Posted on 03/10/2012 7:48:30 PM PST by Steelfish
Santorum Blasts Gingrich Over 'Romneycare'
Chris Welch Springfield, Missouri (CNN) – It's a common aspect of Republican Rick Santorum's stump: attacking Mitt Romney for creating - and then "recommending" - "Romneycare" to President Barack Obama.
But Saturday, fresh off his projected win in the Kansas caucuses, Santorum added that GOP presidential rival Newt Gingrich is "honestly not a whole lot better."
"For 20 years when I was pushing medical savings accounts, he was pushing a federal mandate for health insurance," Santorum said. "And when 'Romneycare' passed, he sent out a glowing statement talking about how this wonderful bill had just passed in Massachusetts."
Santorum argues that Obama, Gingrich and Romney all line up on the same side when it comes to their support for an individual mandate.
The campaign points to a 2006 newsletter Gingrich wrote for his consulting firm, the Center for Health Transformation, in which he praised Romney's Massachusetts health care reform.
"The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system," Gingrich wrote, according to the report.
Also in the newsletter, Gingrich expressed his support for the individual mandate in Massachusetts, but only for those making at least $54,000 a year. And while he commended Romney's effort in building the plan, he acknowledged the bill will likely face "tremendous scrutiny" from those who doubt the law will work.
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
Allentown, PA’s Morning Call from April 7, 1994:
U.S. Rep. Rick Santorum, R-Pittsburgh area, and Joe Watkins, a Philadelphia businessman who worked in the Bush White House, are seeking the Republican Senate nomination, creating the only true Senate primary race….Santorum and Watkins both called for a “comprehensive restructuring” of health care. But they differed sharply on what elements should comprise a basic benefits package.
Watkins would include mental health services, long-term care, prescription drug coverage, dental services and preventive care such as immunizations. Santorum would not. Both reject abortion services. Santorum and Watkins both oppose having businesses provide health care for their employees. Instead, they would require individuals to purchase insurance. Both oppose higher taxes on alcohol or tobacco to help pay for care. They also oppose government-run health care and disagree with controls on doctor or hospital fees. They would cap malpractice awards.
Allentown, PA’s Morning Call from May 2, 1994:
Santorum and Watkins would require individuals to buy health insurance rather than forcing employers to pay for employee benefits. Both oppose abortion services and support limits on malpractice awards. Santorum says non-economic damages should not exceed $ 250,000, adjusted annually for inflation, and lawyers’ contingency fees should be capped at 25 percent. [...]
Santorum introduced the idea of a medical savings account, called Medisave, which has become part of the Gramm bill. Under it, workers would buy major medical insurance and could make tax-free contributions to a Medisave account, from which they would pay for preventive services.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/01/09/401038/santorum-supported-individual-health-insurance-mandate-in-1994-republican-primary/ Santorum Supported Individual Health Insurance Mandate In 1994 Republican Primary
Where has Santorum come clean about his 1992 and 1994 campaigns' support for individual mandated health insurance? Where were Santorum's concerns about RomneyCare and the individual mandate when he was campaigning for Mitt to be the 2008 GOP nominee?
Santorum is a sanctimonious hypocrite and, of course, nothing is ever his fault.
I too, can quote Santorum claiming that what is needed is more government involvement in Healthcare. I can quote him supporting abortion on demand. Mother Jones and the Pittsburgh Gazette have Santorum quotes he made in the past that would choke a social conservative.
Is that what you want? Dueling quotes?
Frankly, I don’t give a damn what either man said even four years ago. In politics that equals eons in geologic time. I want a true leader with ideas and not just silly platitudes.
What I’m fed up with is your smearing Gingrich constantly and unnecessarily.
We know about his past and I don’t care what you think.
I’m all in with Newt and straight Republican down the ticket. Give him the White House and a veto proof congress and let’s help him clean house!!
Newt’s rebirth agenda: Repeal Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley! Fire the czars! Fire Bernanke! Neuter the Fed and the EPA! Shutter Health, Education, Housing, Labor, Energy, etc. (can’t remember them all). Return the 185 some odd socialized federal welfare programs to the states and the people where they can either control them locally or shut them down. Privatize social security and Medicare and or return them to the states and the people. Go to a personal flat tax of 15% after deductions. Reduce the corporate tax rate to 12.5%. Eliminate the capital gains tax. Eventually eliminate the payroll tax after social security is privatized and phased out.
REIN IN THE LIBERAL ACTIVIST JUDICIARY!!
Restore the constitutional balance of powers. Restore state rights. Restore individual rights!!
STOP THE WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT UNBORN!!
Cut the taxes, cut the government, cut the spending, cut the budget, cut the deficit, cut the borrowing, balance the books, cut unemployment, set our people free to produce, prosper and enjoy the fruits of their labor, ie, enjoy our God given unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness!!
Go, NEWT!!
Rush Limbaugh Destroys Newt Gingrich For Promoting ‘Left-Wing Social Engineering’
by Jon Bershad January 10th, 2012
Last week, Rush Limbaugh was one of the many predicting Newt Gingrich’s shots at Mitt Romney, the man he Gingrich believes ruined his front runner position, would only increase in intensity following Iowa. At the time, Gingrich seemed fine with the idea, pointing out that it would only end up helping Rick Santorum. However, the radio host clearly has not enjoyed the tenor of Gingrich’s attacks since then as he spent a large amount of today’s show absolutely lambasting the candidate and comparing him to such GOP-unfriendly entities as Occupy Wall Street, The New York Times, and Barack Obama.
Limbaugh went so far that some commentators are describing this as the “nuclear bomb” been dropped on Gingrich.
Recently, Gingrich has been criticizing Romney’s Bain Capital past, making comments that some have seen as a knock on the free market. Rush Limbaugh certainly agreed.
“I don’t know why the Occupy Wall Street people are protesting Newt. They’re singing from the same hymnal on this. This is right out of the New York Times. Newt is parroting what the New York Times is writing about Romney.
…
Folks, it is clear here what is going on. This is not a campaign for the presidency. That’s not what this is anymore. This is payback time. It drove him nuts, that series of ads that Romney’s Super PAC ran in Iowa, and this is the result of it. That’s why we are where we are. I’m not trying to make excuses. I’m just explaining. I’m not defending anybody. I just think this is very unfortunate. This is not the kind of stuff that you want said by Republicans. Even the Establishment Republicans don’t go after Conservatives this way.”
Ouch.
Limbaugh isn’t the only one who’s seeing a leftist streak in Gingrich’s attacks. This is very similar to a piece Jon Stewart did last night. While Stewart was pointing out this seeming hypocrisy amongst the entire GOP field in their attacks on Romney, he did focus on Gingrich. More importantly, how often are we able to say Rush Limbaugh and Jon Stewart agree on something?
Listen to the clip (only one of a few similar anti-Gingrich rants today)
below:
So, how much is the Romney campaign paying you to do this?
You should when that person is traveling the nation claiming he was never for such a thing, that's he's pure on the issue, and the he's "honest" with the American people about it as Santorum claimed as recently as his Michigan concession speech.
It's about character and when you have built your whole campaign mythology around your moral character, it matters.
1) Romney's vaunted "private sector experience", is of a particular kind (private equity management, not 'venture capitalism') that's going to represent a huge liability in the general election. Nobody's asserting that Bain Capital's actions were necessarily illegitimate nor unlawful, but it's obvious that Romney was no white knight of entrepreneurial capitalism.See Selling out capitalism in the defense of Romney and Bain.
2) Questions on business ethics are legitimate inquiries that one should have to answer for, especially if they're running for public office—these are not attacks on capitalism, and it's completely goofy that some were construing it that way. The kind of backdoor socialism Romney was peddling wasn't doing capitalism any favors—rather, it was ironically validating the Left's destructive sophistry against capitalism.
"Lately, Bain founder and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has found himself in a spirited defense of the private equity industry, doing all he can to spin decades of data which confirm, without failure, that PE Leveraged Buy Outs are nothing but "efficiency maximizing" transactions whose only goal is the "maximization" of EBITDA in the pursuit of dividend recap deals, IPOs or outright sales, while loading up the company with untenable amounts of leverage. All this with a 3-5 year investment horizon, which ignores the long-term viability of a company and seeks to streamline (read fire as many as possible) operations as quickly as possible in the goal of maximizing short-term returns. We wish him luck in his endeavor."Also note that Romney relied on corporate welfare. Go ahead, take a walk down the list here:
A comparison of the 1999 Bain portfolio obtained by the Los Angeles Times to the information in the Subsidy Tracker database my colleagues and I at Good Jobs First created (as well as other sources), yields examples such as the following:
Steel Dynamics Inc. In 1994 this company, among whose financial backers at the time was Bain, got a $77 million subsidy package—including grants, property tax abatements, tax credits and reimbursement for training costs—for its steel mill in DeKalb County, Indiana (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, June 23, 1994).
GS Industries. In 1996 American Iron Reduction LLC, a joint venture of GS Industries (which had been taken private by Bain in 1993) and Birmingham Steel, sought some $20 million in tax breaks in connection with its plan to build a plant in Louisiana’s St. James Parish (Baton Rouge Advocate, April 6, 1996). As the United Steelworkers union noted recently, GS Industries later applied for a federal loan guarantee, but before the deal could be implemented the company went bankrupt.
Sealy. A year after the 1997 buyout of this leading mattress company by Bain and other private equity firms, Sealy received $600,000 from state and local authorities in North Carolina to move its corporate offices, a research center and a manufacturing plant from Ohio (Greensboro News & Record, March 31, 1998). In 2004 Bain and its partners sold Sealy to another private equity group.
GT Bicycles. In 1997 GT, then owned by Bain and other investors, decided to move its manufacturing operations to an enterprise zone in Santa Ana, California. Being in the zone gave the company, which was later purchased by Schwinn, special tax credits relating to hiring and the purchase of equipment (Orange County Register, July 9, 1999).
Though most Santorum supporters on this board won’t admit it the fact is they don’t really care about Santo’s record. They have deemed him to be more righteous than Newt. Pure folly. Any person who thinks they know the heart of another man and the mind of God is a fool. For that sin alone they will be eventually held accountable. May God have mercy on their souls
The phrase “has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system” is NOT praise. Only someone who has as much trouble speaking English as Rick Santorum could think so. It is a totally neutral statement as to whether the law is good or bad. The crux of Newt’s article was that this was an experiment and it should be watched to see how it works.
Oh my, the bane of the Bain attacks.
There were a lot of armchair capitalists spewing their nonsense over Newt’s criticism of hostile takeovers.
Rush’s gratuitous defense of “anything goes Capitalism” was idiotic. Rush is wonderful, but not impervious to tangents.
Fighting the good fight, RS.
Ricky Santorum - “I’m very proud for all the earmarks that I took”
Or this one:
Chris Wallace - “You voted against the national right to work law, which would have allowed for people to get jobs without having to join a labor union...In both of those issues, YOU sided with big labor sir.”
Ricky - “You need to remember I was from the state of Pennsylvania”
LoL!
It's never Rick's responsibility.
Pathetic.
FReepmail “Antoninus” to be added or removed.
I don’t know about all their past quotes, thoughts, positions etc...but I do know I trust Santorum and Gingrich to be better stewards of the Constitution than Obama for sure...and trust that they will appoint true constitutionalists to the Supreme Court — Romney not so sure about that given his appointments in Ma.
Having said that.. I can and will vote for Romney over Obama ANY DAY ANY TIME...Obama must be defeated in November.
Thanks. It's easy when you have the facts. :-)
I know that the first thought that’ll run through my head every morning when I wake up in the labor camp will be “I can’t believe Newt Gingrich married more than once.”
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