Jan 11 2012
Big Government Obama versus Big Government Romney
Today we are blessed with two harsh examples of how the GOP took a growing wave of anti-government anger in the electorate in 2010 and are about to blow it by nominating a big government GOP candidate (Mitt Romney) to go up against a big government liberal Democrat (Barack Obama).
A lot of this has to do with how these people see the engine of our economy and the heart of America. President Obama just recently stuck his foot into his mouth by claiming America did not get where it is at by being competitive:
“We are not a country that was built on the idea of survival of the fittest,” Obama said, invoking populist undertones. “We were built on the idea that we survive as a nation. We thrive when we work together, all of us.”
The man is truly ignorant of history and the private sector. This country was built by pioneers and explorers. As Mary Katherine Hamm said on the radio this morning, Obama is claiming we did not prosper unless we had a government run program to make us a community.
Pure liberal nonsense. We survived by exploring an untamed continent. In most cases by establishing communities with no government for 100’s of miles. Are ‘communities’ are all grass roots, as is our charity and support. And we very much thrive on competition, winning the race and gaining the spoils. We do not execute the losers (which is the implication by using a Darwinism here – where the losers die off).
But Romney is not much different. His bain is Bain Capitol, which is also not representative of the engine of our economy. Bain Capitol was a vulture-like endeavor, looking at failing companies and trying to fix them or liquidate them. Romney has his Bain, Obama his Solyndra. In both cases, the wealthy fat cats walk away a little richer and the employees suffer. Everyone likes to fire the small folks.
Bain was not a entrepreneurial effort like a new product or consumer service. It was not like our own small company, looking to meet a need and fill it with the best solution in the industry. Yes, Bain helped right companies and save some from oblivion, but let’s not go crazy here and lift that element of the free market above its foundation – the small business competing to be the next wild success.
In another foot-in-mouth moment, Romney came out and compared himself Obama and how the President created Government Motors:
Romney’s critics have accused him of destroying jobs in order to increase profits for his investment firm, Bain Capital, but speaking Wednesday on CBS, Romney said that what he did was no different from the Obama administration’s auto industry bailouts.
“In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and thousands of workers – he did it to try to save the business,” Romney said Wednesday on CBS.
Great. So Romney plans to bring Bain to the Federal Government. He sounds like he is supporting the government take over of the US car industry. Like I said before, the man should be called Robamaney, since he is just a slight shade of liberal Obama on many issues (Health Care, Global Warming, apparently government take over of the private sector).
This is the blind spot both Obama and Romney have. They don’t see Main Street or the pain and suffering the cold, green-eye-shade efforts have. How does Romney attack all the Solyndra’s out there when he makes statements like this?
Romney is not as smart as people think, and he is not shoe-in against Obama. Today’s dueling quotes clearly show this to be the case.
Bain Capital wasn’t entirely a vulture-like endeavor, but it did use some vulture-like endeavors.
On the good side of capitalism, we have Staples which was funded by Bain during it’s startup phases. On the bad side of capitalism, we have Clear Channel Communications which market watchers believe won’t survive when the original loans taken out with Bain’s help go into refinancing.
What seems to be lost in the Bain discussion is that there are forms of capitalism that have a really bad track record of bringing misery, while at the same time there are also fine upstanding examples of capitalism doing what we expect it to do, generate wealth.
Businesses are much like people .. they are born, they grow, they get old, they die. Bain seems to, on more occasions than anyone would like, to be there collecting their fees .. play a business Dr. Kevorkian as they speed up the dying process.
The common theme, involving Bain, is that folks who look askance at Bain’s Dr. Kevorkian role are condemning all doctors. This is simply not true.
AJ, you raise a good point here, one that has escaped much of the Republican Political-Industrial Complex.
Historically, “Big Business” bought, made, and sold. Products, services, etc. Think of Samuel Colt, Henry Ford, or Steve Jobs – the companies they founded made things you could see and touch. People understand and respect this sort of business success.
But today, the Really Big Money is made in financial machinations. Business takeovers and such that manipulate money, not produce goods and services. And, of course, in Crony Capitalism – having the Government legislate you richer at the taxpayer’s expense.
And to the common citizen, both reek to high Heaven.
People are attacking Gingrich and Santorum for raising the issue. But it’s a fair point. And Romney has done nothing to defend himself.
Continuing the Romney bashing at this point is probably not conducive to getting Obama out of office.
Perry doesn’t have a prayer, neither does Newt, neither does anyone else in this race. It’s pretty much over at this point and continuing to hammer Romney simply does the Democrats’ work for them.
“to blow it by nominating a big government GOP candidate (Mitt Romney)”
I think Romney is now at his peak, he has one foot on the slippery slope. He’ll never get the nomination…
Romney’s far from perfect, but I don’t believe he’ll threaten to tear up the Constitution the way Obama already is.
It’s probably too early to say he’s got the nomination yet, but if he wins South Carolina and Florida the primary race will be over. I wish a small government candidate could have come forward, too, but there’s not a one of them that hasn’t crashed and burned already.
You go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had. Same thing goes for political candidates and general elections.
I would vote for anybody not Obama,
unless it was Ron Paul.
Then I would just stay home.
Obama is the ultimate Manchurian candidate and the world will be safer without him,
except for Paul.
These are extraordinary times.
Leveraged buyers are the most reviled firms (in the Valley, at least).
VCs provide funding for start-ups, at least. They usually screw up the founders, but there are many others who became wealthy due to start-ups.
Leveraged buyers, like Bain, cut to the bone, effectively transforming the companies in sweat shops.
Furthermore, these companies use restructured companies as collateral, for loans.
There are Bain Capital restructured companies, left with so much debt on the books, that they entered bankruptcy after Bain sold their interest in them.
Don’t you think Obama doesn’t know this?
We, in the GOP, deserved a better “capitalist champion”.
Now that Romney will probably win, we must think what to do next.
It won’t be pretty, that’s for sure.
At least Romney believes in economic freedom. And the American economic system has given more people more opportunity than any other financial system in the world. Is it perfect? No. Is it the best we have, Yes. I know because I have personally benefited from it, being able to make as much money as I was willing to work to get while the company I worked for took 2/3’s of the money made and I kept 1/3. Fine with me. They were taking all the risk and deserved the larger reward. Hence the essence of our system: high risk pays high rewards. Individual liberty and economic freedom are pillars of our country for over 235 years.
The liberals cannot fathom this or don’t want to compete…they want us all to be the “same”. Thing is, we are equal BUT we are NOT the same, thank goodness.
And we need to stop generalizing about business being bad, because the fact is GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION INTO our system is what caused our meltdown.
Romney is acceptable to 59% of conservatives, moderates and liberals according to a poll Brit Hume is citing right now. Sounds great to me! Ron Paul appeals to democrats. So be it.
Once again what can I say except… “Wow!”
Give Romney a GOP (and hopefully conservative) congress to work with and where will he go? Let’s see:
1. He was on the Cut, Cap, and Balance bandwagon while Newt was whining about right wing social engineering.
2. He hates Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank.
3. He’s been critical of the EPA and FDA.
4. He’s promised to grant 100% waivers to Obamacare and will sign a repeal bill if he gets one.
5. He at least sounds tough on Iran and certainly will be tougher than Obama.
6. He said in a 2003 interview his favorite justice is Scalia. Now he also says he likes Roberts and Alto. So we can presume that at least he’ll appoint judges who are more conservative than Obama has.
So is he perfect? Maybe not. But Obama lite? A dissaster waiting to happen? I don’t get it.
But I do get that there are people out there who think he’s a liar and will change as soon as he gets elected.
Maybe he’ll turn out to be a Bush 41. But 41 was better than Dukakis – or are you going to try to tell me that the country would have been better off with that clown as President.
“But I do get that there are people out there who think he’s a liar and will change as soon as he gets elected.”
He’s a politician, isn’t he? That means he is a liar by nature and choice. He’ll do what he perceives to be in HIS best interest 100% of the time and to hell with what is best for the country. Do you know ANY politician that this is not true about?
All those things above that you said 1,2,3,4,5,6. That is only what he says, not what he does. It’s clearly laughable….
Voters in NH yesterday. 49% was Repubs, remainder were others and this is to decide who the Republican nominee is.
Just saw some data on New Hampshire – Romney actually got 49% of the Republican vote in the race. The majority of Huntsman and Paul’s vote was from crossover voters.
Which is why Huntsman and Paul are finished once the race moves to states like South Carolina and Florida where crossover voting isn’t allowed.
As far as the complaints about Bain – since when do conservatives start buying into Obama’s marxist rhetoric which says that capitalists are evil and the only people who can be trusted are the loyal government apparatchiks who have never been dirtied by the evils of private enterprise?
It is clear Mittens will be better than Obama.
It is unquestionable that we can not afford four more years of this commie.
However, we have to REVERSE decades of government encroachment.
A wishy-washy guy, like Mittens, will only slow the socialist slide. Furthermore, as history teaches us, guys like him are quickly booted out of office. H.W.Bush anyone?
And after that what?
Another demshevik to renew the socialist push?
WWS, it’s a matter of whether conservatism means more than a dollar bill. Many of us prize liberty more. We want a government that maintains order, defends the Republic, and stays out of our affairs otherwise. In the minds of many, Romney has steered awfully close to crony capitalism.
The points raised about a Republican Congress being able to dominate are valid. Congress has the whip hand domestically, and I like Romney most of all on his foreign/defense policy. He really gets seapower.
I’ll support whoever the Republican candidate is, but I may need MOPP gear to do so.
I wonder if anyone else has noticed a different tone about this particular primary. There seems to be more of an angry divisiveness than during any other election in recent memory. For instance, those who are more ‘accepting’ of Romney are oftentimes reviled as RINOs by ones who like Newt. Bain, in effect, has become a ‘dirty’ word, worse than being a marxist, or so it seems.
In fact more negativity seems aimed at Romney than Obama. It’s beyond me that there could be a conservative contingency out there who really believes there is little difference between Romney and Obama. With that kind of attitude, I think it will be difficult to win anything in ’12 — not even for the job of dog catcher.
“Just saw some data on New Hampshire – Romney actually got 49% of the Republican vote in the race. The majority of Huntsman and Paul’s vote was from crossover voters.”
couldn’t find that number, but if Romney got 39% of the total vote and 49% of the Republicans voted for him then that means that the majority of his vote also was from crossover voters as was Huntsman and Paul.
Just for the record, South Carolina has an open primary also so that means that all the Dims can vote for Romney again.
As I said, the Repubs are hell bent on letting the Dims pick their candidate.
What I find most ironic is that if you go back and look at old posts, in 2008 and 2010 AJ was one of the most vocal about denouncing the conservative purists who demanded complete ideological purity, and he excoriated those who called McCain a “RINO” and who said they could never vote for him because of that. He used to regularly point out what a bitter, deluded, and self-defeating attitude that was, and that all it did was to guarantee the other side victory.
Romney is far more conservative than McCain ever thought about being, but today he’s not good enough. What changed?
WWS?”Romney is far more conservative than McCain ever thought about being, ”
puhleeze…. That’s like trying to determine which orange tastes more like an orange. Neither of those two guys bear even a slight resemblance to being a conservative. Where would you possibly get any impression otherwise. I would personally put both of them to the left of center of the political spectrum. Just to refresh memories of what a conservative is Ronald Reaqan, remember him?
Redteam, I remember the Reagan administration well. Conservatives hated him. California conservatives in particular. Reagan had PERSONAL conservative beliefs but he didn’t believe in using his office in government to shove his beliefs down the throats of people. His philosophy was to allow the states to decide and the people could “vote with their feet”.
He also presided over the greatest amnesty in our history for illegal aliens. Also, most people outside of California don’t understand “Proposition 13” and believe it was simply a property tax cap, it was more than that. What Prop. 13 did was make all county and municipal property taxes go to the state rather than the counties and cities. The state then divvied the money back out after taking a cut for itself.
Reagan was pragmatic. He was not a “pure” conservative. He didn’t much like “all or nothing” conservatives and they didn’t much like him at the time. I thought it quite ironic in the 1980 election cycle when George HW Bush described Reagan’s economic plan as “voodoo economics” when Reagan was the only President we have had that actually had a formal college degree in economics.
Reagan was PERSONALLY conservative but wasn’t out to make America after his own image. I don’t think Romney is either.
One thing people don’t really understand about being a Republican governor in Massachusetts is that the Democrats outnumber the Republicans in the legislature by about 4 to 1. They can override any veto by the governor.
The Mitt Romney described here isn’t the one that’s railing against the “social welfare state” lately.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45955056
Right now, Romney’s our best chance.