We Have a Winner!

In the last 20 years we have seen a dozen Mitt Romneys parade across the landscape. There was the greedy young man with money coming out of his ears. There was the pro-choice Mitt Romney who ran against Ted Kennedy. There was Mitt Romney the gubernatorial candidate who supported gay rights. There was the severely conservative Mitt Romney who would instantly sign any and all anti-abortion bills that came across his desk. There was the self-sacrificing Olympics-saving Mitt Romney. There was the one-percent Mitt Romney talking sneeringly to wealthy donors behind closed doors about the lazy 47%, quickly followed by the candidate-of-the-100%-in-the-last-few-weeks-of-the-campaign Mitt Romney.

Now that the election is over and the Etch a Sketch has been shaken for the final time, we have a winner! Ding ding ding! The envelope please...

The sneering 1% Mitt Romney!

In a conference call with 400 wealthy donors Romney said that Obama won by promising gifts to the 47%: blacks, Hispanics, young women and college students. Some of his comments include:

With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift. Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.

You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity — I mean, this is huge.

These comments demonstrate Romney's utter lack of empathy and total inability to  imagine the lives of somebody making that $30,000 a year. Such people often have to work multiple jobs because employers intentionally limit their hours to avoid having to pay full-time benefits such as health care. A single mom with two kids who works two jobs for 56 total hours a week at Walmart and Papa Johns Pizza at $10 an hour will still only make $29K and get no benefits. $29K is not enough to pay for a car, gas, rent, food and clothing, much less any kind of preventive health care for the kids.

How can such a person ever get ahead in Romneyworld?  Every waking hour of every day is spent working, sleeping, taking care of kids or driving them to grandma's for daycare.

The time when just anyone with gumption could open a pizzeria or corner store to get a start in business is gone, destroyed by the ilks of Sam Walton and "Papa" John Schnatter and their nation-wide chains that wiped out millions of mom-and-pop operations across the country.

John Schnatter gained notoriety this past summer when he said that his pizzas would cost more because of Obamacare. Exactly how much? Less than a nickel a pizza.

Hundreds of thousands of independent small businesses have been destroyed by giant corporations like Walmart and Papa John's. Yes, big companies are more efficient and sell stuff cheaper. That's because they employ fewer people than the competitors they destroy and don't pay their workers a living wage.


Romney thinks America is still the way it was in Forties, Fifties and Sixties when S. Truett Cathy (Chick-Fil-A), Ray Kroc (McDonald's) and Sam Walton founded their empires. But more and more money and power are concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer businesses, and those businesses have monopolies on vast sectors of the economy. Companies like Chick-Fil-A, McDonald's and Walmart have locked out the majority of small entrepreneurs.

Go to any mall in the suburbs in any part of the country and you'll see the same set of 30 chain stores selling products made in Asia. Sixty years ago you would have seen dozens of independent small businesses selling American-manufactured goods in the downtown of every small city. These days most suburbs don't even have downtowns.
 I hope the 1% Mitt Romney isn't the last one we'll see. Maybe one day he'll realize the reason he lost the election was because wealthy supporters like John Schnatter and the Walton heirs created all those people who need the things Obama is fighting for.