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Title: Governor Romney Is Correct
Source:
lewrockwell.com
URL Source: http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano68.1.html
Published: Sep 20, 2012
Author: Andrew P. Napolitano
Post Date: 2012-09-20 11:09:03 by F.A. Hayek Fan
Keywords: None
Views: 216
Comments: 10
As readers of this column and viewers of Fox News Channel may know, I have not hesitated to criticize Gov. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and the governor himself. I have argued that his message is muddled and his values are unknown beyond his ardent wish to improve economic conditions through the use of free market mechanisms rather than central economic planning, a position with which I agree entirely. I have also maintained that his willingness to abandon, or not to accept, first principles has made these questions reasonable: If Romney is elected president, which Romney will show up for work on Jan. 20, 2013? Will it be the Romney who ran to the left of Ted Kennedy in 1994, the Romney who governed Massachusetts as Mario Cuomo governed New York, or the Romney who now claims to be a "severe" (his word) conservative? Will it be the Romney who spent the entire presidential primary season assuring conservative Republican primary voters that he’ll dismantle Obamacare on "Day One" (his phrase), or the Romney who told reporters last week that he approves of a limited federal role in managing health care? Or will it be the Romney who, when caught by the press saying something not intended for public consumption but demonstrably true, sticks to his guns? A few months ago, at a private fundraiser, Romney spoke to supporters and contributors and observed that 47 percent of Americans do not pay any income tax, and thus his call for not raising taxes (though he wants to eliminate some familiar deductions, which is the functional equivalent of raising some folks’ taxes) will not resonate with the voters in that group. Then he went on to say that this is roughly the same 47 percent who are dependent upon the government for part or all of their subsistence; and to that subsistence of food, shelter, education and clothing, the feds have now added health care. Then he referred to those dependent upon the government as "victims" (his word). Then, among my leftish colleagues in the press, all hell broke loose. The reason hell broke loose among most of the media is that Romney spoke a painful truth, and often a painful truth is difficult to accept. I have argued that FDR deliberately set out to create dependence upon the federal government – and hence upon virtually all Democrats in Congress and Republicans afraid to resist them – by establishing entitlement programs and inducing reliance upon them. FDR went so far as to lie to Americans when he stated that the federal government will "hold" (his word) your Social Security contributions for you until you retire, and then you’ll receive your nest egg of cash. We know he lied about this, because at the same time he was saying that the money deducted from your pay is yours, he dispatched Justice Department lawyers to argue in a constitutional challenge of Social Security before the Supreme Court that the money deducted from your pay is the government’s money, and the government can spend it as it wishes. The Supreme Court agreed with that argument. Now comes Romney to say that this has gotten out of hand. The feds have deliberately created a class of persons – 47 percent of people living in America today – dependent upon them. The governor is right. Anyone lulled into a false sense of security is a victim, and any government that has deceived members of the public to get them there is dangerous. Thus, the revelation that the big-government types who have dominated the federal government for 100 years, who want voters dependent upon them so that they can count on their votes, and who have made those voters victims have stung the Obama campaign and its media supporters. Romney was correct to call the 47 percent who are dependent upon the government victims of the government’s deceptions and lust for power, and he is courageous to stick to his guns. Dependency breeds a sense of complacency and entitlement and fosters a government that – in order to stay in power – will further that dependency. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton agreed on little publicly, but they did agree that when the public treasury becomes a public trough and the voters recognize that, they will send to the government only those who promise them a bigger piece of the government pie. Then, sooner or later, the government will run out of other people’s money. Romney understands that.
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#1. To: All (#0)
Robamney may be correct but neither him nor the Republicrat party are going to do anything to fix it because that 47% will only vote for those who promise more goodies and a percentage of the 53% are rich liberals ridden with guilt who will gladly vote to give them more. They don't have the support of the majority of the people to fix the problem and since the government and the people did away with the Constitution and our republican form of government, it's all about mob rules. That being the case, Robamney and the Republicrats will do exactly what they did during the Bush years - out-Democrat the Democans for votes. Calling Ron Paul an isolationist is like calling your neighbor a hermit because he doesn't come over and break your window - unknown I WITHDRAW MY CONSENT! The author fails to point out that this dependency applies to corporations as well.......gee, is GM "dependent" on goobermint? Defense contractors? Not only government but also a government willing to war endlessly. Aren't all the corporate subsidies just welfare of another variety? Of course, but let's stick to chastising individuals and ignore the elephant in the room. Romney doesn't "understand" because he is too busy filling his campaign coffers with corporate welfare while he is busy putting his foot in his mouth at fundraisers. Gary Johnson understands..... " If you cannot govern yourself, you will be governed by assholes. " Randge, Poet de Forum, 1/11/11 "Life's tough, and even tougher if you're stupid." --John Wayne
The 47% include most blacks, mexican immigrants, and Somalians/Indians/Paki's/Nigerians/Ghanan's/Guatemalan's/Pacific Islanders/etc. Of course Romney won't be getting their votes, and he certainly won't be getting any campaign contributions from them so he can dismiss whole groups of people and concentrate on chasing money elsewhere.
Any perceived compliance with unconstitutional “laws” or orders put forth by government employees is NOT recognition of their authority; it is simply the result of carefully calculated submission to an entity exhibiting superior firepower.
#2. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#0)
Dependency breeds a sense of complacency and entitlement and fosters a government
#3. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#0)
(Edited)
Then he went on to say that this is roughly the same 47 percent who are dependent upon the government for part or all of their subsistence; and to that subsistence of food, shelter, education and clothing, the feds have now added health care.
-Alex Kurtagic
#4. To: abraxas (#2)
The author failed to discuss a lot of things. That's because those things weren't the subject of the article and neither was corporate welfare. The subject of the article was a speech Robamney gave. In that speech Robamney did not discuss corporate welfare, he discussed the 47% of useless parasites sucking off the government (i.e. tax payer's) tit. The judge writes editorials that are printed across the nation. Many of the places they are printed place a maximum word count on editorials. Corporate welfare is a subject of its own. If he were to try and combine the two he would have short shrifted both subjects IMHO. Just because the author didn't bring the subject up doesn't mean he doesn't recognize it is a problem. Anyone who has read Judge Napolitano's work knows that he is against all welfare be it individual or corporate.
Calling Ron Paul an isolationist is like calling your neighbor a hermit because he doesn't come over and break your window - unknown
I WITHDRAW MY CONSENT!
Any perceived compliance with unconstitutional “laws” or orders put forth by government employees is NOT recognition of their authority; it is simply the result of carefully calculated submission to an entity exhibiting superior firepower.
#5. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#1)
exxxxactly.
#6. To: abraxas (#2)
Yep, in my view the entire military is gargantuan welfare scheme. The only use for the military is defense of the national borders against enemies foreign and domestic. My guess that might be 1%, the rest are just tax parasites, scum sucking welfare queens, with fancy, but deadly 'cheese'. Defense contractors?
#7. To: Lysander_Spooner (#6)
The only use for the military is defense of the national borders against enemies foreign and domestic. My guess that might be 1%, the rest are just tax parasites, scum sucking welfare queens, with fancy, but deadly 'cheese'. I agree. I'm just sorry it took fifteen years of my life to come to this realization. Yep, in my view the entire military is gargantuan welfare scheme.
Calling Ron Paul an isolationist is like calling your neighbor a hermit because he doesn't come over and break your window - unknown
I WITHDRAW MY CONSENT!
Any perceived compliance with unconstitutional “laws” or orders put forth by government employees is NOT recognition of their authority; it is simply the result of carefully calculated submission to an entity exhibiting superior firepower.
#8. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#0)
The incompetence, waste, and outright violations of basic human rights by both parties and the entire FEDERAL FRAUD makes outsourcing a viable alternative to the current FED GOV.
"In an unjust society, the only place for a just man is prison."
Thoreau
#9. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#0)
The United States has collapsed economically, socially, politically, legally, constitutionally, and environmentally. The country that exists today is not even a shell of the country into which I was born. In this article I will deal with America’s economic collapse. In subsequent articles, i will deal with other aspects of American collapse. Economically, America has descended into poverty. As Peter Edelman says, “Low-wage work is pandemic.” Today in “freedom and democracy” America, “the world’s only superpower,” one fourth of the work force is employed in jobs that pay less than $22,000, the poverty line for a family of four. Some of these lowly-paid persons are young college graduates, burdened by education loans, who share housing with three or four others in the same desperate situation. Other of these persons are single parents only one medical problem or lost job away from homelessness. Others might be Ph.D.s teaching at universities as adjunct professors for $10,000 per year or less. Education is still touted as the way out of poverty, but increasingly is a path into poverty or into enlistments into the military services. Edelman, who studies these issues, reports that 20.5 million Americans have incomes less than $9,500 per year, which is half of the poverty definition for a family of three. There are six million Americans whose only income is food stamps. That means that there are six million Americans who live on the streets or under bridges or in the homes of relatives or friends. Hard-hearted Republicans continue to rail at welfare, but Edelman says, “basically welfare is gone.” In my opinion as an economist, the official poverty line is long out of date. The prospect of three people living on $19,000 per year is farfetched. Considering the prices of rent, electricity, water, bread and fast food, one person cannot live in the US on $6,333.33 per year. In Thailand, perhaps, until the dollar collapses, it might be done, but not in the US. As Dan Ariely (Duke University) and Mike Norton (Harvard University) have shown empirically, 40% of the US population, the 40% less well off, own 0.3%, that is, three-tenths of one percent, of America’s personal wealth. Who owns the other 99.7%? The top 20% have 84% of the country’s wealth. Those Americans in the third and fourth quintiles–essentially America’s middle class–have only 15.7% of the nation’s wealth. Such an unequal distribution of income is unprecedented in the economically developed world. In my day, confronted with such disparity in the distribution of income and wealth, a disparity that obviously poses a dramatic problem for economic policy, political stability, and the macro management of the economy, Democrats would have demanded corrections, and Republicans would have reluctantly agreed. But not today. Both political parties whore for money. The Republicans believe that the suffering of poor Americans is not helping the rich enough. Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are committed to abolishing every program that addresses needs of what Republicans deride as “useless eaters.” The “useless eaters” are the working poor and the former middle class whose jobs were offshored so that corporate executives could receive multi-millions of dollars in performance pay compensation and their shareholders could make millions of dollars on capital gains. While a handful of executives enjoy yachts and Playboy playmates, tens of millions of Americans barely get by. In political propaganda, the “useless eaters” are not merely a burden on society and the rich. They are leeches who force honest taxpayers to pay for their many hours of comfortable leisure enjoying life, watching sports events, and fishing in trout streams, while they push around their belongings in grocery baskets or sell their bodies for the next MacDonald burger. The concentration of wealth and power in the US today is far beyond anything my graduate economic professors could image in the 1960s. At four of the world’s best universities that I attended, the opinion was that competition in the free market would prevent great disparities in the distribution of income and wealth. As I was to learn, this belief was based on an ideology, not on reality. Congress, acting on this erroneous belief in free market perfection, deregulated the US economy in order to create a free market. The immediate consequence was resort to every previous illegal action to monopolize, to commit financial and other fraud, to destroy the productive basis of American consumer incomes, and to redirect income and wealth to the one percent. The “democratic” Clinton administration, like the Bush and Obama administrations, was suborned by free market ideology. The Clinton sell-outs to Big Money essentially abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children. But this sell-out of struggling Americans was not enough to satisfy the Republican Party. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to cut or abolish every program that cushions poverty-stricken Americans from starvation and homelessness. Republicans claim that the only reason Americans are in need is because the government uses taxpayers’ money to subsidize Americans who are unwilling to work. As Republicans see it, while we hard-workers sacrifice our leisure and time with our families, the welfare rabble enjoy the leisure that our tax dollars provide them. This cock-eyed belief, on top of corporate CEOs maximizing their incomes by offshoring the middle class jobs of millions of Americans, has left Americans in poverty and cities, counties, states, and the federal government without a tax base, resulting in bankruptcies at the state and local level and massive budget deficits at the federal level that threaten the value of the dollar and its role as reserve currency. The economic destruction of America benefitted the mega-rich with multi-billions of dollars with which to enjoy life and its high-priced accompaniments wherever the mega-rich wish. Meanwhile, away from the French Rivera, Homeland Security is collecting sufficient ammunition to keep dispossessed Americans under control.
#10. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#0)
I am one of those who does not pay. If you want more info, PM me. 47 percent of Americans do not pay any income tax,
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
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