If Romney would do like Bush...
which is lower taxes to the point where the country had to function on massive deficits/debt, than I would not hire him.
The Bush tax cuts were supposed to lead to massive domestic job growth, but Bush had the worst job growth of any president. It's on the record. (Bush ended all government support for the middle class in order to pay off the wealthy. Problem is, the middle class needed that support to keep consuming. When the middle class stops buying things, the economy dies. Right now, the problem isn't a lack of money on top for investment, rather, the problem is a lack of demand. Republicans have undermined the engine of middle class demand which came from government for the last 50 years. Morons. THe point of things like Social Security is this: if your elderly parents can support themselves, than you have more money to spend in the market place. This drives up demand, and when demand goes up, capital is forced to invest and add more jobs to capture that demand. This is how the entitlement system works. Government puts money in middle class wallets, and then capitalism innovates and invests and adds jobs so that it can get that money. The Republican model ignores this. Through tax cuts, they put extra money directly in the hands of the wealthy. The theory is that they will invest wisely and grow the real economy. But, the Bush tax cuts prove this theory wrong. The Bush tax cuts didn't go into growing the economy. Why? Because there was no demand to capture. The middle class had been bled dry to make room for the tax cuts. So where did the Bush tax cuts go? Wall Street derivatives. Meaning: they created a fake market BECAUSE there were no real investment markets available - no demand to capture, no reason to invest. (You need consumers who will buy your stuff) The wealthy had too much capital on top, while the middle class had too little cash for consumption because their wages had been driven down. It was the perfect storm. One class needed fake Wall Street ponzi schemes because there were insufficient investment opportunities, while the other needed credit. This toxic structure destroyed the country long term.)
Prior to Reagan, the government stimulated middle class consumption through progressive taxation and a number of programs/regulations/entitlements designed to put more money in middle class wallets. Because of the extra money sitting in middle class wallets, the capitalist was forced to innovate and add jobs (in order to capture that money). This model lead to 35 years of robust postwar economic growth.
Then Reagan replaced the support from government to the middle class with tax breaks and cheaper labor for the wealthy. Meaning: Reagan freed capital to go in search of 3rd world labor so business could pay $1 a day to sweat shop workers in places like China. (Capitalism loves brutal, dictator run countries because these terrible places oppress citizens and keep labor costs down). When Reagan did this - when business started to bypass expensive first world American Labor - he dramatically expanded credit markets so that the middle class could keep the domestic consumption economy afloat through increased borrowing. This is why household debt exploded starting in 1980. Problem is, you can only borrow for so long. [It got so bad that we had to turn our homes into ATMs. Indeed, without solid jobs, American families must go into debt to keep pace - and . . . business has been shipping jobs to ultra-cheap labor markets since Reagan helped them cut the cord with expensive middle class labor]
So no . . . I wouldn't hire Romney. He would keep the Bush Tax Cuts, which thrust the nation into a deficit crisis from which it has not emerged. (And yes this was the point of the Bush tax cuts. Starve the beast. Put America in a debt crisis so it is forced to cannibalize Medicare and Social Security, which would bring back poverty amongst the elderly and turn America in a 3rd country where old people die in the streets. But that is what capital wants. It wants massive pockets of luxury surrounded by disenfranchised, ultra cheap labor. People don't get. Capitalism hated the postwar middle class - the one where American workers made enough money to send their kids to college - because labor costs were too high. They would much rather use 3rd world labor which costs pennies. This is why Reagan is the most unpatriotic president in history. He accelerated the move from American workers to ultra cheap 3rd world workers. Yes, business loved Reagan because their costs went down, but this move destroyed the middle class, which required more and more debt to keep pace. you gotta hand it to Reagan. As wages went down for the middle class, who lost unprecedented manufacturing jobs on his watch, he merely increased the credit system, allowing Americans to borrow like never before).
God Help Us. The next president is going to take us back to the Bush model. And he will use a national security crisis to take our minds off his economic failures. The real questions is this: which enemy will Romney use? Iran? How will he distract the American people. Reagan used the Soviets, when he should have been focused on oil dependence. Bush used Iraq, when should have been focused on the housing bubble. In each case, these Republican presidents ignored problems which have, taken together, ended the great American Project in world history.
(God Help Us. The Republicans are coming back)
