Romney wins presidential caucuses in Hawaii

English.news.cn   2012-03-14 18:35:01

WASHINGTON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has won the presidential caucuses in Hawaii, local media reported early Wednesday.

Romney won Hawaii with 45 percent against 25 percent for his strong rival Rick Santorum after 99 percent of the votes were counted.

Texas congressman Ron Paul won 18 percent, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich trailed in the fourth spot with 11 percent.

So the White House Didn’t Cave on Birth Control, Right?

February 10, 2012, 3:21 PM

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL

Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesPresident Barack Obama is joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius while making a statement in the briefing room at the White House on February 10, 2012 in Washington, DC.

Romney, the Rich and the Rest

OP-ED COLUMNIST

By CHARLES M. BLOW

Published: February 3, 2012

No one should be surprised that the Tin Man has a tin ear.

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Damon Winter/The New York Times

Charles M. Blow

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More Poor. A Cause for Concern.

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After all, Mitt Romney is the same multimillionaire who joked that he was “unemployed” while he was “earning” more in one day than most Americans earn in a year and paying a lower rate on those earnings than most Americans do.

This is the same man who bragged last month that he liked to fire people at a time when nearly 13 million people are out of work and who accepted the endorsement this week of Donald Trump, who has made “You’re Fired!” his television catchphrase.

This is the same man who in November claimed that federal employees are making “a lot more money than we are.” What?! We? What we? Please direct me to the federal employees with the $20 million paychecks. In fact, The Washington Post pointed out in November that federal employees on average “are underpaid by 26.3 percent when compared with similar nonfederal jobs, a ‘pay gap’ that increased by about 2 percentage points over the last year while federal salary rates were frozen.”

And who could forget his remark that “corporations are people.” Classic.

But this week when Romney said that he wasn’t concerned about the very poor in this country, he jumped in the pickle barrel and went over the waterfall.

First, his statement:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America — the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

Romney went on to say that his campaign was focused on “middle-income Americans” and that “we have a very ample safety net” for the poor.

He later tried to clarify, saying that his comments needed context. Then he said that the comments were a “misstatement” and that he had “misspoke.” Yeah, right.

Where to begin?

First, a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities last month pointed out that Romney’s budget proposals would take a chainsaw to that safety net. The report points out that cuts proposed by Romney would be even more draconian than a plan from Representative Paul Ryan: “Governor Romney’s budget proposals would require far deeper cuts in nondefense programs than the House-passed budget resolution authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan: $94 billion to $219 billion deeper in 2016 and $303 billion to $819 billion deeper in 2021.”

What does this mean for specific programs? Let’s take the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, since “food stamps” have been such a talking point in the Republican debates. The report says the Romney plan “would throw 10 million low-income people off the benefit rolls, cut benefits by thousands of dollars a year, or some combination of the two.  These cuts would primarily affect very-low-income families with children, seniors and people with disabilities.”

Does that sound like a man trying to “fix” our social safety nets? Absolutely not. Romney is so far up the beanstalk that he can no longer see the ground.

Romney Isn’t Concerned

OP-ED COLUMNIST

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 2, 2012

If you’re an American down on your luck, Mitt Romney has a message for you: He doesn’t feel your pain. Earlier this week, Mr. Romney told a startled CNN interviewer, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.”

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

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Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal

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Faced with criticism, the candidate has claimed that he didn’t mean what he seemed to mean, and that his words were taken out of context. But he quite clearly did mean what he said. And the more context you give to his statement, the worse it gets.

First of all, just a few days ago, Mr. Romney was denying that the very programs he now says take care of the poor actually provide any significant help. On Jan. 22, he asserted that safety-net programs — yes, he specifically used that term — have “massive overhead,” and that because of the cost of a huge bureaucracy “very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them.”

Huntsman’s endorsement of Romney underscores strained relationship

View Photo Gallery — January: After the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, Republican candidates prepare for South Carolina and other primary battles.

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By Philip Rucker and Jason Horowitz, Tuesday, January 17, 10:08 AM

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — On Monday, Mitt Romney finally got the Jon Huntsman endorsement he thought he’d been promised long ago.