What you don’t know about Mitt Romney could cost you your Medicare

For someone who has betrayed every political position he’s ever taken and lies about nearly everything, Mitt Romney has been incredibly consistent about one thing: Secrecy.

Mitt won’t detail his policy plans. He won’t even let Bain Capital tell you when he actually left the company. And though he often calls on his opponents to release their tax returns, he only does so himself when he absolutely has to.

There are two things Mitt’s secrecy reveals:

1. He’s proud of his career in business but he knows you wouldn’t be.

2. He knows he has no chance of winning on the actual policies he’ll have to implement.

(I say HAVE TO because if Mitt Romney is elected, everything he does in office will have one goal: avoid a right wing primary challenge.)

Huge tax breaks for the richest paid for by tax increases on the middle class, gutting education and Medicaid and benefit cuts to today’s Medicare beneficiaries followed by massive benefit cuts to future beneficiaries isn’t a winning formula in American politics. But you’ll never get Mitt to admit that’s at the heart of what he’s proposing.

Picking Paul Ryan made all of these things a bit clearer. But Ryan has shown he’s just as willing to invent a palatable reality for voters as Romney is.

That’s why his tax returns are so important. We can’t magically reveal what Mitt will do, especially when he’s willing to lie about his plans over and over. But we can get him to show us what he’s done.

Mitt’s consistency when it comes to hiding his intentions and acting in a way that’s only beneficial to him is the issue at the heart of this campaign. And his tax returns are the perfect symbol of his fatal flaw.

[CC image by Tobyotter]