The Romney flavor of the day is that the governor will fix Washington from the inside. Bravo! I think he’s on to something. But before you roll up your sleeves Mitt, I have a few questions.
Gov. Romney, will you work to oust obstructionists in the Senate who have killed President Obama’s American Jobs Act, which would have put thousands of transportation workers on the job already? Who would you pick? GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell perhaps? How about Sens. Jim DeMint or Tom Coburn.
Gov. Romney, will you stare down House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and his Tea Party faithful and break the gridlock over a plan to finally provide long-term investment in our crumbling and aging transportation system? Oh that’s right, your plan is to cut transportation investments by 46 percent, sack 500,000 jobs a year and leave our economy in tatters. That won’t work.
Gov. Romney, on Day 1 will you tell your GOP Leadership friends that it’s time for Congress to stop being a tool of big business and extremist groups and stop blocking legislation that will help the middle class? Stupid me – just the other day you insulted and wrote off 47 percent of the people as freeloaders who owe their lives to government. Sort of tough now to say you’ll champion the cause of those tax-evading working people and seniors.
Gov. Romney, will you tell McConnell and Speaker John Boehner you want to work with them to break the logjam over proposals that will boost the earning power and working conditions of American workers? Of course, that would require you to endorse the only formula for achieving that objective: empowering more people to form and join unions and use bargaining to improve their lives. Oh wait, that’s a problem – you have such extreme views on the right to collectively bargain and organize new unions that you make McConnell and Boehner look like Mother Jones. Scrap that idea.
Finally, Gov. Romney, will you elbow your way into the Capitol, tell the extremists in the House and Senate to stand down, and end the horrific gridlock over policy changes that will boost Americans’ retirement security? You see, that requires you to be a champion of pensions, Social Security and Medicare. Oh right, that one doesn’t work either – as governor you attacked pension benefits and funding, and as a candidate you’ve endorsed handing over Social Security to Wall Street and “saving” Medicare by ending it for anyone 55 and under. Selling those views will put you in a fix. Damn, you’re in a tight spot.
If this latest promise about fixing Washington was anything but a gimmick you would repudiate the extreme views on your side and perhaps devote a day (maybe two) to getting to know the 47 percent you so inappropriately dissed.
Most in America don’t want the “fixes” to Washington you’re peddling. Those fixes will doom this generation to more tax policies that coddle millionaires, more inaction on modernizing a transportation system that is failing our economy and commuting Americans, more policy reforms that endanger retirement security and more political attacks on the rights of workers.