The latest version of Mitt Romney is here (for those of you having a hard time keeping up, this is Mitt 2011.0).
Among the changes: Mitt now thinks that the whole system of unemployment insurance has got to go. Here’s his rationale:
The system is … not designed for a flexible economy like ours in which some employees move from job to job for short periods, and are therefore ineligible for unemployment compensation when they are faced with a protracted spell without work.
The idea of scrapping the entire unemployment system is a redesign from Mitt MG (Massachusetts Governor Edition). Mitt MG would have kept the system, with changes to ensure that many more employees who move from job to job for short periods and are then faced with a protracted spell without work would be ineligible for unemployment compensation.
The new version moves moves Mitt closer to former Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller, who’s of the view that unemployment insurance might be unconstitutional, thereby closing daylight between Mitt and Joe Miller patron and Mitt rival, Sarah Palin.
Unchanged from earlier Mitt versions is the principle that, in the “flexible economy,” it’s still the employees who are doing all the contortions.
That is, workers like those at the Ampad plant (sub req’d) in Indiana, whom Romney’s company, Bain Capital, fired and then offered to hire back at lower wages.
Or temporary workers, those who by definition move from job to job for short periods. They’re not only flexible – going without job security or employee benefits, they can also reduce corporate costs by totally disappearing from a company’s (permanent) headcount. And, in most states, including Massachusetts, they are presumptively ineligible for unemployment insurance if their temporary assignments run out. They’re one reason that Mitt now thinks that unemployment insurance is so passé.
Stay tuned for Mitt 2011.1. Joe Miller also thinks the federal minimum wage is unconstitutional.
Would not mind the rest of us becoming mere wage slaves, serfs, indentured servants – maybe with outsourcing they no longer need consumers in the USA, right?
Reading his op-ed in USA Today to which you have helpfully linked, I’m struck by how dumb it all is on a policy level.
<
p>He asserts (again!) that lowering taxes raises government revenue. The evidence for this naive Republican policy prescription has never shown up despite its thirty years in the public eye. That’s dumb.
<
p>Then he repeats this absurd mantra that what is holding businesses back from expanding is expense — rather than the fact that no one is spending money. Consumers are paying down debt. Businesses are sitting on capital waiting for a better day. Lowering taxes has only the slightest of effects in our current economy. Robotically repeating this prescription does not make it so. That’s dumb too.
<
p>Then he suggests we should replace unemployment insurance with, I kid you not, individual unemployment savings accounts. That’s rather dumb.
<
p>Now, possibly all these prescriptions are politically shrewd, but that’s the unctuous unpleasant part about Mitt Romney.
<
p>He’s a man willing to be dumb for political gain.
Yes – a kind of intellectual sneering and posturing, and not representative of either the facts, or the intellect he actually has.
<
p>Does he really, really think a majority of Americans are that stupid?
I’d be all behind trickle down — if it worked. For example, I thought TARP or something like it was necessary.
<
p>The point about trickle down is that it doesn’t work. If you look at the data, you know it doesn’t work.
He is a smart man willing to be dumb for political gain. He knows better than this, extensively, and yet he still parades this tripe. Its even worse on foreign policy. It would be impossible for this man to govern since he will have made too many contradicting promises. He is Nixon without the political acumen or the tact, which is saying something. He’d be a cakewalk against Obama, its Palin I am worried about.
…it would be easier for Obama to beat Romney than Palin? The polls at this point say very much the opposite.
I have just been getting a sixth sense about this, on the other hand I also assumed Hillary would not have run, so there ya go. I think she is the strongest candidate in terms of winning the nomination, she would be a massive general election liability initially, but I think we underestimate her at our own peril, many said the same thing about Reagan who at this point in Carters presidency was down even more than Palin is now in one on one match ups. If the times get worse, if Obama mishandles a national security crisis, the American people will back decisiveness and certainty over nuance and compromise. She is by far the most decisive sounding candidate on the right since Bush, and by and large this is the same country that elected dubya twice, so that is what I am worried about. She is not stupid, she has endorsed key people who won races in Texas (Perry), New Hampshire (Ayotte) and South Carolina (Haley). If Huckabee doesn’t run, she has IA all to herself as well. She has assembled a credible and experienced foreign policy team that will get her up to speed. Am I saying she is qualified to be President and that I want her anywhere near the Oval Office? No. I am saying she is being vastly underestimated by the Beltway establishment on both sides and at the end of the day it is the average American and not those within the Beltway who will have the vote. At this stage in time Obama can run circles around her and would crush her in a debate, but in two years if she is at least as credible sounding as Dubya and seems more assertive and stronger than Obama on the economy and national defence, she could be a lot harder. Be careful what you wish for, is all I am saying. Were she to pick a reassuring VP like Dubya did, someone with the stature of Colin Powell or Dick Cheney on security and foreign policy, or someone who can appeal to independents, she could be a very credible threat.
<
p>Romney is by far an easier candidate since he will alienate the base who don’t trust him due to his flip flopping and his faith, not to mention independents just don’t like someone that unprincipled. But there is no way in hell he gets nominated, so he won’t be a factor.
Now that would be something.
This has the flavor of Mitt Antoinette telling us all to eat cake.