OP-ED COLUMNIST
Thurston Howell Romney
Excerpted from a column By DAVID BROOKS
September 17, 2012
Romney, who criticizes President Obama for
dividing the nation, divided the nation into two groups: the makers and the
moochers. Forty-seven percent of the country, he said, are people “who are
dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the
government has a responsibility to take care of them, who believe they are
entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
This comment suggests a few things. First, it
suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who
are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it
the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social
Security or Medicare?
It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about
the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America
remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer
hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost
any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success,
according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey.
It says that Romney doesn’t know much about the
political culture. Americans haven’t become childlike worshipers of big
government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of
people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.
The people who receive the disproportionate share
of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans.
They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill
Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited
from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the
dependent poor.
Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost
any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan’s second term,
62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to
help those who can’t help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research
Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.
The Republican Party has shifted from the
Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of
makers and takers. There’s no way the country will trust the Republican Party to
reform the welfare state if that party doesn’t have a basic commitment to
provide a safety net for those who suffer for no fault of their own.
Finally, the comment suggests that Romney knows
nothing about ambition and motivation. People are motivated when they have more
opportunities. Ambition is fired by possibility, not by deprivation, as a tour
through the world’s poorest regions makes clear. Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s
what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every
negative view people have about Romney. He’s running a depressingly inept
presidential campaign.
