The Economic Policies Of Iowa's Winners (Romney vs Santorum)

Here in the nation's capital, Iowa seems far away. Not just in distance (1,016 road miles from the White House to Des Moines), but in how voting for Republican presidential candidates was organized.

Are Iowans who caucused Tuesday night representative of the American electorate? Does it matter that Rick Santorum, with 30,007 votes, was essentially tied with the leader in funding and organization, Mitt Romney, with 30,015?

Recall that only three Republican winners of the Iowa caucuses have gone on to win the Republican presidential nomination-Gerald Ford in 1976, Bob Dole in 1996, and George W. Bush in 2000. Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, Dole lost to Bill Clinton, and Bush won against Al Gore, but barely, after a drawn-out Florida recount and a Supreme Court decision.

Santorum's brand of family-based, free-market conservatism evidently resonated with many Iowa Republicans, especially rural voters.

Let's examine the economic views of the two Iowa winners, Romney and Santorum, without assuming prematurely that either will be the nominee. And let's not forget that the Congress, even if both chambers are Republican, will work its will on the proposals of a new Republican president.

Santorum would cut taxes across the board. The top individual rate would decline to 28 percent from 35 percent now. Small businesses owners who currently file as individuals would see their tax rates decline. Santorum would halve the corporate tax from 35 percent now to 17.5 percent, so firms would do better filing as corporations rather than as individuals.

Manufacturers would have a corporate tax rate of zero. Naturally, this would encourage companies of all stripes to describe themselves as manufacturers. Businesses would be allowed to write off in the year of purchase the entire cost of plant and equipment, rather than over several years.

Santorum would end estate taxes and reduce the long-term capital gains tax (for holdings of more than a year) and dividends from 15 percent now to 12 percent. Along with former Gingrich and Perry, Santorum favors creation of optional personal accounts as a way to reform Social Security. Ron Paul has proposed letting people opt out of Social Security entirely.

Romney would not lower taxes to the same extent. He has not promised cuts in personal tax rates, as have Santorum, Perry, Huntsman, and Gingrich. Individuals, and small businesses filing as individuals, would still be subject to a maximum rate of 35 percent. In taking this position, Romney presumably plays to moderate Republicans who worry about deficits.

Romney would, however, lower the top corporate rate to 25 percent (compared with 17.5 percent for Santorum). The ten percentage point difference between top rates for individuals and corporations would encourage some business owners to file as corporations.

Romeny would eliminate capital gains taxes completely for those earning under $200,000 per year, but leave the top rate at 15 percent for others. And he would eliminate the estate tax.

Romney has supported House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's December 2011 plan, cosponsored with Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, to reform Medicare by allowing seniors to choose from a variety of qualifying health plans, including traditional Medicare, rather than being required to sign up for Medicare plan. Ryan-Wyden offer federal help with private plan premiums as an alternative to Medicare.

Santorum goes further, and supports Ryan's April Medicare reform plan, which would transform Medicare altogether. It would, for those who reach age 65 in 2022, offer a choice of a variety of private health plans, with federal help, the amount depending on health and income, to pay premiums. Other seniors would remain on traditional Medicare.

It is noteworthy that although Medicare is often deemed untouchable by political analysts, the two winners in Iowa proposed to radically alter the plan.

This may prove to be a positive development, because Medicare is the source of the biggest future budget and deficit pressures as the population ages.

THE REAL DEAL: MITT ROMNEY - PROVEN-BAD GOVERNOR

"As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
* Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
* Between fall 2003 and autumn 2006, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly three times Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
* While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years.
"Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents," professors Sum and McLaughlin concluded.
In an April 2003 meeting with the Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington, Romney failed to endorse President Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal."
[Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.]

Willard is a plant from the DNC. Plastic Romney
cannot prevail because Americans
do NOT vote for dog abusers, flip floppers,
ineligible candidates (they have learned mucho),
and backstabbing cowards like Willard "Mitt" Romney.

And THAT is before you throw in Willard's BIG DIG
coverup, hard drive coverup, fake badges,
RomneyCARE, Romney vs. the Clerks, fake endorsements,
and now, possibly, a dozen fake votes.

The real Santorum:

In 2004, while serving as a United States Senator, Rick Santorum claimed his legal address was a house in the Pittsburgh suburb of Penn Hills, which was immediately next door to the home of his wife’s parents. During the spring and summer of that year — in the leadup to the presidential election — Pittsburgh news crews started investigating whether or not Santorum really lived in the house he claimed as his Pennsylvania residence. Several of these “investigative reports” showed the Penn Hills “Santorum House” as abandoned, with an unkempt lawn, peeling paint, and junk mail piled up near the front door – as if no one had visited the house in many months. When the cameras peeked inside the house, viewers saw room after room empty of any furnishings; it was clear that the Santorum family did not live at that residence at all.

* The Pittsburgh media made a great stink over this, which quickly spread to average men and women on the street who became upset that Santorum didn’t really live at his “official residence”. The reason this really hit home with Pennsylvanians was because Santorum had railed against Congressman Doug Walgren for moving out of his own district and not maintaining a real residence there. Pennsylvanians hate hypocrisy — and that’s just what Rick Santorum was…a hypocrite…for haranguing Walgren for not living in his district when Santorum himself didn’t even live in the state of Pennsylvania anymore.

* Records ultimately showed that Santorum lived exclusively in a $600,000+ near-mansion in Virginia. This is another thing you need to understand about Pennsylvanians to appreciate just how damaging this was to Santorum. On paper, Santorum claimed his residence was a $90,000 modest house in a suburb of Pittsburgh, when in reality that house was abandoned and Santorum was REALLY living in a house six times as expensive in another state. Here in Chicago, $600,000 can’t buy you a big house, but in Pittsburgh it would land you a palace…so the people who heard about Santorum’s residency scam were enraged that he “abandoned the state” and “lied to his constituents” by living in what they perceived to be a mansion instead of the Penn Hills residence he claimed.

* After the 2004 election was over, Santorum very quietly tried to eliminate the appearance that his Penn Hills home was abandoned by renting it out to unnamed individuals. This didn’t solve the problem, but only made things worse, because the renters registered to vote using Santorum’s Penn Hills address. It’s a similar situation to what Rahm Emanuel found himself in when he rented out his Chicago home when he moved to Washington, only to later try to claim he still lived there — technically — when he wanted to run for Mayor of Chicago. Just like with Emanuel, Santorum was able to survive the residency challenge because he paid $2,000 worth of property taxes a year on his Penn Hills home and still held its deed…even though he hadn’t lived there in many years and had no intention of moving back there (at least not until the lease expired with the people he rented it to).

* The net effect of all this was an ingrained sense amongst Pennsylvanians that Rick Santorum couldn’t be trusted, was a slippery snake, and that the things he did “just weren’t right, even if they were legal”.

* The other shoe to drop in all of this was the question of where, exactly, Santorum’s children were living and who was paying for their education — the people of Pennsylvania or the people of Virginia. Even though Santorum’s family was clearly living in Virginia, Santorum was billing the state of Pennsylvania — and the Penn Hills School District in particular — around $40,000 per child to educate each of his five children in the “Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School”. After the Pittsburgh local news stations started showing viewers the tours of Santorum’s empty and abandoned Penn Hills home, irate citizens started demanding an investigation into the legality of Santorum charging the Penn Hills school district for the expensive education of five children who didn’t really live there, and instead were living in Virginia.

* Things got incredibly ugly as this was all hashed out in both the media and in the court of public opinion. Ultimately, Santorum yanked his kids out of the “Cyber Charter School” program and had his wife Karen start homeschooling them instead — but he refused to reimburse the state for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that were spent “cyber-schooling” the Santorum children while they lived in the state of Virginia. When confronted about any of this, Santorum became incredibly brittle on camera, lashing out at those who questioned him, and earning a solid reputation as an insufferable and impersonable jackass

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