During last night’s GOP debate, Mitt Romney bet Rick Perry $10,000 that he, Mitt Romney, did not recommend Romneycare’s “individual mandates” as a health care solution for the entire United States.
Notice that in a dispute about policy, Romney’s first instinct was to gamble a large sum of money.
Hold that thought as we go to the video:
Eh, okay. One, that was pretty childish- akin to one kid telling another “I bet you a million gajillion dollars I’m tellin’ the truth.” I’m surprised Romney didn’t follow that up with a triple dog dare.
Two, I suppose that was fairly psychologically shrewd on Romney’s part because a guy coming from a background as poor as Perry is going to be naturally very frugal. You’d probably have a hard time getting Perry to make a bet of $20, much less a $10K one. So, the plan must’ve been for us to interpret Perry’s reticence in betting $10K as backing down before the glaring obviousness of Romney’s truth. So…a win for Mitt?
But also a loss.
A big one.
And no, I’m not talking about how throwing out a ten thousand dollar bet as if it were chump change illustrates the la-di-da isolation of Mitt Romney from the everyday problems of the American citizen during this lousy economy, much as President Obama’s vacations, golfing, and constant parties illustrate his uncaring isolation from the American people…though it probably does do that as well or will once the MSM gets through with it.
No, what concerns me is that Romney’s first instinct, his very first instinct, is to throw big money at a policy dispute in order to prove himself right. And in that, Mitt Romney reminds me very much of another “high roller”.
That’s right, Mitt’s fellow Massachusoid, Barney Frank and his wanting to keep “rolling the dice” with the American peoples’ money in order to prove that loaning money to people who could not pay it back was a great idea.
But wait a doggone minute, naturalfake!, I hear you say. Mitt’s gambling with his own money, not the taxpayers money, his own money that he earned. Not taxpayer money! What do you have to say about that, naturalfake? Huh? What do you have to say about that?
I say, let’s look at another part of the debate: (bolding/italics mine)
Mr. Romney seemed sometimes to run counter to free market principles, as when he faulted Mr. Gingrich for wanting to “spend our precious dollars for a tax cut” on capital gains for those earning more than $200,000 a year. Mr. Gingrich didn’t get a chance to make the obvious response, which is that the dollars aren’t “ours,” but belong to those who earned them in the first place.
Exactly.
My earnings don’t suddenly become “ours” and thus his to spend or gamble with as he sees fit on crackpot schemes or policy disputes because the force of law demands that I send that money to Washington.
This is the exact problem with President Obama and the Democrats in general, gambling with the taxpayer’s money, whether it’s on nonsense like the “green job economy” or his farcical “stimulus”.
That is, throw money at a problem or disputed policy to prove that that policy is correct.
This is what is wrong with Washington. And has been wrong with Washington for a long time. Washington is a fat, bloated, big gambler on a 50 year losing streak, whether its finance, education, poverty, energy or any other endeavor you care to name and its cry is always the same “I bet you a trillions of dollars I’m right!”
And its what’s wrong with Mitt Romney if his first instinct is to gamble his own big money to prove he’s right in a policy dispute.
Because next time, if he gets the chance, he’ll be gambling with “ours”.
