Romney's bad deal for women

Ladies, still conflicted? If you like Mitt Romney's economic plan but also like President Obama's position on women's health, check the fact-checkers.

Mitt Romney is offering you more than a sketchy deal; you are being presented with a bad one. The GOP wants women to trade 40 years of struggle of women to control their own health decisions in return for economic plans that are impossible.

Romney's “clear vision” for the economy is a mirage. Romney's newest proposal promises lowered taxes by 20 percent for all. There has not been a financial analyst, even the six partisan ones Romney cites, who says cutting the wealthy's loopholes will offset the loss in tax revenue of $5 trillion over 10 years.

Both Tampa Bay politifact.com and Annenberg Foundation Factcheck.org agreed with the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center's conclusion that what Romney proposes is “mathematically impossible.” The middle class will then be stuck with either $2,000 per-year per-family in higher taxes or elimination of deductions for mortgages, education, and charity, or the deficit will explode. (Factcheck.org called Romney's claim that Obama would raise middle class taxes by $4,000 “nonsense.”)

Romney proposes another $3 trillion to continue Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and pump up the Pentagon. Financier Steve Rattner (New York Times, 10/14) concluded that to pay for these, 40 percent would have to be cut from a list which includes education, child care, child health coverage, school lunches, Head Start, military pensions, and more.

Washingtonpost/blogs/fact-checker on Oct. 16 gave Romney's five-point plan to add 12 million jobs four “Pinocchios,” called it bait and switch, and said it did not add up. Moody's Analytics predicts 12 million jobs will be created by 2016, no matter who is president. Macroeconomic Advisors also predicted a gain of 12.3 million jobs. Obama will reach the 12 million goal just staying his course.

Romney moans that women have lost more than hundreds of thousands jobs under Obama, but women's unemployment rate was a full percentage below men. FactCheck.org concluded “Romney's figure was six times too high … with the large majority (of jobs) lost before Obama was sworn in.”

The GOP deal? They want to make it harder and more expensive for women to work. If there is one single factor that has enabled women to work, it is control over their reproduction schedule. Romney and the GOP want to repeal Obamacare. Doing so would reinstate high co-pays for mammograms and pap smears and would allow insurance companies to charge women more for health insurance than for men.

Romney supports allowing all employers to refuse insurance to cover birth control.

Mitt Romney is pledged to appointing members to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, making abortion illegal. Romney is committed to defunding Planned Parenthood, the low income service that provides women health services from birth control to cancer screenings. (Federal money is already forbidden by law to fund abortions). Romney endorsed a Mississippi personhood initiative giving fertilized eggs full legal protection, which would have effectively banned some forms of birth control and all abortions.

Women's pay is around 80 cents on the dollar to a man's pay for the same job. The Republicans opposed the Lilly Ledbetter act signed by President Obama to help women sue for such discrimination. In Debate No. 2, Romney avoided supporting it with his infamous “binder full of women” attempt to connect with women, leaving the impression he had never met competent women in his prior career.

I have no desire to see my two daughters and two granddaughters return to the 1950s, but that is what women are being asked to trade off. It is a deal women should refuse.


Also published in the Sky Hi Daily News today