Nightmarish Scenario: Day One Under President Romney.

I want to take a little time to specifically talk about Mitt Romney.  The very definition of a vulture capitalist, Mitt Romney doesn't appear to be as ridiculous as Santorum, Gingrich, Paul, or any of the other Republicans he beat out in the primaries.  But that's only at first glance.

Romney is just as much of an air head as the rest of them.  Many have called him the professional flip-flopper, while others have deemed him a liberal in disguise.  I have to tell ya, guys, if Romney is a liberal, than I must be some kind of radical socialist.

While his religion is off the table in terms of mocking the man himself, I want to get something quickly out of the way: I think Mormonism is one of the most ridiculous excuses for a religion that the Earth has every seen.  It's right up there with Scientology and Pastafarianism (the latter, of course, being a "mock religion").  In essence, I believe Mormonism to be a farce.  Tolerance be damned.

There are three things about Romney I want to share, and none of them are personal.  They are, in fact, policy based.  While it is six months from the election and policy can change (I honestly don't believe he'll even be elected), here is where Romney stands on the Keystone XL Pipeline, Obamacare, and the national budget.


The Pipeline.

 
The Keystone XL Pipeline makes Republicans salivate.  It means more oil, more jobs, and more money, right?  Wrong.  The facts about the pipeline are simple: 1.) The energy it would take to get to the oil and move it would be more than we'd get back, 2.) It would do horrendous damage to the environment, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, 3.) It would create temporary jobs while the pipeline was built - only a hundred or so workers would be required to stay on for maintenance, and 4.) The American people would get no money from it - it would all go straight to the oil companies at our expense.  Still sound like a good idea?

Romney would approve it on day one of his hypothetical presidency.  Day one.

Just how ridiculous is this proposal?  Fox Fuckin' News ran an article that dismissed the extension (one pipeline already exists and it did/does nothing for us as is).  That's right.  A Fox News opinion article (that's all they really are, right?) dismissed the pipeline's extension back in January with six very good reasons.  I (surprisingly) recommend you read the article.  I'll highlight the six reasons for your viewing pleasure:


1.) "Would not reduce foreign oil dependency."

"The oil to be sent through Keystone XL pipeline was never destined for US markets. In its own presentation to investors about the proposed pipeline extension, TransCanada (the company behind Keystone XL) boasted that most if not all of the extracted and refined oil would be exported --- sold in oversees markets where oil fetches a higher price (and thus turns a higher profit for the company)."

2.) "Would increase domestic oil prices."

3.) "Overstated number of jobs to be created."

"In 2008, TransCanada’s original permit application to the State Department said the Keystone XL pipeline would create “a peak workforce of approximately 3,500 to 4,200 construction personnel” in temporary jobs building the pipeline. 
By 2011, now facing growing opposition to the pipeline, TransCanada had inflated these numbers (using undisclosed formulas) to 20,000. Supporters of the proposal, backed by big oil, have since trumpeted these trumped up numbers."

4.) "Current Pipeline leaked 12 times last year."

"...the leak on May 7, 2011 near Millnert, North Dakota, spilled 21,000 gallons of oil in total."


5.) "Environmental concerns about oil leaks are justified."

6.) "Mining tar sands would worsen global warming."

"Assuming you believe, like the vast majority of the world’s scientists, that climate change is both real and of concern, the Canadian tar sands are the second largest carbon reserve in the world. 
Mining these reserves would release all of that carbon into the atmosphere, to detrimental effect on our environment."

Again, check out the article here.

The End of Obamacare. 

Mitt Romney said many times in public (and in a recent ad) that he would kill Obamacare on day one to the cheers of those listening.  But what, exactly, does that mean?  Is it that simple?

No.  Mitt Romney would then have to explain why people with preexisting conditions were once again without healthcare.  Talk about fucking death panels.  In a recent interview with Leno, Romney failed to explain just how this would all work.  One thing he made clear was that if you didn't have insurance before Obamacare, you wouldn't after Romney repealed it.

LENO: So you would make the law stand for children and people with preexisting conditions.

ROMNEY: People with preexisting conditions — as long as they’ve been insured before, they’re going to continue to have insurance.

LENO: Suppose they were never insured?

ROMNEY: Well, if they’re 45 years old, and they show up, and they say, I want insurance, because I’ve got a heart disease, it’s like, `Hey guys, we can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you’re well, and if you get ill, then you’re going to be covered.’

This is very telling.  Essentially what Romney is saying is that if you have a preexisting condition and you weren't smart enough to buy insurance before that condition came on, then you're fucked.  I would go as far as to say that he's saying you deserve to die for your stupidity, but that's a bit hyperbolic.

A preexisting condition is another name for something that an insurance company deems too expensive to cover.  A great (albeit disgusting) example was when 12 day old Houston Tracy was denied after he survived a rare birth defect and open heart surgery.  The parents did not have health care but had their children insured.  They were not aware that their son would be born with this defect. 

Here's the problem: unborn babies cannot be insured.  The insurance companies told the parents to go online and fill out an application as soon as Houston took his first breath of air.

Word reached the company's ears of the child's condition, and they had one word for the family: Denied.  Their reasoning was simple: While Obamacare had been passed the day before the company made their decision, they could still deny coverage for six more months to those with preexisting conditions.  Had the parents been covered (more money then they could possibly afford), little Houston would have been covered too.

Just read the article here.  It'll make more sense than I probably am.

By repealing Obamacare, Romney would be telling children like Houston Tracy and adults that can't afford insurance that their illnesses and diseases are their problem.

You know something?  It's odd.  It's odd that the Republicans - who are so against the Theory of Evolution - practice it every single fucking day.  That's what the free market is, after all.  It's economic Darwinism!  And by telling people with preexisting conditions that they are on their own?  That's survival of the fittest - the core concept of Darwin's idea on evolution!  Fucking idiots, man.

The Budget.

 
Cut spending my ass.  Under Romney's budget, we would add a whopping $10.7 trillion to the national debt, while giving tax cuts to the rich.  For more on this, I'm going to turn you over to an article written by Travis Waldron for ThinkProgress:

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s budget would add $10.7 trillion to the debt and reduce federal revenues to just 15 percent of GDP, exploding the “prairie fire of debt” Romney warned the nation about in a speech last week in Iowa.

Romney isn’t the only one decrying the debt while ignoring that his budget would make it worse. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), in an appearance on Fox News this morning, made the laughable claim that a budget that explodes the debt will simultaneously prevent a debt crisis:

RYAN: More to the point, though, the kind of budget Mitt Romney is talking about is one that prevents a debt crisis.

 Ryan praised Romney’s 20 percent, across-the-board tax cuts that are paid for, he claims, by closing loopholes that primarily benefit the wealthy. The only problem with that, of course, is that Romney hasn’t laid out such a plan, and even if he did, it wouldn’t make up enough revenue to avoid adding trillions to the national debt.

This is why it's mind-boggling to me that Republicans are so angry at President Obama.  Yes, the stimulus was a lot of money, but look what it did!  It's a fact that the stimulus saved us from a second Great Depression.

Historically, no party has spent more than the "fiscally conservative" Republican party.  Democrats are known for getting the U.S. economy back into the black while Republicans usually drive us deeper into the red.  This fact escapes the Republican base, however, as the more extreme right (which is growing by the day) sees nothing but a black man in the White House, and use every opportunity to attack him, even if it turns them into giant hypocrites by doing so.

So I'll leave you now, after such a long post, with this closing humorous thought.