Keywords or Terms: CEO; Lies and Fallacies; Propaganda; Profit-loss End Game; Mitt Romney; Medicare; Medicaid; Osama-bin-Laden; National Institute of Health; Four Pinocchio’s
Having a CEO as a the President of a country may not be the worst thing that ever happened; however, having a mindset of a CEO in the running of a country, may end up being the worst blunder that a nation can do to itself. Mitt Romney once said Corporations or organizations are people; today, he refers to America as a company. Running the United States of America as a company would leave the country dangerously vulnerable to other competitive countries that are attempting to make profit just like the country is, as a corporation! The odds are that Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican flag bearer for the 2012 general elections, just has made a gaffe; however, the good book says: from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh! The unmistaken failure of Mitt Romney to understand that the office of the Presidency is dissimilar from the office of a Corporation’s CEO, is one reason his campaign effort may fail in November. The blog today, makes a case for the anti-thesis of running a country like a corporation.
Under a mindset of a corporate CEO, it is probably going to be a challenge to contemplate a regime change in a country like Iran or Syria? The ‘CEO-President’ could fight everyone in a country at the cheapest cost to America; however, you cannot defeat nationalism and deep spirited conviction that many citizens of many countries across the globe have for their flag and motherland. We all saw how long and challenging the nation found itself trying to bring Osama bin-Laden to justice. Just to get rid of Osama bin laden we spent billions and lost over five thousands of our finest young heroes, whose void we will never fill in their families, homes and communities. How do you tell a widow of an Iraq or Afghanistan vet, that cutting costs was more important to the nation; and that, that was why the nation could not equip their husband or wife to remain safe in the heat of a war? How can you make a justifiable case to a bereaved mother that shipment of armory or IUDs was too costly and the nation had to watch for costly overruns and overheads, as it ships ammunition and protective gears to their sons and daughters in the war front?
Yes, America’s capability and capacity for fighting wars has improved since the Second World War, however, it isn’t because the nation was cutting cost as it went into wars or because, the goal of minimizing cost or maximizing profits, was the guiding mantra among the keepers of the White House oval office. Likewise, campaigns to undermine social safety net as Medicare and Medicaid, will hardly pan out with our retirees and elderly, who have been promised some succor in their old age, regarding care of their health. Turning around to say the nation cannot live up to its promise or that, the nation can’t afford to care for its citizens in their old age, is hardly going to wash with this group of Americans.
Paul Ryan’s plan of ‘voucherizing’ Medicare is running into trouble waters not because many of our retirees and elderly want the nation to continue to run the program at a deficit or cost overrun, or that the profit and loss mindset to the nation’s deficits is hardly justifiable but because, money and life are hardly equitable. Many of our elderly will like to live long into their old age, call it selfishness or not, none of this people will care for the cost of treating cancer, if it is going to lengthen their life. Furthermore, I am yet to see an orphan who would not gladly trade billions for the life of their parents, if possible. That is why, the cuts proposed to Medicare and Medicaid is hardly going to fly with this group; neither is Mitt Romney’s categorization of America as a company going to receive a rousing applause from any quarters.
The reason for even contemplating America as a company and that it is better ran as a profit making enterprise, is the risk of rationalizing the cost of many government programs and project in terms of profit and loss; or how much money is conserved. Can you imagine if the government had been bugged down with the cost of financing AIDS or cancer research, or how much the National Institute of Health has spent on making sure that drugs sold in America’s pharmacies are actually doing what the inventors of these drugs are claiming?
There is hardly a way to contain emerging threats to America’s homeland or the safety of our allies with respect to nuclear bombs and other emerging security issues. That is why, the nation’s leader, even among the most conservative Republicans, are hardly trading the nation’s investments in national security with any deficit conservation. How could ‘CEO-President Romney’ explain away the misfortune of September 11, 2001 as a cause of the nation’s inability to secure its borders out of costs consideration? Al Qaeda slaughtered thousands of Americans and has shown general ideological hostility to America; how does a President, with a mindset of a CEO, handle this challenge, if the national security priority is first and foremost to save cost, or render profit to the citizen shareholder, on issue of intelligence gathering, police work or diplomatic arrangements. There are just too many limits to having a mindset of a CEO in running a nation or serving as the President of the United States.
So far, the Republican convention has showed that the Romney-Ryan ticket is filled with misinformation and probably propagandas. Here is what Moveon,org sent me as the lies in Paul Ryan’s Republican Vice-Presidential candidate acceptance speech on Wednesday:
1. “A downgraded America.” Ryan blamed the president for the nation’s credit downgrade in August 2011 after Republicans threatened to allow the government to default on its debt for the first time in history. But the ratings agency explicitly blamed “Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal.”
2. “More debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined.” Romney has made the almost identical claim, that Obama has amassed more debt “as almost all of the other presidents combined.” But their math doesn’t add up: when Obama took office, the national debt was $10.626 trillion. It has increased to slightly above $15 trillion.
3. Shuttered General Motors plant is “one more broken promise.” Ryan described a GM plant that closed down in his hometown, Janesville, Wisconsin, and blamed Obama for breaking his promise to keep the plant open when he visited during his campaign. But Obama never made that promise, and the plant shut down in December 2008, before Obama even took office.
4. Obama “did exactly nothing” on Bowles-Simpson. Ryan said, “He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” In fact, Ryan was instrumental in sabotaging the commission, leading the other House Republicans in voting against the plan.
5. “$716 billion, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama.” Ryan’s favorite lie is a deliberate distortion of Obamacare’s savings from eliminating inefficiencies. Furthermore, Ryan’s own plan for Medicare includes these savings. Romney has vowed to restore these cuts, which would render the trust fund insolvent 8 years ahead of schedule.
6. “The greatest of all responsibilities is that of the strong to protect the weak.” Ryan closed the speech with an invocation of social responsibility, saying, “The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” However, numerous clergy members have condemned Ryan’s budget plan as “cruel,” and “an immoral disaster” because of its devastating cuts in social programs the poor and sick rely on. Meanwhile, Ryan would give ultra-rich individuals and corporations $3 trillion in tax breaks (MoveON.Org)
Interestingly, the Romney-Ryan campaign ticket has been caught in a bunch of lies as documented by facts checkers. Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech and assertions at his acceptance speech at the Republican convention yesterday have also been debunked or criticized for many inadequacies by some fact checkers. Two quick ones, the claim by the top ticket of the Republican Party that President Obama went on an apology tour as the first order of business when he got into office, is not only a lie, it earned Mitt Romney, four Pinocchio’s from Washington Post. Second, the claim that President Obama had raised taxes on the middle income earners is complete fiction and fallacy as many fact checkers say, blatantly, Obama has actually gone out of his way not to raise taxes primarily on this group; and, continues to assert protection of the group of anyone earning below a quarter of a million. Mitt Romney’s failure, as Washington Post puts it: to unravel the emotional connection or attachment of millions of Americans to the message of hope and moving forward as espoused by Barack Obama’s candidacy for the office of the Presidency, is going to be his greatest Waterloo in the coming November election.
The truth is many Americans still find Obama likeable than Mitt Romney as their President. They love the way he relates to people and are convinced that the President understands the economic predicament they are in. They believe he can still do magic for them. This is unlike Mitt Romney who sees the nation as a profit-loss end game and is willing to throw people under the bus in order to give tax cuts to the wealthy. The last three and a half years has been economically trying for everybody; however, very few middle-class earners, including women, sees a man that considers running the country as a company, a suitable candidate for the White House oval office. What many in this group cannot default to is Mitt Romney’s opaque and unrevealed public policies on many issues. For the middle income earners, the priority for the nation now, is resolving the unemployment and housing problems without destroying all the achievements and quality of life that have been achieved by this group in the past half century. Any claim by Mitt Romney to run the country as a corporation or company will fall on deaf ears. And, who can blame them, considering what Mitt Romney has done to so many people’s jobs as he ran Bain Capital and sat as Governor of the State of Massachusetts!
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