Romney will not become President "Moderate Mitt"

David Frum believes Romney is lying and that's the reason to support him

David Brooks and David Frum, my favorite conservative pundit, both endorsed Mitt Romney in the last week, both seemingly supporting him in hopes that he is really lying and would really govern as "Moderate Mitt."

I understand this impulse. If you are one of the few prominent moderate Republicans remaining, you must convince yourself that the Presidential candidate would govern more to your liking or else there would be little reason to remain a Republican at this point. At the Congressional level, moderate Republicans are practically extinct. The last chance for a moderate Republican to have any impact on the party is at the Presidential level and he/she will have a really tough time making it through a primary. Romney, to his credit, did win the primary rather easily. But his path isn't likely to be repeated by future moderates. They just don't make many as shameless as Romney, and only someone lacking in any conviction could reinvent himself on virtually every issue in such a short period of time.

Here's the thing though, history shows us Presidents try to keep campaign promises. Frum, at least circles this square, but pointing out that with the Democrats likely to retain control of the Senate, Romney won't be able to follow through on a lot of the crazy misguided stuff he promised his base during the campaign. It's not a very comforting thought to a liberal like myself that the future of ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, etc, may hinge on a handful of Senate Democrats not caving and voting with the Republicans.

So the argument seems to go: vote for Romney because he's really been lying to us and will govern as a moderate....oh and if he wasn't lying, well the Democrats in the Senate will save us from "Severely Conservative Mitt."

I admire the hope that Romney is secretly running to stick it to the majority of his party and will govern as a moderate. It just seems extremely unlikely. I seem to remember a lot of moderates making the same case about George W. Bush in 2000. And while Bush was more moderate when it came to immigration, since his party was more moderate on that issue at the time, he governed as advertised or even more extreme than how he campaigned on virtually every other issue. As former President Bush said, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Romney's Economic Plan Doesn't Actually Solve Any Problems

Here's my plan: The super rich get these big pieces of the pie. Everyone else gets the crumbs. (AP)

Many of you may recall the parable of the "streetlight effect." It goes something like this: A policeman sees a man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what he's lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the man replies, no, that he lost them somewhere else. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the man replies, "this is where the light is."

It highlights a bias where people only look for solutions where they are easiest or most familiar. You saw this come in to play with the invasion of Iraq, fulfilling a long-time goal of the NeoCon foreign policy intelligentsia, regardless of the facts. And in the case of Mitt Romney's economic plan it really highlights a conservative bias in recent decades, where they see lower marginal tax rates for upper income people as the solution to every economic problem, even when all objective analysis says it wouldn't actually help the current situation. The solutions to our economic problems may be over here in the dark, but conservatives prefer to push for lower taxes for rich people over there in the light.

Only a supply-side true believer could look at what has happened to economy over the last 10 years and conclude that what we really need is another round of budget-busting tax cuts for the super rich.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post and others have been pointing this out for months.

I asked two economists to take a look at that question. Their conclusion: While both said they support some of Romney’s long term goals, they both agreed that Romney’s ideas would do little or nothing to fix the immediate crisis, and could in the short term make things worse.

He said he would tap our energy resources to “put a lot of people to work in the energy sector.” He said he’d repeal Obamacare, which is “scaring small businesses from hiring.” He said he’d balance the budget so people know “investing in America is going to yield a return in dollars worth something.” He vowed to “open up new markets in American trade.” He said he’d revamp the National Labor Relations Board and lower tax rates on employers, both of which would make it easier to hire people.

“Are all these things going to reduce the unemployment rate from eight to five in two years? No,” Joel Prakken, the chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, tells me. He described Romney’s ideas as a “a bundle of reasonable policy proposals that could well stimulate the economy from the supply side over a number of years, but would do little to stimulate aggregate demand in the short run. The reason that unemployment is as high as it is is inadequate aggregate demand, not inadequate supply.”

“On net, all of these policies would do more harm in the short term,” added Mark Hopkins, a senior adviser at Moody’s Analytics. “If we implemented all of his policies, it would push us deeper into recession and make the recovery slower.”

Sargent's post delves into the specifics of his five-point plan. So please go read the whole column. And in fact Romney's plan is largely the same five-point plan that both George Bush and John McCain ran on in 2000, 2004, and 2008. Once again, no matter what the ailment is, Republicans offer the same old prescription every time.

Or as President Obama put it in his convention speech:

...And I ran for President because I saw that basic bargain slipping away. I began my career helping people in the shadow of a shuttered steel mill, at a time when too many good jobs were starting to move overseas. And by 2008, we had seen nearly a decade in which families struggled with costs that kept rising, but paychecks that didn’t; folks racking up more and more debt just to make the mortgage or pay tuition; put gas in the car or food on the table.

And when the house of cards collapsed in the Great Recession, millions of innocent Americans lost their jobs, their homes, their life savings, a tragedy from which we are still fighting to recover.

Now, our friends down in Tampa, at the Republican convention, were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right.

(APPLAUSE)

They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan. And that’s because all they had to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years:

“Have a surplus? Try a tax cut.”

“Deficit too high? Try another.”

(LAUGHTER)

“Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning.”

(APPLAUSE)

Now, I’ve cut taxes for those who need it, middle-class families, small businesses. But I don’t believe that another round of tax breaks for millionaires will bring good jobs to our shores, or pay down our deficit. I don’t believe that firing teachers or kicking students off financial aid will grow the economy, or help us compete with the scientists and engineers coming out of China.

(APPLAUSE)

After all that we’ve been through, I don’t believe that rolling back regulations on Wall Street will help the small businesswoman expand, or the laid-off construction worker keep his home. We have been there, we’ve tried that, and we’re not going back.

We are moving forward, America.

(APPLAUSE)

I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy. I never have. You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear.

OBAMA: You elected me to tell you the truth.

(APPLAUSE)

And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It’ll require common effort, shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one.

Ezra Klein Demolishes Romney's 47% Argument

 (source: Mother Jones)

A video surfaced today, first broken by David Corn of Mother Jones with Mitt Romney talking about 47% of the country (the number who roughly pay no income tax) with the edited comments in the image above.

And well, I'll just re-post Ezra Klein's twitter timeline from earlier today.

1. Here’s the policy two-step behind Romney’s remarks.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

2. Rs have spent years cutting income taxes and increasing things like the Child tax Credit. This means fewer people pay income taxes.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

3. So whenever you hear a stat like "47% don't pay income taxes," remember: Reagan and Bush helped build that.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

4. These tax cuts for the poor were partly in order to make further tax cuts for the rich political palatable.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

5. But now that fewer people pay income taxes as a result of GOP policies, they’re being called lazy and dependent.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

6. And thus the GOP's tax cuts are being used to make a case that the rich are overtaxed and that the less-rich are becoming dependent
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

7. Which thus leads to a policy agenda of tax cuts for the rich and cuts to social services for the non-rich.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

Step 1: Cut income taxes. Step 2: Not enough people are paying income taxes! Step 3: Cut income taxes. washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-kle…
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

And then after Romney gave a statement, Klein responded with another series of tweets:

1. What I like least about Romney's comments is the idea that the working poor don't "take responsibility for their lives
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

2. The thing about not having that much money is you have to take responsibility for things the rich take for granted.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

3. That's the thing about being rich: it buys you services and ease. You get to focus on what you want to focus on.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

4. The problem for the poor, often, is they don't have time or energy to focus on the things that make you rich.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

5. Romney was able to sell his dad's stock to pay for school. He didn't have to work to support his sisters at age 17.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

6. And good for him! That's the dream. But to look at the working poor and say they don't take responsibility? It's backwards.
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

7. And that matters, as if Romney is president, his understanding of what stands between the poor and prosperity will inform national policy
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) September 17, 2012

Paul Ryan is a Fraud

 I can't tell them we really plan to end Medicare as we know it. I'm running for President for pete's sake. (CNN)

It'll be interesting to see how the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket handles criticism of their budget plans in the upcoming days. The next week or so will likely frame how both campaigns talk about his issue from now until November, barring a potential reboot during the conventions.

At least when it comes to specifics, both are already distancing themselves from the budget blueprint laid out by Ryan nearly two years ago, which Romney had previously voiced support for up until about 96 hours ago. Romney even went so far as to say he'd sign Ryan's budget into law within the first 100 days of his administration.

Previously we've heard how "courageous" Ryan is to put forth such a budget that compels us to have a "serious conversation" about changing Medicare from a contribution program to a voucher program and potentially changing other entitlements. The beltway media love to have serious conversations about having serious conservations about cutting entitlements, as long as their sizable beltway media incomes aren't taxed at a higher rate.

But now that his plan is receiving more scrutiny outside the beltway and outside the base of his party, so far Ryan is backtracking awfully fast and Romney is claiming Ryan will fall in line and disavow his plan, even though it's the same plan Romney said he would sign if he were President.

That would seem to be the opposite of "courageous." It isn't all that courageous to propose a budget plan that carries out a 40+ year goal of the movement conservatives in your party, which includes upper income tax cuts and entitlement and spending cuts that transform the budget in a way that most  Americans do not support.

In 2003-04, a young rising star in the Democratic Party named Barack Obama received some coverage for his "courageous" stance against the Iraq War. Much like Ryan's budget plan, his position was very popular among the base of his party, but less popular with independents and the other party. And then imagine a world where during the 2008 campaign, Obama attempted to run away from that position, or at least perhaps tried to muddy the waters to try to conceal what his original position was, when it turned out 2/3 of the country held the opposite opinion. There would be a lot of terms to use to describe Obama's new messaging - politically savvy, hackish, etc, but "courageous" would not be a term anyone would use. Yet with Ryan, he's still portrayed that way by most of the balance-obsessed media.

Here's the thing, either Ryan's plan does what it says it does or it doesn't. If it does, then all the attacks the Obama campaign is going to make on it are mostly accurate. If it doesn't, then the plan was a fraud to begin with and Ryan should have no credibility on these issues. Or as Paul Krugman, Jonathan Chait, and others suggest - perhaps the plan is honest about the massive cuts, while being fraudulent when it comes to revenue estimates and deficit reduction. And the clarity isn't helped when Romney keeps signaling that the Ryan plan is great, but also is different from his plan in many, many secret ways that he'll be glad to tell us all about after we elect him President.

In any case the Republicans have a huge problem right now. At least one of the following three things must be true: 1)their Presidential ticket plans to end Medicare as we know it, while cutting taxes for upper incomes, 2)their budget plan couldn't possibly work, not should it be taken seriously, and/or 3)the result of their plan will severely increase the deficit, painting their 3+ year campaign in favor of deep spending cuts to reduce the deficit as nothing more than a charade to co-opt the Tea Party and re-take power.

So which is it?

The Bain of Romney's Existence

 Mitt-gomery Burns?

 "Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you." --C. Montgomery Burns

As the drip, drip, drip of the stories about Bain Capital, tax returns, and overseas tax shelters continue, I keep wondering how, after running for President for 5+ years, did Mitt Romney allow these issues to continue to fester. Certainly you'd think someone like Romney would at least have the self-awareness to know that Swiss Bank accounts, Cayman Islands bank accounts, and a record of closing companies and outsourcing jobs just might not be all that popular with American voters.  

Does someone of Romney's status just think all of this is normal? You might attribute a never-before-seen level of arrogance, entitlement, and privilege to someone who thought he could run for President (twice!) and not have to provide legitimate answers to all of these questions. I think even Gordon Gekko would have the self-awareness to know what he did would not be viewed positively by most voters and would have figured out how to spin it better.

Romney obviously knew as far back as mid-way through his term as Massachusetts governor in the mid-aughts that he was going to run for President. At that point if you were Romney's strategists, wouldn't you advise him to begin shedding the overseas tax shelters and Swiss Bank account and bring that money home? If it wasn't presently happening on recent tax returns, you could always dismiss the charges as "old news." And wouldn't you have been able to mount a coherent, believable defense of your record at Bain Capital? Maybe something a little better than "I'm not going to apologize for my success."

Nobody wants you to apologize for your success, Mr. Romney. You have every legal right to all that money you earned and to the money you saved from the taxes you avoided paying. But the American people don't have to laud you for the way you made your money, nor do they have to appreciate how you used loopholes and shelters to avoid paying your fair share in taxes.

And to try to sell people on the idea that venture-capitalists' goal is to create jobs is laughable. As Washington Post business/economics columnist Steve Pearlstein pointed out a few years ago:

In the real world, businesses exist to create profits for shareholders, not jobs for workers. That's why they call it capitalism, not job-ism. There's no reason to beat up on business owners and executives simply because they're doing what the system encourages them to do.

And I think that's exactly right. Bain Capital, like all businesses, exist to make one thing: money. Job creation only occurs when a company believes the added labor will create more profit. You don't run a business with the goal of creating jobs; you run a business to make a profit. 

And as a guy running a venture-capital firm, it's perfectly reasonable for Romney to have participated in leveraged buyouts, loaded companies up with debt, outsourced jobs, closed companies, etc., all in the name of creating profits for shareholders. I don't like it, but that's what venture-capitalists do. In fact, as a guy running a company such as this, if he didn't try to do everything he could to maximize profits, he should have been relieved of his duties. But again, Americans don't have to like it.  While parents hope the best for their kids, does any parent really have dreams of their kid ascending to an executive job in private-equity?  

That's why CEO's of venture-capital and private-equity firms typically don't run for President - for one it's a huge pay cut. And voters usually want to believe Presidents understand their problems, and can relate to them, and not appear to be, as Mike Huckabee famously noted about Romney, "the guy who fired you."

So from 1977 until the present, Mitt Romney has had five public endeavors: 1)worked at and eventually ran Bain Capital, 2)ran unsuccessfully for MA Senate in 1994, 3)helped run the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games, 4)served as governor of MA for 4 years, and 5)has run for President for 5+ years.

Obviously #2 and #5 aren't really something to emphasize. #3 is a nice story, but not really the kind of thing people look for in a presidential candidate. So that leaves his time as MA governor and his time at Bain. He's doesn't talk much about his time as a technocratic, moderate governor thanks to the right-ward tilt of his party in the last 4 years. So that leaves Bain and he has been reluctant to tell the whole story of his time there.

I'm a little biased here, but it just feels like the whole picture isn't complete. He seemed to bank his entire campaign on being the acceptable generic candidate in an election that was going to be singularly about holding the incumbent accountable for the slowly-recovering economy. Maybe being the "other" in that binary choice will be enough if the economy stays the same or gets worse. But as it is looking now, that strategy came with big risks (letting your opponent define you, economy improving, etc) and the consequences of those risks are on display this week.

I don't see any way Romney can put these stories to rest without releasing several more years of tax returns, along with documents from Bain from 1999-2002 showing what his role in the company was. Releasing the hounds isn't going to work.