United Liberty

Yesterday, I was grabbing a cup of coffee while browsing through Twitter when I saw a headline that literally made me spit my drink out of my mouth. President Barack Obama will apparently attempt to paint Mitt Romney, who has mathematically secured enough delegates to win the GOP nomination, as a libertarian (note Obama doesn’t actually use that term to describe Romney, but the beliefs describe are libertarian in nature):

President Barack Obama is previewing his next strategy in the 2012 campaign — an audacious effort to paint former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and the majority GOP as radical libertarians that have abandoned mainstream American politics.

Since 2000, “we [Democrats] haven’t moved that much. … What’s changed is the Republican Party,” Obama told a group of wealthy donors gathered Monday night at a New York town-house owned by Marc Lasry. Lasry is a billionaire equity-capitalist who runs a $20 billion fund that buys up the shaky assets of failing companies.

Republicans “have gone from a preference for market-based solutions to an absolutism … [to] a belief that all regulations are bad; that government has no role to play,” said Obama, who has presided over record unemployment of at least 8.1 percent, record deficits of more than $1 trillion per year, and a record $5 trillion increase in the national debt.

The president’s divisive strategy is designed to persuade swing-voters that the former governor of Massachusetts is a radical libertarian, even though Obama has repeatedly said his health-sector law is modeled on Romney’s Massachusetts law.

Hahahahahahahahaha. No, seriously, this has to be the most absurd thing I’ve read in long time. Romney, the guy that pushed the individual mandate and laid the blueprint for ObamaCare, is a libertarian? The same guy that got a “C” in economic policy from the Cato Institute during his term as Governor of Massachusetts, backed the TARP bailout, backed cap-and-trade, and wants a trade war with China?

Putting Romney aside for a moment, Republicans haven’t exactly acted how Obama describes them. Yes, they want spending cuts, but only for non-defense discretionary spending — around 15% of the budget. They do want to reform entitlements, but not in any extreme way — keep in mind that Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan was put together with the help of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).

And let’s remember that Republicans helped put us in the precarious fiscal situation in which we now find ourselves; and I, for one, don’t believe they’ve changed much. Consider that there is talk about bringing back earmarks, which were frequently criticized by conservatives and libertarians before they lost control of Congress. In anticipation of ObamaCare being struck down by the Supreme Court, House Republicans are looking to proposals that will preserve government involvement in health care, not loosen it. And let’s not forget that many conservatives were looking to Rick Santorum, who is certainly no fiscal conservative, as their alternative to Romney.

Yes, there are some Republican members of Congress that do believe that in free markets. However, the idea that the Mitt Romney and GOP are somehow ideologically libertarian on fiscal issues is absolutely absurd.