I, too, grew up in a home with an elevator. It didn’t raise cars up from the ground floor just like Mitt Romney’s, but it got us up to our fifth-floor tenement apartment in the Bronx where I slept in the foyer. Then, we lived our American dream, a dream of moving from the Bronx to Yonkers, which was actually pretty much just like the Bronx, except I had my own bedroom in our new fifth-floor apartment. Again, kinda like Mitt and the ever-hard-working Ann, (she never had an au pair?), we also had an elevator. It took you or anyone else up to the six fifth floor-apartments in our building.

Now we learn that Mitt, using boy wonder Ryan’s budget, wants to cut all middle-class, working-class, middle-income, and lower-income tax code loopholes. But you just gotta remember, he’s ole Mitt; and just like the catcher’s mitt, he’ll surely catch us in his great big safety net when we fall. Huh?

Willard (remember that name movie about the perverted boy and the rats?), Mitt Romney and Paul (boy wonder), Ryan champion the “trickle down” approach: Shrink government + destroy social safety nets + cut taxes for the rich + burden workers and small businesses with more taxes + break unions + crash wages = equals job creation. Sure, and this has been the Republican mantra since Ronald Reagan. Actually, though, trickle down really means tinkle on; and we know who gets wet and wetter and soaked. And it sure does stink.

The modern racist, misogynist, ultra-right and “tea-party” hijacked Republican Party dates its history only from Ronald Reagan forward; maybe from Barry Goldwater—but not any farther back. But, Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican Party elected president of the United States, said that:

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

You know for sure that Mitt Romney cannot abide by Lincoln. After all, Bain, (rhymes with pain) Capital is responsible for closing many plants, ruining many companies, firing many workers, destroying many lives.

Locally speaking, Chris Collins is a mini-mitt; and he’s not needed either.

- Gene Grabiner, Buffalo

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