Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Bob Stannard, a lobbyist and author. This piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
First, the question was whether or not he was born in this country. That question burned up a lot of time and energy to no useful end. Now it’s time, once again, to question his religion. Let’s get Fox News to gin up the rumor mill that he’s really a Muslim and not a Christian.
You might ask, “What on earth is going on in this country”? It’s simple. If you throw enough mud at the wall maybe some of it will stick. Don’t worry about telling the truth, because people will believe what they want to believe. All you have to do is say the lie over and over again.
President Barack Obama is the duly elected president of the United States of America. He was born in Hawaii. He is a Christian. End of story. Unless, of course, you are a Republican who will do anything and say anything to regain the presidency.
It’s hard to understand just why the Republicans would want to take back control of the White House since the last time they had it they nearly bankrupted the country, right along with the rest of world. Perhaps they are hoping that in three and a half short years we might have forgotten what they did in eight years.
They might be right to assume that many people have forgotten, especially in light of the fact that there are still millions of people in this country who believe that Obama was not born here or that he is a Muslim. These are most likely the same people who somehow believe that the candidate of the 1%, Mitt Romney, will actually care about them should he win the presidency. What would the country be like under President Romney?
First and foremost, we can expect programs that help the middle class in this country to be eliminated. That’s right. Social Security, perhaps the only lifeline millions of Americans will have when they retire will be gone. Medicare, the program that provides government assisted health care for people over 65, will be gone just in time for when they get sick. As for a national health care program that would provide affordable health care to all Americans along with greatly reduced fees for prescription drugs? Forget about it. Mandatory health care for people in Massachusetts, adopted when Romney was governor of that state, was good for those folks, but not for the rest of the nation.
How about programs like the low-income heating efficiency program or low-income weatherization programs? Kiss them goodbye. Programs like these are a drain on the taxpayer and must be eliminated. We must get rid of these programs so that we can reduce the debt; debt created by reducing revenues. The revenues were reduced by giving back billions to the wealthiest people in the nation known as the 1%. It may very well be true that the nation’s billionaires needed to have more money than then those who’ve lost their jobs, their homes and are about to lose their unemployment benefits.
In exchange for the elimination of programs that help people we can expect President Romney to reinvest our tax dollars in much more worthy programs. He would likely spend your money to subsidize corporations such as the oil, nuclear and coal industries. Notwithstanding the fact that the oil companies are experiencing the largest profits in the history of the world, he would still justify this expenditure because we need stability in our energy (or something like that).
The nuclear industry, which has been around for 60 years or so, to this day cannot stand on its own. Wall Street will not lend money for construction of new plants without taxpayer-backed loan guarantees. No insurance company would ever insure this industry, thus the need for the Price/Anderson Act, a taxpayer-backed insurance policy. And lest we forget the taxpayers must foot the bill for the disposal and guarding of the waste for the next few hundred thousand years or so.
Yes, hard-earned tax dollars need to be invested, not in useless programs that work to address the needs of the American out of work and down on their luck thanks to companies that moved their job overseas, but in the 1%.
Then there is the war on women. President Romney can be expected to work to abolish a woman’s right to choose, as well as any program that would help provide contraception. There’s a likelihood that he might also try to take away a woman’s right to vote while he’s at it.
As far as religion goes, we can look forward to President Romney mandating baptism for people of faith other than Mormon after they are deceased. Yes, that is something that President Romney believes in, so for those of you who truly are Christians you should prepare for becoming Mormons for all eternity.
It only seems fair that if we are going to make up things about our current president that we also make up things about the one who might be our future president, don’t you think?
