decade $2 trillion more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they’ll spend it on. And they want to make enormous cuts in the rest of the budget, especially programs that help the middle class and poor children.

“…Here it is. He inherited a deeply damaged economy. He put a floor under the crash. He began the long, hard road to recovery and laid the foundation for a modern, more well- balanced economy that will produce millions of good new jobs, vibrant new businesses and lots of new wealth for innovators.

“…When President Barack Obama took office, the economy was in free fall. It had just shrunk 9 full percent of GDP. We were losing 750,000 jobs a month.

“…In 2010, as the president’s recovery program kicked in, the job losses stopped and things began to turn around. The recovery act saved or created millions of jobs and cut taxes — let me say this again — cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people.   And, in the last 29 months, our economy has produced about 4 1/2 million private sector jobs.

“We could have done better, but last year the Republicans blocked the president’s job plan, costing the economy more than a million new jobs.

“…I don’t know about you — but on all these issues, I know we’re better off because President Obama made the decisions he did.

“…So let me ask you something. Are we better off because President Obama fought for health care reform?  You bet we are.

“…So — so President Obama and the Democrats didn’t weaken Medicare; they strengthened Medicare. Now, when Congressman Ryan looked into that TV camera and attacked President Obama’s Medicare savings as, quote, the biggest, coldest power play, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry — because that $716 billion is exactly, to the dollar, the same amount of Medicare savings that he has in his own budget.  You got to get one thing — it takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.

“…Let’s look at the other big charge the Republicans made. It’s a real doozy.  They actually have charged and run ads saying that President Obama wants to weaken the work requirements in the welfare reform bill I signed that moved millions of people from welfare to work.

“…When some Republican governors asked if they could have waivers to try new ways to put people on welfare back to work, the Obama administration listened because we all know it’s hard for even people with good work histories to get jobs today. So moving folks from welfare to work is a real challenge.

“And the administration agreed to give waivers to those governors and others only if they had a credible plan to increase employment by 20 percent, and they could keep the waivers only if they did increase employment. Now, did I make myself clear? The requirement was for more work, not less.

“…My fellow Americans, all of us in this grand hall and everybody watching at home, when we vote in this election, we’ll be deciding what kind of country we want to live in.

“…If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American dream is really alive and well again and where the United States maintains its leadership as a force for peace and justice and prosperity in this highly competitive world, you have to vote for Barack Obama.”

I’ve listened to Mitt Romney as he boasted of his accomplishments as Governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007) with that smirky smile on his face while he puts down the president, lied about what the president said or did, and changed his own position on issues seemingly on a daily basis.  Here are some facts:

1.       Mitt Romney made disparaging remarks about and dismissed 47% of the people in the United States as being lazy, not willing to take responsibility for themselves, waiting for government handouts, etc.

2.       Paul Ryan dismisses 30% of Americans “takers.”

3.       Romney says “You know that if the President is re-elected, he will still be unable to work with the people in Congress.”  As Clinton said “It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.”

a.       As governor of Massachusetts Romney says “I figured out from day one I had to get along and I had to work across the aisle to get anything done.”    He vetoed more than 800 budgetary bills all of which were overturned or overridden 99.6% of the time (775 overridden, 3 approved).  Often with the 6 republicans joining the Democrats to kill Romney’s vetoes.

b.      He vetoed a bill that would have covered cities during floods in 2004.  According to news reports “Romney claimed he didn't have enough information about the project, though local officials said they had given him lots of information. In 2006, Peabody flooded again. Romney was there for a photo op after the flood, but Peabody probably would have preferred to have had the funding to prevent flooding in the first place. When the city of Greenfield flooded, in 2005, Romney was too busy traveling the nation positioning himself for a presidential run to find out the extent of the flooding or declare an emergency. The most senior person in his administration, the city's mayor, could get in touch with was the lieutenant governor's chief of staff. Without help from the state, Greenfield faced an example of what America can look forward to if Romney becomes president. ”  Those incidents would have been perfect opportunities for him to demonstrate his idea of reducing funding to FEMA in lieu of returning total responsibility of emergency responses to the states.  According to news reports “Romney says he wants states to handle emergency response. But when he had the chance to show how well that can work, all he showed was failure and indifference.”

c.       He was described as “aloof and, after a failed attempt to build up the Republican brand in his state, he withdrew, refusing to work with legislators – even Republicans.”

d.      He ”had a policeman screen visitors and who did not allow lawmakers to use the bank of elevators just outside his office.”

e.      "The Republican reps would grumble that he didn't even know their names."

f.        He says he “cut taxes 19 times.”  Reports say “Romney simply signed those 19 tax cuts in many cases without any prior work with legislators. The majority of the tax cuts were selective and small tax credits or deductions, not broad-based cuts.”

g.       "The one bipartisan effort of his administration was health reform,'' and in that case others “did a superb job and Romney did not.”

h.      In 2004 he helped recruit and finance “more than 100 new Republican candidates for the 200 House and Senate seats in Massachusetts. The effort failed when all incumbents were re-elected to office. Romney then seemed to turn more of his attention to testing the waters for a presidential run in 2008.”

Romney and Ryan have characterized Barack Obama as being everything they can.  He has been accused of doing so many things that the fact-checkers have said just aren’t so.  Just a few days ago Ryan said Obamacare was “a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty and compromises those values, those Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place.”  That is ironic since his ideological hero is Ayn Rand is one of history’s most famous and outspoken atheists according to news reports.  So, having said the above when you enter that booth to cast your vote for the Romney/Ryan ticket today take the rose-colored glasses off and accept Romney’s used car salesman speech for exactly what it is – HE IS MAKING HIS SALES PITCH IN ATTEMPT TO SELL YOU A LEMON DISQUISED AS A PEACH.  You will get what Massachusetts got – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!!  A VOTE FOR ROMNEY IS A VOTE AGAINST YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES.  http://mzmadea2u.tumblr.com/