Romney/Obama Connections

I checked various websites to find out more on Romney and found on www.citypages.com an article posted on April 18, 2012 that included 5 pages of Mitt Romney’s business ethics while with Bain. The one person that had a negative comment stated the writer Pete Kotz was a Mormon hater but couldn’t or didn’t dispute his facts. There were many websites that spoke of Romney setting up $100 million trust funds for each of his sons without paying taxes on the money and a site that identified Romney’s involvement in a Ponzi scheme. (November 27, 2011 blog stated - However, according to Time magazine the Republicans, at the bankers’ request, are trying to gut the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and the bankers are putting their money on Mitt Romney who says he will repeal the law. This is of no surprise as ThinkProgress reported that Mitt, his son and his brother are linked to Solamere Capital that worked with the Stanford Financial Group (SFG). In 2009 SFG collapsed with charges of massive and ongoing fraud against its investors; the Ponzi scheme bust was second only to Bernie Madoff. Mitt Romney and his son still have extensive financial and political ties to 3 men who allegedly participated in the SFG scheme.) The website aboutmittromney.com had nothing but good things to say about Romney and it said while under Romney’s leadership Massachusetts (MA) went from #49 to #36 (not as Huntsman said - January 27, 2012 blog - while Utah was #1 in the country, MA was #47). MA allows the Governor to use the line veto (allows the striking out of items the Governor doesn’t want while keeping the portion of a bill that is wanted) and Romney used it 700 times in his 4 years as Governor. It is speculated that Romney was successful in MA because of the line veto, a benefit the President does not have. I think because of this difference his ability to operate as president would be hampered. The website www.ontheissues.org gave pages of Romney’s changing viewpoints on every issue.

The issue of Obama having a Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Connection has come up again so of course I went on the internet to see what I could find. The September 16, 2008 eRumor website said: John Gibson of Fox News wrote an article on September 16, 2008 quoting sources from the Center for Responsive Politics. In it, Gibson stated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had used "huge lobbying budgets and political contributions to keep regulators off their backs." According to the article, "The top three U.S. senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats and No. 2 is Senator Barack Obama." The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), according to their web site, is a "nonpartisan guide to money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy." According to the report posted on the CRP website donations between 1989-2008 for the Illinois senator from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tabulated up to $126,349. The same report shows John McCain contributions from the same group tabulated to $21,550. A New York Times article dated September 9, 2008 stated both candidates had ties with the lending giants but Senator Obama "is second among members of Congress in donations from the firms’ employees and political action committees." I found a Washington Post September 19, 2008 Fact Checker article that debunked John McCain’s allegations that Obama had a Fannie Mae connection but that didn’t stop the website Floppingaces.net on June 30, 2011 from again making the same accusation. This website speculates that Obama met James Johnson who was head of Fannie Mae during the 1990s and says Franklin Raines, Johnson’s successor, currently advises Obama on housing policy. What I did get from this site was: “The New York Times itself reported in 1999 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were under pressure from the Clinton administration to increase lending to minorities and low-income home buyers – a policy that necessarily entailed higher risks and the fact is that neither political party and no administration is blameless; the honest answer is that government policy over many years caused this problem.” First I want to point out that Obama spent 7 years in the Illinois state Senate (1997-2004) and 4 years in the US Senate (2004-2008) so the time frame and his connection are somewhat distorted. The Republicans want you to get excited because Obama got a combined total $126,349 from Fannie and Freddie and want you to forget that Gingrich got millions from Freddie Mac (November 26, 2011 blog); they’ll also want to blame him for the median home value dropping to $154,700 from the $164,600 it was when he took office. Now let’s be real – they are not blameless and I’m pretty sure he had no influence over the agencies’ policies 5 years before he joined the US Senate. The Huffington Post in an article first posted on February 11 and updated on May 25, 2011 said Obama called for the end of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and outlines the issues with dismantling the agencies – doesn’t sound like a payoff to me.

I recently heard that when Obama took office the national gas average was $1.84 and it’s now $3.79 (I’m sure they’ll want to blame him for this too). This differed from the data I got for my February 26, 2012 blog so I rechecked. CNNMoney.com reported on November 16, 2008 that gas prices dropped for the 60^th straight day to $2.105; the peak was $4.114 in July. Isn’t it amazing that gas can drop $2 a gallon during an election? In case you’ve forgotten, the Republican oil barons control the price of gas (Gingrich said if you like $2.50 a gallon we want you to be with us). Other than Romney’s stand on protecting Wall Street and signing the Marriage Vow document I don’t have a lot of negatives for him. But if you’re feeling manipulated by the 1% and want to prove that Americans want a change in DC then I believe that the only way to get it is to stick with Obama.