“I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor.”—Mitt Romney: ‘I’m Not Concerned About The Very Poor’ (via robot-heart-politics)
The thing about this quote is that he continued on after it. I am not a fan of Mitt Romney, but people aways attack right leaning media when they take something Obama or whoever said out of context, and that is exactly what you are doing here. Yes it was an unfortunate way to phrase it, but he went on to say ”I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.” And yes, he is probably saying that because the middle class makes up the majority of voters, but while I do not like Mitt Romney and his politics, I also do not like people taking what someone has said, no matter who that person is, out of context.
The thing is, I don’t think the context makes this statement any better. He’s not concerned about the poorest of the poor…because they have a “safety net”? In other words, he doesn’t care about them because some of them (though certainly not all) manage to scrape by thanks to a handful of government programs, which notably have been a huge target for cuts and “reforms” that reduce funding and restrict access for Republicans in congress for decades? His statement reveals a remarkable lack of understanding of both what extreme poverty in America looks like and exactly how helpful so many of the government safety programs actually are (which is to say, not very.)
I don’t need to add the rest of his statement because it doesn’t make him sound any better. It doesn’t change the fact that Mitt Romney hasn’t got a fucking clue what poverty in America is and doesn’t really care a whole hell of a lot to go out of his way to find out.
