They'll say anything

Essayist Terrence Heath takes a look at what Romney had to do to eke out his victories yesterday. Some of these are revisions to previous positions. No matter. Now that he's said them conservatives will hold him to them. Some of these positions: More tax cuts (and out of whose hide will the money come?), support Ryan's plan to "end Medicare as we know it," veto the DREAM act, make the student loan debt situation worse, restrict women's access to contraception, require Welfare recipients to get a drug test, cut federal worker pay, and support national Right-to-Work (which guts unions).

To get conservative support Romney has to say what conservatives want to hear. And now that he is saying those things conservatives won't let him forget what he said. He'll owe them, big time.

In a second essay Heath wrote that with all these changes in position Romney has no convictions of his own. Actually, Romney holds one conviction -- he feels he is entitled to be president. He'll do and say anything to get there. That sense of entitlement is a big reason why he doesn't connect with voters.



Romney (as well as other GOP candidates) are again (still?) proclaiming tax cuts (at least for the 1%) will boost the economy. But we've tried it. Bush II cut taxes. The economy stagnated. Clinton raised taxes. The economy boomed. Reagan raised taxes and the economy boomed. Dave Johnson of Campaign for America's Future wrote:

A government that is run only for 1%er plutocrats will only do things that benefit plutocrats. As the governments of the world are increasingly "captured" by the plutocrats they will increasingly cut back on doing things for regular people. It doesn't matter if this hurts or even kills their economies in the future, 1%ers don't care. Plutocrats want it now, for themselves, and take it now, for themselves, the rest be damned.

And let me add, they'll say what they need to say to get that.

With so many people willing to say anything to get what they want one had better start with the assumption that they're lying.