So Mitt Romney thinks that roughly half of us are moochers (that includes seniors, minimum-wage workers impoverished by profit-driven industries, and people born poor and unable to lift themselves up because of the incredible challenges of broken environment, poor schools and the Bush recession) and people are surprised?

This is fundamentally a failure of imagination. Fat cats like Romney have no idea what challenges most of us face. I’ll bet that most poor and middle-class people have sacrificed more blood, sweat and tears on behalf of their families and this country than Romney ever did. Most of our soldiers are recruited from these “moocher” families; Romney got deferments.

But the real hypocrisy here is that Romney is just ignoring the handouts that corporations demand — and get — from the government, buying politicians and getting huge returns on the investment in tax loopholes and incentives, lax regulations, a blind eye to violations of the law, pork, and out-and-out giveaways. This isn’t really a free-enterprise system. It’s a do-anything-and-go-scott-free enterprise system for the wealthy.

Evan Fales

Iowa City