TALKING POINTS – GOP DEBATE IN MICHIGAN
Mitt Romney made crystal clear his political philosophy, and perhaps a new campaign slogan: You’re On Your Own.
If you’re a middle-class American worried about losing your job, your home or your health care, don’t look to Mitt Romney for leadership – he’s fishing for right-wing votes by promising to turn his back on you.
Romney opposes President Obama’s successful loan to the auto industry, even though it saved 1.4 million jobs. Instead, as Romney said in an op-ed in the New York Times – and reiterated tonight – he would have “let Detroit go bankrupt.”
The former finance executive also doubled down on his opposition to helping homeowners devastated by foreclosure through no fault of their own. He thinks the process should “run its course and hit the bottom,” hoping investors can make a quick buck while families continue to suffer.
Romney tried to run away from the health reform law he signed in Massachusetts and called a “model for the nation” to copy. Tonight he repeated his plan to let insurance companies go back to discriminating against patients based on preexisting conditions, kicking young adults off their parents’ plans and re-opening the prescription-drug doughnut hole for seniors.
While he’s been all over the map on President Obama’s payroll tax cut – last month belittling the fact that an typical working family would get $1,500 back, but tonight claiming support of it – his own plan offers them just $54.
And despite many other well-documented flip-flops – on choice, heath care, the Recovery Act, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Afghanistan, guns and so much more – Romney tonight called himself “a man of steadiness and constancy.” But the only thing Mitt Romney is consistent about is saying and standing for anything to get elected, and the American people – Republicans and Democrats alike – simply aren’t buying it.
Just as in every previous debate, none of tonight’s Republican candidates offered a single idea for creating jobs. While they parrot the same dangerous Tea Party ideas that threatened our economy in the first place, President Obama will continue fighting for a job-creating economy that’s built to last – one where hard work pays, responsibility is rewarded, and everyone does their fair share and plays by the same rules.
