AND YET … THAT’S THEIR PLAN!

We need to be skeptical when Mitt Romney tells us that HE has the answers to turning our economy around. For starters, there are forces from outside our nation — primarily in Europe, including Greece, Spain and Portugal … and also China — that are impacting our ability to bounce back quickly from this Great Recession. For better or for worse, America is a part of the global economy.

But polls are showing that, at this point anyway, America is buying the idea that Romney would be a better president for the economy. Some voters who are looking for easy answers seem to be attracted to the idea that Romney’s business background would make him a better choice for turning the economy around and creating jobs.

When he presided as Governor of Massachusetts his state was number 47 out of 50 in job creation. And his record as a “vulture capitalist,” as one of his opponents in his own GOP primary called him, does not support his claim of having created 100,000 jobs … not even close. Mitt Romney’s brand of capitalism is not illegal, but it is predatory … and it certainly is not in the business of creating jobs for Americans.

Eugene Robinson wrote for The Washington Post this morning a column titled, Romney is no economic savior. I highly recommend it, as it makes many of the same points I’ve made in this article. Eugene says, “Let’s have this discussion.”

To kick off the discussion, I offer the following question: Do businessmen actually make better presidents? Here’s a detailed, informative article on the history of businessmen/presidents: US News article, Sorry Mitt Romney, Good Businessmen Rarely Make Good Presidents.

But, even without the historic perspective of how well our nation fares under the leadership of a businessman, a quick perusal of Romney’s and the GOP economic plan for today’s America gives rise to plenty of eyebrow raising moments.

To begin with, it is agreed by everyone on both political sides that the most effective way to eliminate budget deficits is to start with creating more jobs. More jobs will result in more tax revenues and the budget deficits can come down, AND more jobs will mean more money in the economy and a higher GDP. A virtuous cycle will begin — you know, the way President Clinton did it!

Democrats have concrete plans to produce more jobs and get our economy moving — rebuilding our infrastructure, re-hiring fire fighters and school teachers, enacting tax cuts for small businesses to spur business growth, and letting the Bush Tax Cuts for the already-wealthy lapse to help close the budget gap — while the GOP’s jobs plan is the George W. Bush Plan.

That’s right: The GOP plan for the economy is still the same old plan as George W. Bush’s, i.e. cut taxes for the already-wealthy and cut government spending. We need to be clear that cutting government spending means cutting jobs. Cutting jobs means less money in the economy and a faltering recovery, followed by bigger deficits and a vicious cycle. Check out a previous CLN post for more detail on the subject HERE.

And yet, taking more money out of the economy and giving it to the already-wealthy is only one of the questionable points in Romney’s economic plan. He is also running on rolling back the minimal financial regulations that were enacted, following the financial meltdown, to protect the economy.

The news this week that J.P. Morgan Chase has recently lost $2B with risky investments tells us that the big banks have NOT learned the lesson of the Great Recession. If the financial regulations passed by Congress had been implemented, instead of watered down by lobbyists, this risky gambling by J.P. Morgan wouldn’t have happened. And yet, that’s their plan — roll back financial regulations and unleash the greed of Wall Street.

These re-hashed and failed GOP theories are what Romney and GOP candidates continue to run on. The evidence proves that cutting taxes for the rich only leads to devastating budget deficits for the country, and big fat Swiss bank accounts for the rich. And unfettered capitalism with minimal regulations leads to financial meltdown.

Democrats and the GOP truly have two different visions for our country; one is based in theory and ideology, the other in pragmatism and evidence.

The austerity economic plan that Romney is planning has already been tested in Great Britain. The results: They are slipping into another recession, deficits are soaring, and joblessness is going in the wrong direction. Real life laboratory: The US had a stimulus and the economy bounced up off of the bottom and continues to grow; England instituted an austerity plan and they’re in a 2nd recession.

The claim that if America votes Republicans into power once again that they will balance the budget and produce jobs is a fantasy and just plain false. They will do exactly what they did before when they were in control in D.C. They will wreck the economy, plunge what’s left of the middleclass into poverty and cut off government services, set the financial sector up to fail once again, and if all the Neocon advisors in the Romney campaign have anything to say about it we’ll surely invade Iran and Syria!

AND YET … THAT’S THEIR PLAN!