Originally Posted by
Blackstone
I can’t agree with the contention that Romney worked across the aisle in MA. I know that’s what he claimed during the election, but the facts don’t support it. He vetoed 844 bills passed by the mostly Democratic state legislature. Even his Director of Legislative Affairs, John O’Keefe, said, “He [Romney] seemed to take great delight in vetoing bills. Some of the bills we would chuckle when we wrote the veto message.” That doesn’t seem like someone trying to work across the aisle.
Maybe he was correct in vetoing those 844 bills? How many bills did he sign? It would be hard to assess without knowing what the bills were about. Were some of those bills worthy of chuckling? There are some pretty silly laws in many states; and even Federal ones.
That MA voted for Dem candidates is not an unusual outcome.
In addition, in the 2nd year of his term, he mounted a campaign to unseat 131 Democratic legislators. He assembled what he called his “Reform Team” of 131 Republican candidates, spent $3 million of Republican Party money, and hired a well know political strategist to mount his offensive. His efforts failed. None of his candidates were elected, but it did manage to alienate Democratic legislators, making them more difficult for him to work with.
Isn't this common political practice ... for a governor to support candidates of his party; for a POTUS to campaign for and/or otherwise promote candidates in various state elections? You may recall that Obama had a "hand-picked" candidate here in PA in the last mid-terms. It was quite a to-do with the other candidate supposedly being offered a WH position in return for not contesting the primary. Obama's choice for candidate did not succeed.
Further, his business experience didn’t translate into his fixing the MA economy. After 4 years, MA ranked 47th out of 50 states in job production. Unemployment remained higher than the national average his entire 4 years.
We are willing to forgive Obama for record unemployment because the starting situation was so bad. I do not know what the starting point was in MA.
He did balance the budget, but he did it by cutting state funding to cities and towns, which led to cuts in local fireman and police jobs, and led to most cities raising property taxes to make up the shortfall. The average property tax in the state went up by 22% during his 4 years.
Has CA's deficit spending resulted in lower property taxes? Several CA cities are going bankrupt. Maybe balancing the budget was a bitter pill, but needed at the time? Obama has told us that we will all have to sacrifice to support his policies. We see some of that in our electric bills, gasoline prices, and food prices ... which are goods & services that impact those of lower incomes most.
Plus, he raised corporate taxes and state fees by $750 million per year.
I thought the liberal view was to eliminate "corporate welfare"? Is that what he was doing? However, there is no good answer to this without knowing the details.
College and University fees for students increased by about $2,000 per year.
Were they very low at the outset? Is it more fair for the students (or their parents, as the case may be) to shoulder more of the burden for these public institutions than it is for the entire base of taxpayers to do so? That is a philosophical question. I am of the opinion that these students should begin to learn about the facts of life for when they enter the real world. Others may feel differently.
So, the fallout from his economic reforms landed squarely on the backs of the tax payers and residents.
They always do! The way the Federal govt has progressed, that lesson is totally playing out. There is no way the budget deficits will be solved by "taxing the rich" ... it will ultimately HAVE to extend to everyone who pays any taxes ... as soon as middle-income taxpayers realize just how much will have to come from them, there might well be a change of heart about controlling spending.
So, I’m not sure how valuable his business experience would have been.
Lesson #1 of running a business: you must balance your budget. That can involve raising prices and also cutting production costs. I do think that one of the biggest problems of our govt officials is that they have NO CLUE about that simple fact. When programs' spending exceed revenue, they simply raise taxes. Private sector business does not have that simple choice. If price of the product gets too high, the business will go to competitors, and the company disappears. Govt is a monopoly. There is no competition, and they are mostly not held accountable for bad programs or bad decisions, they simply raise the taxes.
I agree that SS & Medicare need to be fixed so they are viable, but I don’t think he was the one to do it.
So far the new administration has made no viable proposals at all to fix these probelms. At least Ryan has a proposal that would be phased in without undue impact on present beneficiaries. Obama and the Senate are simply kicking it down the road ... till it's too late & both collapse?
