Romney: GOP Indifference Toward the Middle Class Personified
Last week Republican primary co-front runner Mitt Romney demonstrated once again that neither he, nor his increasingly radical political party give a fig about the quality of life of America's middle class. Multiple media outlets reported Romney's compassionately conservative response to a struggling college student who queried him at a town hall meeting about the profoundly unaffordable costs of a college degree in the 21st Century.
My favorite headline came courtesy of New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait: "Mitt: Pay for Your Own Damn College!" Chait distilled Romney's heartless rejoinder rather well. What Mittens actually said was:
“It would be popular for me to stand up and say I’m going to give you government money to pay for your college, but I’m not going to promise that. Don’t just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”
Charles Dickens first published his classic novel David Copperfield in 1850, featuring the villainous Uriah Heep, described in a Wikipedia entry as a character "notable for his cloying humility, obsequiousness, and insincerity, making frequent references to his own 'humbleness.' His name has become synonymous with being a yes man."
It's tempting to believe Dickens may have been clairvoyant in his creation of Heep, conjuring a future in which a quarter of a billionaire automaton can make like a living, breathing regular guy. I thought that the gold standard for radical right wing pandering had been provided by "Maverick" John McCain during the 2008 campaign, but McCain's about faces on issues like immigration in order to secure his party's trust simply don't do Romney's kowtowing justice. Is there anything this former moderate, somewhat socially liberal fraud won't say to get the nomination?
In this case however, we have reason to suspect that Mittens said exactly what he means. After all, why should he care? He and every friend he has possess the cash and the Ivy League legacies to ensure that their offspring will go to the higher learning institutions of their choosing. It's not they who will be saddled with debt after graduation. And if that "little lower price" degree from a state school that Romney so generously recommends for you should still run an average of $40,000 before factoring in room and board, well you've got two choices don't you? A lifetime of debt or minimum wage. It's your problem for not being born rich.
What's perhaps more telling is Chait's observation that Romney's comments at the town hall were met with "sustained applause from the crowd at a high-tech metals assembly factory." Now I am going to go out on a limb and hazard that attendees at a Romney gathering are going to lean mostly right, so ok, these folks were predisposed to drink in the bland Kool-Aid that is the Mitt brew. But factory workers cheering a candidate who unapologetically snubs his nose at the idea of affordable, universal education? How much longer can Republicans expect they are going to find willing accomplices within the hard working, low paid ranks of their base? Sooner or later the spell will be broken. It has to be.
Bold attacks on middle class infrastructure is nothing new to the GOP. You won't hear them complaining about the stagnant wages of workers while CEO pay has skyrocketed. They have no qualms touting party planks that champion the withholding of rights from everyone from members of the gay community to females who wish to make decisions regarding their own bodies. But the blatant, sound-bite ready pride with which these candidates can look a student dead in the eye and tell them to toughen up, while boasting about the two Cadillacs in the driveway, is just sickening.
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jmac1949
touchingthetrees
Ann Nichols
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Comments
Since everybody has got to eat how about ObamaFood, and or ObamaShelter so we can all have million dollar homes in Chicago?
The reason you can't see with your rose colored liberal blinders on that these factory workers liked what Romney was saying is that they know there has to be an end of free everything and a beginning of personal responsibility. If you make bad decisions then the blame is on you. Even if you don't bad things happen to good people. That's life and I'm sorry it can't be perfect for you and everybody else.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/13/news/economy/college_tuition_middle_class/index.htm
No one's asking for a free lunch, or a Cadillac. People just want to be able to afford to get an education. People who went to college in the 60s, 70s, and 80s love to sit back and say "In my day, I put myself through college, so these lazy kids today can do the same!" Do the math. As the revenues to states drop, the tuition burden on students rises. Is this really the country we want, where only the elite can afford an education, and everyone else starts out life under crushing debt?
I went to school in La in the mid 70s. The cost was $700 a semester including room an board. This school currently costs about 5K for the same. That is 40K for a degree.
I could not got out of state or the major school , LSU, because it was too expansive for my parents. Tulane and Loyola were certainly not workable. So it was the regional state school.
I was very successful in high tech. Many of my friends are earning good incomes in all different disciplines. Brother in chemistry, friend in speech therapy. One is a public school teacher in an even smaller town and makes 65K plus good benefits and retirement. Few of us had any extra money.
All of us worked summers and breaks and during school.
If it had been available, none of us would have had cell phones or cable TV or computers. Certainly did not have a microwave of a Betamax. We drove clunker cars lucky to make the hour trip home occasionally to New Orleans or Baton Rouge. We were not there because we could not get in
better schools. Those that lived in the country wanted to be near by. Those of us that lived in the big cities wanted to get away from home and could not afford LSU.
Some kids came from better off parents and had more luxuries but the cost of school was the same. Few left with substantial debt. We were from middle class and we went whee we could afford to go.
My little school has been one of the fastest growing in population in the country for the last 10 years.
The OP seems to think it is either Ivy league or the best state school as a miserable second place. That is just not correct.
My point is this. For a southern boy good schools would be UT, LSU, Alabama, Ole Miss, GA St., UNC. These are top notch state schools and cost big money. I guess in the north those would be like Ohio St. , Michigan, WI, etc , etc.
No, not everyone can afford those schools. And not everyone can get in anyway.
You have to choose well. My small school was rated in the top 5 in computer science in the country. Above LSU and UT and many private schools.
You have to find the school and what to study. A liberal arts or general studies degree, even from Harvard, will likely not get you much in terms of a job.
Has it crossed your mind why major state schools cost so much? Professors make too much money for teaching the same think for a lifetime. I don''t think either early American history or calculus has changed since I went to school.
So some math professor gets a 150K salary and great benefits for teaching how to calculate the area under a curve for 30 years. I could teach it. Anyone with an undergraduate degree in math, science or engineering can teach it.
And at least I had PhD's teaching me in almost everything. In big schools today you are probably lucky to see one.
Basically the system is broken and kids expectations of free fancy degrees from prestigious schools is out of whack.
When I attended City College in New York there was no tuition. It produced some of the finest and most skilled people in society and their skills and efforts gave them the opportunity to ear enough money to pay the taxes necessary to keep the system running and provide the same opportunities to new qualified students to enter the same processes. This was not a privilege or what today is termed an entitlement, it was a basic that enriched society and kept things running. To use money to deprive all citizens of the benefits of education to themselves and to society is a social mistake of monstrous proportions.
r.
Thank you for your excellent comment. It ties in to the home schooling issue as well. Do any of the posters on OS read any history at all? Jefferson's views regarding education are well documented.
One of the things that goes along with what you are saying, that people here overlook, or don't want to see, when they complain about "subsidizing businesses " is the "tax breaks" big oil etc are the same ones that the little business man gets. They are nothing special.
Now before someone shots themselves in the foot, yes there are special tax advantages for different businesses. For example the gas station may sell gasoline but they don't drill the wells or have pipelines, but lots of businesses have something special for their industry.
People here seem to not like oil companies but I've not heard what they would do without them, nor have they quit using their hated products. What's the term for that?
R
That you cannot perceive the pervasive destructive influence of the oil companies who are a major component of, not only the frightful government policies domestically but the overwhelming murderous military adventures in the Middle East from the installation of the horrifying Shah of Iran to the resulting counter-reaction of the basically insane current theocracy there which is driving a totally nutty Israelis to wave atomic armaments at the world and threaten WWIII indicates an astounding lack of comprehending reality . To say the totally unjustified subsidies to a corporate monstrosity drowning in wealth is equivalent to government subsidies to struggling small businesses is equivalent is way beyond weird.
It has become abundantly clear there's only one thing Mitt Romney is really passionate about, one thing he really wants that his money can't buy, and one man in the world he really envies: the one who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
Good post.
Yes, the cost of education is expensive. Yes, I realize the cost of tuition when I first went to school is a fraction of what it is today. Yes, I realize students need help to get the education they so desperately are seeking. But, no! I will not condemn Mr. Romney for his comments or his position.
It isn’t easy to make it through school. But, no one said it was supposed to be easy. Anything…ANYTHING…of value costs a great price. The work and toil we exert to pay that price is testament to its value. And, somehow the prize is much more cherished when we have to pay for it. So no! I will not pay for your education. It’s not that I don’t want to or even that I can’t. It’s that it is much more valuable and precious when you earn it.
When I began my college education, tuition for a state school was about $900 per semester. That’s a far cry from the $4,500 it takes today (look it up—the average cost per semester in the US is $4,500.) From just that perspective, one can certainly understand the angst of the writer and the lowly student. But, remember, when I began my college education the average annual salary was about $6,000 per month. I know; that’s how much I brought home to my wife and infant. To further set the perspective, our first home came with a purchase price of $13,500. The poverty level today, is measured around $22,000; the middle income today, of which is the target of this article, ranges from $22,000 to $90,000—much more than my simple $6,000 in 1970.
My point is—it was not easy getting an education when I did it, and I have my Masters. But, it was not given to me. I worked through two-year colleges, transfers, scholarships, and 2nd jobs to get mine—no loans. Sometimes that’s what you have to do. I don’t mind my taxes going to help students today with some of the load. I’m just not going to be happy with paying most of the burden. That’s all Mitt is saying. And, although he came from privilege, I didn’t. Nevertheless we can still arrive at the same conclusion.
You are so right. I hope the spell is broken. On the other hand, I'm not convinced the Dems are much better. . . [r]
Economist Gary Burtless of Brookings Institution indicates that the middle class encompasses from one-half the median income to twice the median income. This would make the middle class income range $25,117 to $100,466.
MIT economist Frank Levy that families in their prime earning years are middle class if they fall between $30,000 and $90,000.
The National Center for Education Statistics defined middle income to range from $35,000 and $69,999 in 1994. That was eight years ago.
Even the US Census Bureau doesn't have an official definition of middle income, although they tend to use the middle quintile, which is families with annual incomes between about $40,000 and $65,000. In some cases they've expanded it to include the fourth quintile, yielding a range of $40,000 to $95,000
Last, take a look at this chart (if I can make the link work):
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/25/136651969/whats-a-middle-class-income-contd
Its interesting that many of us make our arguments as to what is typical of the middle class, and yet, no one seems to be able to determine just where that is.
One would certainly hope so, but the evidence suggests otherwise, suggests it quite strongly. Blue-collar workers have been voting against their own interests since at least 1968, and a majority of them have supported Republicans in nearly every election since. A couple of elections may be dismissed as an anomaly, several as a trend -- but after fifty years, it's probably safe to assume that blue-collar workers have become like the pig in the old story about ham and eggs -- the chicken just has to lay an egg, but the pig is committed.