Conundrums

I want to present a conundrum.  The issue is how can a political party base an election campaign on the principle that the taxpayers of our population should not have to pay for the deadbeats (i.e. the unemployed, the elderly, etc) while at the same time denouncing a health plan that ensures that the taxpayers should not have to pay for the deadbeats i.e. those insured who by law must receive health care at the expense of taxpayers?  What am I missing here when the principle advocate of this position is Mitt Romney who, as is well known, is the founding father of Obamacare — the law requiring people to get health insurance, pioneered by him in Massachusetts.  By now I hope you agree that this is a conundrum.  (I repeat the word because I like its sound, its texture, it implications.)   The dictionary defines the word as something hard to understand or explain such as the conundrum of how an ancient people were able to build such massive structures without the benefit of today's knowledge and technology.  Synonyms of conundrum help us understand the meaning better; enigma, head-scratcher, mystification, puzzle, puzzlement, riddle, and secret, all of which describe the current Republican campaign themes.

Other conundrums are getting the truth out about the fiction and falsehoods forming the basis for the current Republican election campaign.  Mr. Romney’s entire campaign, in additional to his two-step about health care, rests on a foundation of short and false sound bites.

1)   The stimulus failed. (Three million employed people beg to differ.)  Most economists admit that the stimulus was an unqualified success, albeit not as large as it should have been to truly stimulate the private sector. 

2)   The auto bailout was a mistake. (Another million jobs.)  Ironically, now that Romney recognizes that the auto bailout has been an unqualified success, he now tries to take credit for it.

3)    Spending is out of control and that under Obama, federal spending “has accelerated at a rate without precedent.” (Spending growth is actually lower than under all modern Republican presidents as reported last month by Rex Nutting in MarketWatch, a Web site affiliated with The Wall Street Journal.)

These are conundrums.  Just saying . . .