Farmers, Medicare Recipients, and Sons of Multimillionaires, Some of Whom Won’t Take Responsibility for Their Own Lives – [UPDATED]
This summer’s widespread drought has been extremely hard on Midwestern and plains-states crop farmers, and many of them are chafing at the thought of having to take responsibility for their own lives if the Farm Bill doesn’t make it through Congress before the upcoming recess.
They had panicked earlier in the summer when Congress was dallying in passing an emergency relief bill, but were rescued from having to take responsibility for their own lives when the Republican-controlled House agreed at the last minute before Congress’s August recess to allow the farmers—including some who won’t be paying income tax for this year unless those federal subsidies increase their incomes enough—to mooch off the likes of Mitt Romney and his son Tagg, whom Romney convinced to take responsibility for himself.
Which Tagg did, by borrowing a reported (if I recall correctly) $10 million from his parents to start a (very) private equity firm whose investors apparently all, or almost all, were people who’d made their fortunes through investments with Bain Capital.
Tagg is a role model for young people just starting out today who want to take responsibility for themselves. His father suggested last winter that other young people should emulate the son: “Start a business. Borrow money from your parents, if you have to,” Romney told a group of them. Or something like that.
In that same speech, he advised young people to “get that education.” Presumably, by having their parents pay their tuition and expenses. Like Mitt Romney himself did. And like all his kids did.
No silver spoon for the Romneys, though. No sir. Just personal responsibility. Unlike all those farmers in Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana who are part of Obama’s base.
Then, of course, there the Medicare recipients who refuse to take responsibility for their lives by paying their healthcare costs, or at least the part of their healthcare costs that exceed the amounts they’d paid into the fund over the years. People who think they’re entitled to healthcare. And, probably, to you-name-it.
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UPDATE: A commenter on another blog pointed out that Israelis, whose healthcare system Romney praised during his July overseas rollout, are similar to Obama supporters in that they think they’re entitled to healthcare.
For that matter, so are Poles, who’s free-enterprise culture Romney praised during that same overseas trip.
And, now that I think about it, so do the Australians, Austrians, Germans, Japanese, Dutch, Taiwanese, and the citizens of quite a few other countries that are known for their people’s feelings of victimhood and socialist freeloading.
SECOND UPDATE:I’m copying here the three comments posted to this post:
Elliot MacLeod-Michael Sep 18, 2012 1:44:00 PM
I sure hope people like Boeing don’t catch wind of this, or any other massive company type people who do not pay taxes.
This blog told me earlier that the Farm Bill was welfare for Agribusiness. Now it’s just for “regular” farmers in Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana? Hmmm.
No, john, my post doesn’t say that the Farm Bill is just for regular farmers. It’s also for agribusinesses, who, as Elliot points out, are people too. And some of them may not pay taxes, and the rest pay taxes at, I guess, about the rate that Romney did for 2010.
Presumably, the ones who pay no taxes will vote for Obama in the hope of avoiding taking personal (they’re people, after all) responsibility for themselves.
So sorry; I couldn’t resist.
I sure hope people like Boeing don’t catch wind of this, or any other massive company type people who do not pay taxes.
This blog told me earlier that the Farm Bill was welfare for Agribusiness. Now it’s just for “regular” farmers in Kansas, Nebraska and Indiana? Hmmm.
No, john, my post doesn’t say that the Farm Bill is just for regular farmers. It’s also for agribusinesses, who, as Elliot points out, are people too. And some of them may not pay taxes, and the rest pay taxes at, I guess, about the rate that Romney did for 2010.
Presumably, the ones who pay no taxes will vote for Obama in the hope of avoiding taking personal (they’re people, after all) responsibility for themselves.
Bev:
non sequitor alert
run, everything is sequitor enough when you have this kinda partying going on…
Host of Romney party dubbed ‘private equity party boy’ – The reported host of a private $50,000-a-plate fundraiser that has come to haunt Mitt Romney this week is a prominent Florida private equity manager who has attracted media attention for partying with the rich and famous.
Leder, who has given nearly $300,000 to Romney and other Republicans this cycle, used part of his fortune to become a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team and has become a fixture of New York tabloid reports, hobnobbing with rap mogul Russell Simmons and other celebrities. The New York Post dubbed him a “private equity party boy.”
In August 2011, the same tabloid reported on a Hamptons bacchanal at a $500,000-a-night oceanfront mansion rented by Leder, “where guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat.”
rjs;
Bev knows what I mean. We both go back a long ways.