Romney Convention Speech Echoed in Debate

In the October 3, 2012 debate Romney echoed his convention speech of August 30 in which he said “What is needed in our country today is not complicated or profound…What America needs is jobs-lots of jobs…His plan to add taxes on small business won’t increase jobs, it will eliminate them…His policies have not helped create jobs, they’ve depressed them…You might have asked yourself if these last years are really the America we want…does it fail to find the jobs that are needed for 23 million people and half the kids graduating from college…I’m running for president of America to help create a better future, a future where everyone that wants a job can find a job… and unlike the President, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs...I have 5 steps: first by 2020, North America will be energy independent by taking full advantage of our oil, our coal, our gas, our nuclear and our renewables…”

First issue: If 23 million are unemployed and everyone wants a job-why are 12 million being created?  Second: In saying North America will be energy independent-he’s also talking Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and Greenland. Third: The US is 4.43% of the world’s population using 25% of the world’s oil; taking full advantage of our resources (Republicans have harped on Obama’s failed renewable energy projects) will leave nothing for the next generations. And fourth, Where will the money come from to repair our present 104 nuclear facilities (the 1979 3-Mile Island accident halted new nuclear plants and safety changes for earthquakes and other dangers have not been updated); in October 2011 we heard 120 million people live within 50 miles of reactors, radioactive tritium has leaked from three-fourths of the sites (below EPA levels) and the number and severity of the leaks is increasing (in January 2012 a reactor in Byron, Illinois shut down, there was a leak at San Onofre, California and in July it’s found the tubes carrying radioactive water at an idle California nuclear sight are eroding at an alarming rate). In February the Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency said (other scientists agreed) it’s too soon, the lessons learned in Japan needed to be included in the plans and voted against a license for the Southern Company to build a new nuclear plant in Georgia; they received a license as they’d already started and US taxpayers had about $14 billion already tied up in the project. On May 5 it was reported that the Japanese turned off all their nuclear reactors. There’s a lot more to say on this subject.