Regarding that “gifts” thing, Mitt Romney may have been onto something:
Detroit City Councilwoman Wants “Bacon” from President Obama as Quid Pro Quo for City’s Overwhelming Support on Election Day
That's a headline from the New York Daily News.
The Councilwoman is JoAnn Watson, who wants the president to use taxpayer money to help a city that faces a budget deficit of more than $200 million and has other staggering debts. This is how the councilwoman sees the workings of a democracy:
"After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young (the former mayor of Detroit), he went to Washington, D.C. He came home with some bacon," Watson said at a City Council meeting Tuesday. "That's what you do."??
That is what you do. I’m afraid that more often than not this is what we do. But Mitt Romney wasn’t the first seer to address the gifts issue. Benjamin Franklin preceded him. Here is what he said:
When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
Seventy-five percent of the voters in Ms. Watson’s county went for President Obama. If he bails them out, they’ll learn two lessons: that Detroit doesn’t have to do things differently to survive and that they can just vote themselves money.