I came across this post through a
friend. He is actually one of the people
who is honestly looking for the truth about the candidates in this
election. That is why things like this
upset me so much. Using lies and
misleading information to win over voters should not be a way to win a
campaign. As I enjoy doing in the many
debates in which I find myself engaged, I have debunked much of what this post
claims to be true. I have included the
entire post (as it was shared by my friend) with my responses below each
section (original post in red, my comments in blue).
AS PROMISED - Something that REALLY
struck me the other night, and caused me to really start researching the
"facts" that we are being fed by our President, and his campaign.
This train of thought has been percolating in my head for a few days. I started
thinking about it after I watched the first Presidential debate, it came more
into focus after hearing the remark made by Paul Ryan about how Romney helped a
family that had been the victim of a serious car accident, and really started
to crystallize after listening to Charles Krauthammer.
The Obama camp has painted Romney as a
person that the working class should despise.... Someone who doesn't care about
anyone but himself. An "Evil rich person". Someone who will
"Raise taxes on the middle class, and give millionaires a 250k tax
break." (That claim has been exposed as pure crap. The economist that the
Obama camp used to come up with that has completely contradicted that. It is a
LIE, plain and simple.)
Well, the numbers used here are inaccurate. The truth is that an independent
organization, The Tax Policy Center, did an analysis of Romney’s goals in his
tax plan. They admitted that they could
not do any exact analysis because, as many of us have been saying for months,
the man has not presented a true plan with facts and figures. However, using his goals and the few numbers
that his campaign has supplied, the Tax Policy Center came to the conclusion
that it was impossible to remain revenue neutral and meet the goals. They concluded that, given the information
provided by Romney’s campaign, there would be an $86 billion shortfall of
revenue. To make up for this shortfall,
taxes on the middle and lower income population must be raised. So the answer to this is, yes Romney is rich. Yes, his plan will raise taxes on the middle
class. And yes, his plan will give
people making more than $200,000 per year a tax break that will add up to
approximately $86 billion per year. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/1001631-FAQ-Romney-plan.pdf
They painted him as a corporate raider,
as someone who shipped jobs overseas, and even as someone who KILLED SOMEONE'S
WIFE. (That disgusting commercial was also proved to be a complete
load of crap.)
Let’s be clear on this. The commercial was blaming Romney for the
loss of a guy’s job and health care benefits which were supposedly the reason
his wife’s cancer was not found earlier.
While the problems of GST Steel, the plant that laid off this worker,
can be traced back to Romney, the ad went too far. But please note that this ad was not put out
by the Obama campaign. It was created
and run by the Priorities USA Action Super PAC.
Just as there are many conservative Super PAC’s that support Romney and
don’t get his approval on their commercials, this organization did the
same.
“If you don’t have a record to run
on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.” (Sen.
Barack Obama, “Remarks,” Denver, CO 8/28/08)
Why has the Obama camp done this?? Because of the quote
above. The Obama administration has been in control for almost 4 years, and has
managed to do almost nothing.
We’re going to dissect this blatant lie piece by
piece. We’ll start with things that
Obama has done during his administration.
Here are some links to hundreds of things that have been accomplished.
And here is the reason that the Republican congress
is responsible for much that hasn’t been done during his term.
Unemployment is horrible, economic
growth is at a standstill, and most people are worse off than they were 4 years
ago.
Not true.
Despite the ridiculous claims of conspiracy, the unemployment rate is
lower than it was when President Obama took office. This is even more impressive when you consider
the fact that the President shouldn’t be credited with many of the job
losses. See this ling for further
explanation.
The Middle East is LESS stable, the
Iranians are much closer to having a nuclear weapon, the Russians are pushing
us around, and Al Qaeda is still killing our people.
Well...the Middle East has always been
unstable. It’s simply a matter of degree
at this point. Of course Iran is closer
to having a nuclear weapon...more time has passed. Should we just send our troops into every
corner of the world and wage war on every sovereign nation that does something we
don’t like? It seems that is the answer
for Republicans, but we’re not everyone’s parent. We can’t police the world.
The magical health plan that was supposed to save
families 2,500.00 per year has ended up RAISING health care costs by about
2,500.00 per family. Many employers are getting ready to dump employee health
care. And....it was passed before anyone really knew what was in it.
First, the ACA has not cost anyone more. The insurance companies have raised
prices. Many of the provisions of the
ACA have not yet taken effect. An
academic study of the effects of the ACA determined that the results of the
changes will be lower health care costs.
The idea of companies dumping health care is a ludicrous scare
tactic. Finally, this is the age of
information. Congressional bills are
available online during the entire process.
No one needs to hold this writer’s hand.
He needs to get online and look up the information. If his representative didn’t do that then he
needs to bring it up with the representative...it was available.
The average family has lost lost a
median amount of 4,000.00 per year in income. Gas prices have skyrocketed, as
have grocery prices. Our national debt is RIDICULOUS.
WE ARE WORSE OFF THAN WE WERE FOUR YEARS AGO. FAR
WORSE.
Okay...the
median income based on reports by Sentier Research is down about $4,000. However, this is due to the recession. As the President has a limited amount of
control over the economic forces in play, one cannot blame him for this. Gas prices!
This argument drives me crazy. I
will repeat this one more time for all of the conservatives out there. THE PRESIDENT DOES NOT CONTROL GAS PRICES! These prices are controlled by supply,
demand, and Wall Street. The supply is
controlled by organizations like OPEC.
The President does not control these organizations. The only factor that he controls is the
federal tax on gas, which hasn’t changed since the late 90’s. Finally, grocery prices. There are two factors that have caused the
rise in grocery prices. First is the
aforementioned rise in gas prices and recession, neither of which were caused
by President Obama. Another factor is
the droughts that we have gone through at the end of last year and throughout
this summer. They have caused a
reduction in supply which has led to higher prices. Unless the President can be blamed for the
drought there can be no blame for grocery prices.
Now, alot of people buy into the "Obama inherited
a mess" routine. WRONG. He VOLUNTEERED for this, he did not
"inherit" anything. He told us that he could fix this mess, that he
would get unemployment UNDER 6% by spending a ton of money (That our kids will
have to pay off.), he told us that he could handle the Iranians by negotiating,
he told us that he
would lower our health insurance costs. He told us that
he would repair the economy.
He has FAILED. Pure and simple.
Yes, he
volunteered for the job. But he took the
job as our country was spiraling towards a depression and managed to pull us
out of this spiral and into a period of recovery. And, regardless of the fact that
conservatives don’t want to hear that Bush caused this mess, it is true. And the fact that Romney plans to take our
country back to the policies and practices of the Bush administration are
terrifying because they will lead to the same disaster that we just
experienced. The President has done what
he can to improve all of these areas, but his plans are long-term fixes. They are not something that can be achieved
overnight.
The Obama camp has also done this because of Obama's
hatred for Romney on a personal level. Why does Obama despise Romney? Because
Romney embodies everything that Obama seems to sneer at. He is an example of
Someone "Who built that". An example of someone who has succeeded
without government making things "fair". He has shown that private
enterprise does a BETTER job than government. He is everything that Barak Obama
has despised, and fought against. Romney represents the American Free
Enterprise system. He represents capitalism, and how well it works.
Everything in
this paragraph is just ridiculous.
After watching the debate and realizing "Hey,
Romney isn't the insensitive tool that the commercials say he is.", I
decided to do some of my own research (PLEASE....IF you want to make an
informed decision, do your OWN research.) What I found was rather astonishing.
It completely contradicts everything that the Obama camp has been spouting.
Remember, Romney is supposed to be an uncaring profiteer who will take
advantage of people, the guy who will put "rich" people ahead of
everyone, who will insure the wealthy profit at the expense of the "common
man".....Here are a few things that most people do not know:
- Romney donated over 30 percent of his income (BEFORE
taxes) to charity.
Easy to do when you are making millions of dollars
each year. And don’t forget, these
donations are tax deductible.
- He refused to TAKE A SALARY as Governor of Massachusetts,
and even paid for his own travel expenses. (That's right, he worked for free.)
I would turn down a small six figure salary if I
made millions of dollars in other investments and could use it as a political
tool too.
- When the Olympics were in trouble,
he left Bain Capital, and made them a success. And, he worked for free there,
too.
See previous comment.
- As Governor, he got rid of a 1.5 billion dollar deficit,
through a combination of spending cuts, increased fees, and the closure of
corporate tax loopholes.(Not quite the corporate stooge he is presented to be,
Huh?)
That’s funny...the plans that he has presented show
that he will be responsible for adding $86 million to the deficit if he wins the
presidency. That or he has to increase middle
class taxes.
- He presided over a state government whose schools are
number one in the nation. The best.
I’m sure that this had much more to do with the
school systems and staff then anything Romney did, but I’ll give him this one.
- He worked with a legislature that was 87 percent
Democrat, and successfully got things done.
Mostly because the legislature was 87 percent
Democrat. The only option he would have
would be to veto the bills and that could be overridden by the
legislature. In fact, Romney had
approximately 844 budget line-item vetoes and over 700 of them were overridden. It’s easy to work with the man when you can
just ignore his protests. If you want a truly telling measure
of his home state, look at the polls.
Obama is expected to win Romney’s home state by almost 20 points! These are the people that have lived with his
governance already.
- When a Bain Capital employee's
daughter went missing in 1996, he shut down the entire office, brought all of
the employees to New York.....and made sure that she was located.
Good for him.
There’s something good.
- When his father died, and he inherited his father's
money, he donated ALL of it to charity.
He was already super rich. Who cares?
And again...tax deduction.
- He owner financed a house for a "less than
wealthy" family in Texas.
So he has hundreds of millions of dollars and he
financed a house for them? How about
just give them a house? Will.I.Am gave
over $350,000 of his own money to help two families that were facing foreclosure
pay off their homes. This makes Romney’s
owner financing look pretty insignificant.
- He paid for the college tuition for children of a
family that had been devastated in a car accident.
Another good thing.
But it seems in contrast to his platform on student debt. Not only does he not plan to increase the
grants available to students, his running mate created a budget that sent
student loans back to private lending institutions. This reverts the recent change in student
loans originated by the government and would cost the government a fortune in
subsidies to the lending institutions.
Just another way to get money into the hands of private organizations at
the expense of the rest of the country.
- He helped subsidize the food for a veteran's homeless
shelter for years....and didn't tell them.
Tax deduction.
- When fire destroyed numerous homes in a neighborhood
in San Francisco, Romney and his son showed up and helped people clean out
their homes...for hours.
Good. I hope
it was better than the work Ryan did at the soup kitchen recently.
- He helped build a playground (Not writing a check,
physically helped build it) to honor a boy who died of Cystic Fibrosis.
Good. See my last comment.
Have I made my point? He really doesn't look like a
rich, greedy corporate raider, now does he?? Cold and unfeeling bastard who is
responsible for the death of someone else's wife?
Nope....You've been lied to. Repeatedly.
This paragraph
at least has some truth to it. You have
been lied to. Repeatedly. By both the writer of this and the Romney
campaign.
Now, let's look at his life as a businessman. Ever
heard of companies like: Staples, Sports Authority, Dominoes Pizza, Bright
Horizons, Steel Dynamics, Sealy Mattresses, Brookstone?
Romney either funded, rescued, or helped start those
companies. OVER 100,000 jobs created.
The jobs
outsourced under Romney’s tenure as Bain’s CEO is debatable. Mostly because the date he actually let go of
his role is in question. He says one
thing, but legal filings show something different. Either way, he created the company and
instilled the principles on which the company runs. This means he is ultimately responsible for
the actions of the company, including the outsourcing of jobs that is still
going on today.
After doing all of this research, I have to say that I
am pretty pissed. Obama has managed to lie to America, and paint a very decent
man as a villain.....simply because Obama has accomplished virtually nothing.
My thinking is this.....We have about 3 weeks until we
vote. We can vote for a decent man, who does good things; who has accomplished
alot both in private industry, and in government .....or vote for someone who
has completely lied to us, manipulated us, twisted the truth.....but, above
all....has been a FAILURE. Someone who has left us WORSE off, and will continue
to do so.
Your choice - Success versus failure, Decent and
generous versus dishonest and misleading. Up to you.
Like
I said before. This poster is full of
lies and misleading statements. Starting
with the lie that Obama has accomplished nothing. Do I think Romney is evil? No. I
think he is a corporate puppet in this election that is meant to take office
and improve the lives of corporations and the rich at the expense of the middle
class. I think he will further an agenda
of hate with homosexuals and women by writing his religious beliefs into
law. I also think he is an opportunist
who will take every advantage available including placing his money in off
shore banks to avoid tax liability and hide his returns to keep us from finding
out the truth about his unethical, though likely legal, practices. Speaking of manipulation, this post is very
full of exactly that. I
find it interesting that I rarely hear liberals call Romney evil, but I
routinely hear conservatives talk about President Obama as the anti-Christ and
call his supporters cult members and similar derogatory terms. How could we
possibly elect a man to run our country who has only lies and misleading
statements to defend his position? How
can anyone attempt to defend policies that have been proven impossible and
harmful to our country? Fortunately, it
is up to us, and we can choose to vote for President Obama and forget that
Romney ever had a chance.
