Mitt Romney’s campaign seems to be absent of solid policy proposals and an explanation of how he would get our economy back on track. Romney is running the most policy-free campaign we have ever seen. What are his economic, energy and foreign policy proposals? Nothing, besides very vague and unspecified tax proposals. He has focused nearly entirely on criticizing Obama’s record, rather than how his own would help the country. It is good politics to not lay out a solid plan, but bad policy.
Romney has proposed massive tax cuts ”” overwhelmingly favoring the rich ”” and massive spending cuts into unspecified discretionary spending, especially for the poor, with the closing of unspecified tax loopholes. He claims to propose tax cuts for everyone that would allegedly help economic growth, but when it comes to how this would be funded, he seems to prefer us getting back to him after the election. Such a tax proposal would explode the deficit (which he campaigns on criticizing Obama for adding to), cause an increased tax burden on the middle class or result in serious cuts disproportionately burdening the bottom of the income spectrum.
Romney is obviously not true to his promise to create a society in which everyone has the equal opportunity to succeed. It amazes me that a candidate can have so much support whose proposals are so blatantly and overwhelmingly construed for the super rich. And he seems to think any criticism of this is an attack on success or a call for increased jobless welfare abuse.
Paul Ryan’s “Medicare plan,” accompanied by other spending cuts, reduces spending by about $1.7 trillion over the next decade, but does not use this to reduce the deficit or pay off the debt. Rather, it will fund $4.3 trillion worth of tax breaks, especially for the rich. Ryan’s tax breaks are so much greater than his proposed deficit reduction, his “Medicare plan” will result in a stark deficit increase, and yet he is still pretending to be a deficit hawk.
Hardly a realistic address of our national debt or strong economic leadership.
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William S. • Sep 19, 2012 at 12:56 am
This article is written as if Obama had a plan in 2008, or has a plan in 2012. If you look at what Obama said in 2009, such as his pledge to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, and his promise to lower unemployment to below 8 percent, and his promise to create 600,000 jobs by summers end if congress would only pass his recovery plan (which congress did, causing Obama to back track on his promises by cracking a joke about shovel ready jobs not being shovel ready) then you can see how far his “Hope and Change” economic plan worked for America.
Instead of attacking Romney on his economic plan, which is far more than Obama had in 2008, perhaps the author should hold his elected leader to account. If the electorate can’t exercise intellectual honesty in holding their leaders to account then the entire country suffers.
JoshL • Sep 13, 2012 at 6:23 pm
Just to be clear, the Romney campaign is not equal to the proposals on his website. It’s all his speeches, his statements to press, his advertising, etc as well. It’s the basic strategy employed to win the election. Some of Kiernan’s statements could have been made more carefully, but saying Romney has a plan on his website doesn’t refute the article.
What is actually hilarious is that Danilson uses proportionality to describe income tax breaks for everyone, but not to describe increase in debt and disregards circumstances in which the debt is incurred, and he lacks any analysis of which programs and policies actually increase the debt the most and who pushes for them. When you take this into account, his hyperbolic statements become vapid.
Harold Danilson • Sep 13, 2012 at 5:07 pm
There are so many misleading things in this piece that it’s laughable. Mitt Romney does have a plan to pull us out of the Obama economy, in fact he has a 57-point comprehensive plan that you are clearly too lazy to look over. One of them is cutting business-recrutive regulations so businesses can actually create jobs. Unlike Obama, Romney wants to give tax cuts to the rich, middle class, and the poor because he wants to give everyone an equally proportionate tax break to avoid any class warfare. Also, you are so quick to forget that the debt increased more under four years of Obama than all of the first 42 presidents combined.
JoshL • Sep 12, 2012 at 2:26 am
Thank you for putting this in the paper. Some much needed exposure to this perspective from people besides in the comment section. I’m not sure we get the same consideration from the audience.