March 22, 2012 by David K. Sutton
Etch A Sketch Candidate: Romney Erases His ‘High Gas Price’ Past
Mitt Romney has done a lot of lying lately. Romney is lying when he says President Obama has made the economy worse. He is lying when talking about his health care law in Massachusetts (saying he never intended it to be a model for the nation). Romney is also lying when he said Obama raised corporate tax rates. What else has Romney lied about? Watch this segment from The Rachel Maddow Show:
Turns out Romney is also lying about his position on high gas prices. Well, if he’s not lying then he’s departed radically from his position on high gas prices as governor of Massachusetts. While governor, Romney supported efforts to move to more fuel-efficient vehicles and to cut fuel consumption by promoting public transit and car-pooling. It was part of set of Massachusetts policies known as “smart growth“, as reported by Alec MacGillis on The New Republic:
Romney’s response to high gas prices while governor fit into his broader effort to promote “smart growth” policies in Massachusetts—a focus that is rare among Republican leaders but that he took up with alacrity. After taking office in 2003, he combined the state’s transportation, environment, and housing departments into a single “Office for Commonwealth Development” under the command of Doug Foy, a prominent local environmentalist who was known to commute to work 20 miles by bike. Together, Romney and Foy pushed for legislation to channel new development into existing communities, thereby reducing the need for new road construction and the car dependence of Massachusetts residents. They put forward a sweeping “Climate Protection Plan” in 2004, which included, among many other things, calls for more car-pooling, public transit and tax breaks for motorists who bought hybrid vehicles. Clean energy was the future, Romney declared at a conference in 2005: “This is an industry that is going to be explosive in its growth in the next decade.”
This sounds nothing like the rhetoric of 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In a race to the bottom in the Republican primary, Mitt Romney has resorted to a constant stream of lies to secure the GOP nomination.
During the 2012 campaign season, Romney has jumped head-first into the political gamesmanship over gas prices, completely switching his previous stances on how to deal with our dependence on petroleum-based fuels. Even while admitting in 2006 that prices would continue to climb, Romney is now saying that “there’s no question” the Obama Administration is responsible for the spike in prices.
So if we find ourselves trying to get used to the idea of saying “President Romney” by this time next year, what set of energy policies do you think we will be asking him about?
dks
More Reading:
When Romney Liked High Gas Prices
