Running From Romney: the GOP’s Phony New Compassion
by Michael Tomasky Nov 18, 2012 4:45 AM EST
Dont trust the Republicans suddenly rushing to embrace the 47 percent, says Michael Tomaskytheyre just as scornful of governments helping hand as theyve always been.
When someone in any social cohort decides to act like Ebenezer Scrooge, its easy and quite natural for everyone else to fall into the role of Bob Cratchit. This is what several Republicans are now doing in reaction to Mitt Romneys remarks about Barack Obama and his gifts to his core constituencies. But Republicans allegedly competing for the loyalties of the 100 percent is a movie weve seen. It doesnt work, and it doesnt work for a straightforward reason: free-market solutions to many of the problems faced by the 47 percent simply dont exist. The GOP has no answer to these problems, and it really doesnt want to have any. But, boy oh boy, are we about to enter a galling period of hearing them pretend otherwise.
In fact, its already started. Bobby Jindal kicked this off by saying in response to Romney, We need to continue to show how our policies help every voter out there achieve the American dream. Marco Rubio weighed in with the reassuring news flash that, in fact, he does not think there are millions and millions of people in this country that dont want to work. Fellow Floridian Rick Scottbless him, the Rick Scott who ripped off Medicare before he became governor and has tried to block Democrats from voting since occupying the officesays Republicans have to say that we want to take care of every citizen of our state. Scott Walker, Haley Barbour, Michael Steele, Susanna Martinez, and others have made similar remarks. All well and good. So now, lets match this lovely rhetoric to the Republican record of the past decade or so.
Lets start with health care, a big problem in the lives of many 47 percenters. True, the GOP, when George W. Bush was president, passed the Medicare prescription drug-coverage bill. That was mostly a good thing, although the bill didnt pay for the program and it created the famous doughnut hole problem that is finally being solved by Obamacare. What else beyond that? Most obviously, they opposed the subsidized coverage for millions of working poor that is at the heart of Obamacare, defenestrating their own proposal (the individual mandate) while doing so.
And how about S-CHIP, the health plan for poor children? Children! They fought it tooth and nail. It was supposedly an imposition on private insurers who were positioned to offer similar coverage. Yet of course, they did not do so. If they had, thered have been no need for S-CHIP in the first place.
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