The document is called Believe in America: Mitt Romney’s Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth.
This is the plan. This is it. When skeptics allege that Romney-Ryan offer no specifics on what they will do if they get in to office, this is the rebuttal. This. One-hundred and Sixty-One Republicanatastic Reaganified glorious pages of pure untrammeled conservocentric yummy awesome sauce. Come and get it!!
So I went and got it. And then I went through it. And here, progressive boys and girls, is what I found. I am here to tell you so you don’t have to go through what I did.
I will have to do this in parts. There is no way to go through 161 pages in one diary. Much of it is fluff, but for the parts where he offers something that might somehow resemble a specific policy if you squint hard, I want to parse it out as much as possible.
So this installment will only cover the opening sections.
First we are treated a three-page foreword written by R. Glenn Hubbard. Dr. Hubbard is an economist with a Harvard PhD in Economics, has been with Columbia University since 1988 as a professor and has served as the dean of the Colombia Business School since 2004. He was also the Deputy Assistant Secretary at the US Treasury under Treasurer Catalina Villalpando at the end of the G. H. W. Bush administration.
It should be noted that in three pages of this ever-so-effusive foreword, he makes no mention of Mitt Romney’s policies. He talks about how big of a threat the economic crisis poses, quotes a number of his Columbia University colleagues and the single reference/endorsement of Governor Romney is
Governor Romney’s economic policy grasp, clarity, and leadership offer a clear path forward.
The End.
For the record, page 1 is a title page. So for those keeping and score at home, that lowers the “awesome sauce” page count to 160. The Romney logo is officially “not awesome”.
Page 2-5: A letter from Mitt himself! He opens with “Things are happening in America today that break my heart” and lists out all sorts of things that have never applied to him or his family: debt, underemployment, joblessness, foreclosure, etc.
A 21-year-old today fresh out of college is facing very different conditions from those in place when I graduated.
This is actually true. It is a statistical fact that few 21-year olds are a) fresh out of college since most people graduate high school at 18 and b) have a father that is a former governor, HUD Secretary, Car Company CEO, Presidential Candidate and multimillionaire. ..but that is mainly because they are lazy and don’t appreciate their Freedoms.
Then he takes a few shots at Obama and ends with “My experience could not be more different from his.” Yes Mitt. We know. That is one of many reasons that we are not voting for you. And then…
Page 7: BAM! Specifics! Right there in White and Black (or in Romney parlance, “Base and Shouldn’t-Vote”) in a section boldly labeled “Day One, Job one”. (I say “boldly” not in the “picking Paul Ryan for VP” sense of the word, but in the "Ctrl-B" sense of the word. Seriously, the font was in bold.)
He clearly states that he will submit a jobs package containing AT LEAST five major proposals to Congress on Inauguration Day and demand Congress act with 30 days AND that he will use every power at his disposal to ensure its passage. Five! “At least”! It might be 20 for all you know!
Now aside from the checks and balances system we have in this country and a little snag in Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution that says ” All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States” which puts a wee bit-o-rain on ye ol’ The-President-Will-Demand-Congress-Act-Within-30-Days parade… let’s have a look at these Major Proposals.
(I should stop here for a second to preemptively point out…. …he doesn’t actually list the language specifics of these proposals. I know, I know… I had the same mixture of face-palm and not-surprised as you, but… it is what it is. Let’s just get through this.)
Major Proposal Numero Uno: The American Competiveness Act
“Reduce the corporate income tax rate to 25%”.
For those that may not know, our current corporate tax rate is anywhere from 0% to 39%, depending where your corporation falls within the Tax code. And OBVIOUSLY this is way too high because a high tax rate KILLS the economy. This is an absolute fact. Just look around at the third-world shit-holes too stupid to understand this like Japan (41%), Brazil (34%), France (33.33%), Italy (31.4%), Australia (30%), Germany (29.8%), Luxembourg (29.63%) and the infamously rat-infested open sewer of Europe, Sweden (26.3%). Our new rate will get us MUCH closer to the capitalistic powerhouses of Botswana (15%), Macau (12%), Albania (10%) and the untouchable ultra-elite in Burkina Faso (10%).
Major Proposal Numero Dos: The Open Markets Act
“Implements the Colombia, Panama and South Korea Free Trade Agreements.”
That is a quote. And I used a quote out of fairness, because I have no idea what this means. Implement? As in “enact”? A) Again, with the whole separation of powers thing, only Congress can enact these things. This isn’t a Presidential demand. But, more importantly, b) These are already in place! And they all passed under the Obama Administration.
The US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, the Panama-US Trade Promotion Agreement and the South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement all passed Congress on October 12, 2011. Columbia and Panama went into effect in May 2012. South Korea went into effect in March 2012.
So um, Yay for Romney for DEMANDING that Congress enact trade agreements that have been in effect for 8, 8 and 10 months, respectively. Now THAT my friends, is what you call a “Major Proposal”.
Major Proposal Numero Tres: The Domestic Energy Act
“Directs the Department of the Interior to undertake a comprehensive survey of American energy reserves in partnership with exploration companies and initiates leasing in all areas currently approved for exploration”
Drill, baby, Drill! And he’s serious.
Does it matter to anyone that there has been more oil drilling under President Obama then under President Bush? No? Didn’t think so. Does it also matter that Obama’s Energy Blueprint includes everything from Oil to Gas to Solar to Wind to Battery Technology, to everything else you can think of? It should. It really should.
But….you can’t spell GOP without the “O” and that “O” stands for OIL!
Major Proposal Numero Cuatro: The Retraining Reform Act
“Consolidates the sprawl of federal retraining programs and returns funding and responsibility for these programs to the states”
Ah yes, “Consolidate”! What an efficient buzz-wordy sounding business term. This is right in Romney’s wheelhouse. Why, it makes perfect sense that the Native American Employment and Training Program and the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program get all consolidated with the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Program and the National Guard Youth Challenge Program. Just lump ‘em all in together. It’ll work!
Now to be fair the GAO did recommend that the Federal Government consolidate and streamline these offerings since they reside in separate agencies. They recommended that they be combined into a single entity as a one-stop shop for citizens to be able to review and apply for aid through a single channel. Kind of like USA jobs does for Federal Employment.
But that’s not what Romney means when he says “consolidate”. Here are actual quotes from a Romney Campaign Stop in St. Petersburg, FL on May 16, 2012:
"Do you know how many federal job training programs there are? 49 different federal job training programs that report to eight agencies.”
"I want to take those dollars, put them together and give them to the state of Florida and say, ‘You create the program that’s best for your own people, that puts people to work.’
Take those dollars? Give them to the State of Florida? That’s not “consolidate”; that’s “eliminate”.
Furthermore, taking money from the Federal Government and giving it to the State Governments is not called “reducing spending” it’s called “sending tax dollars somewhere else”. It’s also called “welfare”.
Major Proposal Numero Cinco: The Down Payment on Fiscal Sanity Act
"Immediately cuts non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent, reducing the annual federal budget by $20 billion"
Nothing says sharp-eyed policy wonk like a nice round numbered broad-brushed across-the-board spending cut.
I’m not entirely sure how to parse this since it apparently based on RomneyRyan-math.
Discretionary Spending in the FY2013 budget was listed as $1.51 Trillion. If you remove the discretionary budgets of DoD($666.2B), Homeland Security($54.9B) and National Intelligence($52.6B), it is $1.336T. Let’s assume he also includes the VA ($60.4B) and the Army Corps of Engineers ($8.2B), it’s still $1.268T.
5% of that is $63B not $20B. $20 billion would be 1.5% and I really don’t see Romney making a “Major Proposal” about 1.5% percent. That would leave poor people with FAR FAR too much funding and services.
Next comes the Executive Orders that he will also issue on Day 1. I'll list those in another diary.