BoredDead
Member
Mainly for his budget, which I feel has unnecessary things in it.
Here is a wall of text! If you care about defending Romney you will wade through it and discuss it!
Here are my problems with Romney's budget: He has a 10 year 5 trillion dollar spending cut, he has large holes in what he wants to cut, he is likely to cut something important, and his budget won't create jobs when he thinks it will.
Romney has said he doesn't have a 5 trillion dollar tax cut, but I have a good source on this, his own website. In it he says he wants to take spending from 24.3% of our GDP to less than 20% of it.
(open the link, hit ctrl f, type 24.3)
Here are my base numbers:
3.6 trillion - 2011 spending (source)
less than 20% - Romney's planned percent GDP spending
15.09 trillion - 2011 GDP (wikipedia, scroll down, the table)
(I'm going to raise the GDP to 15.50 because Romney expects growth)
Here are my calculations:
15.50x.20=3.1 trillion - Romney's proposed spending
3.6-3.1=.5 trillion - Romney's total spending cuts
.5x10=5 trillion - Romney's total spending cuts after 10 years
So Romney has a 5 trillion dollar tax cut according to my calculations and the various sources I used.
So another problem I had with Romney's budget is that it has spending cut holes. When you add up all his cuts he listed on his website, it totals 319.6 billion yearly. (source, (ctrl f, type American people)). so you subtract yearly 319.6 billion from 500 billion yearly (his planned total spending cut) and get 180.4 billion yearly. We also have to take into account his increased defense spending, which goes from 3.3% of gdp to 4% of gdp. (source). That totals 100 billion when you calculate it. In all, this totals 280.4 billion yearly dollars he has not accounted for which he plans to cut.
500-319.6+100=280.4
Romney also wants to replace Obamacare which costs 95 billion yearly, so unless he wants to make it less potent, we can assume it will cost a similar amount (although he wants to move it to the states control and budget, not the federal budget, so we can't count it here)
So what can he cut?
Here is a pie chart of the federal governments expenditures.
24% defense 878.5 billion
24% health care 858.2 billion
22% pensions 775.6 billion
13% welfare 472.9 billion
6% interest 230.0 billion
3% education 113.7 billion
3% transportation 93.0 billion
2% protection 56.1 billion
1% general government 29.0 billion
3% other spending 96.3 billion
(source)
so Romney needs to find another 280.4 billion to cut, 8.2%, what do you think is not important?
My last problem is that Romney believes that reducing taxes and reducing spending will creates jobs, while that isn't true.
When I think about taxing and spending I have a hypothesis: taxing costs jobs, spending creates jobs, and taxing and spending is neutral in job creation. It's hard to deny that it's reasonable. Can you deny that spending money on healthcare doesn't increase the demand of it? And that increases in demand cause increases in supply of healthcare? And that to increase the supply of healthcare requires a hospital to expand and hire more doctors? To me it's basic economics, but I'm sure I will hear about it.
So cutting taxes and cutting spending doesn't create jobs.
Another problem for which I can't blame Romney is the debt to foreign nations. Because of our debt we will have to tax money and give it to people overseas to pay it off. This means taxing without job creating spending. So my view overall is that Romney's budget has to cost a small amount of jobs (my same view of Obama's budget on job creation). But that part is Bush, Obama, and the economy's fault.
Here is a wall of text! If you care about defending Romney you will wade through it and discuss it!
Here are my problems with Romney's budget: He has a 10 year 5 trillion dollar spending cut, he has large holes in what he wants to cut, he is likely to cut something important, and his budget won't create jobs when he thinks it will.
Romney has said he doesn't have a 5 trillion dollar tax cut, but I have a good source on this, his own website. In it he says he wants to take spending from 24.3% of our GDP to less than 20% of it.
(open the link, hit ctrl f, type 24.3)
Here are my base numbers:
3.6 trillion - 2011 spending (source)
less than 20% - Romney's planned percent GDP spending
15.09 trillion - 2011 GDP (wikipedia, scroll down, the table)
(I'm going to raise the GDP to 15.50 because Romney expects growth)
Here are my calculations:
15.50x.20=3.1 trillion - Romney's proposed spending
3.6-3.1=.5 trillion - Romney's total spending cuts
.5x10=5 trillion - Romney's total spending cuts after 10 years
So Romney has a 5 trillion dollar tax cut according to my calculations and the various sources I used.
So another problem I had with Romney's budget is that it has spending cut holes. When you add up all his cuts he listed on his website, it totals 319.6 billion yearly. (source, (ctrl f, type American people)). so you subtract yearly 319.6 billion from 500 billion yearly (his planned total spending cut) and get 180.4 billion yearly. We also have to take into account his increased defense spending, which goes from 3.3% of gdp to 4% of gdp. (source). That totals 100 billion when you calculate it. In all, this totals 280.4 billion yearly dollars he has not accounted for which he plans to cut.
500-319.6+100=280.4
Romney also wants to replace Obamacare which costs 95 billion yearly, so unless he wants to make it less potent, we can assume it will cost a similar amount (although he wants to move it to the states control and budget, not the federal budget, so we can't count it here)
So what can he cut?
Here is a pie chart of the federal governments expenditures.
24% defense 878.5 billion
24% health care 858.2 billion
22% pensions 775.6 billion
13% welfare 472.9 billion
6% interest 230.0 billion
3% education 113.7 billion
3% transportation 93.0 billion
2% protection 56.1 billion
1% general government 29.0 billion
3% other spending 96.3 billion
(source)
so Romney needs to find another 280.4 billion to cut, 8.2%, what do you think is not important?
My last problem is that Romney believes that reducing taxes and reducing spending will creates jobs, while that isn't true.
When I think about taxing and spending I have a hypothesis: taxing costs jobs, spending creates jobs, and taxing and spending is neutral in job creation. It's hard to deny that it's reasonable. Can you deny that spending money on healthcare doesn't increase the demand of it? And that increases in demand cause increases in supply of healthcare? And that to increase the supply of healthcare requires a hospital to expand and hire more doctors? To me it's basic economics, but I'm sure I will hear about it.
So cutting taxes and cutting spending doesn't create jobs.
Another problem for which I can't blame Romney is the debt to foreign nations. Because of our debt we will have to tax money and give it to people overseas to pay it off. This means taxing without job creating spending. So my view overall is that Romney's budget has to cost a small amount of jobs (my same view of Obama's budget on job creation). But that part is Bush, Obama, and the economy's fault.