What Romney Wants

So, is the endless Obama bashing you see here getting to you? Yeah, me too. I have known since about Jan 1, 2010 who I was voting for in 2012. Anybody but Obama. Any hopes President Obama was more than I thought he was was wrung out of me by then. True, if Bachmann or Gingrich became the "R" nominee I might have drove past the voting booth in November. To be sure, either would be ultimately better than Obama,  but it would have been a long, long four years. I am glad Romney made it. He is, in my opinion, fairly moderate I don't worry too much that he is planning on a radical transformation of a country and a system that just needs some serious tweaking.

So what is Romney proposing? Boilerplate stuff mostly. Significant in that it is a departure from the Federal government expansion and the pure cronyism we have seen since the second GW Bush term straight through Obama. The thing is, I trust that a man who has a reputation of rolling up his sleeves and getting down to the business of turning a failing enterprise around is just what we need. We don't need empty soaring rhetoric from a man with his nose up in the air anymore.

Here are the simplified economic policy directions Romney promises to pursue, right from his website:  
My comments in red.

Individual Taxes
   -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)
All of these are fine with me - but we see nothing about broadening the tax base and eliminating loopholes that advantage only the very rich as is noted in Paul Ryan's plans

Corporate Taxes
The U.S. economy’s 35 percent corporate tax rate is among the highest in the industrial world.
True, it is a fact, but almost no corporation pays this, with loopholes etc etc many huge companies pay next to nothing
    -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)
Again all of these are fine - but we see nothing about eliminating loopholes that will force gigantic companies to pay something allowing start-ups and small companies a chance to compete

Regulation
    -Repeal Obamacare
    -Repeal Dodd-Frank and replace with streamlined, modern regulatory framework
    -Amend Sarbanes-Oxley to relieve mid-size companies from onerous requirements
    -Initiate review and elimination of all Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy
I agree with all of these, the last one is critical -  I suspect there are time-bombs in store for us on the regulatory front...

Reform Environmental Regulation
    -Ensure that environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process
    -Provide multi-year lead times before companies must come into compliance with onerous new environmental regulations
Would like to see a focus on putting the EPA under the authority of Congress

Adopt Structural Reforms
    -Impose a regulatory cap of zero dollars on all federal agencies
    -Require congressional approval of all new “major” regulations
    -Reform legal liability system to prevent spurious litigation
Good start

I find most these positions acceptable but worry that not much is outlined for getting spending under control. I realize if the economy takes off again revenues will rise - but the spending is so beyond what a growing economy can cover for. I don't freak out over reasonable deficits, but Obama's deficits are not even close to reasonable.

Just getting President Obama out is reason enough to vote Romney, but frankly this policy direction is a less than it needs to be.

Mitt, go bold, please.



CW