Romney-Speak: Three Even Worse Aspects Of Mitt’s Lack Of Concern About the “Very Poor”
In a fit of what can only be viewed as overconfidence after his win in the Florida primary, Mitt Romney accidentally told the truth on CNN this morning:
“I’m not concerned about the very poor,” he said. “We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.”
Being the balanced man he is, he went on to assert he wasn’t concerned about the “very rich” either. He is, however, concerned about the “middle class,” that ever diminishing group he fought so hard to send on its economically downward diaspora while at Bain. We all know the paucity of the “let’s help the middle class” mantra by now, not merely for Romney but for all the Republicans.
In any event, three things come to mind:
1. Romney talks of repairing the safety net, “if it needs repair.” Yet, his party has been hell
bent on repairing the safety net by, in large part, destroying it. They often use euphemisms like “repair” or “reform” to hide their more hostile motives. As in “reform tort law.’ Romney knows this method – approves of it – and also knows his use of the term “repair” will be heard in the GOP base as “destroy.”
2. Has Mitt Romney met Mitt Romney? On CNN this morning he claimed, “I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine.” This, of course, extravagantly ignores his continuing crusade to make the rich richer, at any cost if some of Bain Capital’s methods are examined. As Daniel Shaviro writes at Start Making Sense, Bain’s methods could be viewed as a story, “not of capitalism’s ‘creative destruction,’ but of destructive destruction.” Moreover, many of the tax advantages he and the wealthy employ to pay the “special” 15% rate on “carried interest” (as in “carried past the tax collector”) were avidly supported by Bain itself. Enough. If politics had a Lifetime Achievement Award for boosting the extremely wealthy Romney’d be in like Flynn.
3. Now, let’s get really personal. let’s see just how many “very poor” individuals and families Mitt Romney can afford to “sponsor” on his
2011 speaking fee income alone, and
his total 2011 income (est. by Romney).
Below is a chart that provides a fascinating and accurate visualization of this. It’s the FCQ, the Fat-Cat Quotient, developed here land introduced here last Friday. The FCQ
a new way to measure income inequality. The FCQ uses the official HHS poverty guidelines to visualize the income gap in our nation. No econometrics needed; the math is simple.
Here’s Romney’s FCQ:
