NAKED N00B
Active member
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2012
- Messages
- 386
- Reaction score
- 224
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
I'm sort of like a prickly pear. I'm rough and hard to deal with at first, but then you get down to my sweet juicy fruit. But after that, when your hands are bloody and sticky, you're thinking 'was that even worth it?' The prickly pear and I are also both aphrodisiacs.
I would normally agree with you when you say you cannot judge an entire political career based on choice pieces of legislation. After all, Santorum voted for bill which would fund planned parenthood. Gingrich supported the individual mandate at one time. I think the main difference, for me at least, is that Romney's health care overhaul was the crowned jewel of his tenure as Massachusetts governor. It was something he pushed through. It was a piece of legislation for which he set goals beyond what others were proposing. Lofty goals are certainly not a problem, but they tell a lot more about a person than meager goals on relatively insignificant legislation. Romney wanted to get something big done. He wanted a good legacy. He wanted to solve a big problem. And he used a pretty good dose of government intervention to do that. Gingrich had welfare reform. Ron Paul has whatever number of nutty proposals he put forth. Rick Santorum is less of a closed case. He's known for his aggressive foreign policy and archaic attitudes towards sex, but less evidence exists for his fiscal conservatism. He was part of what I consider Bush's five biggest pushes - NCLB, tax cuts, Medicare overhaul, war on terror, and the unsuccessful push for privatized social security. Two of those he has said he wished he has not voted for and would fight for their repeal. That's more of a reaction to popular opinion than a shift in ideology. If there were anything I would compare Romneycare to for Santorum, it would be those five things. But he has turned on the two which are least conservative, and they were proposed by a Republican president. I think that combined with his social views why he doesn't catch the heat that Romney does. So while it may be unfair to judge a political ideology based on a single bill, the actions of a man when responding to high goals regarding an important problem says much more about his character than rhetoric on the campaign trail.
And you're absolutely correct. I have not read all 160 pages of Romney's economic plan, although I plan on it when he eventually wins the nomination. I can tell you from the summary that I don't disagree with some of his proposals. We all support free trade. In my short time on this forum, I've already defended substantially lowering the corporate tax rate and I'm open to the possibility of a complete abolition. The problems I have are the red herrings. China's currency has been appreciating over the last year or two. The main problem with China isn't its currency as much as it is the blatant intellectual property theft. Risking a currency based trade war isn't worth it right now. Romney should focus more on the real problems with China. He also heavily relies on that old conservative favorite that regulation, specifically that imposed by the Obama administration, is the problem with the economy right now. It's not. That much is clear. Anyone who says the main problem is anything other than a shortage of demand caused by debt overhang just doesn't have their head on straight. His tax policy is just flawed, especially for the cap of 20% GDP. While you claim 20% is a historical mean, it just doesn't play out.
The only time we've gone above 20% is with the Clinton tax rates during a health economy. We also touched there just before Reagan's first tax cuts. I wouldn't advocate going back to the pre-Reagan tax rates, but it does show that higher rates don't produce diminishing receipts anywhere close to our current level of taxes. Cutting taxes as dramatically as Romney proposes will not come close to the 20% line. I don't have fancy models to go by so it's worth very little, but 17% with his proposed tax rates seems pretty reliant on some incredible growth. Something that won't happen with the austerity measures he is proposing.
And I agree with you that presidents are given too much credit/blame for economic performances under their watch. My only point with that was that you can either accept past policies have no bearing (as Romney seems to be doing by crediting Obama with the monstrous job losses from his first few months) or you can recognize that previous influences can be to blame. Bush had much of his economic data measured from his administrations low point in 2003. Clearly the tech bubble was not his. I don't count that against him.
You and I aren't too far apart, but the biggest problem I have with your post is the last. No one is claiming that deficits at 10% of GDP are sustainable. I think this year's is actually estimated at 7-8, but your point stands. The deficit is almost entirely a product of the economic downturn. It's based on diminishing revenue based on lost jobs, increased spending on safety net programs, and a shrinking GDP. Once healthy growth resumes, that deficit will come down naturally. I'm not as hard on Bush as a lot of other liberals are. Much of his healthy economy was based around the housing bubble, but by 2007 his budget was pretty manageable. If it weren't for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he probably would've had a balanced budget. If it weren't for the bursting of the housing bubble, we'd probably be running a surplus right now, especially with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. This is just going to show that our deficit isn't structural and it isn't part of a long term plan. It's a product of the economy of the last four years. That's not to say there isn't long run trouble which needs to be addressed, but it has nothing to do with the current budget deficits. It relies entirely on health care and social security. The rates at which health care are rising are unsustainable. Obamacare aimed to attack that, I think it was poorly designed and mistimed.
