Breaking down Romney's "secret" fundraiser talk

From a certain perspective, the Republicans could not have put forth a more “favorable” tandem on their presidential ticket. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan serve as perfect bookends for the Republican agenda: Complete servility to the “needs” of corporations and the wealthy “elite” on one end, and Tea Party extremism on the other end. What that agenda is has usually been designed to excite the paranoia of people away from the party’s “big picture.” Some of us have known what that has been for decades, but unless someone from the “inside” actually says it out loud, it is just “partisan attacks.”

Then once in a while, evidence appears that Romney doesn’t need “enemies” to expose himself as the very embodiment of government of and for corporate despots interested only in how best to continue lining their own pockets; he has had the arrogant audacity to do so all by himself—not that his supporters at his various campaign stops would know or understand this: It turns one’s blood cold to see scenes of that remind one of the Nuremberg rallies of the 1930s, the chants of “USA” having the same ferocity of nationalistic and racial madness as “Sieg Heil.” Many people have heard of Romney’s videotaped comments about the “47 percent” during a “secret” fundraiser earlier this year with his fellow corporate despots, indicating once again as one born with a silver spoon planted firmly down his throat, he has not the slightest understanding of the problems facing most Americans. 

One must remember Romney was born into wealth, and made his wealth not by hard work or creating consumer products, but by borrowing millions—much of it from disreputable sources—and investing it to make money as easy and with as little effort as possible. It was of no concern to him if this meant laying-off workers or shipping jobs overseas. If anyone is a “parasite” in this country, it is the likes of Romney who have siphoned-off trillions of this country’s wealth to create their own personal paradise, and to hell with many millions of hard-working Americans barely scraping by what Romney’s social set see fit to compensate them. Who would he and his friends call “parasites?” In the state of Washington, it would be low-income workers barely making ends meet week-to-week, while their employers are making record profits and squirreling it away. It is the lowest-income people who pay 17 percent of their pay in various state taxes, barely leaving enough to live on, while the wealthiest residents pay less than 3 percent of their income in state taxes. If those like Romney are only paying 14 percent in federal taxes, then the poor in this state are paying the same percentage of  their income in taxes—and of course having rather considerably less left over to live on. Being a single male with no dependents making less than $24,000 a year, I still pay 10 percent of my income in federal income tax after the standard deduction, thus my total tax levy as a percentage of income is higher than most of these millionaires and billionaires (like Romney). 

But there was so much more to Romney’s secret get-together that gives one pause. These people he was speaking to understand only two things: Power and money. They never at any time betrayed any understanding or concern about the problems of average Americans. They didn’t discuss their own culpability in this country’s economic problems. They didn’t discuss shipping jobs overseas. They didn’t talk about paying everyday working people a living wage. They didn’t talk about keeping jobs in America—like the way Bain is closing a technology plant in Freeport, Il and exporting almost two hundred jobs to China this year (when a person asked Romney about stopping the plant closure at a recent campaign rally, he was drowned-out with chants of “USA! USA!”). They only talked about themselves and how to con working people into voting for their own interests—even as they sit on trillions of dollars of ill-gotten profits. 

Interestingly, one of Romney’s first remarks was a crack about Latinos. Noting that his father was born in Mexico (there was a question of his eligibility to run for president because of this fact in 1968, something the “birthers” have failed to take note of), Romney bizarrely suggested that this might give him an “edge” with Latino voters, but in backhanded fashion. “I'd have a better shot at winning this, but he (his father) was unfortunately born of Americans living in Mexico…and, uh, I mean I say that jokingly, but it'd be helpful if they'd been Latino.” What is he talking about? The belief of many whites that minorities in this country actually have an “advantage” in this society? You mean with unemployment rates 2 to 3 times that of white Americans? Why would white America vote for a Latino after creating an atmosphere of hate against them over these years? 

Later on, Romney less “amusingly” derides their humanity and paints a prejudicial, racist, stereotypical brush over them while in another backhanded fashion offering a negative critique of the capacity of native-born Americans. “Gosh, I'd love to bring in more legal immigrants that have skill and [unintelligible]. I'd like to staple a green card to every Ph.D. in the world and say, ‘Come to America, we want you here.’” What is Romney saying? Is this a measure of his elitist mentality, with utter contempt for the people who actually do the “grunge” work to keep this country moving? We don’t need every ivory tower type in the world to come here and lord over us with disdain; what we need are people who actually create products and technologies, and the people to actually work in the factories to make them—not people who treat the economy like a gambling casino, like Romney.  Romney, of course, has never had any use for American workers, especially if they got in way of his wealth accumulation. 

Romney went on “Instead, we make it hard for people who get educated here or elsewhere to make this their home. Unless, of course, you have no skill or experience, in which case you're welcome to cross the border and stay here for the rest of your life. (audience laughs).” Romney—and many others, like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg—fail to note that only 10,000 of the 1 million H-1B visas awarded each year go to those “no skill” immigrant workers, and if the U.S. needs to import so many more high-skilled workers is an indictment of this country’s own education system. Just this past Sunday, the Seattle Times noted that only 12 percent of high school graduates in this state will achieve four-year degrees, near the bottom of the country in that statistic; yet the state is near the top in the number of college-educated adults. Why is this? Because paying for higher education is not a priority for the state legislature, or voters in general; they’d rather see costs go out-of-reach for American students. Some would rather complain about the relative handful of under-represented minorities in colleges and ignore the ever increasing percentage of foreign students—who colleges welcome with outstretched arms because of the high tuition they pay. Why do these students come here? Partly because of the reputation of U.S. schools, but in general because their own countries do not have sufficient higher education capacity. That is the irony: The U.S. has many native student population prevented from entering four-year colleges, yet the surplus population overseas (especially from China and Indi is welcomed—along with their money—with open arms, regardless of their qualifications.

It should also be noted that most economists recognize the fact that the economy grows not from giving green cards to Ph. Ds, but when there are enough young workers (at least those willing to do the work that is available) who in turn are consumers and pay taxes. Europe and Japan, with their low birth rates and older populations, will have to learn this lesson the hard way in the not too distant future. It is thus a mistake to base immigration policy solely on an elitist and racist idea of so-called “merit.” The fact is that most European immigrants who came to this country during the great waves in the 1800s and early 1900s had “no skills” when they came here, but the robber barons could not get rich without them. But more to the point is the fact that “no skill” immigrants are not the reason why this country is not “competitive”—in fact quite the contrary, since their labor keeps prices competitive with foreign imports. They are not taking high wage jobs, nor are they preventing 200+ million white people in this country from getting the education required not to need all these foreign-born Ph.Ds.

Romney went on to say that he and his wife “earned” their money the “old-fashioned way.” What is the “old-fashioned way,” anyways? When normal people think “old-fashioned,” it usually implies building things products with your own ingenuity and hard work, not borrowing money and playing the financial casino game. That’s the lazy man’s way to wealth, and he doesn’t care who loses, especially common laborers. In other words, it is the Romney way. Following it only leads to trouble.

One of the audience members then asked Romney “The debates are gonna be coming, and I hope at the right moment you can turn to President Obama, look at the American people, and say, ‘If you vote to reelect President Obama, you're voting to bankrupt the United States.’ I hope you keep that in your quiver because that's what gonna happen. And I think it's going to be very effective. Just wanted to give you that.” Of course, the counter punch to that is Obama turning to Romney and telling him that he what proposes to do is return this country to the policies that actually did the bankrupting in the first place. This country did, after all, have a balanced budget and sound economy before the Republicans took control of all three branches of government. Romney’s friends can’t seem to inquire as to why that was.

Romney went on to suggest that Democratic voters don’t understand the national debt issue, while Republican voters do. What was it that Dick Cheney once said? That deficits don’t matter? This is how he justified the ballooning budget deficits during the Reagan and Bush II administrations. It is an odd dichotomy: Republican voters allegedly care about deficits—but not when their own party is responsible for them. Republicans only use the debt issue as a rationalization for their social agenda. That’s why they talk so much about “income redistribution” and “class warfare.” Romney talked about convincing the 5 to 10 percent swing voters to see the issues this way. But this isn’t about the middle class; it is about the richest and the poorest Americans. 

Romney went on to talk about the “unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, the amount of debt plus unfunded liabilities per household in America is $520,000.” Romney obviously didn’t come-up with this number by himself, but the fact is that measures could be easily found to at least ease the pressure, if there was the will to do so. For example, the tax liability is cut-off at around $105,000 in income. We can presume that people who earn more than that do not require Social Security because they have more generous retirement benefits, but we can also say people who benefited in an inordinate fashion should have the public good at heart, which benefits the peace of society in general. Thus the raising the level of income subject to the tax should be done. Medicare and Medicaid taxes can also be raised, and from paycheck to paycheck, it will barely be noticed.  The right is currently playing the double-game on the issue: Their preference is to bury these programs, yet they want to con older voters into blaming Democrats for the potential insolvency.

Romney went on “If we don't change Medicare or Social Security, the tax rate—you know what the payroll tax is now, it's 15.3 percent—if we don't change those programs, that tax rate will have to ultimately rise to 44 percent. The payroll tax. Then there's the income tax on top, which the president wants to take to 40 percent. Then there's state tax in most states. And sales tax. So you end up having to take 100 percent of people's income.” People might be surprised to know that the tax rate is currently only 15.3 percent, especially the top marginal tax rate is 35 percent. It just goes to show how much Romney’s “class” is skirting its tax responsibilities now. Note also that he calls for “changing” Medicare and Social Security. Now, that is something seniors should be concerned about. He isn’t talking about “saving” Medicare or Social Security; he is talking about changing what they are and what they do. We have already heard from his running mate, Paul Ryan the idea of establishing “private” accounts—but that is asking us to trust the same people who were responsible for the financial melt-down of 2007-2008. 

Romney also demonstrated little of the subtlety required for effective foreign policy. From the sound of it, he wants to repeat the thuggery of the Bush administration:

Rich Guy: “I think that had to do with the fact that the Iranians perceived Reagan would do something to really get them out. In other words [unintelligible]…and that's why I'm suggesting that something that you say over the next few months gets the Iranians to understand that their pursuit of the bomb is something that you would predict and I think that's something that could possibly resonate very well with American Republican voters.”

Romney: “I'm torn by two perspectives in this regard. One is the one which I've had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace. And that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish. Now, why do I say that? Some might say well just let the Palestinians have the West Bank and have security and set up a separate nation for the Palestinians. And then come a couple of thorny questions. And I don't have a map here to look at the geography. But the border between Israel and the West Bank is obviously right there, right next to Tel Aviv, which is the financial capital, the industrial capital of Israel. The center of Israel. It's, uh—what? The border would be maybe seven miles from Tel Aviv to what would be the West Bank?”

Super Rich Guy: “Nine.”

Romney: “Nine miles. Okay, I'd be close. Nine miles. The challenge is the other side of the West Bank…the other side of the West Bank, the other side of what would be this new Palestinian state would either be Syria at one point or Jordan. And, of course, the Iranians would want to do through the West Bank exactly what they did through Lebanon and what they did in Gaza. Which is the Iranians would want to bring missiles and armament into the West Bank and potentially threaten Israel. So Israel, of course, would have to say that can't happen. We've got to keep the Iranians from bringing weaponry into the West Bank. Well, that means that—who?—the Israelis are going to control the border between Jordan, Syria, and this new Palestinian nation? Well, the Palestinians would say, "Ah, no way! We're an independent country. You can't guard our border with other Arab nations." And then how about the airport? How about flying into this Palestinian nation? Are we going to allow military aircraft to come in? And weaponry to come in? And if not, who's going to keep it from coming in? Well, the Israelis. Well, the Palestinians are going to say, "We're not an independent nation if Israel is able to come in and tell us what can land at our airport." These are problems, and they're very hard to solve, alright?”

Now, what have we learned here so far? Well, for one thing Romney did not answer the original question, meaning he is big on criticizing Obama Iranian policy, but otherwise he has no plan. Instead, he states flat-out that he believes that peace is not a viable option in Palestine save on Israeli terms—meaning that Israel controls the West Bank’s borders, essentially making Palestinian autonomy a factual mirage. Of course, many people may believe that this is the “proper” resolution to the problem, but it doesn’t help to say it out loud, like a fool:

Romney: “And I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way. And so what you do is you say you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that it's going to remain an unsolved problem. I mean, we look at that in China and Taiwan. All right, we have a potentially volatile situation, but we sort of live with it. And we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve. We don't go to war to try and resolve it.”

One thing for certain is that Romney’s qualifications for peace will likely be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism by the Nobel committee. More ominously, Romney’s view of “diplomacy” is simply—as he says—“kick the ball down the field” and hope everything “resolves” by itself. As with his view that “talking tough” with Iran will solve the nuclear issue in that country, he is all bluster and gaffes and zero substance. He has given the Democrats plenty of ammunition if they so choose to use it.

Of course, this is all about getting elected first:

Mega Rich Guy: “Right now, I'm very concerned…Women would not want to be involved for you. Hispanics, majority of them do not want to vote for you. College students don't. After talking to them, and explaining and rationalizing on a one-on-one basis, we are able to change their opinions. But on a mass level, what do you want us to do, this group here, as your emissaries, going out to convert these individuals to someone who's obviously going to be such an incredible asset to this country. We want you.”

The rich always forget that what is an “asset” to them is seldom an asset to other demographics. Many of these guys who receive much of their income from stock options have in fact done very well during the Obama administration. So what more is it that they think Romney can give them? Probably not much, lowering their taxes even more. One thing for certain is that they don’t seem to understand that not everyone “sympathizes” with their “plight.” Those on the other end of the median scale have their own problems, like making ends meet. Nevertheless, Romney believes that he can capture the white women’s vote, but “we're having a much harder time with Hispanic voters. And if the Hispanic voting bloc becomes as committed to the Democrats as the African American voting bloc has in the past, why we're in trouble as a party and, I think, as a nation.” What does Romney mean by that last phrasing? That he fears a minority take-over of the country if Republicans can’t con enough of them?  Or that he and his class don’t like the idea that they have to take more seriously the probability that some people might be really unhappy if they believe that Republicans don’t like to share?

Romney went to say that people have this “negative” idea of him as a rich man, and somehow suggesting that is “character assassination.” But an audience member assured him that there was nothing wrong with flaunting his wealth:

Super Mega Rich Guy: “Why don't you stick up for yourself? To me, you should be so proud of your wealth. That's what we all aspire to be—we kill ourselves, we don't work a nine to five. We're away from our families five days a week. I'm away from my four girls five days a week and my wife. Why not stick up for yourself and say, ‘Why is it bad to be, to aspire to be wealthy and successful? You know, why is it bad to kill yourself? And why is it bad to cut 30 jobs that protect 300?’"

It was at this point that Romney brought up the infamous 47 percent: 

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

This is why the Republican Party turns off so many voters. It doesn’t have the least empathy for the ordinary people that it runs into the ground and then blames for their position.  Who is to blame of paying people working in service industries and industrial parks barely minimum wage? And these people have no “right” to food, housing, health care—“you name it.” Do they have a right to breathing? But government “working” for business is not an “entitlement?”

More ominously, an audience member then suggests that in October before the election, the markets are “going to be speaking very wildly,” meaning the people who control stocks will act in a fashion that will attempt to influence the election. Another audience member tells Romney when he is elected, to “clean out” the SEC, the CFEC and other “disaster areas.” Of course he means “cleaning out” all regulatory agencies—the ones which failed to do their jobs before the 2007-2008 financial meltdown. 

Romney concluded  his policy discussion by complaining about unions, and mulling over how to convince people who like Obama not to vote for him and vote for himself even though they don’t agree with the Republican agenda. But as we’ve seen here, Romney “qualifications” to be president are subject to debate. He lacks empathy with most Americans, because his entire life has been removed the reality of ordinary people. He never contemplates how to help them. He only asks how he can help his rich brethren. Debts and deficits are only of interest to him insofar as they may be mean raising the taxes of his narrow constituency.