Romney Economic Plan

From what I can garner, and I don't have a lot to go on because he's not letting anyone in on it, there are three main tenants to Mitt Romney's plan to "fix" the economy and unfortunately they sound eerily similar to the George W. Bush plan that sank the economy.   

Tax cuts - i.e. tax cuts to the rich, i.e. trickle down economics, i.e. supply side economics.  Theory being that if you cut taxes on the rich, the rich will reinvest that money back into their companies, they will hire more people, they will start new companies, they will spend more on upgrading their current facilities, they will spend more on research and development and thus the economy will explode with growth.  It's a nice theory, sounds like a reasonable assumption to assume it would work, too bad it doesn't.  If it worked, why are companies and the wealthy sitting on piles of cash right now and not out creating jobs and how would giving them more money change that?  If you look at the history of supply side economics starting with the Reagan years, you'll see that it has essentially accomplished 3 things, 1) increasing income inequality to astounding levels, 2) ballooning the debt and 3) consequently stagnating the economy.  When has it ever worked anyways?  Under Reagan?  That's more myth than reality.  Under George W Bush?  Hardly.  They were touting Ireland for awhile.  Not so much anymore.  Even David Stockman, the architect of the Reagan tax cuts, is now opposed to this idea.  Demand creates jobs, not throwing more money at the rich.  Getting beyond my opposition to supply side economics, the facts are, 1) Romney's number don't add up, and 2) Romney's tax plan would result in a middle class tax hike.  We can do better.

Reduced Spending - We must get the budget deficit under control and NOW claims Romney, otherwise debt will continue to drag down the economy.  While I do agree that the debt needs to be addressed at some point, now is not the time to do it.  You don't believe me?  How about the CBO?  Just check out the success rate of the austerity measures implemented in Europe & Japan, they've failed miserably, all they did was dry up tax revenues and lengthened downturns.  Is that really the prescription we need?  Obama's stimulus on the other hand, was a success (despite claims to the contrary from the GOP).  The problem was we didn't go far enough.  Once the economy sufficiently recovers, tax revenues will increase enough that you can start focusing on cuts.  Another problem I'm having with the Romney debt reduction plan is that it is very light on specifics, he won't say what he will cut to meet his objectives (at the same time he's lowering taxes for the rich, maintaining medicare and increasing defense spending).  He'd have to cut back drastically on virtually every government program and even that wouldn't be enough, in other words, he's living in fantasyland.  The only way to legitimately reduce the budget is through a balanced approach of decreased spending and increased revenues, it's not that hard Mitt. 

Deregulation - Mitt Romney calls regulation a "hidden tax" and states he "will act swiftly to tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed on the economy".  Apparently he's already forgotten about the consequences of our last dose of deregulation. The deregulation of Wall Street is the main culprit for the mess we are currently in.  Should we go back further?  How about the S&L scandal?  That was caused by deregulation.  How about the Enron mess?  Yep, you can blame that on deregulation too.  What about environmental degregulation, can we really afford that?  Sure businesses would love it, the Koch brothers would love it (and you know they want something for all that money they are spending on this election), but you have to know that the end result would be increases in such things as air pollution, contaminated ground water, ozone levels and greenhouse gases.  Wouldn't the costs of those things far outweigh any advantages they'd bring in?  Whatever happened to Republicans who cared about the environment anyways?  Teddy Roosevelt is probably rolling over in his grave.

In summary, please think long and hard before giving over the reigns of our economy to Mitt Romney.