As a follow-up to the post yesterday, I wanted to pass along this clip from the Rachel Maddow Show about what Romney's big bold plans are for America's schools. Its part of a larger segment on what a terrible candidate Mitt Romney is, but, like many of her more bold assumption, the real point is in the details.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwiRE8vgRrc
The basic ideas are:
1. Bigger Class Sizes in Grade School: Mysterious unnamed studies report that in countries where class sizes are bigger, test scores are similar to countries where classes are smaller. Also because then you can have fewer teachers :).
2. Just Shop Around: Romney admits that it would make him 'really popular' if he were to just 'give' government grants to Americans who want to go to college. (I don't think it would work quite like that anyway). But no, he will forgo the pump in popularity so that money can go towards tax breaks for corporations and subsidies to the oil and gas industry. For you people who want to go to college 'shop around' he says. If you aren't wealthy, some schools just aren't for you. But don't worry, in Romney's America there is one simple way to go to college with at least partial government backing. Join the Army.
These are not new ideas. These are old ideas. He doesn't want his children or grandchildren to be in schools with larger classes sizes. And he doesn't have to... because he can afford not to. For you 'poor' people out there (who can't afford the average $19,906 cost of private high school... or bump that up to $40,875 for the average private boarding school) you should just be thankful for having school at all... and if you're really industrious and pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, well bucko, you'll make it. At least until you have to do your compulso...voluntary military service. That is if you do want to go to college.
Newt Gingrich recently gave a speech where his basic point was that government healthcare would not just hurt the rich because they might have to wait in line like the rest of us... it would also hurt the poor. His idea was that having differentiated services for different groups of people would speed up the process for everybody. That logic works... as long as you don't think too much, because what's obviously implicit in that point is that it would be easier if the standards of medical care for the poor didn't have to be as high. Wouldn't it just be easier if we could have really fantastic clean hospitals only for people who could afford them (and thus the government would never need to give money to them), and for all the people who can't afford them... there could just be drop in clinics. Some people might even be willing to seek the consultation of someone with a little less training... for a lower price. I hear witchdoctors are really making a comeback. Or they can go where the poor and sick really belong... to the arms of the Church.
I am fairly confident this is not even what the average Republican voter wants... but it is the direction their party is moving in. The Barak Obama Presidency has been full of disappointments, but the damage that a Romney Presidency would cause to our Democracy is unimaginable. I don't think Obama is going to lose, but we cannot think of it as a forgone conclusion. And its not enough to just send Obama back, we must send him back with as much of a Progressive mandate as possible. Find a State or Local election. Find a candidate you like... and donate your time, money, anything you can to get that candidate elected in the fall. Elections aren't going to solve all of our problems... but we cannot forget just how much they mean.
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