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The Economist on Romney’s Fiscal Policy – James Kwak- The Baseline Scenario

This is a syndicated repost published with the permission of The Baseline Scenario. To view original, click here. Opinions herein are not those of the Wall Street Examiner or Lee Adler. Reposting does not imply endorsement. The information presented is for educational or entertainment purposes and is not individual investment advice.

By James Kwak

It should be no surprise that I am voting for Barack Obama on Tuesday, despite all his flaws and failures of the past four years. There are just too many dimensions on which he is clearly preferable to Mitt Romney. One of the more important ones, on which I spent most of last year (writing White House Burning), is fiscal policy. And here, since anything I write will be dismissed by many readers as liberal propaganda, is The Economist on the topic:

“Yet far from being the voice of fiscal prudence, Mr Romney wants to start with huge tax cuts (which will disproportionately favour the wealthy), while dramatically increasing defence spending. Together those measures would add $7 trillion to the ten-year deficit. He would balance the books through eliminating loopholes (a good idea, but he will not specify which ones) and through savage cuts to programmes that help America’s poor (a bad idea, which will increase inequality still further). At least Mr Obama, although he distanced himself from Bowles-Simpson, has made it clear that any long-term solution has to involve both entitlement reform and tax rises. Mr Romney is still in the cloud-cuckoo-land of thinking you can do it entirely through spending cuts: the Republican even rejected a ratio of ten parts spending cuts to one part tax rises.”

That’s just about the same summary I would have written.

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