Columnist Karen Rubin: GOP seeks to hire true intentions

The Island Now

Fool me once, as George W. Bush famously said. Will voters be fooled again?

A red tide swept the House and state houses across the country in 2010 as Republicans seemed to be calling for “jobs, jobs, jobs,” and to avert cuts to Medicare.

But since taking control, Republicans in the House and in state houses have done nothing to create jobs or protect Medicare. Instead, while Boehner’s House has not passed a single jobs bill, they have tried 33 times to repeal Obamacar and focused obsessively on restricting women’s reproductive rights and passed the Paul Ryan budget which would convert Medicare to a voucher system where you get a specific amount of money to go out and buy private health insurance, you are on your own for any shortfalls.

And while Romney/Ryan offered no specifics about how they would bring about jobs, their agenda is quite clearly codified in the Republican platform adopted at the Republican National Convention and creating jobs and preserving Medicare are not part of it.

The Republican National Convention is a surreal experience – like falling through the rabbit hole into Wonderland – so carefully scripted (at least, until Clint Eastwood showed up and threatened to burst the whole illusion so carefully constructed). To sit inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum arena is to be made to believe that Republicans stand for immigrant rights, for jobs, that they care about the poor and elderly, and want to strengthen the middle class, and that they respect women (no war on women here! “I love you women,” Ann Romney declared).

It is a gargantuan wink-and-nod between the image being projected and what is really contemplated, with those in the arena fully in the know.

All of this was embodied in South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, the child of immigrants from India who started a small business who has grown up to take on such a powerful position. Ah, the American Dream realized – a path to citizenship, college, entrepreneurism. Yet the applause lines in her speech was about making sure others are blocked from achieving that same American Dream. 

She scored big applause for describing how she battled the Obama administration’s lawsuit against South Carolina’s punitive anti-immigrant law (she called it “innovative”), in standing up for non-union right-to-work rules that brought Boeing to her state, and its voter ID law.

“Sadly, the hardest part of my job continues to be this federal government, this administration, this president,” she said.

“As I said, my parents loved that when they came to America, if you worked hard, the only things that could stop you were the limits you placed on yourself. Unfortunately, these past few years, you can work hard, try to be as successful as possible, follow the rules, and President Barack Obama will do everything he can to stand in your way. 

“South Carolina recently passed one of the most innovative illegal immigration laws in the country. What did this president – who has failed to secure our borders and address this issue in any meaningful way – do? He sued us. 

“If this President refuses to secure our borders, refuses to protect our citizens from the dangers of illegal immigration, then states have an obligation to take it on ourselves.” [Actually, Obama is criticized by progressives for deporting more undocumented people than any president, and the Dream Act that the House passed before Republicans took over was blocked by Senate Republicans. Republicans offer no plan for comprehensive immigration reform.]

But to continue: Haley pointed next to how proud she was over being one of the states engaged in voter suppression laws, under the guise of protecting against voter fraud – something that happens  so rarely, it is a statistical anomaly, but is a key strategy this year in Republicans smoothing the way for Romney.

“We said in South Carolina that if you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed and you have to show a picture ID to set foot on an airplane, then you should have to show a picture ID to protect one of the most valuable, most central, most sacred rights we are blessed with in America – the right to vote.

“And what happened? President Obama stopped us. “

This was pure political theater- illusion and sleight of hand. 

The foundation of the convention was built upon a fraud – that President Obama dissed small businessowners and entrepreneurs when he was speaking about how government makes possible the infrastructure and the educational system. “You didn’t build that!” he said, referring to roads, bridges, even the convention center the Republican Convention was held in, built with taxpayer support.

This phrase was picked up in every form and tense by every single speaker, including Ann Romney.

Republicans are so good at nostalgia, sentimentality, at pulling at heart strings and waving that flag and standing to attention for soldiers and veterans – and yet, Republicans would cut benefits, while Obama has passed the largest GI Bill since World War II, and implemented programs to ease the returning vets’ transition back to civilian society, jobs programs,. He had to use an Executive Action to allow vets to use their experience to meet licensing requirements in related fields such as in Emergency Response and enlisted private sector support for jobs database and mentoring programs.

Of course, this is an entire pretense, a show, contradicted by how Republicans have ruled and what their party platform dictates.

Romney took to center stage to give his acceptance speech on Thursday (arriving State-of-the-Union style by winding through the crowd, shaking hands). The argument he gave as the reasons that voters should choose him rested on this: if you are disappointed that Obama did not fulfill his campaign promises of 2008, vote for me and my campaign promises.

And he made that argument based on a new set of promises (not a single specific about how he would actually do it). And what does Romney promise? 

“Paul Ryan and I have five steps. First, by 2020, North America will be an energy independent by taking invented of our oil, are coal, our gas, our nuclear, and renewables. (Applause)

“Second, we will give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow. When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice, and every child should have a chance. (Applause)

“Third, we will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements, and when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences. (Applause)

“And fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish, as have those in Greece. We will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget. (Applause)

“And fifth, we will champion small businesses, America’s engine of job growth. That means reducing taxes on business, not raising them. It means simplifying and modernizing the regulations that hurt small businesses the most, and it means we must rein in skyrocketing cost of health care by repealing and replacing Obamacare. (Applause)

Of course, suggesting that he actually could achieve these things (even if he actually spelled out what actions or steps he would take to do it) also requires a suspension of belief because if a president could actually do all that he promised, then Obama, already with historic achievements under his belt (saving the American economy from collapse and preventing a Great Depression, Affordable Health Care Act, Dodd-Frank, Consumer Financial Protection Board, college affordability, jobs for vets, renewed GI Bill, investment sin wind and solar power), would have been able to achieve his agenda, instead of have everything from infrastructure investment to the American Jobs bill to climate change obstructed by a Congress determined to prolong suffering by ordinary Americans in order to win back power. He has been unable to get Congress to stop incentivizing companies to ship jobs and money offshore.

And all of this while having to contend now just with a looming Great Depression, but with two wars underway, the BP oil spill, the greatest environmental disaster in history, and a record number of natural disasters (his handling in such stark contrast to the ineptitude with which Bush handled Hurricane Katrina, exactly 7 years ago; this time, the levees held!), the economic collapse in Europe. Romney/Ryan like to dismiss these factors as just shifting blame.

Isn’t that also one of the main complaints (and frauds) of the Republicans, that Obama has used tyrannical powers – executive orders and executive actions  under the banner “We Can’t Wait” as a slap to the obstructionist Congress- to achieve even a portion of what the Republicans in Congress have blocked. They want to impeach him for allowing Dreamers – the young undocumented people brought  here as children – to apply for what amounts to a temporary visa (still not citizenship). Sen. Rand Paul continued to insist that no matter what the Supreme Court ruled, Obamacare, is “still unconstitutional.”

If Obama is supposed to take the blame for failed promises and a prolonged unemployment rate above 8 percent (but not 10 or 12 or like in Europe, where after three years of austerity policies, it is over 20 percent) where is the accountability of Congress? After all, they have held the reins – and the pursestrings – for two years and in that time, despite their campaign promises to create jobs, instead brought the federal government close to shutting down on multiple times and nearly destroyes the “full faith and credit” of the United States, resulting in the first credit downgrade in American history, stopping the forward momentum of an economy which was in full rebound. 

Even now, despite railing against taxes, Congress refuses to take up a measure to keep low tax rates for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses, indeed, the first $250,000 of taxable income for all.

Indeed, we have had 12 years of the Bush tax cuts, so where are the jobs? Romney wants to double-down on Bush’s “trickle-down” economic policy that consists solely of cutting taxes and ending regulation.

But the most telling statement by Romney was also a statement that shows why he is unqualified to be President. In the only vague allusion to global warming during this convention in which any mention of coal, oil and gas brought huge ovations (apparently, a Rovian strategist has decided that the election will be decided by 10,000 votes in an Ohio coal town, and mentions of Solyndra brought boos), Romney, using a mocking tone, biting his lip and tilting his head said:

“President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans,” (LAUGHTER) “And to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.”

Doesn’t that absolutely contradict this whole fiasco of a convention based on lauding the spirit of individualism and success and mocking the notion that the government has a role to play in fostering the conditions in which each person has the same, fair-shot to succeed? Oh, that’s Obama’s position, and it wouldn’t be the first time that Romney reiterated what Obama has said, including the “you didn’t build that” line.

This statement comes as Hurricane Isaac was still pounding the Gulf Coast. While there were many references to offering hopes, prayers and charity for the victims of the Gulf (God was ever-present during this convention, receiving numerous ovations), there was no mention of any responsibility for the weather patterns that cause such a storm to linger in place, causing such damage. But there were plenty of assertions of rights coming not from man, but from God. I am still trying to understand what that actually means in the real world.

Romney presents himself as the guy who can get it done because he is a businessman – much of the evening was devoted to presenting why that is a noble calling. But here was this telling remark: 

“Now we weren’t always successful at Bain, but no one ever is in the real world of business. That’s what this president does not seem to understand. Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It’s about dreams. Usually it doesn’t work out exactly as you might have imagined. Steve Jobs was fired at Apple, and then he came back and changed the world. It’s the genius of the American free enterprise system to harness the extraordinary creativity, and talent and industry of the American people with a system that’s dedicated to creating tomorrow’s prosperity, not trying to redistribute today’s.” (APPLAUSE)

One could argue that Obama did just that when his Administration, trying to jumpstart clean, renewable energy, provided loan guarantees so that an innovative solar panel company, Solyndra, could get its chance, just as Romney, as Governor of Massachusetts, sought grants for solar energy producers in Massachusetts. Isn’t that the risk-reward?

But the more appropriate question is why would a perspective of doing everything you can to maximize profit for specific group of individuals, at the expense of others’ livehihoods, be an appropriate perspective for the Presisdent of a country? (“Daily Show” did a hysterical bit about a Romney presidency closing down states which took more money from the federal government than they returned.)

Then, Romney asked the eternal question the challenger demands of the incumbent: “Are you better off than four years ago?”

But the answer for just about everyone, including the “Have Mores” that see Romney’s win as an investment in lower or no taxes, is Well, yes.

Wall Street, is at a high, almost doubling from where it wound up after the Bush free fall. 

Housing starts are up at a four-year high; foreclosures at a four-year low.

4.5 million private sector jobs have been created, in contrast to the 8 million jobs lost by the end of Bush’s term.

Manufacturing is up to levels not seen in years – it grew by 5.2 percent  this year alone, with the Midwest doing particularly well,  with 12.5% increase in manufacturing., largely to the automobile industry.

American exports are up 34 percent in just the 2010-2012 period.

And as Vice President Joe Biden has said, “General Motors is alive. Osama bin Ladin is dead.”

If a Republican President had had this record in face of the historic challenges that Obama faced when coming to office, they would be petitioning for a face to be carved on Mount Rushmore.

The Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who would be the Cheney to Romney’s Bush, is right in one statement he made, but actually makes the case why should vote for Obama and the Democrats: “This election is about the future, who we are as Americans…for generations.”

Who we Americans would be under the Republican paradigm is truly frightening.

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