Mitt Romney the doomsday presidential scenario

Mitt Romney has a different, and frighteningly familiar, view.

He thinks you grow our economy from the top down.

He'd take us back to an economy based on outsourcing, risky financial schemes, and massive tax cuts for the wealthy. He'd return to the policy of allowing Wall Street, Big Oil, and other special interests to write their own rules.

But that's not all. Below are five other things that should give Americans pause.

Forward this email -- and if you're ready for this fight, become the newest member of the Truth Team today and help get the facts out from now till Election Day.

1. Romney's positions are the most radically anti-women of any candidate in a generation: He supports banning all abortions, backed a so-called "personhood" amendment that could make certain forms of birth control illegal, and says he would "get rid of" federal funding for Planned Parenthood that provides preventive services like cancer screenings for millions of women.

2. Romney would repeal Obamacare. Insurance companies would once again be allowed to run up premiums, unjustifiably deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, drop patients when they get sick, discriminate against women by charging them more for coverage than men, and spend more of your premium dollars on CEO profits and bonuses instead of your actual health care.

3. Romney is a risk when it comes to foreign policy and national security. On many of these questions, he has shifted his position for political reasons, even within the same campaign. His only clear commitment is to endless wars: He has no plan to end the war in Afghanistan and would leave our troops there indefinitely. He called the President's decision to bring our troops home from Iraq by last Christmas "tragic."

4. Despite the lessons of recent history, Romney would double down on the disastrous tax policies that handed windfalls to the wealthy, but stacked the deck against the middle class. Under Romney, millionaires and billionaires would get a $250,000 tax cut, while families with kids making less than $40,000 a year would, on average, actually see their taxes go up. To the surprise of no one, Romney also opposes the Buffett Rule. He would allow millionaires to continue to take advantage of loopholes and special deals that often allow them to pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. And he supports tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

5. Romney would end Medicare as we know it -- replacing it with a voucher scheme that would drive profits for insurance companies by forcing seniors to purchase private insurance, paying whatever costs a voucher wouldn't cover out of their own limited budgets.

Romney and his special-interest allies are going to spend the next seven months trying to deny, downplay, or hide these facts from voters. It's on us to speak the truth.

Occupy Wall Street unifies around the evicted

Mercedes Robinson-Duvallon turned 83 in February, but there was little time for celebration.

On her birthday, as she sat in a wheelchair recovering from surgery, sheriffs' deputies arrived to evict her from the Miami home where she has lived since 1966. A year earlier her property had moved into foreclosure after she defaulted on a refinanced loan.

Robinson-Duvallon says she would be homeless now but for the intervention of about 40 members of Occupy Fort Lauderdale, a Florida branch of the national movement that is protesting income inequality and corporate greed. The group took over her lawn and house and even baked her a birthday cake.

The deputies decided to let her stay.

"I owe the Occupy people," said Robinson-Duvallon, who is now challenging the eviction in court. "This has all been so horrible, I can't tell you how many times I've cried and cried."

What happened in Miami is also occurring in Cincinnati, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, as local Occupy groups pursue an issue they believe has emotional resonance among America's struggling lower and middle classes.

Fighting foreclosures and evictions, activists say, gives the disparate movement a unifying focus and embodies its anti-Wall Street message. It also has offered a way for Occupy - up till now a largely white, middle-class movement - to broaden its reach to minorities.

Mitt Romney: A presidential candidate for the very few. Cut TAXES for the RICH and PISS on the POOR!!!

A Cruel Budget

In February, after embarrassing himself by saying he was “not concerned about the very poor,” Mitt Romney explained that the government’s safety net would take care of them, and he promised to repair any holes in the net. That promise didn’t last very long. On Thursday, House Republicans approved, on a party-line vote, a disastrous new budget that would leave millions of struggling families desperate for food, shelter and health care — and Mr. Romney has embraced it. 

The budget, developed by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, would cut $3.3 trillion from low-income programs over 10 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, even more than the $2.9 trillion in Mr. Ryan’s first disastrous budget last year. 

 

“It’s an excellent piece of work,” Mr. Romney said. (Rick Santorum said it didn’t cut enough.) 

The biggest of the cuts would be to Medicaid, the joint federal and state program that is already gasping for money in many states that put a low priority on health care for low-income people. Mr. Romney often talks casually about turning the program over to the states entirely and simply writing a check to dispose of a half-century federal commitment. The Ryan budget exposes just how paltry that check would be: a cut of $810 billion through 2022, one-fifth of current spending, which would lead states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 million to 28 million people. 

By eliminating the expansion of Medicaid in the health care law, cutting $1.6 trillion, it would leave another 17 million low- and moderate-income people uninsured. 

Just as revealing is the acceptance by Mr. Romney and the other Republican presidential candidates of the Ryan plan to cut food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The budget would cut 17 percent of the SNAP budget, or $133.5 billion over a decade. As the center points out, there are only two ways to achieve that savings: Mr. Romney could simply take the benefits away from 8 million of the 47 million who now receive them, or he could cut everyone’s benefits. For a struggling family of four, that would mean a loss of $90 worth of food a month. 

Already, most people who get SNAP benefits use them up in the first two weeks of a month, and many turn to food banks by month’s end. Cutting benefits so sharply would lead to a significant increase in hunger, particularly among children, which would quickly create dangerous ripples through the health and education systems. 

At the same time, though, those families would find themselves unable to pay for health care, and they would also face reductions in housing assistance, job training and Pell grants for college tuition, all of which Mr. Ryan wants to cut, with Mr. Romney’s approval. 

In all, 62 percent of the budget’s cuts come from low-income programs, and that’s on top of the substantial cut in spending already in place from last year. But the Ryan budget does contain a substantial tax cut for the rich, which is one of the reasons Mr. Romney said he was “very supportive” of the plan. 

“It’s a bold and exciting effort,” he said, “and it’s very much consistent with what I put out earlier.” It is also consistent with his stated lack of concern for the very poor.

PACs, Super PACs do not represent the PEOPLE they represent the 1%; a vote for Republicans is a vote for Dictatorship USA

The evolving nature of campaign funding was particularly evident in January with Mitt Romney's campaign and its ally, the aggressive Super PAC known as Restore Our Future.

Financial reports filed Monday with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Romney's campaign spent $19 million in January -- nearly three times as much as it raised -- as the former Massachusetts governor defeated Newt Gingrich in New Hampshire, lost to him in South Carolina and then topped him in Florida.
Restore Our Future, meanwhile, raised $6.6 million and spent $13.5 million, mostly on ads attacking Gingrich that helped Romney win the Florida primary. By the end of January, Romney's campaign had $7.7 million on hand and the pro-Romney PAC had $16.3 million.

The campaigns of Gingrich and Rick Santorum stayed in the game by raising $5.6 million and $4.5 million, respectively. But in Gingrich's case, the PAC supporting him -- called Winning Our Future -- was at least as influential as his campaign.

The pro-Gingrich PAC attracted $10 million in donations from the family of Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and funded attack ads on Romney that helped Gingrich, a former U.S. House of Representatives speaker, win South Carolina's primary.

America in the year 2012 = 13 million living below the poverty level

The conditions aren't sanitary; they're unhygienic at best. But those who have been unable to maintain a job or those who simply can't make enough to afford rent have resorted to these uncomfortable living conditions.

Poverty has become a painful reality for those hit hard with the economic downturn over the past couple of years.

If you've passed through the town of Ann Abor, Michigan, perhaps you also noticed an untidy mini-housing establishment of about 30 tents in the woods nearby.

Those woods have become home for local residents who can no longer afford the cost of rent due to joblessness or extreme wage-cuts.

Imagine a home without heat, electricity, or toilets...

Black mould plagues these people on a regular basis, tainting their bodies, clothes, and bedding.

For at least 5,000 desperate Americans – out of the 47 million living below the poverty level – this is the best home they can get in these tough times; singles, couples, and families alike.

According to Panorama, the latest tent-city trend has popped up in at least 55 cities throughout the United States.

One of the largest tent-homes houses approximately 300 individuals in sunny Florida. New Jersey and Portland now harbor some sizable tent communities as well.

With recent budget cuts affecting a great deal of some of America's poorest residents, there has been too much pressure on homeless shelters to let everyone in.

Because of the increase in homelessness, city residents generally run these tent camps with help from a local charity group.

Census data reveals that America hasn't seen poverty like this in more than 50 years. Years of high unemployment has caught up with ordinary Americans all over the nation.

Right now, there are at least 13 million unemployed Americans.

The scariest part of this story is that many of these desperate, homeless tent-dwellers were very recently living comfortable lives as part of America's middle-class...they were good, honest, hard-working people.

The future of American children if you VOTE Republican in 2012!!! = Slavery

Tears tracing lines of dirt on his face, six-year-old Pakistani boy Nabeel Mukhtar cries while crouching on a pavement to scrub motorbikes, his job for nine hours a day, six days a week.

He is one of millions of children driven into labor by poverty in a country where the unpopular government is seen as too corrupt and ineffective to care for its citizens, even the young and helpless.

"I want to study and become a doctor but we don't have any money," said Mukhtar, who helps his family make ends meet.

Rising food and fuel prices and a struggling economy have forced many families to send their children to search for work instead of to the classroom.

USA VOTE Democrat in 2012 if you want to avoid slavery!!!  Fight for your FREEDOM...it is being taken AWAY.

Romney told CNN on Feb. 1 that “I’m not concerned about the very poor”

Republican presidential candidateMitt Romney’s statement that the “very poor” don’t concern him comes at a time when the portion of Americans living in deep poverty is the highest in more than a generation while assistance varies widely and is inadequate.

“Virtually any food bank in any city in America would tell you that they have not been able to keep up with the demand,”said Bill Shore, founder and chief executive officer of Share Our Strength, a national charity that fights childhood hunger.“That means more rationing of food, not allowing families to take as much as they would have before and being open shorter hours.”

More than 20 million Americans live in a household with income of less than half the federal poverty rate, the level social scientists often use as a category for the very poor, according to census data for 2010. Last year that meant an annual income below $11,057 for a family of four.

The portion of the population in that category was the highest in at least 35 years and has almost doubled since 1975, from 3.7 percent then to 6.7 percent in 2010.

Mr. Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor

On Wednesday morning in an interview with CNN, Mr. Romney said, “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” a comment that has ricocheted around the Web and cable news channels.

I guess the very poor are something less than American....

USA: Millionaires would pay a minimum 30 percent effective tax or their fair share!!!

Millionaires would pay a minimum 30 percent effective tax rate under a law introduced on Wednesday in the Senate with the backing of President Barack Obama and named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Nicknamed the "Buffett Rule," the tax bill reflects President Obama's view of the unfairness he says is represented by Buffett's tax anomaly - that Buffett pays a lower effective rate than his secretary does.

The "Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012," introduced by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, has almost no chance of passage this year as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has sworn off tax increases.

Revenue generated from the tax has yet to be officially calculated, but Whitehouse said it could raise $40 billion to $50 billion a year.

In October, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, introduced the American Jobs Act, which included a first version of the Buffett rule as a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires. It never came to a vote.

About 94,500 taxpayers, a quarter of all U.S. millionaires, pay a lower tax rate than the bulk of middle-income taxpayers, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Buffett makes a living off investments, which are taxed at 15 percent for capital gains and qualified dividends. Buffett's secretary earns a salary and is taxed in wage-income tax brackets that range from 10 percent to 35 percent.

The tax fairness issue flared last month when Republican Mitt Romney, one of the wealthiest men ever to run for president, and his wife Ann came under pressure to release their tax returns.

Documents released last week showed they paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and expect to pay a 15.4 percent effective tax rate when they file their returns for 2011.

President Obama in his State of the Union address last week when he called for the 30 percent minimum tax. Buffett's secretary, Debbie Bosanek, attended the speech as a guest of first lady Michelle Obama.

House & Senate wish to remain above the law on insider trading = read the not so fine print.

WASHINGTON — In an effort to regain public trust, the Senate voted Monday to take up a bill that would prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks and other securities on the basis of confidential information they receive as lawmakers. 

The vote was 93 to 2. 

Senators of both parties said the bill was desperately needed at a time when the public approval rating of Congress had sunk below 15 percent. 

“The American public has no confidence in Congress,” said Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, who introduced an earlier version of the legislation. 

At the same time, Democratic senators moved to tap into concerns about comparatively low tax rates paid by some of the nation’s top earners, introducing a bill that would require households with more than $1 million of adjusted gross income to pay at least 30 percent of it in taxes. 

A handful of lawmakers have tried for years to enact restrictions on stock dealing by members of Congress. But their efforts drew little support until new attention on the practice last year — coupled with election anxiety — prompted a flood of backing for the idea and support from President Obama in his State of the Union address. 

The bill states that members and employees of Congress are not exempt from the federal law and regulations that ban insider trading. 

“No member of Congress and no employee of Congress shall use any nonpublic information derived from the individual’s position as a member of Congress or employee of Congress, or gained from performance of the individual’s duties, for personal benefit,” the bill says. 

Federal securities law does not explicitly exempt members of Congress, but experts disagree on whether and when lawmakers may be found to have violated the law. The bill is meant to eliminate any ambiguity.

It says that lawmakers have “a duty arising from a relationship of trust and confidence” to Congress, the federal government and the citizens of the United States — a duty they violate by trading on nonpublic information. 

The bill also requires members of Congress to disclose the purchase or sale of stocks, bonds, commodities futures and other forms of securities within 30 days of transactions. The information would be posted on the Web in a searchable format. 

In his speech last week, Mr. Obama urged Congress to act, citing what he called “the corrosive influence of money in politics.” 

“Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress,” Mr. Obama said. “I will sign it.”

The Senate was already writing such a bill. 

However, the bill does not subject lawmakers to a second type of restriction suggested by Mr. Obama, who said Congress should “limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact.”

Newt Gingrich: his ideas are a mixture of the alarming, the implausible and the banal.

Newt Gingrich, unexpectedly, has become a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. He won the South Carolina primary and is now the front-runner in some polls nationally. He has been debating well, shaking off criticism of his personal life and doing his best to bolster his reputation as an ideas man.


Regrettably, on economics, where the country could use some fresh thinking, his ideas are a mixture of the alarming, the implausible and the banal. 

Romney: 'I like being able to fire people' = Oh Tea Party you will be outsourced too!!!

Mitt Romney's position on top of the medal podium in the GOP race to be the top outsourcer. Mitt Romney went to China during 2008 to attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and, we imagine, to visit the hundreds of thousands of American jobs that have been shipped overseas as a result of failed GOP economic policies.


"Mitt Romney's record in the private and public sector has set the gold standard for undercutting American jobs," said Mark Brewer.

Gold medalist Mitt Romney made a career out of dismantling companies when at the firm Bain Capital, and while Governor of Massachusetts he consistently took policy positions that undercut American jobs, including vetoing a bill that would have stopped the outsourcing of state jobs overseas.

Silver medalist John McCain has called himself an "unapologetic" supporter of NAFTA, a policy that has ravaged Michigan and cost us countless manufacturing jobs.

Bronze medalist George Bush, until recently the undisputed champion of outsourcing, has overseen an administration that has been disastrous for American manufacturers, cost us thousands of manufacturing jobs.

"Mitt Romney, John McCain and George Bush may be championship outsourcers, but their wins have been America's losses," continued Brewer.

The thrill of victory for Romney ticket would certainly spell the agony of defeat for working families and manufacturers in the USA!!

Under Mitt Romney unemployment with no benefits is your future 99%

In October 1993, Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, became majority shareholder in a steel mill that had been operating since 1888.


Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked and some 750 people lost their jobs. Workers were denied the severance pay and health insurance they'd been promised, and their pension benefits were cut by as much as $400 a month.

What's more, a federal government insurance agency had to pony up $44 million to bail out the company's underfunded pension plan. Nevertheless, Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees.

Romney for an economy where fewer people succeed while most Americans get left behind

"Romney apparently prefers an economy where fewer people succeed while most Americans get left behind,” Wukela says in reference to the candidate’s most recent campaign platform.

“He wants to roll back financial reform and let Wall Street writes its own rules again, and he wants to return to the same policies that caused the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and sped up a 30-year abandonment of the middle class.“The people of South Carolina can’t afford what Mitt Romney is offering.”

Former employee of Mitt Romney says, "The only thing he's ever produced is profits for the rich."

Randy Johnson has been a critic of Mitt Romney for around 18 years. He was one of hundreds of people who were laid off when Romney's company, Bain Capital, bought and closed Ampad, an office supply company in Indiana.

"Those were the hardest times, you can imagine, when you see people crying at your desk at the age I am now, all because companies were putting profits before people," said Johnson.


He says Romney is in the business of making the rich richer and doesn't care about the middle class.

Double Down Romney will destroy the middle class and create further extreme poverty in the USA!!!

Mitt Romney wants to double down on the policies that caused the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression.

“Romney is satisfied to settle for an economy in which fewer people succeed, while the majority of Americans are left to tread water or fall behind,” Biden wrote in an opinion essay published today in the Des Moines Register, the biggest newspaper in Iowa, where the caucuses that kick off the Republican presidential nominating contest will be held Jan 3. “Americans cannot afford a return to policies that rewarded the recklessness of a few while millions of small businesses and workers were left to clean up the mess.”

Boehner sticks it to the 99% yet again....

President Barack Obama said a two- month extension of the payroll tax cut passed by the Senate is the “only viable way” to prevent take-home pay from decreasing on Jan. 1 and a “faction” of House Republicans is holding up progress.



House Republicans rejected the Senate’s bipartisan compromise to win concessions on “extraneous issues,” Obama said in an unscheduled appearance at the White House briefing room.

Speaker John Boehner and the rest of the House Republican leadership should “put aside issues where there are fundamental disagreements and come together on something we agree on,” Obama said. “Let’s not play brinksmanship. The American people are weary of it. They’re tired of it. They expect better.”

If the 99% only lived under the Roman Empire or in Russia they would benefit from a better distribution of wealth than in the USA!!!

Over the last 30 years, wealth in the United States has been steadily concentrating in the upper economic echelons. Whereas the top 1 percent used to control a little over 30 percent of the wealth, they now control 40 percent. It’s a trend that was for decades brushed under the rug but is now on the tops of minds and at the tips of tongues.



Since too much inequality can foment revolt and instability, the CIA regularly updates statistics on income distribution for countries around the world, including the U.S. Between 1997 and 2007, inequality in the U.S. grew by almost 10 percent, making it more unequal than Russia, infamous for its powerful oligarchs. The U.S. is not faring well historically, either. Even the Roman Empire, a society built on conquest and slave labor, had a more equitable income distribution.

House Republicans cannot be elected by the People...can they? Becasue they certainly aren't working for the People or by the People or with the People...

The House Republican proposal — part of their larger proposal to extend the payroll tax cut and UI benefits — would slash, by 40, the number of weeks potentially available to unemployed workers who are struggling to find a job in some states that were hit the hardest by the jobs slump. That greatly raises the risk that unemployed workers will run out of UI benefits before they find another job, imposing even greater hardship on them and their families. It also reduces the amount of support that UI — one of our highest-bang-for-the-buck stimulus programs — can provide for the struggling recovery. And, to add insult to injury, the Republican proposal contains onerous requirements on qualified UI applicants, such as drug tests and requirements to hold or be working toward a GED, that would make it harder for them to receive benefits at all.

A Financially Inclusive World...you may call us dreamers but we're not the only ones....come and join us!!!

Letter from the CEO of ACCION:


Fifty years ago this year, ACCION was founded on the belief that we can create a better world by helping people to help themselves. Half a century later, we continue to fulfill this mission by providing high-quality, affordable financial services with dignity to those who need it most – those living in poverty.



Our vision is to build a financially inclusive world with access to economic opportunity for all. Over the last year, your support has enabled us to advance our mission and vision in many ways, including the provision of loans and other key financial services to millions.


Despite this progress, more than 2.7 billion people remain excluded from the world’s financial systems and the opportunity such access can create. With your support we can continue to bridge this gap, bringing life-changing microfinance services to the poor.

This year, ACCION made significant progress in all three of our strategic focus areas.


First, we are building the next generation of top-tier microfinance institutions – enabling these institutions to deliver a range of high-quality, affordable financial services. Highlights include:

• Inaugurating ACCION Microfinanças in Brazil, in June – a new MFI in the heart of the Amazon, where half of the region’s 14 million inhabitants live in poverty.

• Creating microfinance services for rural clients in Latin America through a grant from the Inter-American Development Bank. Over 130,000 clients in Peru, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Colombia and Ecuador have already been reached with rural credit products. Micro-savings programs that help clients recover from natural disasters and other unexpected events have been rolled out in Peru, Colombia and the Dominican Republic.
• Building and strengthening EB-ACCION Microfinance, a new microfinance institution in Cameroon, where more than 65 percent of the actively employed population lacks access to any form of secure, financial services.

• Providing secure savings accounts for more than 250,000 low-income people served by our partners in Tanzania, Nigeria and Cameroon, and proudly recognizing the achievement of both ACCION Microfinance Bank (AMfB) in Nigeria as ‘Microfinance Bank of the Year,' and EB-ACCION Savings and Loans in Ghana as African Banker’s ‘Microfinance Institution/Project of the Year 2011.’

• Strengthening our pioneering microfinance work in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, China through partnership with the International Finance Corporation.

• Redoubling our commitment to the future of Indian microfinance, through equity investments and guarantees for our Mumbai- and Bihar-based partners, Swadhaar and Saija.

• Increasing opportunity here at home by working ever more closely with the ACCION U.S. Network – the largest microlending network in the country. Since inception, the Network has extended more than $300 million in small, working-capital loans.

• Continuing to explore un-served and underserved countries and regions of the world, such as Kenya, the Philippines, Pakistan and beyond, where our management, investment and governance skills can help foster financial inclusion.

Second, we are fueling innovation in financial inclusion, providing funding and technical assistance to promising start-ups and sustainable technologies beyond MFIs that serve people at the bottom of the pyramid:

• ACCION’s Frontier Investments Group continued to invest in ground-breaking financial services this year, such as mobile payments in Zambia, cashless payments in Peru, and a new technology services company in India staffed by people with disabilities.

• We are developing plans for the launch of a new venture capital fund that will provide patient capital to very small start-ups whose experimental but promising business models could catalyze the next leap in financial inclusion.

Third, we are proud to report that your support is helping us to build a strong microfinance industry with the highest possible standards:

• Through the Smart Campaign, ACCION’s Center for Financial Inclusion is helping to direct the industry’s first-ever, global consumer-protection initiative. With over 2,400 signatories serving more than 40 million clients in 130 countries, the Campaign is helping to ensure quality delivery of services, worldwide.

• We are helping to build industry capacity at training centers in India, Ghana and China, and in the last three years have taught more than 3,000 industry professionals new skills for delivering high-quality services.

• We continue to publish leading-edge, thought-provoking research on the industry, such as the recent reports on the state of client protection, and ‘opportunities and obstacles’ to financial inclusion.

• And we are expanding our collaboration with other industry leaders, including the ACCION Network of partners in Latin America and a working group of microfinance organization CEOs, on a common agenda to address key industry challenges. Our goal is to redouble the industry’s commitment to consumer protection, pricing transparency and meaningful measurement of social impact.

ACCION’s work has helped the microfinance industry to grow by orders of magnitude – from reaching tens of thousands of the world’s poor a few decades ago, to approximately 200 million today. Yet we know that much more remains to be done. That is why we are asking you for your continued support for our work around the globe.

As we look ahead to our next 50 years, we renew our pledge to build a truly financially inclusive world, where all of society can benefit from all that society offers. Thank you again for your participation. It has already made a difference; together, we can do so much more.