What Romney stands for = globalization, privatization, deregulation and government cuts
Mitt Romney has clinched the Republican nomination, so it's time to ask what a Romney administration would be like. Since everyone agrees that the election will be about the economy, it makes sense to start the campaign off with that.
Well, we have a model for what Republican economic policy is like: It is the George W. Bush administration. Bush was elected on the same platform Romney advocates: globalization, deregulation, privatization, and cuts in taxes and government spending.
So what happened when Bush was elected? As is normal, Bush did not get the full-bore conservative agenda promised in the campaign. But we got a good bit of it. The deviations from that agenda such as the prescription-drug giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry were political payback. That always happens.
But the hard-core Republican drive to minimize government is the center of it all. Romney wants to continue the basic drive to privatize governmental functions, globalize manufacturing and deregulate the financial sector. Romney intends to build on what Bush began.
Indeed, we can expect it all to happen again. Even if it didn't turn out to well.
In 2000, incoming President George Bush took over a booming economy. He inherited a federal budget surplus of $236 billion, an unemployment rate of 4 percent and an average GDP growth rate for the previous four years of 4.4 percent. And the Dow was at 11,250. The economy was as good as it gets.
Bush should have dampened the economy with increased taxes. Instead, like most Republicans, he ignored the Keynesian lessons of the Great Depression. He stimulated a bubble economy by cutting taxes and giving away the surplus. Romney's proposals to balance the budget in the midst of a weak economy reflect the same kind of perversity and refusal to learn from history.
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http://www.ldnews.com/ci_20795390/romney-using-bushs-failed-playbook?source=most_viewed
