Mitt Romney introduces "business plan" for the economy
Presenting what he called "a business plan for the American economy," Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Tuesday laid out the 10 actions he'd take to revive economic growth on his first day as president.
"The world has changed," Romney said during a campaign stop in Las Vegas. "So our economic strategy has to be brought up to date."
The 10 immediate actions Romney laid out today are part of his new economic plan, which consists of 59 proposals largely familiar to GOP audiences. They include eliminating the capital gains tax for "middle-income" taxpayers and instituting other tax reforms, scaling back regulations, standing against union interests and expanding domestic energy production.
The former Massachusetts governor made a point of showing his Nevada audience that he was not using a teleprompter but just written notes on his plan in order to have a true "conversation" about the economy. To illustrate the way the world has changed, Romney used the example of the growing use of smartphones in place of payphones.
Speaking just days ahead of President Obama's planned economic address before a joint session of Congress, Romney said the president doesn't understand the new economy.
"President Obama's strategy is a payphone strategy, and we're in a smartphone world," he said. "What he's doing is stuffing quarters into the payphone and wondering why it's not working -- It's not connected, Mr. President."
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The plan the president will lay out on Thursday will amount to "another stimulus and more quarters" which won't put America back to work, Romney said.
The GOP candidate said that his plan could grow the economy at a rate of 4 percent a year and add 11.5 million new jobs for Americans within four years.
On his first day in office, Romney said he'd submit five bills to Congress and sign five executive orders, including one bill to reduce the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent. He'd also introduce a measure to implement the free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea -- agreements Mr. Obama has also asked Congress to act on.
"For high-productivity nations it's good to have trade, as long as the nations we trade with play by the rules," Romney said, calling China a "currency manipulator."
One of his executive orders would officially dub China a currency manipulator and sanction the country if it did not quickly move to float its currency.
Romney's third bill would facilitate broader domestic energy production. He'd sign a corresponding executive order to streamline the issuance of drilling permits to boost energy production.
His fourth bill would consolidate job retraining programs. His final bill would immediately cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent.
Two executive orders would take on regulatory actions implemented by the Obama administration. The first would roll back the "Obamacare" health care law. According to a fact sheet from the Romney campaign, it would direct federal officials to "return the maximum possible authority to the states to innovate and design health care solutions that work best for them."
Another executive order would direct agencies to eliminate all Obama-era regulations that "unduly burden" the economy. His last order would reverse executive orders signed by Mr. Obama that "tilt the playing field" in favor of organized labor.
"We have to recognize our nation is in competition with other nations around the world," Romney said.
Romney's speech drew criticism from both his GOP and Democratic opponents. Ben LaBolt of the Obama re-election campaign said Romney "offered a plan that would tip the scales against hard-working Americans."
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, another GOP presidential candidate, argued today that Romney had a failed economic record as governor. Mark Miner, a spokesperson for Texas governor and 2012 presidential candidate Rick Perry, similarly said that as governor, Romney "failed to create a pro-jobs environment and failed to institute many of the reforms he now claims to support."
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that a top rate on high individual earners should be increased
to 50%, in line with the more enlightened European nations.
The fact is, 80% of high paid US executives could be replaced
(all things being equal) successfully by educated menial
workers. If you want to bust a bloated union ,why not go after
the self-besotted union of over-rated progeny of the rich. They
are the ones that should be disenfranchised more than any.
The "drill baby, drill" energy theme is also overated. In the long
term, conserving our oil, while using up theirs, is clearly to our advantage.
Although regulations do at times impeed economic growth, sometimes
even staunch Republicans might support them if for example, a rich
vein of platinum was discovered directly under their rich suburb.
Increase corporate taxes, increase taxes on imported piece parts, and get people off unemployment and working on infrastructure such as power grids and transportation corridors.
Romney may think it's witty to call it a smartphone era, but he needs an upgrade to a 4G phone.
second any money that is invested in US will be in stuff that employs the fewest people possible (see the commercial with all the driverless forklifts), so although profits and the market goes up, that does not necessarily mean the job market gets better at the same rate.
That is why the Predident is NOT analogous to the CEO of a company.
Then there is all that ignorance of how the worldwide economy works today. Frankly, there are no economists that have a recipe out of the zero interest, deficit spending, zero tax interest, non-Keynesian, Non-Friedman, Non-neoliberal (a.k.a. free market solves all), house of cards that we have deregulated ourselves into.
Romney is frankly whistling in the graveyard.
See....he is just like Obama.
Also, destroy the middle class. His comment about "competing" with other countries obviously means Americans are overpaid. So, we all take a pay cut. How is that going to help us buy things to create economic activity?
We've been largely following the Republican way for the last thirty years, ever since Reagan was elected. How has that been going for us? Huge budget deficits, huge trade deficits, the loss of millions of jobs. Do we really need some more of that? No, we do not. Hopefully the voters will send Mitt home, and soon.