Dear Mitt: *You* Don't Get to Say That

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

09 September 12

ear Mitt Romney:

Your so-called Medicare reform is just a way of shifting health expenses from millionaires (whose taxes you want to lower) to middle class and working people (with whom you want to stick the bill). A 48-year-old today, who starts getting Medicare in 2030, would have to pay an extra $124,600 under your plan! Meanwhile, your running mate's tax plan would reduce your own income taxes, as a multimillionaire, to less than one percent a year. You don't get to say that!

You and your running mate are blaming Barack Obama for high gasoline prices. But you demand a stricter blockade on Iranian petroleum! Given that the present blockade has taken perhaps a million barrels a day off the market at a time of increasing demand in Asia, you don't get to slam President Obama for causing high gasoline prices. Prices, as your MBA courses might have informed you, Mr. Romney, are based on supply and demand. If you reduce Iran supply, and demand stays the same or rises, then prices will go up. Since you want to tighten the blockade, you don't get to say that!

After campaigning for months on repealing Obamacare, you suddenly say you want to keep "parts" of it, including preventing insurance companies from declining to cover people for pre-existing conditions. The way Obamacare allows that provision, however, is to make all the healthy young people get insurance or face a fine, thus increasing the pool size so as to allow those with known health conditions to also join the pool without bankrupting the companies. I mean, this is flip-flopping on an epic scale. First you invented Obamacare in Massachusetts, then you repudiated it as a national program, now you are embracing the key "parts" of it while pledging to repeal it! You don't get to say that!

You defend yourself for not mentioning the Afghanistan War, in which US troops are fighting and dying, in your acceptance speech, by saying that people should focus on policies, not on words. But, you didn't mention Afghanistan policy, either. What is your position on the US branding the Haqqani Network a terrorist organization? How will that affect US-Pakistan relations, given that we think the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence has links to the Haqqanis? What about the the US halt to training Afghanistan policemen because so many turned out to be … Taliban? But training up local security forces is the pathway the US has announced to exit from Afghanistan. Where do you stand on this policy, since you like policy? In fact you haven't told us what your foreign policy will be on almost any issue, except that you have managed for no good reason to anger Russia by branding it our number one enemy? I mean, I know Mormons don't like Vodka, but still… You don't get to say that!

Your running mate Paul Ryan all of a sudden says states should have the right to legalize marijuana for medical purposes and not be bothered by the Feds. But you've been campaigning for years on a 'war on drugs' platform. As with 'parts of Obamacare,' your campaign is now speaking out of both sides of its mouth to muddy the waters and perhaps attract some votes. You don't get to say that!