Priorities USA Action released a new video ad today warning what Romney's policies would do to education in this country. According to The Huffington Post:
The ad, titled "Stick," attacks Romney in the context of his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) controversial budget plan, which proposed cutting education spending by 20 percent and decreasing aid to college students. In the commercial, the narrator charges that a Romney administration would use savings from education cuts to pay for tax breaks for millionaires -- a claim that has also been made by the Obama campaign and was raised by President Barack Obama during the first presidential debate last week.
(snip)
The new Priorities spot will air in six swing states -- Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin -- as part of the super PAC's $30 million campaign to highlight how a Romney-Ryan administration would impact middle class families.
Mitt Romney Education Plan Attacked In New Priorities USA Action Ad
Narrator: Take away his toys and he'll play with a stick [video of young boy playing with a stick].
Narrator: Take away their bikes and they'll Still find a way to get where they're going [video of two young girls walking].
On Screen: ROMNEY CUT early childhood education — Huffington Post, 3/29/12 [See Ryan Budget: Early Education Cuts Would Pull More Than Two Million Kids From Public Preschool]
Narrator: But if you take away early childhood education ...
On Screen: ROMNEY SLASH K - 12 funding — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 8/8/12 [See Deficit-Reduction Package That Lacks Significant Revenues Would Shift Very Substantial Costs to States and Localities; Ryan Budget Cuts to State and Local Services Would Be Far Deeper than Cuts Under Sequestration (PDF)]
Narrator: Slash K through 12 ...
On Screen: ROMNEY CUT college aid for middle class families — Tax Policy Center, 3/1/12 [See The Romney Plan (Updated)]
Narrator: ... and cut college aide for middle class families; they won't go far. Yet that's exactly what Mitt Romney wants to do ...
On Screen: ROMNEY $250,000 TAX BREAK for multi-millionaires [See On the Distributional Effects of Base-Broadening Income Tax Reform (PDF)].
Narrator: ... to pay for a $250,000 for for multi-millionaires.
On Screen: IF MITT ROMNEY WINS, the middle class loses.
Narrator: If Mitt Romney wins, the middle class loses.
Narrator: [See Priorities USA Action is responsible for the content of this advertising.
For a real-life example of Romney's policies on education, you need look no further than
The Nation magazine, where an excellent article Timothy Patrick McCarthy appeared today. The article starts out by talking about Big Bird. McCarthy was actually visiting Israel and Palestine when the
US Congress to cut funding for “Sesame Street” in Palestine, and you should read the article for McCarthy's opinion about that.
The article goes on to talk about a specific educational program and what Mitt Romney did when he was governor of Massachusetts.
I’ve seen this first hand. Since 2001, I’ve helped to direct and teach in the Clemente Course in the Humanities, a college-level course for low-income adults, offered free-of-charge through Dotwell, a renowned, award-winning community health center in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Clemente is a program that offers top-level instruction in the humanities—and six college credits upon completion—to adults who have not yet realized their educational goals. The course provides a bridge to folks who have never gone to college, and a jump-start to those who may have started college but who had to drop out for health, financial or family reasons. The Boston Clemente Course is one of the strongest of its kind in the nation, boasting very high retention, graduation and college placement rates year after year. More than 200 students have graduated from the program in the last decade, and many of them have gone on to pursue and complete college degrees.
And yet, as governor, Mitt Romney eliminated the line item we worked very hard to secure in the state education budget to help fund the Clemente Course. This was part of his larger war on so-called “welfare programs,” designed to shore up his credibility as a “severe conservative” as he was gearing up to run for President. The problem is that the Clemente Course is not a “welfare program” for those who are “dependent” or “entitled” (the grotesque and inaccurate way we tend to talk about all programs designed to help poor people). On the contrary, the Clemente Course is a highly effective adult education program that helps to open up opportunities for higher education and a better life to people living at or below the poverty line. It is a model of excellence and determination, not entitlement and dependency.
But Mitt Romney wouldn’t know that. Despite letters and calls, pleas and protests not to eliminate our funding, he never took the time to respond to any of us in any way. He simply didn’t care—about our program, our lives, our aspirations, or our achievements. He just wanted to be President; that’s all he’s ever wanted, and as we have seen time and again, he’ll do or say just about anything to reach this goal.
Mitt Romney Declares War on Big Bird
That last part that I emphasized confirms something in an article in
The New York Times about Mitt Romney that I wrote a diary about last week (
I called my wife and said, ‘Get $30,000 in cash out of the bank today.’).
And so during the final two years of his term, Governor Romney’s balance sheet included a new and weighty set of considerations. When the needs of his state coincided with the needs of his national political profile, Romney showed a willingness to accommodate his political adversaries that had not been apparent during the first two years of his governorship. This was particularly evident during the effort to pass a universal health care initiative in Massachusetts in 2005-6. “It’s largely true that in his last two years he focused on two things: the beginning of his run for the presidency and health reform, which was to be his signature achievement and one for which he deserves a significant amount of the credit,” Widmer told me. With noticeable amusement, David Bowen, a senior staff member for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who played a key role in the effort, added, “Everyone thought at the time that Romney’s success in forging a bipartisan compromise on health care was actually a thing that he would ultimately run on, not run away from.”
The Mitt Romney Who Might Have Been
Read enough of these articles about the way Mitt Romney governed when he had his one and only chance, and you really do start to believe that it was always about him and never about the people he was supposed to be serving. What a concept! Romney serving people.