The Republican Party is obviously pretty good at shooting itself in the foot, so I agree with others who believe that Obama's re-election may be a better-than-even bet, although obviously a lot can happen between now and November.
But Romney's economic "plan" -- whatever it may be -- could hardly be as bad as Obama's, which in brief terms can be described as the following:
1) Pay off favored constituents with a virtually unprecedented tsunami of spending on practically everything imaginable, under the guise that we needed a huge "stimulus package", although at no time in history has such an effort ever boosted the economy to greater prosperity. (And it's been tried plenty of times.)
2) Score a big political victory by cramming through a health care "reform" plan, no matter how expensive it is, how much it needs to be adorned with payoffs of one kind or another to get enough votes for passage, and no matter how much its overhang of uncertainty damages the economy.
3) Cut taxes for lower income groups as much as possible. When it's no longer possible to further cut
income taxes, slash payroll taxes by two percentage points, and claim that we then need even more payroll tax cuts. Follow up by claiming that such further cuts would be an integral part of a "jobs bill."
4) Answer predictable angst about the deficit with politically popular tax increases on the "wealthy", even though it's obvious to any reasonably well-informed person that would make barely a dent in the deficit.
Debate on the latter point is getting ridiculous. Check out this nonsense from The
New York Times editorial board:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/op...ml?ref=opinion
These clowns think raising the capital gains tax rate to the rate on ordinary income would raise an
additional $45 billion per year!
No one ever learns anything from history. Pushing the capital gains tax rate to nearly 40% was tried in the 1970s. It backfired. The rate was then dropped back to 28% in 1978, even with Jimmy Carter in the White House and a large Democratic congressional majority.
If I'm ever in a New York restaurant and am advised that everyone at a nearby table is a
New York Times opinion writer, I'm going to ask what they're drinking. That must be some damn good stuff!
