"Compassionate Conservatism" redux (guest quote)

"Today Mitt Romney is in Ohio, telling anyone who'll listen that his heart bleeds for the unemployed. Apparently "compassionate conservatism" is back -- at least rhetorically. But note that Romney isn't in favor of extending unemployment benefits. He doesn't want to provide food stamps or housing benefits for families that have fallen into poverty.

He doesn't want medical care for these families -- to the contrary, he wants to repeal Obamacare. He doesn't worry that Wall Street financiers -- including his own Bain Capital -- have put so much pressure on companies for short-term profits that they're still laying off workers and reluctant to take on any more. And he doesn't want government to spend money repairing our crumbling infrastructure, rebuilding our schools, or rehiring police and firefighters and teachers.

Romney may care about the unemployed but his policy prescriptions would create more unemployed.

He wants to cut taxes on people like himself -- in the belief that the rich create jobs, and the benefits of such a tax cut trickle down to everyone else.

That isn't true. George W. Bush cut taxes -- mostly for the wealthy -- and we ended up with fewer jobs, lower wages, and an economy that fell off a cliff in 2008."

--Robert Reich, American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997.

Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

Links: https://www.facebook.com/RBReich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Reich