Mitt Romney Will Gain by Focusing on the Economy
January 18th, 2008 by eric
“It’s the economy, stupid.” -again. All of the GOP candidates have been slow to realize that we have a looming economic meltdown. It was just a few months ago that the big campaign topics were illegal immigration, Iraq, and health care. The Democrats were quicker to pick up on recession signs and incorporate messages about improving the economy in their stump speeches. Some of the Dems have even come out with economic stimulus proposals already.
“And By The Way, I Don’t Believe We’re Headed Into A Recession. I Believe The Fundamentals Of This Economy Are Strong, And I Believe They Will Remain Strong.” -John McCain, January 10, 2008
He’s already started to change his tune as voters have shifted their concerns. Here are some evidences that we are looking at a big problem ahead of us.
- The dollar has fallen sharply over the past several months against foreign currencies. Gold is up indicating that people are hedging. Commodities are up. Wheat, rice, soybeans, and corn jumped to record highs in 2007.
- Meanwhile, stocks are falling. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell several hundred points in just the past couple weeks.
- There was the aforementioned subprime crisis and foreclosures are high. Because of this, investors and banking institutions are skittish. Lending has tightened. The housing market is in the biggest slump in decades and home owners equity is falling due to so many foreclosures in neighborhoods and a glut of homes on the market. New home sales and construction are off sharply.
- Food inflation in 2007 jumped at the fastest pace since 1990. 4.9% in 2007 up from 2.1% in 2006
- Unemployment is relatively high, up slightly at 5%. Wages are stagnant.
- The price of oil has approached 100 dollars per barrel adding an estimated $1000 or more in additional cost to the average US family for gas expenses over 2006.
- Banks have recently announced the write offs of billions of dollars in bad debt and foreign businesses and foreign governments have taken equity positions in U.S. banks as a bailout.
The awakening realization comes at a great time for Mitt Romney. He is the candidate with a solid, well known reputation for returning struggling companies, entities, and even governments to prosperity. When Mitt Romney began his term as governor of Massachusetts there was a debt of over two billion dollars. Romney pledged to bring them out of debt without raising taxes. It was an amazing feat that he did that in only one year in office by slashing waste, reducing spending, and consolidating government offices. (Note -his critics want to falsely claim that he raised taxes. There were some fees that increased like vehicle registration for example. A two billion deficit is not erased by wishful thinking. These fees that were increased were government fees. They are not exclusively known as taxes such as sales tax and taxes on wages. There is a difference between a fee and a tax in other words. A fee is a one time elective payment that only affects those that need to exchange a payment to the government for some type of recognition of compliance.) Mitt Romney balanced the state budget each year because he thought it was the right thing to do. He fought hard for those balanced budgets against the tax and spend Democratic state legislative majority. He left the governor’s office with a balanced budget PLUS an additional billion dollars or so that was put into their “rainy day fund”.
So please voters, contrast Mitt Romney’s ability and record against those of John McCain who has voted against the Bush tax cuts and confessed that he doesn’t know much about economic matters, and against Mike Huckabee who raised taxes and fits in well with tax and spend Democrats.
Huckabee Raised Taxes $883.1 Million, Cut $378 Million In Taxes, For A Net Tax Increase Of $505.1 Million. “But a review of tax legislation passed while he was governor shows a net tax increase of $505 million, a figure adjusted for inflation and economic growth, according to the state Department of Finance and Administration. … The 90 cuts reduced tax collections by $378 million, according to the Department of Finance and Administration. Meanwhile, the department counts 21 tax increases that raised collections by $883.1 million.” (Daniel Nasaw, “Gaps Led To Taxing In Huckabee Years,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10/9/07)
If Mitt Romney can press hard on the trail about the frail economy and let us know that he is the one man that can lead us out of recession, he will pick up percentage points quickly in South Carolina, Nevada, Florida, and Super Tuesday states.
Great article! Mitt is by far the most qualified for the job.
Check out my new song and video, “Gimme Mitt”
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Mitt Romney for President!
It is true that the economy is a big issue. I hope Mitt won’t forget that illegal immigration, Nafta and like policies have done much to depress wages and our economy.
I write from the border and have lived the issue. It is truly important.
John McCain has been a part of Washington Corruption. He was one of the five Senates who involved in Savings & Loans scandal in later 80’s. It is also called “The Keating Five”.
In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, CA, collapsed. Lincoln’s Chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift’s failure. Keating told the House Banking Committee that the FHLBB and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It came out that these senators had been beneficiaries of 1.3 million in campaign contributions from Keating.
This allegation set off a series of investigations by the California government, the United States Department of Justice, and the Senate Ethics Committee. The Ethics committee’s investigation focused on five senators: Alan Cranston (D_CA), Dennis DeConnis (D-AZ), John Glenn (D_OH), John McCain (R_AZ) and Donald Riegle Jr.(D_MI), who became known as the Keating Five. After the investigation, the Committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four. Most of them did not seek for re-election, and John McCain is the only one who left in Senate. John McCain is a part of Washington Corruption. The country is in another Savings & Loans crisis, and how people could forget the Washington corruption that associated with John McCain. IF Republican Party votes for John McCain for the President of United State, we become the party of Washington Corruption.