Romney’s Animal House

Mitt Romney’s surreal disconnection from reality–a disconnectedness he shares with the rest of the .o1%–continues to offer surprises.  (Those missing income tax returns would no doubt offer a lot more. ) First he bragged that he put his dog on the roof of the car on a family vacation. That’s weird and stupid, even if you aren’t rich. Imagine the trauma his children might have suffered if the dog had gone flying off the car, tumbling down the freeway to its death. It’s a near sadistic risk for a father to take.

It resonates, too, with the image of Mitt the Vulture capitalist, pursuing profit by, among other things, stripping companies and sending the jobs overseas. (“All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos” by Paul Krugman, nicely summarizes the nature of the sort of sadism-tinged (“let them fail“) capitalism Romney practiced and would bring to the White House.)  The newest entry in the Romney menagerie is his Olympic horse, which is better fed and taken care of than most families. That’s the income divide in a nutshell.

It’s helpful for educators and parents– as a gauge of Romney out-of-touchiness– to compare the cost of this single horse–Rafalca–to the average student loan debt, which is $25,250 . Romney may not be able to deduct the cost of his horse yet, but his tax returns suggest that he spent $77,000 on it last year.  It’s very difficult to imagine that a man who spends 3 times the average student loan debt on his horse racing hobby would be all that concerned that the debt load has grown too large and college too expensive.

 

About Ray Watkins

I was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. I grew up in Houston, as a part of what we only half-jokingly call the Cajun Diaspora. At a certain point during the Regan administration, I had to leave, so I served in the Peace Corps, Philippines, from 1987-89. I didn't want to return to the United States just yet, so I moved to Paris, France, where I lived for three years or so. I then moved back to Austin, Texas, where I had received my Masters Degree, and (eventually) began a Ph.D., which I completed in 1999. I spent a year at Temple University and then accepted a position at Eastern Illinois University where I worked until May of 2006. I now work exclusively on line (although that may change) for Johns Hopkins, the Art Institute Online, and Smarthinking.com. I can be reached most easily via email: raywatkins [that 'at' symbol] writinginthewild.com

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