Romney may not be as extreme as Ryan, but he is cut from the same cloth. As he states on his web page, “The only recipe for fiscal health and a thriving private economy is a government that spends within its means.” This patently false. The only fiscally healthy or responsible policy is one that generates sufficient demand to hire all those willing to work. This does not include cuts to “non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent,” the shifting of federal government programs the private sector or state governments (entities that DO face a hard budget constraint), or, God forbid, a balanced budget amendment.
The US economy’s job creators are not, as Romney says, entrepreneurs and the wealthy, but the middle class. How can today’s unemployment be a function of overregulation and overtaxation when we are at or near historic lows in each? Rather, the problem, pure and simple, is demand. No amount of cost cutting will induce firms to expand employment in the absence of an increase in sales. Because this fact is lost on the Romney-Ryan ticket, their economic policies would be a disaster.
A popular means of increasing your credibility among Republicans is to compare yourself with Ronald Reagan. That’s a great idea. No president since WWII borrowed and spent more than he did. In fact, no one else (including Barack Obama) is even close. And those who argue that he was forced to do this against his will by a Democratic Congress simply don’t remember their history very well. Not only were the budgets passed never markedly different from those requested, but Reagan even famously quipped: “I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.” Quite right.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan–you are no Ronald Reagan.
Read more: Romney and Ryan's Disastrous Economic Plan - Forbes
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