Mitt Romney said this at the NAACP convention today: "If you want a president who will make things better in the African American community, you are looking at him."
Really.
But he neglected to mention a few important things during his speech to the nation's oldest civil rights organization. Like this: He opposed the President's auto rescue. When the industry was on the brink of collapse, Romney told anyone who would listen that we should "let Detroit go bankrupt," even though experts have said that would have been "nothing less than catastrophic for African Americans."
We also didn't hear anything about how 2.2 million African American families would face a tax hike under Romney's plan while millionaires like himself would get a handsome 25 percent tax cut.
There was no mention of Romney's plan to slash investments in education or how he'd let college costs spike for millions of African American students—nearly half of whom receive Pell Grants—and leave public school students stranded without a plan to improve their schools.
And while he had the gall to claim the Obama presidency has made it "worse for African Americans in every way," Romney didn't mention that President Obama's Recovery Act helped lift 1.3 million African Americans out of poverty in 2010 alone. Or that President Obama cut taxes for every working family and has put $3,600 back into the pockets of typical middle-class families. Or that when it comes to education, President Obama is boosting our investments in historically black colleges and universities and Pell grants.
Romney's one honest moment? He told the NAACP that he'd repeal Obamacare—and was soundly booed. That's because the Affordable Care Act is already covering lifesaving preventive care for 5.5 million African Americans, and when fully implemented, as many as 7 million otherwise uninsured African Americans will have health care.
The guy who is actually working to make things better in the African American community—and not just talking about it—is President Obama.
