Mitt Romney the wrong choice for African-American Communities [VIDEO]

Mitt Romney’s speech to the NAACP won’t be able to hide that he’s consistently opposed policies that helped African American communities, including the Recovery Act, auto rescue, and expanded access to quality, affordable health care. Now, Romney would slash investments in the programs that benefit these communities—education, clean energy, and infrastructure— and raise taxes on working families even as he gives $5 trillion in tax cuts weighted toward millionaires and billionaires. Here’s the truth about why Mitt Romney’s the wrong choice for African American communities.

This election offers African American voters two fundamentally different visions of how to grow the economy, create middle-class jobs, and pay down the debt. President Obama believes that we need to grow the economy from the middle out by investing in education, clean energy, infrastructure and energy. Mitt Romney and his allies in Congress believe that if you let Wall Street write its own rules again, take away rules that protect consumers and workers, and cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans, the market will somehow grow from the top down.

2012 NAACP Convention in Houston Texas

For African American communities, this choice has significant consequences. Romney opposed the Recovery Act, which lifted 1.3 million African Americans out of poverty, and the auto rescue, which preserved an industry that has been called the engine of the black middle class.  Now Romney would:

·         Return us to the same failed policies that got us into this mess with plans that independent experts say would slow the economy and fail to create jobs now. He opposes the President’s plan to create jobs now and accelerate the recovery by keeping teachers in classrooms, putting construction workers back on the job, and helping low-income youth and adults find work.

·         Raise taxes on at least 2.2 million African American families, including half of all African American children, by rolling back expansions of the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, while giving millionaires like himself a 25 percent tax cut.

·         Slash investments in education, which could raise college costs for millions of African American students – nearly half of whom get Pell Grant scholarships – and leave our public school students stranded without a plan to improve their schools.

·         Repeal Obamacare, which stops insurance companies from taking advantage of consumers and will make sure 7 million more African Americans have health insurance.