General Question

Cruiser's avatar

How different would it be today if Mitt Romney were elected President?

Asked by Cruiser (34999 points ) February 7th, 2014

How would things be different politically, economically and internationally if Mitt Romney were the man in charge? I am looking simply for practical, honest thoughts and opinions and substantive reasons for why you feel this would be so.

I am not interested in opening a heated debate here as there is really not much reason to debate over someones personal opinions on this question.

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35 Answers

ragingloli's avatar

Have you played Fallout?
That is what the planet would look like.

flip86's avatar

What is the point of speculating on the past? He wasn’t elected. We can’t change that.

Cruiser's avatar

@ragingloli lol
@flip86 It’s OK…you don’t have to play

filmfann's avatar

The roll-out of ObamaCare probably wouldn’t have gone as smoothly.~

thorninmud's avatar

Canada would be having an immigration problem instead of us.

Response moderated
ARE_you_kidding_me's avatar

It would be about the f’ing same

bolwerk's avatar

Much the same, I suspect. Getting rid of ObamaCare would have required a filibuster-proof Senate sweep. Judicial appointments might have lurched right.

About as pessimistic you can get in the short-term is maybe deficits (ironically) would be heading up, due to depressed revenue from creating new tax breaks/loopholes. I’m speculating that is politically easy.

johnpowell's avatar

Not much. Obama can’t really get anything done and Romney is a sock stuffed in a condom.

So about the same. All I can really think of is that the assholes over at Fox News would have to create a new enemy.

MadMadMax's avatar

Kids would be more educated, the Mormon way – remember Romney is a Prophet according to the elders and unlike Kennedy he did not promise to respect separation of church and state

Cruiser's avatar

@bolwerk I truly doubt Mitt would have signed Obama care into law. I think he would have pushed for Romney Care and we would be in worse shape as MA is now suffering.

SadieMartinPaul's avatar

Republicans would have rallied around and supported RomneyCare. They would have praised the Massachusetts model and pushed for it on a national level. If a Republican gets behind universal access to health care, it must be a good idea.

At the State of the Union address, Mr. Obama introduced a young lady who could no longer be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition and, thus, had sought medical care and a life-saving surgery. Half of the chamber sat still and refused to applaud this woman. (Maybe they should have yelled, “Hooray, death!”). If Romney had done the same, the entire Republican side would have been hooting and hollering.

Cruiser's avatar

Thanks to the Fluther mods who did the heavy lifting and allowed me to correct my speling error

Response moderated (Off-Topic)
ARE_you_kidding_me's avatar

@SadieMartinPaul No, they would have been fiercely against it.

bolwerk's avatar

@Cruiser: didn’t you mean in 2012? The ACA law was passed in 2009 or early 2010. McCain was the nominee in 2008.

@MadMadMax: that URL seems to take me to a list of “2014” topics. Not sure I want to see it anyway.

Darth_Algar's avatar

Every US citizen would be baptized by proxy into the LDS church.

kritiper's avatar

The country would be falling uncontrollably and ever faster into a hopeless chasm that our fore-fathers would NEVER have imagined! A country governed by a single political party, religiously entrapped, irreconcilably doomed.

SwanSwanHummingbird's avatar

I read that as LSD church. Haha. LSD would make a much better church.

MadMadMax's avatar

@bolwerk you could look there for “college_students_compares_masturbation_to_being_wounded_in_war/”

or I googled in and got this:

bolwerk's avatar

@MadMadMax: they don’t teach evolution at BYU, so they didn’t know that the exclusive biological function of males is to ejaculate every day or two. :(

syz's avatar

I think North Carolina is probably a good demonstration. In a very short period, we’ve gone from being a progressive beacon in the south to national laughing stock. We’ve specifically made it harder for everyone to vote (especially the poor), allowed guns in bars, snuck antiabortion law into an anti-Sharia law bill and when that didn’t work snuck it into a motorcycle safety bill, slashed public education funding, rejected expanding medicare, and pretty much fucked up years of progress.

Brian1946's avatar

@syz Didn’t NC also vote 61%-39% against marriage equality a few years ago?

Cruiser's avatar

@syz Sorry to hear things are even suckier there than here in Illinois…scratch NC off my list of states to retire to

BeenThereSaidThat's avatar

Things would be much better but I hope you don’t think the average Obama supporter will admit to that. DO you?

ragingloli's avatar

Things would be much worse but I hope you don’t think the average Obama hater will admit to that. DO you?

bolwerk's avatar

@ragingloli: Romney winning maybe would have led quickly to a Democratic backlash. Obama is essentially a Rockefeller Republican already.

Paradox25's avatar

I really don’t think much would have changed to be honest, and we still have the same Congress anyways. Obama is a bit too conservative for me actually. I think I would had liked a Dennis Kucinich or Gary Johnson better as president, though they have different economic views both politicians are quite liberal.

Cruiser's avatar

@BeenThereSaidThat I did not ask this question to expect anyone to admit to anything…I am more interested in how one might expect or perceive our economic, political and international to be “different” for better or for worse had Mr. Romney been elected President.

bolwerk's avatar

About the only things POTUS can change himself are administrative and foreign policy. It’s a complete crock of shit how presidents campaign for a legislative agenda every four years they are constitutionally prohibited from enacting unilaterally.

Cruiser's avatar

@bolwerk Executive Order privilege allows the President to circumvent Congress and pass laws and appoint people to office.

bolwerk's avatar

@Cruiser: only sorta. Executive orders either have a basis in powers the POTUS has in the constitution or legislation Congress delegated to him. The only other thing he can do is interpret laws passed by Congress. The last one is where most of the controversy happens, but you can imagine that still allows shitloads of wiggle room when legislation is thousands of pages long.

Most high-level appointments require the Senate’s “advice and consent,” but that can be circumvented temporarily by appointing the officer when Congress is not in session.

Cruiser's avatar

@bolwerk That I am aware of this and also that all Presidents have issued executive orders and up to today, Obama has used it rather sparingly. I do wonder if he will pick up the pace in the future with his We Can’t Wait initiative.

bolwerk's avatar

@Cruiser: probably, I suspect, especially without a favorable electoral result in November 2014. But I’d still question how much impact even that can have.

Response moderated (Unhelpful)

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