Romney Lying About Welfare Reform

[Lord MJ]

Are we really surprised anymore?

And yes, I see Romney's ad, airing repeatedly on TV.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/0 ... 54150.html

WASHINGTON -- Bill Clinton is unhappy with a new TV ad that uses his likeness in claiming President Barack Obama has fatally undermined the welfare reform legislation Clinton signed in 1996.

The ad, released Tuesday morning by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, shows Clinton signing welfare reform into law. Then it says Obama "quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements."

"Governor Romney released an ad today alleging that the Obama administration had weakened the work requirements of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act," Clinton said in a statement Tuesday evening. "That is not true."

The 1996 reform ended welfare as a federal entitlement and transformed it into a program run by states within certain federal rules. Last month, the Obama administration announced it would allow states to apply for waivers from some of the rules if states had better ways of getting welfare recipients into jobs.

While the Romney campaign has suggested the Obama administration made its welfare decision to foster a Democratic "culture of dependency" by making it easier for people to stay on welfare, Clinton pointed out that two Republican-controlled states had requested the waivers.

"The recently announced waiver policy was originally requested by the Republican governors of Utah and Nevada to achieve more flexibility in designing programs more likely to work in this challenging environment," Clinton said.

Clinton added that Republican governors, including Mitt Romney, sought a similar policy in 2005 (a charge the Romney campaign has denied).

"The Romney ad is especially disappointing because, as governor of Massachusetts, he requested changes in the welfare reform laws that could have eliminated time limits altogether," Clinton said. "We need a bipartisan consensus to continue to help people move from welfare to work even during these hard times, not more misleading campaign ads."


Here's the full statement from Clinton:

Statement by President Bill Clinton on Governor Mitt Romney's New Television Advertisement

New York, NY -- Governor Romney released an ad today alleging that the Obama administration had weakened the work requirements of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. That is not true.

The act emerged after years of experiments at the state level, including my work as Governor of Arkansas beginning in 1980. When I became President, I granted waivers from the old law to 44 states to implement welfare to work strategies before welfare reform passed.

After the law was enacted, every state was required to design a plan to move people into the workforce, along with more funds to help pay for training, childcare and transportation. As a result, millions of people moved from welfare to work.

The recently announced waiver policy was originally requested by the Republican governors of Utah and Nevada to achieve more flexibility in designing programs more likely to work in this challenging environment. The Administration has taken important steps to ensure that the work requirement is retained and that waivers will be granted only if a state can demonstrate that more people will be moved into work under its new approach. The welfare time limits, another important feature of the 1996 act, will not be waived.

The Romney ad is especially disappointing because, as governor of Massachusetts, he requested changes in the welfare reform laws that could have eliminated time limits altogether. We need a bipartisan consensus to continue to help people move from welfare to work even during these hard times, not more misleading campaign ads.

[Eframepilot]

Romney is running a post-truth campaign. Why bother being truthful when you pay no price for lying?

[Lord MJ]

And he is still campaigning on this statement, even though it was shown to be false in multiple sources. He simply doesn't care that was he's saying is false. Now I expect some amount of stretching the truth in politicians, but Mittens takes it to a whole new level.

[Flagg]

Romney is running a post-truth campaign. Why bother being truthful when you pay no price for lying?

The best part of this entire campaign was Newt Gingrich flat out calling Romney a liar and the press having a coniption fit about it.

[Serafina]

The new Republican message is, apparently: Savings are bad, unless they lead to corporate profit.

[Lord MJ]

So I was just watching him give a campaign speech, and literally he repeated every single one of the big lies all in the same speech. And he attacked the whole "He was taken out of context" line regarding his "You didn't build that" gaffe. Romney says, that the whole speech is every more offensive an anti-American than the snippets he took out for his campaign ads. Wow.

[Lord MJ]

To his credit I don't think he mentioned the whole "Attacking Millitary Voters" lie. But he did mention that Obama took money out of medicare and put it into Obamacare, and if elected president he would put the money back into Medicare. Which is pretty ironic given who his running mate is.

[D.Turtle]

The Romney campaign is really trying to find out how far they can go with bullshitting until there is enough of a backlash to not make it worth it.

[Lord MJ]

And I just pulled up an ad on the AJC in which Romney was saying "To Say Steve Jobs didn't build Apple, that Henry Ford didn't build Ford is Foolishness and Insulting to Every Entrepreneur. Obama attacks Success therefore we have lets Success, elect be and we will be back on the path to Success." And with that has a nice "Built By Us" graphic.

I don't know. I really think that that "You Didn't Build That" comment will come back to bite Obama. Entrepreneurs are one group that you don't want to alienate, and I've already know personally some folks that are utterly disgusted with Obama because of that, and they are far from the party line Republicans.

To them it's like, "You are presiding over the worst economy since the Great Depression and you want to attack us hard working people that actually built something, F*** You!!"

[Flagg]

Unless they are retarded they would know Obama was talking about infrastructure and Romney is lying. Again. But I guess there are alot of retarded business owners?

[Block]

I'm sorry, but that you believe that garbage is laughable. The only people who believe that crap are people who weren't going to vote for Obama anyways.

[Lord MJ]

Except for the fact that I don't know or consort with hard core republicans or tea partiers, or people that would defend Sarah Palin as someone that should be anywhere near the whitehouse. These are rather intelligent folks some of which are entrepreneurs that actually ignore the out of context message of the Romney campaign, and look at the full message that Obama was saying are are still offended. Essentially if the economy was humming along, and Obama didn't make comments like that, they would very well vote for Obama.

The independent vote is important. He can't rely on committed Democrats alone.

[Flagg]

So your friends are fucking dicksnots who think they did everything themselves with no help from anyone? Sounds like a Republican to me.

[Gandalf]

Are they reacting to the actual clip, or the three seconds that got passed around in the news?

[Lord MJ]

Well they do acknowledge other successful individuals that may have helped them, partners, businesses they may have worked for, etc. But react negatively to their ingenuity, hard work, and intelligence being downplayed, and that their success is the result of "the community." An idea they hold in the same regard as the "everyone is a winner" trend going on in children's education.

I think it comes down to perception, Obama is regarded as a big government, "government is the answer person" which means that such a statement from him, will automatically be met with scorn. Wheras if Obama was someone that worked himself up from rags to build a successful business, and trumpeted successful Americans, and then made that statement, it would be much better received.

[Block]

Uh Obama worked himself up from the relatively poor child of a single mother to the fucking president of the united states. That's much harder than mooching off Daddy's money and Daddy's connections to become the head financial predator for a company that cheats on paying its fair share of taxes.

[General Zod]

Well they do acknowledge other successful individuals that may have helped them, partners, businesses they may have worked for, etc. But react negatively to their ingenuity, hard work, and intelligence being downplayed, and that their success is the result of "the community." An idea they hold in the same regard as the "everyone is a winner" trend going on in children's education.

I think it comes down to perception, Obama is regarded as a big government, "government is the answer person" which means that such a statement from him, will automatically be met with scorn. Wheras if Obama was someone that worked himself up from rags to build a successful business, and trumpeted successful Americans, and then made that statement, it would be much better received.

Do they think Romney worked his way up from rags to build a successful business? Because that's pretty funny if they did considering his connections to South American criminal families.

[Skgoa]

Well they do acknowledge other successful individuals that may have helped them, partners, businesses they may have worked for, etc. But react negatively to their ingenuity, hard work, and intelligence being downplayed, and that their success is the result of "the community." An idea they hold in the same regard as the "everyone is a winner" trend going on in children's education.

I think it comes down to perception, Obama is regarded as a big government, "government is the answer person" which means that such a statement from him, will automatically be met with scorn. Wheras if Obama was someone that worked himself up from rags to build a successful business, and trumpeted successful Americans, and then made that statement, it would be much better received.

So none of them had parents? None of them went to school? None of them got medical treatment, ever? None of them use public roads? None of them had any coworker, partner or employee untill their business was a total success? None of them took a loan, sub-contracted/outsourced anything? Bought anything in any other way than bartering with other rugged individualists who produced their wares without any kind a outside support as well?
Does this only seem riddiculous to a european who is doing just fine starting his own business in the socialist hell-hole Germany, also known as the worlds biggest exporter? Fucking self-absorbed morons.

[Simon_Jester]

Well they do acknowledge other successful individuals that may have helped them, partners, businesses they may have worked for, etc. But react negatively to their ingenuity, hard work, and intelligence being downplayed, and that their success is the result of "the community." An idea they hold in the same regard as the "everyone is a winner" trend going on in children's education.

I think it comes down to perception, Obama is regarded as a big government, "government is the answer person" which means that such a statement from him, will automatically be met with scorn. Wheras if Obama was someone that worked himself up from rags to build a successful business, and trumpeted successful Americans, and then made that statement, it would be much better received.

Do they think Romney worked his way up from rags to build a successful business? Because that's pretty funny if they did considering his connections to South American criminal families.

It's a moot point whether Romney did or not. They don't care whether Romney did, because as far as they're concerned Romney has the right attitude. Whereas they have determined that Obama has the wrong attitude. They're angry for being insulted, not because they love Romney's (nonexistent) rags-to-riches biography.

So none of them had parents? None of them went to school? None of them got medical treatment, ever? None of them use public roads? None of them had any coworker, partner or employee untill their business was a total success? None of them took a loan, sub-contracted/outsourced anything? Bought anything in any other way than bartering with other rugged individualists who produced their wares without any kind a outside support as well?
Does this only seem riddiculous to a european who is doing just fine starting his own business in the socialist hell-hole Germany, also known as the worlds biggest exporter? Fucking self-absorbed morons.

You do not understand.

The anger here revolves around two sentences: "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Those two sentences, as spoken, sound a lot like "the responsibility for your success isn't even partially yours." That's just the way English grammar works. It is very, very unfortunate that Obama phrased it that way. The rest of the speech around it is:

"Look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there."

"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."

Now, if we remove the underlined passage, the rest of the speech would probably go down fine with anyone even slightly inclined to listen to Obama. Most of it is simple, concrete facts. Things that only a lunatic won't know.

But if you went into the speech expecting Obama to insult and disregard business, the underlined text will look exactly like that. Virtually all Republicans, and a large number of independents, are primed to expect Obama to do that. They've been told again and again to watch for signs of the secret liberal anti-business conspiracy.

They just found one. You may decide that it doesn't mean what they think it means. But in this case, I'll be honest, the grammar and so on is on their side. If Obama didn't want it to come across that way, he should have said it differently. Something like:

"If you've got a business- you didn't build all those things by yourself."

Instead, he said "you didn't build that," which refers back to the previous noun, or can easily and reasonably be thought to say so. In which case he's saying "you didn't build that business, someone else did." That's just about as grammatical an interpretation as "you didn't build that infrastructure, someone else did."

Which is pretty insulting- if nothing else, how would you like to be compared to a capitalist who got his startup with connections, like Romney?

[D.Turtle]

You are completely missing the point.

Yes, it is possible to deliberately misinterpret that phrasing as saying "You didn't built that [business]." However, from the context it is obvious he meant "You didn't build that [infrastructure]."

Yes, some people can deliberately misread that quote and feel insulted and attacked and whatever.

It does not change that it is a misinterpretation being done in order to strengthen pre-formed ideas and feelings about Obama and his supposed anti-business stand.

[Coop D'etat]

You are completely missing the point.

Yes, it is possible to deliberately misinterpret that phrasing as saying "You didn't built that [business]." However, from the context it is obvious he meant "You didn't build that [infrastructure]."

Yes, some people can deliberately misread that quote and feel insulted and attacked and whatever.

It does not change that it is a misinterpretation being done in order to strengthen pre-formed ideas and feelings about Obama and his supposed anti-business stand.

A politician playing at Obama's level should be aware of how other people are going to take him out of context, especially for something that "confirms" his opponents negative perception of him.

He may have not meant what they say of him in context but it was still a mistake to have that phrase in presumably prepared remarks

[D.Turtle]

A politician playing at Obama's level should be aware of how other people are going to take him out of context, especially for something that "confirms" his opponents negative perception of him.

He may have not meant what they say of him in context but it was still a mistake to have that phrase in presumably prepared remarks

I seem to recall reading somewhere that he had gone slightly off from the prepared remarks when he said that sentence.

And as many speeches are given by politicians in campaign mode, it is unavoidable that some remark will be made that can be easily taken out of context/distoreted/misinterpreted to say something bad.

[Simon_Jester]

You are completely missing the point.

Yes, it is possible to deliberately misinterpret that phrasing as saying "You didn't built that [business]." However, from the context it is obvious he meant "You didn't build that [infrastructure]."

I don't think it is. People can misinterpret that by accident, not just on purpose. Sure, the meaning from context is clear to you. That's because you already think that you know what he was going to say.

Someone with different expectations who reads the same words sees it the other way around. The text itself is ambiguous.

[PainRack]

You are completely missing the point.

Yes, it is possible to deliberately misinterpret that phrasing as saying "You didn't built that [business]." However, from the context it is obvious he meant "You didn't build that [infrastructure]."

Yes, some people can deliberately misread that quote and feel insulted and attacked and whatever.

It does not change that it is a misinterpretation being done in order to strengthen pre-formed ideas and feelings about Obama and his supposed anti-business stand.

Dude. You're assuming that people actually saw the speech he gave, instead of the distorted one Fox and other news media created, and then which the other parts of the mainstream news media addressed.

The MSM can be as factually accurate as they want to, but still present a picture of the truth that is misrepresented by people.

[The Yosemite Bear]

what's that quote about the big lie screamed a million billion times a day on every conservative talk show, fox newz, and citizen united paid campaign commercials, all the while half the states have chucked the right to vote out the window for those who are in the underclass....