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| Source:Guy John- Governor George Romney, on The Open Mind with Richard Heffner, in 1992. |
"George Romney on Americanism. Power to the people."
From Guy John
In the first couple minutes of this interview George Romney sounds like someone from the Christian-Right arguing that the problem with America is our culture, lifestyle, way of life. That Americans weren’t living a moral life or to it bluntly what someone on the Christian-Right would call a Christian way of life. Americans having sex before they’re married, women giving birth out-of-wedlock
And then Governor Romney gets into another problem that he believed America having to do with too much poverty in our inner cities and not enough education for them and the country as a whole. The second part I agree with Governor Romney on.
This interview was done in 1992 and back then America had a large deficit and was just starting to get out of the recession that it was in in 1990-91. Not that different to where America was in 2009 especially in the summer and fall of 09.
And Governor Romney was arguing that the reason why Congress and the White House, couldn’t deal with the deficit was because of special interest groups and members of Congress not wanting to cut their own pork and spending for their districts and states in order to deal with the deficit. He was right about that back then and even more so 26 years later. Our campaign finance system is really a topic for another piece.
The last part having to do with the growth and size of the Federal Government, is really up Governor Romney’s ally being that he was a former Governor obviously ( Governor of Michigan ) and was also both a Progressive but a Federalist as well. He believed government could play a positive role in solving problems in the country, but when it came to economic and social problems that the best government was the closest government to the problems.
And Governor Romney believed a lot of these Federal programs having to do with Welfare and poverty in general should be run by the states. Instead of the Federal Government trying to manage social welfare programs for the entire country and all fifty states.
As I mentioned before George Romney represents a Republican Party from another era. A Republican Party that was about problem solving and governing, instead of fighting political battles and trying to destroy Democrats, the Democratic Party, and trying to consolidate so much power with Republican Party.
Romney represents a Republican Party that wasn’t interested in one’s religion or personal lifestyle, but the personal and professional qualifications of the people and would they be able to do a good job or not. Not if they’re Protestant or not, or what part of the country they’re from, what they think about sexuality and so-forth. Issues that the modern Republican is consumed by now instead of qualifications and public policy positions.
