We don’t need any more President’s acting as if Federal economic central planning should be deciding the fate of the economy.
For every economist that agrees with Romney, there are just as many who might disagree, and all the things in and out of government that have not yet happened and/or not yet decided, in and out of the United States can potentially be as big a factor as any mere tax policy decisions a President seeks for Congress to approve.
Centralized government forecasting precise economic outcomes down the road represent a mythological potential of a Presidents actions and a political minefield as well. The actual number of variables that will decide the fate of the economy over time far exceed any President’s grasp.
When we put such notions behind us and instead simply promote and expect the morally and economically best policies, because they are the best policies, morally and economically, the Liberty of the people and their markets will take care of the results.
If government has any pro-active roll it should NOT be in trying to shape the economy, but merely trying to provide the best legal and tax framework for a free market economy to flourish - which does not expect a Utopian result - and very short term, very temporary, very limited safety nets for those who will fall too far economically during any “down” cycles that will inevitably develop.
Government attempts to directly manipulate the economy by government policy and taxing interventions, to avoid or get out of “down cycles” has only made them worse, longer and more systemic.
Romney is showing he will not be a transformational President, loosening the economy from Federal strangulation. He wants that control as badly as Obama, he just thinks, in error, his “doing better” at Federal manipulation will work. It won’t. The economy desperately needs a revolution in what the government is and is not expected to do.
If there are frankly statist economic policies that Mitt is proposing today thinking that it would be better than a lot of laissez-faire, then by all means shout the specifics of that to the rooftops — but even then, keep a sense of proportion. What’s worse, one skunk or an acre of open air sewage plant?
Mitt’s at least in a position to appreciate what the golden rule would mean towards business and can’t want too badly to risk strangling that part of America’s economic engine. Obama never was.