Romney Says He’s the Man to Fix Economy
NPR-Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney compared himself favorably to two of his Republican White House rivals on Monday yet made no mention of a third, underscoring his strategy for next week’s Florida primary.
In television interviews and personal appearances, Romney said that unlike himself, both Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani would “have a relatively difficult time” strengthening an economy that is in danger of falling into a recession.
“I’ve spent my life, 25 years … in the world of business,” he said. “I know why jobs come and go.”
Gov. Romney On Stimulating The U.S. Economy
First half 2008: Recession
Second half 2008: Election
First half 2009: Transition
Second half 2009: Who ever wins gets a shot at doing something.
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The next president will have nothing to do with this recession or its recovery.
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Trust me on this one, folks.
You are correct David.
Also, by the time the next President takes office in 2009, the economies of the world will have changed. Whether for the better or not, this nation’s President will not have as much power as previous Presidents.
The world is in transition and power from Europe and the U.S. is moving to Asia where manufacturing for the world takes place. The world will be buying that much more from Asia in 2009 and the nations that “sell to the world,” like we used to, have the power.
From largest creditor nation to largest debtor nation, the U.S. has lost a lot of power and now is “servant to the lenders.” The next President will inherit a $10 trillion debt at current levels and the increased borrowing the Fed is going to do as a “stimulus” for the economy.
The next President will have to face the immigration problems that will still exist. The next President will still have the debt of individuals, corporations, cities and states dragging down the economy.
How does Romney expect to get people, cities and states that spend too much, to stop spending and saving and reducing debt, without a recession caused by saving and not spending as much?
I don’t know the answer to your question Jan Paul.
But I would much rather have Romney working on the solution then John McCain or (laughing) Mike Huckabee.
Randy, I agree with Romney over McCain
McCain’s solution is to immigrate 67 to 100 million immigrants to help keep workers to retirees at 3 to 1. Expanding quotas from one million to 3 to 5 million a year is part of immigration reform he supported, isn’t it? Keeping 20 million illegal immigrants here is another.
McCain may not have the best business experience either. I think Romney is better than McCain if for no other reason than being governor and having to oversee a legislature rather than be in one that is more interested in party power than in running the nation.
I don’t trust any of the people in Congress as President. Ron Paul has economic reforms that are needed but which would cause a recession so deep and hard (though needed) that Congress wouldn’t support the reforms he calls for.
If we are going to delay this crisis for as long as we can, might as well be Romney and a Democrat Congress that is or close to “veto proof.”
However, can Romeny beat Democrats if he calls for continuing tax cuts “to the wealthy?” Maybe if he supports democrat Charlie Rangel’s corporate tax cut, he can gain some popularity.
You may want to read what this article has to say about our nation’s spending.
quote:
In discussing the fiscal 2008 defense budget, as released to the press on February 7, 2007, I have been guided by two experienced and reliable analysts: William D. Hartung of the New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative and Fred Kaplan, defense correspondent for Slate.org. They agree that the Department of Defense requested $481.4 billion for salaries, operations (except in Iraq and Afghanistan), and equipment. They also agree on a figure of $141.7 billion for the “supplemental” budget to fight the “global war on terrorism” — that is, the two on-going wars that the general public may think are actually covered by the basic Pentagon budget. The Department of Defense also asked for an extra $93.4 billion to pay for hitherto unmentioned war costs in the remainder of 2007 and, most creatively, an additional “allowance” (a new term in defense budget documents) of $50 billion to be charged to fiscal year 2009. This comes to a total spending request by the Department of Defense of $766.5 billion.
But there is much more. In an attempt to disguise the true size of the American military empire, the government has long hidden major military-related expenditures in departments other than Defense. For example, $23.4 billion for the Department of Energy goes toward developing and maintaining nuclear warheads; and $25.3 billion in the Department of State budget is spent on foreign military assistance (primarily for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Republic, Egypt, and Pakistan). Another $1.03 billion outside the official Department of Defense budget is now needed for recruitment and reenlistment incentives for the overstretched U.S. military itself, up from a mere $174 million in 2003, the year the war in Iraq began. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently gets at least $75.7 billion, 50% of which goes for the long-term care of the grievously injured among the at least 28,870 soldiers so far wounded in Iraq and another 1,708 in Afghanistan. The amount is universally derided as inadequate. Another $46.4 billion goes to the Department of Homeland Security.
Missing as well from this compilation is $1.9 billion to the Department of Justice for the paramilitary activities of the FBI; $38.5 billion to the Department of the Treasury for the Military Retirement Fund; $7.6 billion for the military-related activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and well over $200 billion in interest for past debt-financed defense outlays. This brings U.S. spending for its military establishment during the current fiscal year (2008), conservatively calculated, to at least $1.1 trillion.
Financial Armageddon: On the Road to Ruin
In 2002, Rumsfeld said
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“According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,” Rumsfeld admitted.
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This is what the GAO told Congress in this years report
quote:
GAO is responsible for auditing the financial statements included in the Financial Report, but we have been unable to express an opinion on them for the 10th year in a row because the federal government could not demonstrate the reliability of significant portions of the financial statements, especially in connection with major financial management challenges at the Department of Defense.
Government Accounting Office
The rest of the article describes other thing about our spending and nation that details the problems we face and that none of the main candidates for 2008 are addressing very well.
Romney is a disingenuous political hack.
His dad was a governor, then Romney became a wealthy “leveraged buyout” investor (billions of $$$), and then he went on to have a political career himself as governor. How is this any different from Bush (other than Romney was successful in business, and Bush’s dad was president)?
Romney is a Mormon-flavored Bush all polished up for the press. Fools.
“What would it cost to buy the support of just about every nationally syndicated neocon talk show host in America? About $19.5 billion, which is what Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital, and Thomas H. Lee Partners have agreed to pay in a leveraged buyout agreement with Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio station owner in the country. This is part of a negotiation that has been pending for over a year.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/017694.html
(the war drums always come in loud and “clear” when all the talking heads are on the same team)
When you have the nation on the course it is on, you can have the “train wreck” we are headed for happen sooner or later depending on the party you elect. If you want to keep more business here, then elect politicians that cater to business but, that comes with a “military price tag.”
As the article points on in “Road to Ruin,” we are in such a mess that any end to corporatism is going to cause massive layoffs and a recession in about 3 years or less depending on how rapidly the spending is cut. You can’t take even 1/2 of the trillion in military spending out of the economy without dropping GDP into recession mode. Yet, to continue on this course can’t be sustained either. Nor, can continued increases in social spending if we are going to try and tax business and investment more than what our competitors in other nations do.
So, neither party can help the nation. Each has their special interest demanding more from the Federal government but, those demands are fiscally unsustainable in both parties. They are different but both unsustainable.
PMS Menace – re post #6
Now there’s a really well-thought-out argument.
Are you really that brain dead?