The Denver Presidential Debate on Oct. 3 left us with some hangovers including Mitt Romney's proposed defunding of Big Bird.
You
may smile, but that may have way more importance to the outcome of the
campaign than the minuscule impact Public Broadcasting has on the debt.
It symbolizes Romney's detail deficit, his insensitivity to women's
interests, and accounting practices for the birds.
Passions are
high in this campaign, but the reaction to defunding Big Bird was sheer
outrage. I got heated calls from suburban moms, late-40-year-olds who
grew up with Sesame Street, and even grandmothers. Romney is further
cementing the gender gap he already created by his move to the right on
women's health issues.
The Gallup Poll Monday showed Romney
bumped up to a tie, but “the impact was not so strong that it changed
the race to the point where Romney emerged as the leader among
registered voters.” In Colorado a Denver University poll showed Obama
still ahead and a Gravis Poll showed the opposite. Three media run
focus groups of undecided voters post-debate remained undecided, saying
they wanted more details.
Romney's Big Bird moment was his
opportunity to give us more details, but he limited his list to one
yellow feathered beloved icon and left troubling questions on the table.
Would deductions for home mortgages, education and charity, health
care and education be reduced, too? The answer is “yes.” Pre-debate
Romney said deductions could be capped to total $17,000 or removed line
by line.
Defunding Big Bird was Romney's tacit admission more
cuts are needed. If we believe the unbelievable that closing loopholes
funds his proposed $5 trillion tax cuts, to avoid exploding the deficit,
who pays for the $1 trillion for extension of the Bush tax cuts plus
$2 trillion more for the Pentagon? Still the 47 percent ...
Agreeing
with His running mate, Paul Ryan, Romney had indicated earlier he had
no plans to provide affordable health insurance for the 30 million
currently uninsured. They proposed a 30 percent cut in Medicaid to pay
for Grandma's nursing home and a less than sufficient cap on future
senior's health care coverage. Other than coverage of pre-existing
conditions for those who already have insurance, his debate performance
changed nothing.
Incredibly, Romney denied he was even cutting
taxes to the rich. Obama scrambled to counter this major flip-flop from
Romney's earlier campaign promises to lower taxes on the “job
creators.” Oh no, Romney said. Now he proposes to cut taxes the same
amount across the board and pay for it by closing loopholes. His logic
and math are for the birds.
While fact-checkers criticized both
candidates, they called Romney out for claiming the $5 trillion dollar
figure was no tax cut when it was, and for providing no specifics to pay
for them. Non-partisan, non-ideological respected observers concluded
closing loopholes would not offset Romney's planned loss of tax income
and it would result in either increasing middle class taxes or
increasing the debt. Obama pointed it out, too. Bill Clinton would
have said Romney had an “addition” problem. “Snake oil” describes the
Romney plan best.
Disheartened Democrats cheered up two days
later. Unemployment dropped to 7.8 percent, obsoleting the 8 percent
number the GOP used to make their case that the president had failed.
An incredulous GOP fumbled a response: “It doesn't look like a
recovery” — yet other indicators were up, too, including stock markets
and housing prices, or someone was cooking the books.
Romney
cooked his books himself, claiming the “real” unemployment rate was 11
percent because job seekers decreased, but he counted retiring baby
boomers as unemployed and economists said in September “a significant
number” had rejoined the work force and the unemployment rate still
dropped.
The above is my column in the Sky Hi Daily News today.
