The Romney Plan

[Howie Felterbush]

Wouldn't it be great if America had a European century? I think it builds cohesion for outside groups to arrogantly lord over other nations.

I'm pretty sure we had those up until the late 1700's.

 

[R.Mackey]

Yep, 1640 - 1775. Been there, done that, moved on.

Perhaps Romney is trying to distinguish his campaign from "An African Century?" That's a joke, not pulling race cards, moving right along...

 

[RandFan]

I'm pretty sure we had those up until the late 1700's.

Oh, no doubt, and look what it did for us. We desperately need another one. I would suggest we even change our name from America to little Europe. Just think what that will do for us.

 

[Puppycow]

And the official Romney page has a listing of Romney's position on various issues:
http://www.mittromney.com/issues

From his own page:

Individual Taxes

America’s individual tax code applies relatively high marginal tax rates on a narrow tax base. Those high rates discourage work and entrepreneurship, as well as savings and investment. With 54 percent of private sector workers employed outside of corporations, individual rates also define the incentives for job-creating businesses. Lower marginal tax rates secure for all Americans the economic gains from tax reform.

Make permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates
Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains
Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
Eliminate the Death Tax
Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)

Corporate Taxes

The U.S. economy’s 35 percent corporate tax rate is among the highest in the industrial world, reducing the ability of our nation’s businesses to compete in the global economy and to invest and create jobs at home. By limiting investment and growth, the high rate of corporate tax also hurts U.S. wages.

Cut the corporate rate to 25 percent
Strengthen and make permanent the R&D tax credit
Switch to a territorial tax system
Repeal the corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)

From the Tax Policy Center analysis:

Also in the absence of such base broadening, TPC estimates that on a static basis, the Romney plan would lower federal tax liability by about $900 billion in calendar year 2015 compared with current law, roughly a 24 percent cut in total projected revenue. Relative to a current policy baseline, the reduction in liability would be about $480 billion in calendar year 2015.

Back to Mitt's own campaign page:

Mitt's Plan

As Commander-in-Chief, Mitt Romney will keep faith with the men and women who defend us just as he will ensure that our military capabilities are matched to the interests we need to protect. He will put our Navy on the path to increase its shipbuilding rate from nine per year to approximately fifteen per year. He will also modernize and replace the aging inventories of the Air Force, Army, and Marines, and selectively strengthen our force structure. And he will fully commit to a robust, multi-layered national ballistic-missile defense system to deter and defend against nuclear attacks on our homeland and our allies.

This will not be a cost-free process. We cannot rebuild our military strength without paying for it. Mitt will begin by reversing Obama-era defense cuts and return to the budget baseline established by Secretary Robert Gates in 2010, with the goal of setting core defense spending — meaning funds devoted to the fundamental military components of personnel, operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development — at a floor of 4 percent of GDP.

This is a massive increase in military spending:
Defense spending to spike $2.1 trillion under Romney

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Mitt Romney is campaigning on a platform that emphasizes less spending, smaller deficits and renewed fiscal responsibility.

But in one budget area, Romney is running the opposite direction. The former Massachusetts governor wants to increase defense spending by leaps and bounds. By one estimate, additional spending would exceed $2 trillion over the next decade.
. . .
With the Pentagon's base budget -- which does not include war costs -- forecast to hit 3.5% of GDP in 2013, a jump to 4% would mean an increase of around $100 billion dollars in defense spending in 2013.

The additional spending really piles up in future years.

Put the tax cuts and extra military spending together and you increase the deficit by $690 billion per year. How's he going to offset that?

Which brings us to the matter of the deficit or the national debt.
What does Romney's own page say about that issue?

Let's see . . .

searching . . .

Bupkis!

He doesn't an official position on the deficit or the national debt!

OK, he does have an issue page on spending. Let's see what that says:

Set Honest Goals: Cap Spending At 20 Percent Of GDP

Any turnaround must begin with clear and realistic goals. Optimistic projections cannot wish a problem away, they can only make it worse. As president, Mitt’s goal will be to bring federal spending below 20 percent of GDP by the end of his first term:

Reduced from 24.3 percent last year; in line with the historical trend between 18 and 20 percent
Close to the tax revenue generated by the economy when healthy
Requires spending cuts of approximately $500 billion per year in 2016 assuming robust economic recovery with 4% annual growth, and reversal of irresponsible Obama-era defense cuts

Take Immediate Action: Return Non-Security Discretionary Spending To Below 2008 Levels

Any turnaround must also stop the bleeding and reverse the most recent and dramatic damage:

Send Congress a bill on Day One that cuts non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent across the board
Pass the House Republican Budget proposal, rolling back President Obama’s government expansion by capping non-security discretionary spending below 2008 levels

Follow A Clear Roadmap: Build A Simpler, Smaller, Smarter Government

Most importantly, any turnaround must have a thoughtful, structured approach to achieving its goals. Mitt will attack the bloated budget from three angles:

The Federal Government Should Stop Doing Things The American People Can’t Afford, For Instance:
Repeal Obamacare — Savings: $95 Billion. President Obama’s costly takeover of the health care system imposes an enormous and unaffordable obligation on the federal government while intervening in a matter that should be left to the states. Mitt will begin his efforts to repeal this legislation on Day One.
Privatize Amtrak — Savings: $1.6 Billion. Despite requirement that Amtrak operate on a for-profit basis, it continues to receive about $1.6 billion in taxpayer funds each year. Forty-one of Amtrak’s 44 routes lost money in 2008 with losses ranging from $5 to $462 per passenger.
Reduce Subsidies For The National Endowments For The Arts And Humanities, The Corporation For Public Broadcasting, And The Legal Services Corporation — Savings: $600 Million. NEA, NEH, and CPB provide grants to supplement other sources of funding. LSC funds services mostly duplicative of those already offered by states, localities, bar associations and private organizations.
Eliminate Title X Family Planning Funding — Savings: $300 Million. Title X subsidizes family planning programs that benefit abortion groups like Planned Parenthood.
Reduce Foreign Aid — Savings: $100 Million. Stop borrowing money from countries that oppose America’s interests in order to give it back to them in the form of foreign aid.

If pursued with focus and discipline, Mitt’s approach provides a roadmap to rescue the federal government from its present precipice. But that respite will be short-lived without a plan for the looming long-term threat posed by the unsustainable nature of existing entitlement obligations. Learn more about Mitt’s proposals for entitlement reform: [links to Medicare and Social Security]
Empower States To Innovate — Savings: >$100 billion
Block grants have huge potential to generate both superior results and cost savings by establishing local control and promoting innovation in areas such as Medicaid and Worker Retraining. Medicaid spending should be capped and increased each year by CPI + 1%. Department of Labor retraining spending should be capped and will increase in future years. These funds should then be given to the states to spend on their own residents. States will be free from Washington micromanagement, allowing them to develop innovative approaches that improve quality and reduce cost.
Improve Efficiency And Effectiveness. Where the federal government should act, it must do a better job. For instance:
Reduce Waste And Fraud — Savings: $60 Billion. The federal government made $125 billion in improper payments last year. Cutting that amount in half through stricter enforcement and harsher penalties yields returns many times over on the investment.
Align Federal Employee Compensation With The Private Sector — Savings: $47 Billion. Federal compensation exceeds private sector levels by as much as 30 to 40 percent when benefits are taken into account. This must be corrected.
Repeal The Davis-Bacon Act — Savings: $11 Billion. Davis-Bacon forces the government to pay above-market wages, insulating labor unions from competition and driving up project costs by approximately 10 percent.
Reduce The Federal Workforce By 10 Percent Via Attrition — Savings: $4 Billion. Despite widespread layoffs in the private sector, President Obama has continued to grow the federal payrolls. The federal workforce can be reduced by 10 percent through a “1-for-2” system of attrition, thereby reducing the number of federal employees while allowing the introduction of new talent into the federal service.
Consolidate agencies and streamline processes to cut costs and improve results in everything from energy permitting to worker retraining to trade negotiation.

Assuming for the sake of argument that Romney's proposed cuts really would save as much as he claims, the cuts add up to $319.6 billion. That's assuming that "Empower States To Innovate" will really save the federal government $100 billion per year and that he can really find $60 billion in "Waste and Fraud" to eliminate. If those things don't pan out, the savings are more like $170 billion. But even if it's $320 billion, that falls $180 billion short of the savings he says he needs to achieve to cap federal spending at 20% of GDP. And considering that his tax cuts and increased military budget will add $690 billion per year to the deficit, he still increases the deficit by $370 billion per year. No wonder he doesn't have an issue page on the deficit.

BTW, every presidential candidate ever promises to eliminate "Waste and Fraud" but I'm not aware that any has ever made a significant dent in it.

"Empower States To Innovate" is a euphemism for cutting federal government aid to states. Thus states would have to find a way to provide the services they currently provide for less money or cut back those services, or raise taxes. If they manage to find a way to provide the services they currently provide for less money, great. I think that's a dubious proposition.

 

[R.Mackey]

"Empower States To Innovate" is a euphemism for cutting federal government aid to states. Thus states would have to find a way to provide the services they currently provide for less money or cut back those services, or raise taxes. If they manage to find a way to provide the services they currently provide for less money, great. I think that's a dubious proposition.

Yup, that one really leapt out at me. Note that the larger the alleged "savings," the fewer the details... Anyway, this transfer of costs to the states has been underway for years now, and predictably the states have been "empowered to innovate" by laying off close to a million people. Amazingly, this hasn't resulted in a stunning economic turnaround, nor a huge dent in the deficit.

But maybe when Mitt does it, things will be different!

 

[Corsair 115]

Maybe he wants us to annex Afghanistan and Pakistan as our 51st and 52nd states.

Do they have oil? Because I thought it was all about the oil. (If it is, then Alberta should be annexed as the 51st state.)

Wouldn't it be great if America had a European century?

Wouldn't that depend on which century you're talking about? I mean, the first half of the 20th century for Europe was, ah, a bit turbulent.

 

[BenBurch]

Corsair, I cannot think of a non-turbulent time in Europe.

 

[Puppycow]

Interesting article on this topic:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/mitt-romney-tax-cuts-bain-barack-obama.php?m=1

 

[Puppycow]

Romney's official page is rather a hoot.

I click in to the first issue, "Afghanistan and Pakistan." As far as I know, he's said next to nothing about foreign policy and seems generally uncomfortable with it -- but this is a significant national interest. Anyway, the first thing I see is the banner reading

Afghanistan & Pakistan AN AMERICAN CENTURY.​

An American Century?? What the flack?

Look buddy, Real Americans don't care about what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

See:

Mitt Romney Adviser: 'Real Americans' Don't Care About Candidate's Afghanistan Policy

A senior adviser to Mitt Romney declined to provide more specific details on the presumptive GOP nominee's plan for Afghanistan on Thursday, saying it was a distraction from what "real Americans want to talk about."
. . .
On MSNBC on Thursday, Romney Senior Communications Adviser Tara Wall was asked about Rogin's article and whether Romney should have a more specific policy on Afghanistan before his upcoming trips to Israel and London. Wall replied that these "attacks" were a distraction from the more important issues of jobs and the economy:

I’m not going to get into the details of that. I’m here to talk about again, once again, the jobs situation, the economy, the growth that we need and what this governor is planning on doing in that regard and what this president has failed to do. [...]

These are the issues we need to be talking about. And we need to be talking about how this president has failed to address that, has failed to talk about that and continues to malign small business. Those are the things that I’m here to talk about, that I think we need to continue to focus on, that this campaign will focus on. […]

Unfortunately it’s disappointing that the attacks, these recent attacks on all these issues outside of what the issues are relative to Mitt Romney are diverting away from what real Americans want to talk about. And real Americans want to talk about getting back to work.​

Questions about Romney's foreign policy plans are "attacks" and "real Americans" don't care about an ongoing war in which over 50,000 of our nation's soldiers are still engaged and which costs the nation somewhere between $4 and $7 billion dollars a month to prosecute?

 

[R.Mackey]

I guess that's why Romney made it the #1 item on his policy webpage, then.

 

[Toke]

One of the candidates (Obama or Romney) had this to say recently. Can you tell which one it was?

I see an America with a growing middle class, with rising standards of living, [with] children even more successful than their parents....This America is fundamentally fair....In the America I see, character and choices matter. And education, hard work, and living within our means are valued and rewarded.

You have had something like 30-40 years with stagnating real wages in spite of increased productivity. It has not been good for the middle class.

Romneys ideas for tax-cuts at the top and savings elsewhere will be another step in eliminating the American middle class. Rather sad as it is one of the mayor differences between 1. and 3. world countries.

 

[Toke]

I guess that's why Romney made it the #1 item on his policy webpage, then.

Come on, actual policy is a secondary issue and can simply be listed in alphabetic order.