Mitt Romney outlines platform at VICA forum

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Mitt Romney outlines platform at VICA forum

BY NAZBANOO PAHLAVI

Former Massachusetts Governor and republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed a crowd of about 150 supporters, Valley Industry & Commerce Association (VICA) members, high school students and journalists during an hour-long “Ask Mitt Anything” talk at the Burbank Airport Marriott on November 15.

According to VICA, the appearance marked the only stop this year by a Republican presidential candidate in the Valley. Democratic candidate John Edwards visited striking writers at NBC Burbank the next day.

Romney outlined his intentions if elected president with an emphasis on strengthening the military, including a proposed increase of 100,000 troops. He also laid out his plan for a new tax rate for citizens who make $200,000 a year or less.

“My new tax rate for your savings – that means your tax on the interest and dividends, and capital gains – would be absolutely zero. Let Americans save,” Romney said.

The governor credited former president Ronald Reagan for inspiring his “Strengthen our families, strengthen our economy and strengthen our military” platform, and again mentioned the former president, to loud applause, when he quoted Reagan as saying, “‘It’s not that liberals are ignorant, it’s just that what they know is wrong.’”

Romney touted his experience in business, government, and as CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee during the 2002 Winter Olympics as measures of leadership that put him ahead of the democratic forerunners – none of whom have “ever managed a corner store,” he quipped.

Romney took an indirect stab at democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton during the 30-minute question and answer session when he jokingly asked if there were any planted questions, in reference to questions allegedly planted by Clinton aides at a recent Iowa town hall meeting.

Most of the questions asked of the governor in Burbank aligned with hot-button issues such as healthcare reform, immigration, home foreclosures and global warming.

In response to a Korean War veteran’s question about healthcare, Romney outlined his current plan to secure Massachusetts’s half-million uninsured with coverage. Romney said his model works “without a government-run system, without new taxes required. We got everybody in our state on track to have health insurance.”

His plan mandates that all residents register for government-subsidized health insurance or buy their own way with lower rates and higher deductibles. “We don’t need socialized medicine, Hillary-care, or anything like it,” Romney commented.

Turning to immigration, Romney said, “We like folks coming from other nations of the world,” but “we also want to make sure that we’re a nation of laws. And that we match our needs with the people who come here.”

He denounced attempts to offer the children of illegal immigrants lower tuition for state college, condemned cities that are known as “sanctuary cities,” and derided New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s now obsolete attempt at issuing driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.

Romney’s proposed solution includes the implementation of an employment identification card for use by legal immigrants, with hopes of pushing illegal workers out of the system.

Romney also proposed ways to combat global warming by getting “on track to become energy-independent and energy secure” through alternative sources of energy such as clean and liquefied coal, and by adopting better energy efficiency strategies in homes and businesses.

When the lights in the hotel ballroom went dark for a brief moment during the Q&A session, Romney joked, “I want to make sure that you Californians are not seeing another drought or another blackout again.”