Wealth, transparency issues dog Romney campaign
AP Photo
(CBS News) The Obama campaign on Friday sought to capitalize on a report in the Washington Post that said rival Mitt Romney has taken advantage of federal ethics laws to legally avoid disclosing specific details about his wealth.
Launching an attack from the president's own Twitter account, the Obama campaign asked, "So what's Romney hiding? Tweet @MittRomney to demand he release his tax returns." They attempted to keep the meme alive online with the hashtag #WhatsRomneyHiding, used by Democrats like Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt.
The Post's report gave the Obama campaign the opportunity to fully embrace the line of attack that Romney's GOP rivals have used in the primary, casting him as a self-interested corporate raider, part of the unfairly privileged 1 percent of society.
On CBS' Face the Nation last Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden said "Romney is a little out of touch" with the middle class. This election, he said, "is about the middle class and none of what he is offering, does anything."
Attacks casting Romney as a wealthy elite -- illustrated by his ties to the company he founded, Bain Capital -- may have slowed his primary campaign. Still, he appears to be on the verge of securing the nomination as Republican voters look for a candidate best outfitted to defeat Mr. Obama in the fall.And while Romney's chief GOP rival, Rick Santorum, was able to contrast Romney's corporate background and extreme wealth to his own relatively humble beginnings, the Romney campaign could effectively turn the "elitism" argument back around at Mr. Obama.
Romney's disclosure reports do raise serious questions about he nature of Romney's investments, as well as the level of transparency that should be required of politicians. As the Post points out, Romney used a legal loophole to give a limited picture of his assets, leaving it unclear whether his wealth is invested in controversial companies. He declined to identify the underlying assets in 48 accounts with Bain Capital because they are covered by a confidentiality agreement with the company.
Romney's reports are in line technically with the letter of the law and were certified by the Office of Government Ethics. Furthermore, his campaign says he hasn't known the details of his investments since they were turned over to a trustee.
Still, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina charged Romney "put his personal financial assets in a black box and hid the key."
"Mitt Romney has asked Americans to elect him President based on his experience as a corporate buyout specialist," Messina said in a statement. "Each week, new questions are raised about whether he took unusual steps to avoid paying his fair share in taxes."
In response, Romney campaign spokesman Andrea Saul said, "President Obama will do anything to try and distract Americans from his failed record of chronic unemployment, lower incomes and higher gas prices."
In the past, when Mr. Obama's team has chastised Republicans for failing to set higher ethical standards for their campaign financing, Republicans have shot back that the president is failing to meet the spirit of his own promises by hobnobbing with corporate donors.
Furthermore, it's clear the Romney campaign thinks Mr. Obama is also vulnerable to being cast as "out of touch."
Watch Romney, after sweeping three primaries, call Obama out of touch, in the video at left.On a campaign stop in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Thursday, Romney said of Mr. Obama, "We have a president who I think is a nice guy, but he spent too much time at Harvard, perhaps, or maybe just not enough time working in the real world."
While Romney in fact spent more time at Harvard than Mr. Obama, he often touts his "real world" business experience. On Wednesday, Romney berated his "out-of-touch liberal friends" and cast the president as an obtuse academic intent on creating a "government-centered society" and "crushing the dreams ... crushing the dreamers."
Issues of wealth and elitism are sure to continue to dog both candidates as they compete for working class votes -- especially in key states like Ohio, where manufacturing is a key sector of the economy and the percentage of residents with a higher degree is below the national average. Polling out of Ohio and other key states suggest both Mr. Obama and Romney have work to do winning over those voters.
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Climate agenda and carbon taxes:
He has stated that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is real. In 2005, as governor of Massachusetts, Romney imposed strict state limitations on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. In a memo issued by Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Hale, the Romney administration bragged that it was "the first and only state to set CO 2 emissions limits on power plants."
In short, Romney did what Obama's EPA wants to do now. It is revealing that Romney was advised on this drastic step by none other than Obama's chief science adviser, John Holdren.
In his book, No Apology, Romney advocates carbon taxes through a "tax-swap plan" and declares that resultant "higher energy prices would encourage energy efficiency." The plan is favored by economist and Romney adviser Greg Mankiw and many other "Republican-leaning economists." In 2007, Mankiw wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled "One Answer to Global Warming: A New Tax." He wrote that "if we want to reduce global emissions of carbon, we need a global carbon tax."
Obama also wants to push a carbon tax on the American people and declared his intention to do so before he took office. "President elect Barack Obama used his speech at a Los Angeles summit last night to reinvigorate a push for the revival of a frightening proposal to slash carbon emissions by 80 per cent, a move that would inflict a new Great Depression, cost millions of jobs, and sink America to near third world status," Paul Joseph Watson wrote on November 19, 2008.
Obama's agenda to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent fits right into the globalist plan to attain the ultimate civilization-killing goal of zero carbon emissions, as espoused by the Carnegie Institute.
Romneycare:
In December, Romney told Fox News that he stands by the health care at gunpoint plan implemented while he was governor of Massachusetts. "The plan is not perfect, there are things that I'd change in it, but I'll stand by the things we've done," he said, defending the plan.
Obama and the Democrats were so enthralled with Romney's statist health care boondoggle, they based their plan on it.
"Newly obtained White House records provide fresh details on how senior Obama administration officials used Mitt Romney's landmark health-care law in Massachusetts as a model for the new federal law, including recruiting some of Romney's own health care advisers and experts to help craft the act," NBC reported last October.
Abortion:
Like a good Demopublican, Romney supported a woman's "right" to kill her fetus - that is before, as a "conservative," he changed his mind - or as it is usually called, he flip-flopped on the issue.
He was so adamant about abortion, he attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in 2004, but now supports the Pence amendment sponsored by Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence aimed at eliminating all Title X grants for Planned Parenthood. He even instituted tax-funded abortion on demand two years after his orchestrated "pro-life" conversion.
Obama, of course, is "pro-choice" and has appointed a number of outspoken pro-abortion advocates to his administration. If elected, no doubt Romney will do the same.
Illegal immigration:
Mitt claims to oppose illegal immigration, but does not advocate sending illegals back - or, apparently, even arresting them for breaking the law.
"Those people that are here illegally today should have the opportunity to register and to have their status identified," he said in November.
He said nothing about illegal immigrants paying back taxes, learning English, not having criminal records, or being deported and going through legal channels for immigration.
Romney sounds a lot like Obama, who said: "I think most Americans feel there should be an orderly process to do it. People shouldn't just be coming here and cutting in front of the line essentially and staying without having gone through the proper channels."
Mitt Romney is basically indistinguishable from Obama and supports the same globalist agenda, albeit with "conservative" flourishes. His flip-flopping on key issues is designed to make his pre-arranged agenda more palatable to so-called conservatives, who will naturally be hoodwinked as they are every election cycle.
If elected, Romney will become the white Obama. The only job requirement will be an ability to convincingly read a teleprompter and follow orders handed down form his globalist masters the same as his predecessor.
WAKE UP. YOUR FUTURE IS MADE FOR YOU. YOU HAVE NO REAL CHANGE IN FRONT OF YOU. WELCOME THE FACIST DICTATORSHIP and SCREW YOUR FREEDOM, NOT GONNA HAPPEN. WE ARE LIVESTOCK TO THE GLOBAL ELITE. FISCAL SLAVERY IS ESSENTIAL> LOVE THE FISCAL PRISON YOU ARE IN?
President Obama takes the cake - he continually projects his on faults on others. It is sickening.
- Etch-A-Sketch
President Obama, perpetuating a government centered society, "by the people for the people." And wasn't he a professor of Constitutional Law at a liberal university?
No taxation without representation. Did Romney use a mandate for Massachusetts for health insurance coverage with citizens? Is it a tax or a penalty?
Oh, and when is the Marxist overthrow due to commence? I got my suit cleaned and pressed for it, like you all said to back in Jan 2009, and I'm still waiting....