A lot of people have identified what the biggest differences are between President Obama and Mitt Romney. To me, the biggest difference is their approach to Iran, and foreign policy in general. Every election is “the most important election”. However, this election really is important. Anyone that thinks that Mitt Romney is not that bad is sorely mistaken, and that fact needs to be pointed out to swing voters ad nauseum.
Among other things, there are stark differences on the following:
1. Supreme Court: Whereas Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, Mitt Romney says he would not have voted to confirm Somayor because she’s an “activist judge’. He would overturn Roe v Wade.
2. Approach to economic fairness – Romney accuses Obama of believing in a “government centered society” while claiming that he (Romney) advocates an “opportunity society”. In reality, he proposes tax cuts for the rich, spending cuts that affect the poor and the middle class. Obama on the other hand, wants to increase taxes paid by the rich in order to provide an opportunity for others to climb the ladder to the middle class. He would provide Pell grants, Medicaid, and increased access to healthcare. By no means is he redistributing wealth as his opponents claim. In fact, he explained it best himself in a press conference yesterday in Cartagena, Colombia (By the way CNN cut him during this section of his reponse to the journalist’s question – which shows that he must have been making a good point):
The goal of any government should be to create security for its citizens, and to give them opportunity to achieve prosperity and to pass that prosperity on to their kids. And I'm a strong believer that the free market is the best tool ever invented to create wealth.
But what's true in every country is that we always have to think about whether every single person is getting a fair shot, where they actually have opportunity. Is everybody doing their fair share to support the common efforts that are required to create a platform for growth? Is everybody playing by the same set of rules? And I think the history of the United States, the reason we became an economic superpower is because -- not only perfectly, not always consistently, but better than any other country on Earth -- we were able to give opportunity to everybody. That’s what the American Dream was all about.
So when we have debates now about our tax policy, when we have debates now about the Buffett Rule that we've been talking about where we say if you make a million dollars a year or more you shouldn’t pay a lower tax rate than your secretary, that is not an argument about redistribution -- that is an argument about growth. Because the history of the United States is we grow best when our growth is broad-based. We grow best when our middle class is strong. We grow best when everybody has opportunity. And that means that somebody who has a great idea and selling a great product or service, we want them to get rich. That’s great. But we also want to make sure that we as a society are investing in that young kid who comes from a poor family who has incredible talent and might be able to get rich as well.
And that means we've got to build good schools, and we've got to make sure that that child can go to college. And we also want to make sure that we keep our scientific edge, and that means we've got to invest in basic research. And that means that we've got to have some basic safety net, because people are more willing to take risks that are required for the free market to work if they know that if they fall on hardship, if something happens, that there's still some floor that they can't fall beneath, and that they'll be able to retire with some dignity and some respect.
And so one of the things that we're going to be talking about over the next several months as we debate the budget and government spending and the proper role of government, is just -- I want everybody to remember, I'm going to say this repeatedly -- this is not an argument about taking from A to give to B. This is not a redistributionist argument that we're making. We're making an argument about how do we grow the economy so that it's going to prospering in this competitive 21st century environment. And the only way we're going to do that is if people like me, who have been incredibly blessed, are willing to give a little bit back so that the next generation coming along can succeed as well. And the more people that succeed, the better off the country is going to be.
3. Approach to foreign policy: Romney says he will “not apologize” for America and advocates a return to the Bush cowboy “my way or the highway” approach to dealing with other nations. When John Bolton is an endorser, that scares me.
To me, however the biggest contrast is their approach to Iran. Binyamin Netanyahu by all accounts is a hawk who is pushing the United States to bomb Iran and has been doing so for a long time. He appears to see no need for negotiation. Granted, he has a right to protect his nation if he believes that its under threat. However, we all know how flawed the “intelligence” was for the Iraq war. And its important to let negotiations play out as far as possible before rushing to war, which would have many unintended consequences for years to come. (See the Iraq war).
Here’s the big difference.
Here’s Netanyahu’s recent response to the ongoing P5+1 talks:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Netanyahu -- whose government has not ruled out a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities -- earlier said however that Tehran had simply bought itself some extra time to comply.
"My initial impression is that Iran has been given a 'freebie'," Netanyahu said during talks with visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman, the premier's office reported. "It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition. I think Iran should take immediate steps to stop all enrichment, take out all enrichment material and dismantle the nuclear facility in Qom," he said. "I believe that the world's greatest practitioner of terrorism must not have the opportunity to develop atomic bombs," he said.
Here’s President Obama’s response yesterday to Netanyahu (in a response to a journalist's question) at the press conference in Cartagena:
But Obama refuted that statement, saying "The notion that we've given something away or a freebie would indicate that Iran has gotten something." "In fact, they got the toughest sanctions that they're going to be facing coming up in a few months if they don't take advantage of those talks. I hope they do," Obama said.
"The clock is ticking and I've been very clear to Iran and our negotiating partners that we're not going to have these talks just drag out in a stalling process," Obama told reporters after an Americas summit in Colombia."But so far at least we haven't given away anything -- other than the opportunity for us to negotiate," he said.
Obama in conjunction with world powers is negotiating with Iran, trying to prevent a needless war. You can be sure that Mitt Romney would bow to his buddy Netanyahu and attack Iran. He has previously said “We will not have an inch of difference between ourselves and Israel”. As he also said in a debate, before making any decision regarding Israel, he will call his friend Bibi.
Bottom line, if somehow the American people elect Mitt Romney, expect more of the bombastic, Bush cowboy approach to foreign policy with a more than likely bombardment of Iran. If the American people are not fooled by this charlatan and they reelect Barack Obama, he will continue in his measured way to deal with the threats around the world, quietly, through the use of negotiation, and force if absolutely necessary, but only as a last resort, without bragging, and scaring the American people with needless terrorism alerts.
