comMITTed to Romney!

1994

• “In 1994, when he tried to unseat Ted Kennedy, he ran against higher taxes and government-run health care, and for school choice, a balanced budget amendment, welfare reform, and “tougher measures to stop illegal immigration.” He was no Rockefeller Republican even then.”
  • National Review - Romney for President

2002

• “The Mitt Romney who hit the campaign trail in 2002…was now a media star - People magazine would soon name him one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World… He favored the death penalty and an initiative petition to replace bilingual education with English immersion; ”
  • The Boston Globe - Taking office, remaining an outsider
• In June 2002, Mitt Romney Said “The Approach Of English Immersion Is One That I Support. … I Would Make English Immersion The Educational Norm For All Non-Native English

Speakers.”

• John McElhenny, “Mitt Romney Endorses ‘English Immersion’ Education Plan,” The Associated Press, 6/4/02

2003

• 05-01-2003, ROMNEY VOWS TO PROTECT ENGLISH IMMERSION LAW
• “The voters have spoken loud and clear on the issue of bilingual education. We need to respect the wishes of the people of Massachusetts and recognize that immersion creates a level playing field in our classrooms that allows non-English speakers to succeed.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 05-01-2003 Press Release
• Governor Romney Fought Efforts To Weaken Massachusetts’ English Immersion Law.  ”But yesterday, Romney press secretary Shawn Feddeman said the governor will fight all attempts to slow the implementation of English immersion, known on the ballot as Question 2. … ’He will veto anything that weakens or delays English immersion,’ Feddeman said.”
  • Anand Vaishnav, “Romney Firm On English Timetable,” The Boston Globe, 1/24/03
• Governor Romney Opposed Efforts To Give Driver’s Licenses To Illegal Immigrants.  ”‘Those who are here illegally should not receive tacit support from our government that gives an indication of legitimacy,’ the governor said, echoing arguments that opponents have voiced in the Commonwealth and in other states considering similar license measures. ‘If they are here illegally, they should not get driver’s licenses,’ he said.”
  • Scott S. Greenberger, “Romney Stand Dims Chances Of License For Undocumented,” The Boston Globe, 10/28/03

2004

• Romney vetoed a bill in 2004 that would have allowed illegal immigrants to obtain in-state tuition rates at state colleges if they graduated from a Massachusetts high school after attending it for at least three years and signed an affidavit affirming that they intended to seek citizenship. Romney vowed to veto the bill again if it ever made it to his desk, arguing that the bill would cost the state government $15 million and that the state should not reward illegal immigration.
  • House defeats in-state tuition bill for undocumented immigrants
• “Romney also rejected a proposal to allow undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities” (2004)
  • The Boston Globe - Romney vetoes $108.5m in budget - June 26, 2004
• Governor Romney Vetoed In-State Tuition For Illegal Immigrants.  ”Romney also vetoed a number of outside sections of the budget, including:…A plan that would have permitted illegal aliens to pay the same in-state tuition rate at our public colleges and universities as Massachusetts citizens.”
  • Office Of The Governor, “Romney Signs $22.402B Fiscal Year 2005 ‘No New Tax’ Budget,” Press Release, 6/25/04

2005

• 01-28-2005, ROMNEY EXPANDS ADULT BASIC EDUCATION FOR IMMIGRANTS
• “For generations of immigrants, learning English has been the key to unlocking the American Dream. My proposal will give thousands more the opportunity to achieve success for themselves and their families.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 01-28-2005 Press Release

• “The current system puts up a concrete wall to the best and brightest, yet those without skill or education are able to walk across the border. We must reform the current immigration laws so we can secure our borders…and increase legal immigration into America.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney

2006

• 12-13-2006; GOVERNOR ROMNEY, ICE SIGN IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT PACT; Agreement permits specially trained State Troopers to enforce federal immigration law
• “The scope of our nation’s illegal immigration problem requires us to pursue and implement new solutions wherever possible. State troopers are highly trained professionals who are prepared to assist the federal government in apprehending immigration violators without disrupting their normal law enforcement routines.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 12-13-2006 Press Release
• “Governor Mitt Romney has reached an agreement with federal authorities that allows the Massachusetts State Police to arrest immigrants who are in the state illegally, his spokesman said…
• “Under the deal, brokered after months of negotiations, troopers can detain people they determine are illegal immigrants during regular police duties, Fehrnstrom said…
• “In June, when Romney announced he was seeking the deal, he said it would give the State Police a way of “finding and detaining illegal aliens in the ordinary course of business.” ”
  • The Boston Globe - Troopers can arrest illegal immigrants in Romney deal - Dec 3, 2006
• Governor Romney:  ”You’ve got to have a wall or fence or electronic surveillance. You have got to make sure we secure our border, that’s first.”
  • Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” 9/19/06
• “The current system puts up a concrete wall to the best and brightest, yet those without skill or education are able to walk across the border. We must reform the current immigration laws so we can secure our borders, implement a mandatory biometrically-enabled and tamper-proof documentation and employment-verification system, and increase legal immigration into America.”
  • David Yepsen, Op-Ed, “So Far, Romney’s Been Most Impressive Republican,” Des Moines Register, 7/11/06
• “I don’t believe in amnesty.”
  • “Romney Supports Immigration Program, But Not Granting ‘Amnesty,’” Lowell [MA] Sun, 3/30/06)
• “Governor Mitt Romney and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and ICE, which will give specially trained Massachusetts State Troopers the authority to administer and enforce federal immigration laws in the Commonwealth. ”
  • Office Of The Governor, “Governor Romney, ICE Sign Immigration Enforcement Pact,” Press Release, 12/13/06)

2007

• “McCain-Kennedy isn’t the answer. As governor, I took a very different approach. I authorized our state police to enforce immigration laws. I vetoed a tuition break for illegals and said no to driver’s licenses. McCain-Kennedy gives benefits to illegals that would cost taxpayers millions. And more importantly, amnesty didn’t work 20 years ago, and it won’t work today.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, 02-02-2007 CPAC Address
• “He instituted English immersion in the public schools and abolished the old bilingual education system.”
  • Boston Globe - Romney is the kind of leader we need - Dec 14, 2007
• Governor Romney:  ”In my view, there are several principles that need to be part of our immigration plan.  First, to secure the border…”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, Interview On The Northern Alliance Radio Network, 1/27/07
• “McCain-Kennedy Isn’t The Answer.”  ”Another aspect of American sovereignty is the security of our borders. The current system is a virtual concrete wall against those who have skill and education, but it’s a wide-open walk across the border for those that have neither.  McCain-Kennedy isn’t the answer. As governor, I took a very different approach. I authorized our state police to enforce federal immigration laws.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, Remarks At The Conservative Political Action Conference, Washington, D.C., 3/2/07
• Governor Romney:  ”First, to secure the border, number two, have an employment verification system.  This would be a card – a biometric card – that people who are not citizens would have and before an employer hires a non citizen they would have to look at the card, type in a number on a computer, and get verification from the federal government that this person is eligible for work in the U.S.  If they hired someone not so eligible that company would be fined just like not paying taxes.”
  • Governor Mitt Romney, Interview On The Northern Alliance Radio Network, 1/27/07
• “Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Tuesday that more state and local police agencies ought to consider making deals with the federal government to have their officers trained in enforcing elements of federal immigration law. … ‘I think it’s a good idea for us to communicate that we intend to enforce our laws,’ Romney said.”  (Jacques Billeaud, ”
  • Romney: More State, Local Police Should Get Immigration Training,” The Associated Press, 3/13/07)

Illegal Immigration

An enthusiastic supporter of legal immigration, Mr. Romney not only opposes illegal immigration, but he told National Review that he is also “against an amnesty and against anything that provides an incentive for people to come here illegally.” - http://washtimes.com/op-ed/20060314-095241-8553r.htm

• “Immigration has been an important part of our nation’s success. The current system, however, puts up a concrete wall to the best and brightest, yet those without skill or education are able to walk across the border. We must reform the current immigration laws so we can secure our borders, implement a mandatory biometrically enabled, tamper proof documentation and employment verification system, and increase legal immigration into America.
  • Governor Mitt Romney’s PAC

Also see:

• amnesty

External Links

• http://aboutmittromney.com/immigration.htm

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Reasons to agree:

1. You shouldn’t loose your health insurance just because you loose your job.
2. There is no logical reason to provide health insurance through your employer. It was just done as a loophole to get around rules during WWII that stooped increases in salary.
3. Healthcare as an employment benefit keeps you from comparing apples to apples when you compare jobs. Some companies don’t make you pay very much for health insurance. Other make you pay a lot.
4. Health insurance as an employment benefit keeps people from going into different jobs because they are afraid of loosing insurance.
5. When healthcare is connected to employment, employers only want to employ young healthy employees, because they end up footing the bill of the health insurance. If you had insurance as an individual, and tax incentives were restructured so it was just as cheap to get it as an individual, you would already have your insurance, and their would be one less reason to not hire an older individual.
6. It encourages employers to push their married employees onto their spouse’s heal insurance.
7. Workers in low paying jobs have no health insurance. Workers in high paying jobs of super expensive health insurance. So most of the pre-tax benefit goes to the wealthy. This could be restructured in a way so that instead of benefiting people proportionally to how expensive the insurance is, and tying it to your income, the insurance benefit could come to individuals separate from their employer.

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At Wednesday’s CNBC debate, Mitt Romney argued that profits are good because they provide the money for expansion and hiring. We suffer, he said, because the Obama administration is anti-business.

Dick Morris called this Mitt Romney’s “defining moment”. JasMars says its when Romney “makes a liberal’s head explode”.

MR. CRAMER: Governor Romney, do you believe public companies have any social responsibility to create jobs?

Or do you believe, as Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, the most important, most influential conservative economist of the 20th century held, that corporations should exist solely to create maximum profit for their shareholders?

MR. ROMNEY: This is a wonderful philosophical debate, but you know what? We — we don’t have to decide between the two because they go together. Our Democratic friends think that when a corporation is profitable, that’s a bad thing. I remember asking some, where do you think — where do you think profits go? When you hear that a company is profitable, where do you think it goes? And they said, well, to pay the executives their big bonuses. I said no, actually, none of it goes to pay the executives. Profit is what’s left over after they’ve all been paid. What happens with profit is that you can grow the business. You can expand it. You add working capital, and you hire people.

The right thing for America is to have profitable enterprises that can hire people. I want to make American businesses successful and thrive. What we have in Washington today is a president and an administration that doesn’t like business, that somehow thinks they want jobs, but they don’t like businesses. Look, I want to see our businesses thrive and grow and expand and be profitable.

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http://www.nationalreview.com/author/49314

It was, overall, an impressive show, with the candidates showing a remarkable resilience in responding, with precise information, to subjects rapidly shifting; with so-called moderators moving beyond the artless to the indecent, trying to bait candidates by offering criticisms — and then inviting another candidate to join the libel, rather than letting the target of their attack defend himself. Newt and Mitt struck back with subtle, but telling gestures. They were implicitly pointing up the vulgarity of the demand to explain, in 30 seconds, how they are going to organize 16 percent of the national economy in dealing with medical care.

But nothing we can point to tonight, in noting highlights, will claim much time in the conversation tomorrow when set against the Major Event of the evening: the ending of Rick Perry. Yes, many of us advancing in age can have sympathy with someone forgetting names or items on his list. But to go out of his way to make his point about three departments he would remove from the federal government — and forget the third — that is not a man ready to stand in this arena. And yet it was worse: The department he had forgotten was the Department of Energy, touching an issue that he has made the central issue in his campaign. But the distraction of mind did not end there: When the subject of student loans arose, he somehow couldn’t see the point that loans to students and public funding had themselves become engines for escalating the costs of college, well beyond inflation. Apparently the cassette was inserted in his head and he began to reel off things like long-distance learning and putting the press on trustees to reduce costs — by doing what? The poor man was reeling and suffering distraction. Yes, quickness of wit in debate may not be the test of soundness of judgment. But a debate can test clarity of mind. And he should be reminded that Lincoln, in debate with Stephen Douglas, offered the fullest unfolding of his argument, the clearest exposition of its moral ground, and the most savvy scheme of prudence to guide the administration he would later form. No trifling thing, a debate, when it is serious — and done by a thoughtful political man.

Even I was impressed by the range of facts that several of the candidates could command on a moment’s notice. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum were most notable here, but even Ron Paul had some apt things to say (e.g., on student loans). Herman Cain? It was clear that he has but one answer to anything. If he were asked how the Red Sox could have avoided their tailspin, the answer would probably be “9-9-9.” And simply reiterating that it’s “bold” does not make it bolder; it makes it increasingly tiresome and less plausible. Rick Santorum is rightly frustrated by the relative want of attention he has drawn, but his anger, I’m afraid, is getting in the way. To mix the metaphors, he may actually need more buoyancy before he can gain traction.

One of the questioners revealed the statism absorbed by many in the media when he noted the decline in “home values,” heading toward the levels of 1999. He asked Romney whether he, as president, could put up with that — as though the level of prices of homes were the responsibility of the president or the government. Mitt gave a cutting, apt response: Would you have the federal government solve the matter by buying all the housing? The dense reporter responded that he, the reporter, was asking the questions, and Romney was supposed to respond to them. Has CNBC hired a reporter so stunted that he had never heard of a Talmudic question, or heard that certain questions are best answered with another question? We’re making up our minds about the candidates on that stage, but most of those people asking the questions were simply not urbane enough to be there. They should be looking for jobs off camera.

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I spent much of my 25-year career in the private sector turning around failing enterprises. With a great team behind me, I helped to turn around the Salt Lake City Olympic Games, and fix a badly broken state budget in Massachusetts. But I have never seen an enterprise as large, as poorly led, and as badly in need of a turnaround as our federal government.

President Obama inherited a severely imbalanced budget, and he made it much worse. Many now question whether we can ever return to fiscal sanity, let alone fiscal strength. A point of no return may well be approaching — a decade of huge deficits could drive our principal payments and interest rates beyond our reach while starving the economy of the capital it needs to grow.

We can still correct course because our economy retains tremendous capacity for growth. As president, I will bring to Washington the turnaround philosophy it so badly needs.

Any turnaround must begin with clear and realistic goals. By the end of my first term, I will bring federal spending as a share of GDP down from last year’s staggering 24.3% to 20% or below. This level is in line with the historical average and nears the tax revenue our economy generates when healthy. With economic growth of 4% a year, meeting this goal will require approximately $500 billion of spending cuts in 2016, and that would still allow us to undo the Obama administration’s irresponsible defense cuts.

There are three ways to reduce spending, which combined, will achieve a fiscal turnaround of this size.

First, eliminate every government program that is not absolutely essential. There are many things government does that we may like but that we do not need. The test should be this: “Is this program so critical that it is worth borrowing money to pay for it?” The federal government should stop doing things we don’t need or can’t afford. For example:

• Repeal ObamaCare, which would save $95 billion in 2016.
• Eliminate subsidies for the unprofitable Amtrak, saving $1.6 billion a year.
• Enact deep reductions in the subsidies for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Legal Services Corporation.
• Eliminate Title X family planning programs benefiting abortion groups like Planned Parenthood.
• End foreign aid to countries that oppose America’s interests.

Second, return federal programs to the states where innovation, cost management and reduction of fraud and abuse can far exceed what Washington achieves. I will block grant Medicaid and workforce training, saving well over $100 billion in 2016.

Third, sharply improve the productivity and efficiency of the federal government itself. Where we do want the federal government to act, it must do a better job. For instance:

• Reduce the federal workforce through attrition and align compensation with the private sector, saving over $40 billion by 2016.
• Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, a union giveaway that artificially raises costs for government projects, and save taxpayers more than $10 billion a year in the process.
• Attack rampant fraud in government programs by enacting far stiffer penalties for those who steal from taxpayers. Cutting improper payments in half could save more than $60 billion a year.
• Consolidate, eliminate and streamline federal departments, agencies and offices following a stem-to-stern review.

These three approaches, applied systematically throughout government, will produce a fiscal turnaround. But that achievement will be short-lived if we do not also ensure that both Medicare and Social Security are made sustainable for future generations. Reforms should not affect current seniors or those near retirement, and tax hikes should be off the table. However, the retirement age for younger workers should be increased slowly to keep up with increases in longevity. And Social Security benefits for higher income recipients should grow at a slower rate than for those with lower incomes.

Tomorrow’s Medicare should give beneficiaries a generous defined contribution and allow them to choose between private plans and traditional Medicare. And lower-income future retirees should receive the most assistance. I believe that competition will improve Medicare and the coverage that seniors receive.

What I propose will not be easy. Washington is full of sacred cows that supposedly can’t be slaughtered and electrified third rails that allegedly can’t be touched. But if we do not act now, the irresistible mathematics of debt will soon lead to unimaginable peril. With the downgrade of America’s credit rating, we’ve gotten a taste of that bitter reality as we see the full potential of fiscal disaster playing out across Europe. We must turn around while we can.

Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, is seeking the Republican nomination for president.

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