The Romney Plan for Increasing Employment

The primary talking point for the Romney/Ryan ticket is that President Obama has failed to get the economy going enough to significantly lower the national rate of unemployment. In a word: jobs. Of course, they conveniently fail to mention that the recession was in full swing during the last year of the Bush administration. They also leave out the fact that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has stifled every administration effort to help the economy and that Senate Republicans have invoked the filibuster repeatedly to beat down any effort by the administration to ease the unemployment problem. In my opinion, the Republican campaign of obstructionism has been unpatriotic, irresponsible, and downright unAmerican. But that is another blog post.

But putting all that aside, what is the Romney/Ryan plan for increasing employment? Why should voters simply assume that they can do better? It's easy to stand up there on the podium and claim that you have some magical solution to every problem. Of course, Governor Romney has been somewhat vague as to his actual plan to increase employment nationally. 12 million new jobs he said last night. And I guess we have to assume that there will not be aggressive governmental action taken to achieve this goal, given the repeated criticism of the "Failed Stimulus" passed early on in President Obama's term. Republicans, let us remember, believe that the Free Market should be allowed to self-correct without government interference. Milton Friedman and all that.

So, what is the Romney/Ryan plan? A look at Romney's web site shows that the plan consists of lowering corporate taxes, lowering personal federal income tax rates on "job creators," and eliminating those pesky government regulations that they believe stifle business so. And while dramatically lowering taxes, he's also going to drastically reduce the debt. Basically, the old GOP staple: "Trickle-Down Economics." Famously once described by George H.W. Bush as "Voodoo Economics." Of course, we tried all that during the most recent Bush administration and it didn't work. Not only did it not work, but those policies were in full force and effect when the economy spun into the Great Recession prior to President Obama taking office.

Insanity is described as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So we are to believe that the self-same economic and fiscal policies that were in effect under President Bush and that failed to prevent the Great Recession and that took us deep into debt will now magically right the ship? Do Americans really want to go back to four more years of the Bush administration? I think that Mitt is basically just trotting our the old Voodoo Economics for another run. I think Mitt's plan should really be called "Harry Potter Economics." He is just going to get into the Oval Office and wave his wizard's wand and 12,000,000 new jobs will magically appear.