The presidential and vice presidential debates are now all over. In the first debate, Gov. Mitt Romney was rude and aggressive, behaving like a schoolyard bully taking over the debate from moderator Jim Lehrer and, according to Think Progress, told 58 myths. Despite his behavior and lies, Romney was declared the winner.
Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, incidentally, repeated many of the same misleading statements in his debate with Vice President Joe Biden, particularly the erroneous statement that Obama was cutting $716 billion out of Medicare — a lie that is repeated by other Republican candidates nationally and locally.
In the second debate, Romney was less ebullient than during the first debate; President Obama was more assertive and was declared the winner. Moderator Candy Crowley held Romney to debate rules and prevented his attempt to a repeat takeover of the debate. According to AlterNet, this time, Romney told 31 myths in 42 minutes.
In the third and final presidential debate at Lynn University, Gov. Romney was almost complaisant, supporting many of President Obama’s foreign policies and much of his campaign agenda; in Romney’s final remarks, he sounded as if he were campaigning for President Obama until he asked for the vote! Romney still managed 24 myths in 41 minutes.
It is not just his debate persona that is like a chameleon, Gov. Romney has changed his position on many important issues from past to present, including agriculture, climate change, education, energy and the environment, equal pay for equal work, healthcare, unions (now anti-union) and women’s rights; obviously, whatever is politically expedient.
Then there is the issue of his business practices, which he whitewashes, that put into question his promises of balancing the budget and creating jobs. He used federal money to bail out the Olympics and, while with Bain, closed more businesses and moved companies overseas, than he created new jobs in the United States — quite different from the campaign trail tales he tells.
Despite his chameleon changes in behavior in the debates and positions on issues over time, it appears that there are enough voters who believe the Romney/Ryan lies (shades of Bush/Cheney) and are willing to follow them off the same fiscal cliff; 30 years of Republican trickle-down economics has done nothing for this country except get us deeper in debt!
Romney and other Republican candidates continue to claim that if we tax the rich, it will lead to a loss of jobs. They also claim that the only way to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment is to give tax cuts to the wealthy. If their claims were true, we should be at near zero unemployment right now; the rich are even richer than four years ago while the middle class and poor are even poorer. This has been increasingly the case over the years under Republican administrations. Remember, President Obama’s four years have followed eight years of Republican policy and debacle, and he has, despite the obstructionism of the Republican House, still been able to show progress on many fronts.
Incidentally, Republican voters don’t seem to mind the millions of dollars spent (thanks to the SCOTUS Citizens United ruling) on misleading and downright false political ads. And despite the lies and failures of Gov. Romney — as well as previous Republican administrations — the polls have Gov. Romney virtually tied with President Obama! It defies logic.
The bottom line is that the only polls that really count are the ones for which voters cast their votes on Nov. 6. We can only hope that more Republican voters will finally “get it” (the fateful fallacies of Mitt the Chameleon and his GOP cohorts) and decide to vote for Barack Obama on Nov. 6. The future of our country depends on it.
Patricia Abbott
Royal Palm Beach
Obama’s War on Women and Seniors
I’m a senior and I am very concerned about Obamacare’s 12 person panel that will have rule making authority to decide who receives medical treatment and who will not. This should not surprise anyone since historically all government medical plans function in this way and Obamacare will be no different. Romney’s plan is to put health care decisions back into your hands.
Obama is waging war on low income women who comprise three-fifths of all Medicaid recipients. Medicaid has the worst outcomes, and if Obama is reelected he intends to add 17 million more recipients to the program. This will mean that States will have to divert even more resources away from women. Obama is offering free contraceptives to woman which is a $9/month benefit, but he will cut life saving benefits.
We do not need government insurance. Our private system saves 85% of breast cancer victims, whereas in Britain where they have their version of Obamacare, the survival rate is only 70%. Government healthcare is dangerous. Women on Medicaid were 2.5 times more likely to be diagnosed late with breast cancer than those on private insurance. This means that women on government healthcare die in greater numbers than women who have private insurance. Romney wants to create jobs that provide private insurance and he will not raid Medicare to pay for Medicaid.
Obama has also waged war on seniors. The Congressional Budget Office figured that over the next 10 years government will spend $48 billion dollars on a drug program and $4 billion dollars on preventative services; however, this is offset by cuts in your hospitalization and medical services to the tune of $768 billion. The net loss to seniors, as set forth in my prior letters is $716 billion dollars.
If you chose Medicare Advantage, then your benefits will be cut by $156 billion. Do not take my word for it; read what Richard Foster, Obama’s Medicare actuary wrote. He tells us that the Obama cuts “will thereby result in less generous benefit packages”. Obviously if you cut funding then you necessarily cut benefits. Obama will do both.
The problem for us seniors is that Obama cut benefits primarily from the aged and infants. The reasoning is that the more productive members of our society should be entitled to better medical treatment. Let us not forget that Obamacare is cradle to grave government controlled medical treatment. Obamacare is not like Medicare which is only for seniors. When they lump us into the entire population we suffer.
Foster also wrote that 50% of seniors will lose their Medicare Advantage plans. Payment cuts will be made to hospitals, nursing homes, doctors and other health providers. Over the next 10 years those cuts will amount to $415 billion dollars. These are serious problems. Obama expands flawed government programs, destroys small businesses where the aged and woman are mostly active.
If you vote for Obama then you are likely not to get the medical treatment that you will need to extend your life. Foster estimates that the cuts will make 15% of hospitals more or less permanently unprofitable.
If you can find a doctor who will treat you he will have to be willing to accept much less compensation for his services. And you know the old saying, “You get what you pay for.” If you do not intend to vote you are perhaps making the biggest mistake of the life you have left. Obama has already driven your grocery bills sky high and now he intends to cut your Medical treatment options and drive doctors out of practice.
Make sure that your friends understand how important it is to vote for a longer and better future and that means a vote for the Romney/Ryan ticket.
For the following reasons, I will not be supporting President Obama:
1. $16 trillion debt
2. High Unemployment
3. DEpendence on foreign countries in unstable regions of the world for
our energy. We need to be energy INdependent
4. High cost of gas
5. High cost of food
6. Devalued homes
7. Failure to unite Americans
8. Failure to work towards compromise with other duly elected officials
9. Failed education policy
10.Failure to communicate on a regular basis with American public