What Obama can do in the debate: paint Romney 's foreign policy as bully, bluster, and blunder

What Pres. Obama can do in the debate Oct. 22 on foreign policy is to paint Romney as the one most likely to bully,  bluster and blunder  us into another war, keep us in Afghanistan longer, and result some politically intolerable cuts in domestic spending that will extremely harmful to all of us in some way.

 While most of Romney's official positions as outlined in op eds and speeches lately,  sound as if he differs only from Obama's policy to speak softly while carrying (and using) a big stick is by speaking loudly about the same.  That is a dangerous perception: Chest thumping and rhetoric is not a plan.  In fact, it might even talk the American public into approving the US getting  into a conflict in which we have either no direct interest or could get us in a quagmire: i.e. an Iraq blunder again.  The same group that talked us into Iraq is the same that is advising Romney on foreign policy.

Obama can make the point that Romney's brand of leadership is bluster leading to blunder. What is going on in the Middle East is a revolt of the next generation,  and the lid taken off of ethnic/religious  conflict that had been suppressed by dictators now deposed,  and a power struggle to fill the vacuum, forces beyond our control.  What it takes is an understanding of this to come out on the right side.  Shaking the big stick would be counter productive and shows Romney's inexperience.  His views are dangerous.  not only because they will make enemies where we need to make friends, but it will more likely lead us into war again and a drain on our economy and damaging to our future.

Romney has already made it clear that he views withdrawal from Afghanistan conditional on what is happening on the ground; Obama has stood by withdrawal the end of 2014 (while leaving some troops there) and made the case that waffling on the date would keep Afghanistan dependent on us instead of becoming responsible for their own security.

To rationalize this bully policy of bluster,, Romney plans to increase US expenditures for the Pentagon by $2 trillion over 10 years.  Not even the oft criticized Paul Ryan budget went that far as financier Steve Rattner, writing in the New York Times Oct. 14,points  out. He continues..

 .." the military is not asking for such an increase. Such an increase would force giant reductions, about 40 percent, in everything that’s left.

“Everything else” isn’t some catchall of small items, like feeding Big Bird. We’re talking about a vast array of programs including civilian and military pensions, food stamps, unemployment and disability compensation, the earned income and child tax credits, family support and nutrition, K-12 education, transportation, public safety and disaster relief. And on and on....No doubt some of what is buried within 'other mandatory and non defense discretionary spending' can be eliminated. Perhaps Americans won’t miss a few national parks or the space program.But also nestled within this category are critical outlays for investments in infrastructure and research.Eating the seed corn is never advisable....."

What Obama needs to do in the debate  is to get off the defensive posture regarding accusations of  leading from behind and misfires on BenGhazi and force the conversation to turn to an attack on Romney's bully, bluster, and blunder foreign policy. Romney would be the bull in the china closet.  Obama must put Romney on the defensive enough to shake voters' confidence in  Romney as a safe and preferable commander in chief. The case is there to be made.

Romney's plans are a bad deal for women

Heads up, ladies.  You are being offered more than a sketchy deal; you are being offered a very bad one. The GOP wants women to trade off 40 years of struggle for women’s rights for a fantasy economic plan. Mitt Romney is waving a shiny lure of 12 million jobs in four years for you yet every fact checker and the most respected financial analysts such as Moody’s say 12 million new jobs will be created anyway if we continue the course Obama has set us on.  

Now Romney is offering the oldest political trick in the business: lowering your taxes by 20%.  There has also not been a financial analyst, even the six Romney likes to cite, that say cutting all the loopholes and deductions in the world will offset the loss of $5 trillion in revenue to the treasury, much less deal with the deficit and it may even inflate it.  This is no trickle down scheme either, since any tax cuts to the wealthy would be in theory replaced by losing loopholes and deductions…in theory, and only in theory, leaving no more in their pockets to become the “job creators”, if that every would have happened.  Dream on: either the deficit will have to be blown up or everyone will be asked to give up even deductions Romney prefers to save  or taxes will rise.  None of that makes for a happy ending.

  In order to pay for Romney’s continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and spend another $2 trillion in pumping up the Pentagon,  analysts concluded 40%  would have to be cut in discretionary spending, including education, child care, child health care,  research and development  and everything not required by federal law to spend.  Even this part of the Romney plan has been evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office to increase the deficit. 
 Likewise, repealing Obamacare would add to the deficit, both the CBO and the Simpson Bowles Commission concluded.

In return for this bad deal, here is what the GOP gives you in return:  They want to make it harder for women to hold a job or to earn fair pay.  Women depend on control of their health in order to be able to work: The means birth control and good health, but the GOP wants to make this harder on women and more expensive. In fact, if there was one single factor that his enabled women to work and support their families, it was their own control over their reproduction.  Thanks to that, in this recession, more women have continued to work and support their families than men.   

 They want us to continue with pay that is 70 cents on the dollar to  a man’s pay for the same job…opposing women’s ability to sue for such discrimination,  such as the Lilly Ledbetter act which President Obama signed.   They want us to continue to pay more for our health insurance than men, a practice which Obamacare forbids and the GOP wants to repeal.  They want our employers to be able to deny health insurance coverage for birth control pills for any reason (even if they are not affiliated with a Catholic institution).  They and Mitt Romney are committed to appointing members of the Supreme Court to overturn a woman’s right to choose, making abortion illegal, sending women to the back alleys again...  They and Mitt Romney are pledged to defund Planned Parenthood, the low income service that provides women health services from birth control, cancer screenings, to others. (Federal money is already forbidden by law to fund abortions).  They want to reinstate high co pays for mammograms and pap smears by repealing the benefits of Obamacare.  The GOP and many of their followers want to effectively ban forms of birth control by passing laws saying life begins at conception and giving the fertilized egg full legal protection.  Some of them have even advocated forcing women to have invasive ultrasound or letting those women legitimately raped to let their bodies stop pregnancy.

If you think I am steamed, I am.  I am, as they say, long in tooth and high in age.  I have no desire to see my two daughters return to the days of the 1950’s, the ones I faced and resented and clawed my way in my professional life to overcome.  But that is what women are being asked to do in order to grasp onto a bogus deal, more jobs that will happen even if Romney’s fantasy plans would ever work.   It is a deal women should definitely refuse.

Obamacare: The issue not discussed in last night's debate

I have lost count of how many times residents of Grand County have been asked to contribute to a family's medical costs when serious diseases or accidents strike. The usual reason: No insurance. We pass the hat, hold a benefit, and pray it is enough. That era is about to end if Pres. Obama is re-elected and Obamacare is implemented in 2014. If Mitt Romney is elected, it is back to the present, but worse.

Romney plans severe cuts in Medicaid care for disabled kids, child health care, and nursing home help for Grandma. If Romney repeals Obamacare , seniors will be stuck with the donut hole again, averaging $600 per year. Those measures will hurt current seniors and kids. For those future seniors not yet 55, Ryan/Romney voucher plan (the new revised edition) will cost them more, according to the independent, a non profit Kaiser Family Foundation in a report released Monday, Oct. 15, 2012.

Grand County has one of the largest uninsured populations in the state, over 20%. We have attempted to fill in the holes with 9 Health Fair that provides health screenings and P.A.I.N.S. , privately funded vouchers for adult non emergency doctor care. Nonetheless, the hat gets passed for emergency treatment and hospitalization.

There are others with insurance who still struggle with medical bills because the coverage they have is inadequate. The single largest cause of bankruptcy in the US is medical bills and most who go bankrupt have health insurance.

With Obamacare, if a family is uninsured now, they will be able to afford it because there will be a subsidy available based upon income level. In Colorado they will have a choice of many different private insurance plans that cover pre-existing conditions and adequately cover costs.

What would Romney do? For those who have pre-existing conditions, he would only require coverage for those who already have insurance with uninterrupted coverage. Tough luck if you lose insurance for even a day or never qualified.

Don't have insurance? Romney would send you to the emergency room.

Scott Pelley asked Mitt Romney on CBS' 60 Minutes, Sept. 23, 2012: “Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?”

MITT ROMNEY: “Well, we do provide care for people. If someone has a heart attack. We pick them up in an ambulance and take them to the hospital and give them care.”

Romney knows better. ER care is expensive. The insured and state governments ultimately pick up the unpaid bills and those high costs are passed onto the entire system, including Medicare and Medicaid. That's why he invented Romneycare in Massachusetts on which Obamacare was patterned. Would free market competition lower costs? Even in the Ryan plan, competition is tightly controlled and per the Congressional Budget Office, only 3 million more would get affordable insurance if cross state purchase would be allowed.

Romney plans to let states reform health care on their own dime, but it is fantasy to think cash strapped, Teaparty dominated state governments would adopt Romneycare, either.

Medicare would go broke by 2016 but keeping Oamacare extends it until 2024. Long term, Simpson Bowles Debt Reduction Commission has their own plan to save Medicare and concluded keeping Obamacare was essential because it brings down health care system costs. The Congressional Budget Office also concluded Obamacare would reduce the deficit; repealing it would increase it. Voucherizing Medicare is not the only plan on the table.

For those Mediscared by the GOP with Obamacare death panels, the law forbids any panel from recommending changes in patients' benefits. Would fewer doctors take Medicare and hospitals go out of business? It did not happen in Romney's Massachusetts and the “doc fix” law insures adequate doctor compensation.

This is my column appearing in the Sky Hi News today.

Why Romney's "binder" comment rang badly

While Mitt Romney's reference to women's issues last night got very negative feedback from my teacher daughter and her friends, none mentioned Romney's "binder full of women" comment. I suspect it is because teachers have not experienced the same degree of discrimination as those of us who have been in the political and corporate workplace. Why Romney's "binder" comment rang badly was probably because: "What? In your work in politics and investment banking you never ran across a woman you thought was qualified to serve in your cabinet?"