Mitt Romney’s Appearance at the Univision “Meet the Candidates” Forum
TO: Interested Parties
From: Stephanie Cutter, Deputy Campaign Manager
Date: September 19, 2012
At his Univision forum this evening, viewers can expect to see another attempt by Mitt Romney for an “extreme makeover” with Hispanic and Latino voters. But we expect that, like other makeover attempts, it won’t work. Not only will he leave many critical questions about his policies unanswered, but for those that he does answer, he’ll expose just how out of touch he is with the concerns and challenges of middle class Americans.
Just this week, we saw what kind of President Mitt Romney would be when he shockingly declared behind closed doors to a group of wealthy donors that nearly half of the American people—including seniors, veterans, and middle class families—view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, paid no taxes, and unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives. He even said that his “job is not to worry about those people.” Those people include seniors, military families, people living with disabilities, college students, and middle class families struggling to make ends meet after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. When you are president, you are president of all the people, yet Mitt Romney has already declared his lack of confidence in half the nation.
But if anyone has shown a propensity for avoiding taking responsibility and contributing their fair share in taxes, it’s Mitt Romney, who has managed to pay a lower tax rate than many middle class families by taking advantage of tax loopholes only available to wealthiest Americans.
That’s the philosophy that informs all of Mitt Romney’s policies. He doesn’t have a plan to strengthen the middle class; he only has a plan to redistribute hard-earned middle class income to those at the top. According to the independent Tax Policy Center, to pay for his $250,000 tax cut for multi-millionaires, Mitt Romney will have to cut deductions like those for mortgage interest, children and charitable contributions that middle class families rely on – amounting to a $2,000 tax increase for middle class families with children. What’s worse is that he’s endorsed his running mate’s budget which, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, would likely “produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.”
For all of his claims that his values align with those of the Hispanic community, Mitt Romney has proven time and again that he is on the wrong side of issues important to Hispanic families. More than that, he’s on the wrong side of history. A Romney-Ryan administration would undermine job security for the middle class and health security for seniors. And on immigration, Mitt Romney is the most extreme nominee in modern history. While many families continue to struggle, Romney doesn’t have a single idea to create jobs – just a rehash of the same failed policies that crashed our economy and punished the middle class.
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