Mitt Romney was caught on a hidden camera saying that 47 percent of the American people “pay no federal income tax and are dependent on government. They believe they are victims who are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
Those people — about half the population — he told supporters at a posh fund-raising event, would probably support President Obama.
At a hastily-called news conference Monday night, Romney said he stood behind the comments, even though they may not have been stated elegantly.
He went on to say that the core issue was whether Americans wanted a government-centered society or one in which individuals could achieve their dreams through ambition and their own hard work.
Well, Mr. Romney is about as wrong as a person can get about the America he lives in.
Almost all of us believe that working hard and working smart will lead to a comfortable, rewarding life. That’s what we teach our children — and that’s what those offspring are teaching their children. Americans are the hardest working people in the world. That’s not a brag, it’s fact. U.S. workers put in more overtime and take less time off during the working year than do workers in any other country. More of us hold full-time jobs and stay on those jobs later in life.
Americans also believe that one of the central purposes of government is to help the helpless; to provide safety nets. That’s why support for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is strong. That’s why the public supports V.A. hospitals, care and training for the developmentally disabled, military pensions, food stamps and the other programs created by the federal, state and local governments to care for those in need and the less fortunate among us.
Americans believe in education as the great leveler which gives every person an opportunity to succeed. That’s why there are public schools and public universities. That’s why there are Pell grants to allow youngsters from low income families to win college degrees.
These programs were not created because Americans believe they are entitled to the basics of life from a paternalistic government, but because Americans have believed from the beginning that all of us should have a equal go at a good life: to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That’s why we band together to help each other thrive. That’s why the community called the United States of America has achieved so much over these 236 years.
Government helps Americans achieve those goals because government is how Americans work together to create a good society in which as many as possible can thrive.
WHEN MITT ROMNEY looks at America, he sees half of us as makers and the other half as moochers. As David Brooks, a moderate conservative columnist who has supported Romney, off and on, wrote: “ … he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who does to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?
“ … It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the political culture. Americans haven’t become childlike worshippers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. … The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institute has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.”
Mitt Romney’s dismissal of 50 percent of the American population as moochers who wouldn’t vote for him anyway, lets 100 percent of us understand the man better.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
