"I have this many positions on every issue"
Posted on 01/05/2012 2:14:46 PM PST by SupplySider
Paul Hoffmeister is the chief economist at Bretton Woods Research, LLC.
According to the polls summarized by RealClearPolitics, Mitt Romney has been unable to win more than 25% of the Republican vote for the party’s presidential nomination for more than a year. This is because the former Massachusetts governor is not a pro-growth Republican. Instead, his economic platform reflects a man who is devoutly Keynesian, and who, as president, would not be able to reinvigorate the U.S. economy.
A pro-growth Republican is a “supply-sider” who believes that stable money, low taxes, and limited regulation produce prosperity. And as Art Laffer has said, if regulatory policy is important by a factor of 1, then tax policy is important by a factor of 10, and monetary policy by 100.
The purpose of these bedrock principles is to encourage capital formation, and thereby raise the national standard of living. The virtuous, supply-side process starts like this: 1) low taxes increase the amount of capital available to invest in businesses; and, 2) stable money, low tax rates, and limited regulation increase the after-tax returns on investment.
Stable money eliminates the risk that inflation will depreciate the real value of future cash flows and the severe boom-bust credit cycles that threaten the very survival of businesses. Low tax rates obviously increase after-tax returns. Limited regulation removes the obstacles in the way of doing business, thereby reducing costs and increasing returns.
When more capital is available for investment, and the monetary, fiscal and regulatory conditions are supportive of attractive after-tax returns, the amount of capital in the economy increases relative to the supply of labor. That is, the capital-labor ratio increases. This is important because the only way to increase real wages is to increase the amount of capital relative to labor.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Well, Romney appearsto be above 25 at the moment. 29 in rasmussen, 27 in Gallup. And rising in both.
He was stuck in the 20-25 range for a long time. Unfortunately, it seems like onne of the alternatives was really able to make their case and sustain it to enough people.
Cain is out. Bachmann is out. Perry may as well be out. Newt is falling fast. Santorum is the only one left. Maybe can do it, but he has his own issues. He got lucky in that no one gave him any attention all year so he ended up the last one standing in IA. We’ll see how he does.
But Romney appears to be on the upswing. A big win in NH will only help that.
SC will be the real key. If he wins there...
"I have this many positions on every issue"
Low spending? Low deficits? Balanced budgets?
Or don't those things matter?
Sheesh. Give him a break. You can only write so much in one sentence before it becomes a run-on.
Mittens has had short term swings towards 30% before in select polls. Right now he is at 26% in the RCP averages which is still in his steady flat line. A win in NH will matter not for Mittens because everyone expects it.
Romney gives me nightmares about Court Appointees ... Northeast Liberal Republicans (Bush I) give us Justices like David Suter.
Someone write a memo the pols that we want the 70,000 pages of taxcode burned? A do over.
Romney needs to step up on this,
or indicate willingness to listen to the incoming Conservative Controlled Congress.
This needs to be the relentless focus.
But why has it taken Forbes so long to figure this out? I find Forbes and the Wall Street Journal to be increasingly irrelvent. Any so-called business publication that print an analysis of stock market happenings with a straight face is no more than a gussied up Onada propaganda organ.
Sounds like it's the other way around: stable currency being a natural result of less spending and debt.
Finally in a high real growth environment it is easy to raise tax revenue, reduce social services payouts, all while dropping tax rates. That makes it a lot easier to balance the budget.
You'd think so. But it hasn't happened that way in recent years. Keeping taxes low convinced politicians that they didn't have to cut spending, not that they needed to.
When somebody starts banging the "pro-growth" drum, listen carefully to make sure the tune doesn't end with "deficits don't matter."
None of this lets Romney off the hook, of course. But I'd be wary of "Club for Growth" types attempting purges when they also have things to answer for themselves.
There will always be alternatives to voting for Romney.
He will find SC an unpleasant experience.
LLS
I think he’d immediately jump over 25% if he embraced Reaganomics, instead of cowering in fear of being identified as one of the “1%”.
“When somebody starts banging the “pro-growth” drum, listen carefully to make sure the tune doesn’t end with ‘deficits don’t matter.’”
That’s for sure.
And Reagan never said anything remotely in favor of deficits, despite the attempts by the ‘deficits don’t matter’ crowd to claim him. In Reagan’s farewell speech he said the one regret he had from his Presidency was his failure to avoid deficit spending.
You're forcing Romney toward a clear free market agenda. Thanks!
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