B-Rad wrote:
Since this is a pro-Romney thread I was wondering what exactly Romney's economic plan is and how it would help the nation Tdog?
Romney's economic plan is based around lowering the unemployment rate. He and Ryan have outlined a plan to reduce marginal tax rates for business and individuals along with eliminating many tax loopholes. The idea is that by doing so you get businesses to loosen their budgets, hire more, thus, reducing unemployment and raising tax revenues to the federal treasury. It's a fact that higher income earners take advantage of tax deductions and itemize at a higher rate on their tax returns so eliminating deductible items has the effect of richer people paying more in taxes as they do now. The last time this was done was during the mid-80's and the country enjoyed the biggest economic expansion in its history over the next 20 years !
Saying you will get the uneployment rate down is not an economic plan. Neither is trying to claim that you will lower everyones income tax rate by 20% but not explaining how that is going to happen or how we will pay for such a big drop. Corporations are sitting on more capital reserves today then ever in our history yet they are not hiring. It has nothing to do with how much money they have or how much they might be taxed (taxes in 2011 were the lowest rate in over 80 years). The reason our economy is suffering is because the middle class does not have the disposable income it used to. You also need to open a history book. The late 80s saw a massive recession and it wasn't until the mid 90s that we had an economic recovery.
One of the biggest drags on the economy is the high cost of health care. Romney/Ryan have laid out a plan to reduce cost of care and allowing open purchasing of healthcare insurance across state line, thus, reducing insurance premiums through competition. They have stated clearly on multiple occasions that this is only a plan for younger people as they are the group at risk of losing medicare benefits when it eventually goes bankrupt. Romney/Ryan have been the only side willing to be the adult in the room and admit that Medicare on its current trajectory has no hope of surviving. They want to save the safety net for younger generations that, the way things are going right now, will have none.
My state, Maine, did that two years ago and our insurance rates increased. There aren't other insurance companies in other states. The same big eight insurance companies dominate in the entire country. Medicare will not eventually go bankrupt. There is a shortterm problem with how we are going to get over the babyboomer demographic hump that will cause shortfalls in about 15-20 years. However, there are simple ways to make the program solvent for the next century without getting rid of it. What about the people who are in their late 40s or 50s and have been paying in for decades? The Romney plan is to steal their money!
I think the glaring difference between the two candidates is that Romney/Ryan want to do things that have actually worked to help the economy in the past as opposed to Obama who wants to fundamentally transform the nation into a western European style "socialist" economy that has proven to be a failed idea over and over again. Romney has been a success in business, understands economics and most importantly will do what it takes to get us on a winning arc again.
Again, open a history book. In the 50-60s the top income tax rate was 90%, we invested in infastructure and education, we expanded social saftey nets and we experianced the greatest economic expansion in US history. Also, in the 90s we raised the top rate, expanded social saftey nets and increased investment in education and infastructre and the economy expanded. THere is no evidence that shows trickle-down economics works. The Reagan years were a facade because he was vastly increasing debt spending and it was only for a few short years followed by a major recession.
I think most thinking people know that this economy is heading for another recession (1.2% growth last quarter). And, heading into a recession with 8%+ unemployment means we're heading to 12-14% unemployment in another recession. Obamanomics (stimulus spending (borrowed from China), bailouts, threats of higher tax rates on employers, government-run healthcare, perpetually low interest rates that penalize savers, perpetually higher education costs, perpetually higher government worker pension costs and on and on) have not worked and will never work.
Again with the BS. Higher education costs are Obama's fault!? He fought the GOP to keep interest rates low on student loans and the stimulus bill helped states fund education as their budgets shrunk. Ask any economist and they will tell you the stimulus prevented futher job losses. How is the ACA government run? It forces people to get PRIVATE health insurance (it was Bob Dole's plan, Mitt Romney's plan and pushed by the Kato Institute for years). Govt worker pension costs are Obama's fault. How so? Oh and bailouts started with Bush, actually they have been occuring for decades as Bain capital took a $20 million FICA bailout in the 90s.
It's time to try something that has proven to work. Not really sure how you can argue with this but I sure with someone on here would try and make an argument for 4 more years of Obama
