Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Folks, it’s time to accept the truth about the chameleon who aspires to the presidency of the U.S. Mitt Romney revealed the hidden heart of his agenda to his millionaire supporters behind closed doors and then, as is his custom, when he got caught, reversed himself the next day to the public.

Romney is spineless, dishonest and a hypocrite. He lies constantly about President Obama and has flip-flopped on every major issue, all of which is easily verifiable. Romney said, "Let Detroit go bankrupt"; believes corporations are people; wants to deregulate Wall Street, eliminate capital gains tax and close certain tax loopholes such as eliminating home interest mortgage and charitable contributions; lies about "50 percent of green energy companies going bankrupt"; lies about the auto plant closing in Janesville; wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood, which provides basic health services for poor and uninsured women; wants to repeal the ACA which was modeled after his health care plan for Massachusetts and even lies about his own "plan"; wants to turn Medicare into a private, market-driven voucher system; lies constantly about the $716 billion that Obama has taken from Medicare to fund Obamacare when, in fact, the $716 billion represents cuts to providers and insurance companies; under Romney’s plan, recipients get cut. A system, albeit government run by people like you and me, which has no profit motive and does not deny coverage and medical care to people with pre-existing conditions makes far more sense than giving it to the insurance companies which deny coverage and care, whose primary goal is to reap huge profits and whose officers make millions in bonuses.

He won’t release his tax returns and has millions of dollars in foreign banks to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Tax havens in the Cayman Islands are primarily for tax evaders, and tax liability is impossible to determine because of the secrecy rules. If he was granted amnesty for foreign bank manipulation, it would show on his returns. How many of you hard-working people pay only 13 percent in taxes? He has an MBA, so he knows all of the tricks and tax-avoidance gimmicks. He made his fortune on the backs of hard-working Americans whose jobs he threw away so that he and other wealthy investors could become wealthier. That’s how venture capitalism works; you lose other people’s money, but never your own.

Many of his advisors (70 percent) are Bush chicken hawks; i.e., Bolton, Cheney, Senor, Sununu, etc., who are always looking for another war to be fought by other people’s children, never their own. He wants to increase spending for the military and the bloated Pentagon budget. With this increase in spending and his proposed tax cuts, he claims he will balance the budget, which is mathematically impossible without severely cutting benefits to people in need; i.e., the elderly, the disabled, etc.

Young women of Mathews and Gloucester, you especially should be terrified of a Romney/Ryan administration, unless you like the idea of radical, ignorant men interfering in your decisions regarding your bodies and your right to privacy.

I just received the quarterly statements for my IRA. The stocks in which I am invested are doing much better than in 2008. Despite high gas prices, something which no president can control, I am far better off financially than I was in 2008, plus I have a president who has always cared about the middle class and the "47 percent."

Helen Keitz

Mathews, Va.