In response to the firestorm, Romney is now arguing:
“The president’s view is one of a larger government; I disagree,” Mr. Romney said in an interview on Fox News. “I think a society based on a government-centered nation where government plays a larger and larger role, redistributes money, that’s the wrong course for America.”
Time for a flashback it seems to me. Why is the nation in the economic condition it is today? Simply put, government did not do enough to regulate Mitt Romney's Wall Street friends during the Republican Bush Era. Because of the adoption of the Randian laissez faire approach championed by Republicans and, most notably, by Alan Greenspan. Unlike Mitt Romney, Alan Greenspan was forced to concede that his blind faith in the financial markets was misplaced:
[A]lmost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending. “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
[...] “You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the committee. “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”
Mr. Greenspan conceded: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”
Mitt Romney does not concede the grievous error of the Randian Republican anti-government, anti-regulation ideology that cost millions of Americans their jobs, homes and savings. Indeed, he promises a return to Bush era economic and regulatory policies. Because, after all, the moochers wrongly believe:
they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.
In Romney's world, the government's response to the call for these basic needs, is "let them eat cake."
The Democratic view is different. As Bill Clinton said:
We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."
This thinking can be traced right back to our greatest Democratic president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Because we believe that, and because we believe government has an important role to play for the well being and common good of the nation, Democrats have brought to the nation programs like Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, and regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mitt Romney believes in an unregulated and ungoverned country, unconcerned with the fate of half of the country. He should go run for President of Galt Gulch.
