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Campaign 2012: Wall Street Mitt Or Main Street Rick?

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Significant Ideological Differences Separate GOP Front Runners Mitt Romney & Rick Santorum

As America moves forward into the GOP Presidential Nomination Campaign, it is critical that voters understand the important differences existing between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney.  As Catholics, it is imperative that we vote for the candidate whose beliefs are firmly rooted in life, liberty, limited government and the common good. With the right leader, Americans can come together and recapture America and restore our country to greatness. Without question, that leader is Rick Santorum.

SCOTTSDALE,AZ (Catholic Online) - With the GOP Presidential Primary settling into a two man race between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, it is an opportune time to study the candidates widely different views and records so that American voters can make informed choices before they decide on whom to support in the upcoming primaries. As the following analysis shows, what emerges are candidates who have very different philosophies on fundamental values like the role of government, how the marketplace should work and the common good.

Recent headlines from Wall Street spotlight Mitt Romney's track record as a venture capitalist and his questionable business associations. Depending on your outlook, you may view Mitt Romney as a successful entrepreneur or as corporate raider driven to achive profits, regardless of the cost to the community.  Let's sort through the recent headlines and summarize the important details.  Mitt Romney has recently come under withering fire for his close ties to Wall Street icon Goldman Sachs whose reputation was severely tarnished by ex-Goldman employee Greg Smith who has alleged widespread ethical violations and other misdeeds against Goldman Sachs.  

The ties that bind Mitt Romny to Goldman Sachs are long and deep.  Goldman Sachs financially backed Mitt Romney's venture capital firm Bain Capital in a profitable buy-out of medical device company Dade Behring.  The net result of this corporate buy-out was big profits for Mitt Romney and Goldman Sachs but layoffs of hundreds of employees. Big profits for the Wall Streeters but big pain for the little guys and their families.

Fast forward to the present and we see a very close financial relationship between Mitt Romney and Goldman Sachs.  According to press reports, the Romneys have between 17.7 million and 50.5 million invested in Goldman Sachs.  In turn, Goldman Sachs has given quite generously to the Romney campaign during the 2012 campaign.  According to Federal Election Commission reports, Goldman Sachs employees have given approximately $427,000 to the current Romney campaign, almost twice as much as he has received from the next largest Romney campaign contributor the Citigroup conglomerate.  

Many of the Wall Street titans who have contributed to Mitt Romney's current Presidential campaign, including Goldman Sachs employees, were also contributors to President Obama's 2008 campaign. Not surprisingly, many of these companies benefited handsomely from government bailouts during the 2008 Wall Street collapse.  Could it be that Wall Street's financial support for the Romney campaign is done with an eye towards assuring future government bailouts?

In a future financial crisis, what response could Wall Street expect to encounter if they came hat in hand to Mitt Romney begging for a bail-out?   On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney has said that he was not supportive of the federal government's bail-out of Detroit automakers.  However, candidate Romney's promises to Republican primary voters on the campaign trail do not square well with then Massachussett Governor Romney's actions in supporting an expanded role of government in the marketplace.  This is best evidenced by his role as the architect of the Massachussets state government run health care system: Romneycare, widely acknowledged as the model for Obamacare.

GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum's views are markedly different from Mitt Romney's views in these areas.  Santorum's positions are morally coherant and grounded in time tested principles like subsidiarity and solidarity.  A singularly important example of this is his vocal and steadfast oposition to government run health care, whether it be Obamacare or Romneycare. Subsidiarity, a core Catholic teaching, states that political decisions and other matters should be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.  In many respects, subsidiarity is similar to the more widely known principle of federalism.  Rick Santorum understands and agrees with subsidiarity and writes about this ideal in his book "It Takes A Family". 

The subsidiarity principle safeguards the ideals of limited government and personal liberty and religious freedom.  As such, it stands squarely opposed to top-down federal government solutions. Were Rick Santorum to become President, there would likely be no place in his administration for government mandated health care like Obamacare and Romneycare.  Similarly, Wall Street crony capitalists like Goldman Sachs who came to the White House with hat in hand begging for bail-outs would not find a very sympathetic ear in a Santorum administration. 

Rick Santorum has been criticized for his purported support of earmarks.  However, our system of government assigns legislators the power of the purse, the duty to appropriate funds and earmarks are a necessary part of this job responsibility.  As such, this earmark supporter criticism is a better directed to the Senate as a body and it is misguided to criticize former U.S. Senator Santorum, individually. Moreover, Rick Santorum has an unquestionably solid record as a fiscal conservative.  

Candidates Santorum and Romney also differ in their philosophy on the common good.  Rick Santorum's views here are firmly grounded in the principle of solidarity.  This principle emphasizes the importance of acting to better the well being of the greater community and not just an elite few. This is somewhat of a populist philosophy that cuts across political lines and broadens Rick Santorum's appeal to voters outside of the Republican mainstream.  

On the other hand, Mitt Romney's record as a venture capitalist whose successes sometimes came at a heavy cost to laid off employees causes him to fall short of Rick Santorum in the area of advancing the common good.    

Another area of great contrast bewteen Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney is in their differing approaches to the free market.  Catholic teachings in this area include Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Centesimus Annus.  According to John Paul II, the economy and importance of work rely upon freedom, service and cooperation.  The good model of capitalism is the version that is based in morality and which protects property rights as opposed to greedy capitalism that is immoral, utilitarian and devoid of morality.  Similarly, Pope Benedict's recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate emphasizes the importance of market economies advancing the principle of solidarity and supporting the common good.

Mitt Romney's record on the economy and the market is a mixed bag.  Personally, I believe his accomplishments as a successful businessman are more of a plus than a minus.  However, if Romney were to become the Republican nominee, his days as a venture capitalist would result in vicious and unrelenting attacks based on the class warfare rhetoric that is the foundational ideology underpining the Obama campaign. 

Similarly, Mitt Romneys record as the proponent of government run healthcare in Massachussetts, i.e. Romneycare, would severly handicap his ability to hold President Obama accountable for the highly unpopular Obamacare law during the general election.  The likely outcome of this is that in a general election campaign Mitt Romney would be  bruised and bloodied from class warfare arrows that hit their mark and Romney would be forced to fight with one hand tied behind his back because of his lack of credibility in arguing against Obamacare.  

In addition, Mitt Romney's record on Wall Street and as governor of Massachussetts is problematic when viewed from the prism of Catholic teachings.  His role as a venture capitalist who sometimes sacrificed the well-being of employees in exchange for shareholder profits manifiests a utilitarian philosophy that comes up short of Catholic economic teachings like solidarity and promoting the common good.  Likewise, his role as the architect of big government programs like Romneycare reveal a belief structure that is inconsistent with the principle of subsidiarity and the related tenets of limited government and federalism.  

On the other hand, Rick Santorum's views on the free market and the economy are morally coherent and philosophically consistent. He has been a most vocal opponent to Obamacare's takeover of healthcare, an unprecented intrusion into the free market. He has gone on the record to oppose the federal government bailout of Wall Street.  His support for tax policy that promotes rebuilding the manufacturing sector in the United States to provide more opportunities for working class Americans place him squarely within the "good version" of capitalism that advances the common good, as written about in Pope John Paul II's Centesimus Annus and Pope Benedict's Caritas In Veritate.

Based upon the foregoing, it is apparent that Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney have very different philosophies on limited government, the economy and the common good. Rick Santorum is a person whose words and deeds are true to Catholic teachings like subsidiarity and solidarity. These philosophies are consistent with values that are popular outside the Catholic community like federalism, limited government and the market economy. This would serve him well with Reagan Democrats, Independents, Tea Partiers and Conservatives in a general election battle with President Obama.

On the other hand, Mitt Romney's record as a Wall Street venture capitalist and as Governor of Massachussetts reveals idealogical inconsistencies that have so far prevented him from closing the deal with Republican voters and will severely handicap him were he to face President Obama in the general election.  

As the country moves forward to a vigorously contested GOP nomination process and an even more hotly contested Presidential campaign, we need to recognize that the upcoming Presidential election will be the most important election of our lifetimes. We need to carefully ponder the choices between the candidates and pray that America's citizens make the right choice.  As Catholics, we would do well to vote for the candidate whose record and beliefs are based on the common good and respect for family, life, liberty and local community. With the right leader, Americans can come together and recapture America and restore our country to greatness. 

Without question, that leader is Rick Santorum.

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