...The stakes of an election aren’t always apparent in advance. In 2000, most so-called experts spent the campaign marveling at the lack of difference between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Then Bush got elected and enacted his tax cuts. Then 9/11 happened. And then the U.S. invaded Iraq. We can’t rerun history. But if the Palm Beach County ballots had looked a little different and Gore had become president, the eight years that followed probably would have unfolded differently.
This time around, nobody should be confused. The differences between Obama and Romney are not ambiguous—not even now, after Romney’s post-convention attempt to act like the more moderate, more sensible Republican many of us once thought he could be. The gap between what Obama and Romney believe—and between what each man proposes to do—is larger than it has been for any election I can remember.
Think about some numbers.
<!--break--> Eight to ten million. That’s the number of people who would lose eligibility for
food stamps under the Ryan budget, which Romney praised and pledged to sign. Keep in mind that, in the wake of welfare reform and the decline of cash assistance from the federal government, food stamps have become the primary source of support for low-income people. At least a quarter would be children.
Two hundred thousand and 10 million. That’s the number of kids who’d lose
Head Start and the number of college students who’d see
Pell Grants decline by $1000, according to official administration estimates, under the Ryan budget that Romney effectively endorsed—unless Romney decided to spare those programs, forcing deeper cuts to other programs.
Fifty-two million. That’s how many people could lose health insurance if Romney repeals Obamacare and enacts his plan for
Medicaid. In case it’s not self-evident, that’s a lot of people—about one-sixth of the entire American population.
Eight-hundred billion. That's the ten-year cost of
extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes over $250,000. It's a tax cut that benefits only the wealthy; offsetting the cost is a big reason why so many other cuts would have to take place.
The numbers are not precise; each depends on a set of assumptions about policy and, in some cases, the economy. But they give you some idea of the magnitude of the choice voters are facing. And the numbers alone don’t tell the full story.
For more than a hundred years, this country has been trying to manage and tame capitalism, not to undermine it but to save it, by protecting people from its caprice and excess. This crusade advanced in three great waves, pushed along by three of our greatest presidents—Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. The changes Romney has proposed would touch, and undermine, accomplishments that trace back to each of these eras. They would alter the social contract, as it has existed for generations, touching the middle class just as surely as they would touch the poor...
BUT ON TUESDAY VOTERS won’t only be determining the future of the welfare state—or
reproductive rights or any of other vital policy areas in which Obama and Romney have such stark differences. They’ll also be rendering a verdict about the importance of candor in presidential campaigns...
TNR Writer At Least Is Honest
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Originally Posted by SassyLady
