I was always taught that what’s in one’s heart is what comes out of one’s mouth.
Actually, there’s a scripture that says the same: “For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks” is how the Gospel of Luke puts it (Luke 6:45). In my house growing up, my mother would remind us of that, and would warn us not to say things for which we would have to apologize. It was her way of saying, I guess, “Love means never having to say ‘I’m sorry.'”
In other words, when we say things, it’s what we feel. It might be in the heat of a moment, but it is what we really feel.
So, I don’t buy this stuff GOP candidate Mitt Romney is saying, as he explains his now famous statement, “I am not concerned about the very poor,” that he “misspoke.” Hardly, Mitt. You said what was and what is in your heart.
As these GOP candidates have campaigned, all of them have said things which reveal what they feel about America’s underclass. While I cringe at how they go after each other, it bothers me to my heart that these guys seem so disconnected from people in this country who need a government that cares about them.
It is probably naive for me to want candidates to care, but I do. I am not for “big government” as it is being described, but I do want a government that has the good sense to take care of its own. I am reminded of a speech Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King gave a year before his death as he spoke out against the Viet Nam War: he said that he found it hard to talk to young people about democracy because he couldn’t explain why a country – our country – would spend millions of dollars and sacrifice hundreds of thousands of human lives un a war supposedly to get their people freedom and civil rights when our own government does not make sure its own citizens have the same.
We are coming out of The Great Recession, an event which has devastated literally hundreds of thousands of Americans. The once poor are now the “very poor,” and many of the former “middle class” are now poor. These are people who worked hard and who were whammied by the sinking of our economy which presumably happened because of the activities of greedy wealthy people. Though the unemployment rate is slowly dropping, and more and more people are finding work, many, too many, of our nation’s citizens are suffering.
And Mitt Romney, it seems, could care less.
He said that he wasn’t worried about the very poor because they have a safety net, meaning government programs – which help them, but an indicator of how far removed he is from the madding crowd, so to speak, is that much of that safety net is being and has been chipped away, and if he has his way, even more of it will be eliminated. He cannot relate to the fact that way too many Americans need food stamps in order to eat, to feed their children. He has not seen the eyes of the poor and very poor, trying desperately to get out of the wells of despair in which they sit, but he doesn’t want to. He is not concerned about them.
Newt Gingrich has seized upon Romney’s statement and is using it, saying we should be concerned about the poor. Nice try, Newt, but his earlier statements, including the one that’s been a part of his campaign rhetoric, that President Obama is the “food stamp president” shows that he isn’t too concerned about the poor, either, but is more concerned about a government which has issued a record number of food stamps to keep people going during this economic tsunami.
And even President Obama hasn’t shown much verbal concern for the poor; he has been soundly criticized for not mentioning the poor more often and for not coming up with more policies that directly impact and help the poor of this nation, specifically black and brown people.
Needless to say, the U.S. Congress has not shown by its behavior that it is concerned all that much by the poor. The primary objective of House Republicans is to make sure that Barack Obama is a one term president, and the Senate has been rather mealy-mouthed in addressing the ills of this nation as concerns our suffering citizens.
So, what are the poor? If the poor or the very poor are people with whom the leaders of this country are not concerned, what kind of nation are we, really? Mitt Romney has said that people are “jealous” of people who have money. How callous is that? He said that over $300,000 he received for a speaking engagement was not a lot of money. Again, it doesn’t get much more callous or insensitive than that.
Mitt Romney, you didn’t “misspeak.” You spoke what was in your heart.
A candid observation …
Candid Observations 
Wow….. this is the problem with our political process and the country in general. We take a sentence or two we don’t like….even go so far as to omit the balance of what a person was really saying and turn it into emotional arguments that go on and on – taking attention away from the real issues… away from the necessary arguments we really need to have.
I’m not a Romney fan at all… in fact, I’d much prefer Gingrich to run against Obama but this is pretty simple….Romney did not say he wasn’t worried about the poor in the context you present. He was describing a much larger picture pertaining to prioritization of government action. If we going to be concerned about and take action to help a particular section of the public, he wants to take that action first for the people who have been hurt the most. He said the rich can take care themselves and the poor have safety nets already in place to hold them up. He even said that if those safety nets need improvements, he would make those changes. The middle class however has been devastated and government has ignored it – actually purposefully taken advantage of it for decades. Since the middle class is the backbone of this society, he is rightfully mostly concerned with them.
Your post reads like a rant that appears to be from just one more liberal with emotions run amok. My God, the staunchest conservative never stands with his fist in the air screaming that we shouldn’t help the poor. It’s just what help and how that help is delivered that concerns them. The devil is always in the details. Since the conservatives are getting better at articulating details, liberals now attempt to deny them that opportunity by raising emotions strongly enough to prevent reasonable/rational conversation. Geeess! This stupid stuff just makes me puke! Go tell your friends I eat babies….. they’ll no doubt believe you.
Thanks for your comment. I appreciate your point of view. I do think that what we say comes from what we feel. That’s an “in general” statement of belief. I believe that many relationships are ruined because people say what they are feeling, or what they believe, and then they can’t take the words back. It has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. It has everything to do with being human.
Thanks again.
These politicians know that Americans are so gullible and shortsighted that they can get elected with a sole purpose of defeating the current president and then making the situation worse with their own agenda. Look at how Kasich tried to railroad his own party and they finally stood up to our bully governor.
Politics is, to me, so distasteful. Politicians have to say what people want to hear and they so often compromise themselves. I couldn’t do it.
Thanks for commenting.
No…he definitely did NOT misspeak, just like Rick Santorum didn’t misspeak when he said that he didn’t want to make black peoples’ lives better with someone else’s money. You absolutely do speak what’s in your heart. Being politicians, both Romney and Santorum are experts in thinking before they speak, because they know that their comments are always scrutinized, especially during the time of a presidential reelection. So why did Rommey make the comment about poor people and Santorum make the comment about black people??? Because they don’t care about them, period.
I so agree. One of my readers accused me of going on a “liberal rant.” I think not. If it’s not in your heart, it can’t come out of your mouth!
Thanks for your input!