Friday, June 8, 2012

Mitt Romney Plans to Reduce Police, Firefighters and Teachers. That's smaller Government.

Scott Walker's big win has emboldened the right wing like never before, and that's a good thing. With their mind numbing over the top declarations and ultra class-warfare moves, there will be little doubt which direction voters will want to go in November. American's will have a chance to pick leaders, the authoritarian kind, or stay with the old left wing idea drummed up by the founding fathers.

It's generally excepted that conservatives don't trust people. That's why they distrust groups of people, the kind you'll find in unions and government. One Republican State Senator boldly proclaimed he didn't trust juries. That's how crazy its gotten. 

Recovering from the Great Recession is slow, sure, but Americans want results NOW. That's why they voted for so many Republicans in 2010. How'd that work out?

If Romney takes charge, the country will fail quickly, but that will hit the elitist class harder, since they're the only ones left with money to lose. 

The real loss will be seen in our safety net programs, the single most long lasting legacy of a Romney administration. Like Bush's Great Recession and its downsizing of American businesses, the public "hammocks" will be taken down. Will that be pain enough for hard core Republicans to finally rethink their ideological positions?

But since those private sector jobs aren't as plentiful, it would be ridiculous and suicidal to also go after firing teachers, firefighters and police officers, just because they're a part of "big government.

Mitt Romney wants just that:
WAPO: When Republicans attack public workers, they often take care to exempt cops and firefighters, because they are culturally sympathetic figures, and muddle the message that government workers are parasites who are destroying the economic conditions of ordinary Americans.

But today Mitt Romney got a good deal more specific, claiming we do not need to hire more cops or firefighters specifically, which would, he said, cut against the interests of the American people. He also specifically named teachers.

Romney: “He wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

It’s hard to argue that the message from Wisconsin was that Americans don’t think we should hire more firefighters and cops. They were exempted from Scott Walker’s crackdown on public employee bargaining rights, which enabled him to “divide and conquer” labor.

One of the components of the American Jobs Act that Obama continues to demand that Republicans pass would invest $35 billion in federal funds to keep cops, firefighters, and teachers on the job.

Republicans, Romney included, oppose this plan. As Romney recently put it: “We have 145,000 more government workers under this president. Let’s send them home and put you back to work.”

As Jonathan Chait has noted, Romney has spoken movingly of the financial plight of firefighters under Obama, even though they belong to the parasitic class that he is trying to scapegoate for the economic misery of other Americans. Since teachers are associated with the education of our children, Republicans generally refrain from attacking them directly and instead target teachers union bosses. This time Romney has forthrightly declared that the class of government workers holding back other Americans does include cops, firefighters and teachers.
 Here's Obama immediate response:
In Iowa today, Mitt Romney shockingly promised to cut jobs for firefighters, police, and teachers if elected. As President Obama urges Congress to pass his plan to put cops, firefighters, teachers, and construction workers back to work — after they left as many as 1 million jobs from his plan on the table — Mitt Romney has decided we need less jobs for middle class Americans, not more. That’s the message he received this week.

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