Tag: Obama

Romney’s Bitter Over “Gifts”

On By WinstonIn Personal Responsibility, Politics, Society, U.S. Election 2012, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Once in a while I suspect people of being psychic. That’s the only way I can explain them saying things that make me laugh so often. Today I would like to thank Mitt Romney for providing another ray of sunshine in my day.

Mr Romney basically said that President Obama used social programs (most already enacted during his first term) as gifts to buy votes from poor people. He bought student votes with a promise to forgive student loan interest. He bought generic poor people with free health care (Obamacare). Latino votes were apparently all about the “Dream Act kids” which will allow some of the children of of illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. For an extended time. (Ironically those most affected, illegal aliens, couldn’t vote anyway.) The list goes on.

What Mitt forgot to mention were the gifts he was offering to his voters. Tax cuts to the ultra rich and major corporations. Relaxed environmental regulations. Repeal of Obamacare and cuts to other social spending. Increased defense spending. Possibly revisiting Roe v Wade and other reproductive health laws. But of course none of Romney’s platform was intended to pander to his core constituents. Such a thought would never occur to someone who’s entire campaign was predicated on telling voters whatever the pollsters told him they wanted to hear.

What he’s really complaining about isn’t the gift-giving. He’s bitter that there were more voters interested in what the President was offering than the Republican counter-offer. That’s the whole problem with allowing women, immigrants, young and or poor people to vote. Corporate tax cuts are less important to them than affordable health care or more affordable education.

Like so many others, he seems more interested in attacking the winner instead of looking at why he lost. I guess that’s why Romney’s bitter over “gifts“.

Cheers, Winston

Obama’s Not The Problem

On By WinstonIn Politics, Society2 Comments

In light of the recent debt crisis fiasco in the US, it seems the President has been appointed as the official fall guy. I’m not claiming to be smarter than all the anti-Obama crowd, but I would like to shine different light on him.

According to A variety of news sources, President Obama’s debt reduction proposal was the only one on offer which embraced actual compromise. He was willing to sacrifice some social welfare funding in return for closing some tax loopholes and removing certain tax breaks for corporations and the “ultra-rich”. His plan would have, through a combination of savings and increased revenue, provided a large enough debt reduction to have avoided the recent credit downgrade by S&P. Oh and it would have resolved the whole issue weeks sooner and avoided further destabilization of world markets.

Of course none of that was acceptable to either the Democrats or the Republicans. After all, why elect these people if not to watch them later act like irresponsible, self-absorbed jackasses? The Democrats hated the social-spending cuts, the Republicans hated the tax increases and each side hated the other.

So the Democrats put forward their own proposal which the Republicans hated. The Republicans developed a proposal the Democrats hated. The Tea Party took over the Republican party (which made everyone hate everyone else even more). All the while, the world watched in amazement and mounting fear as the worlds largest economy was allowed to slide ever closer the abyss of default.

When time ran out and it became obvious that neither side was willing to do the right thing, something had to be done. When elected members of both parties insisted on putting partisan ideology ahead of the good of the country, the good of the very citizens who put their faith in them. President Obama did what any true leader should do. He took the personal hit that could well cost him the Presidency next year. He signed into law an unpopular compromise which made many in his own party turn on him.

It wasn’t weakness that made the President sign that bill, it was selflessness. It was greatness. President Obama chose to sacrifice himself, to throw away his career, to save his country from a disaster. A disaster brought about by lesser people who when the moment came, could’t rise above themselves. People who chose loyalty to party dogma over loyalty to the people of the United States.

Whatever the media may say, and regardless of the outcome of next years election. I will always hold President Obama in the highest regard. In that moment when he offered up his career, his political future, his personal reputation, as ransom for those who chose him their leader: In that moment, he showed Greatness.

Cheers, Winston