Let me finish tonight with this.
People keep wondering why Mitt Romney won’t say what he’d do – I mean in simple terms – to cut the debt. You know, the vision thing. Just lay it out there, his big vision of how to attack what he keeps insisting is the country’s big problem, the reason we haven’t moved with a faster recovery.
It’s really quite understandable. It’s called arithmetic. If you want to cut the debt – I mean really cut it – you have to cut spending big-time. You’ve got to chop off government programs big-time. What’s he going to chop off: defense? Are you kidding? He attacks Obama for “shrinking” defense spending.
Chop off federal interest payments on the debt? Can’t do that. It’s called default. Default is what we’re afraid is going to happen in Europe. What do you mean we can’t pay what we owe?
Okay, eliminate social security and Medicare benefits? Can’t do that: the government owes that money and nobody is going to refuse to pay it. Nobody! Certainly not a Republican given that party’s record on Social Security. What’s Romney talk about? He talks about “earmarks” and other Mickey Mouse stuff.
Again, why doesn’t he come out with a big plan to cut the debt? Because he doesn’t want to! In fact, he’s ready to go the other way and “add” to the debt. Last night he went on television after the primary results to say he wants to eliminate what Republicans call the “death tax,” that he wants to get alternative minimum tax out of your hair and he’ll bump in a 20 percent across the board rate cut to boot. You know what that is? It’s offering a sop to the big money people he wants to start ponying up to his campaign. Did you notice how he laid it out there right before he read out the name of his website for campaign contributions. It was a business deal: give a few thousand bucks to get me in office and I’ll save you millions in taxes. But didn’t he say the big problem was the rising debt? Last night, he went the opposite direction. He pandered to the big boys to get campaign money to smother his opponents next week. The debt Mitt Romney’s really worried about is the one his campaign might leave him stuck with.
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