Is Romney wrong to write-off voters who depend on direct government assistance?
Alec MacGillis for TNR, here:
When I was in Toledo last week, I asked Lucas County Treasurer Wade Kapszukiewicz, a Democrat, what he made of Obama’s strong position, and he didn’t hesitate. “It’s the bailout," he said. "It’s not just the Jeep plant in Toledo and that they build the Chevy Cruze in Youngstown. But more than that -- we have 88 counties, and in 82 of them there are supplier plants to the larger ones. When you start talking about 82 of 88 counties that have some sort of direct, literal, positive impact from this rescue, I think that on the margins has the ability to tweak the numbers.”
The moral hazard of bailouts doesn't affect just the outcome for a business, but also the outcome for the politician responsible for it.
Gov. Romney should have considered that the contributions of bankers who were helped through TARP bailouts which he supported may be outnumbered by the votes of workers whose jobs the auto-bailouts he opposed preserved.
