George Will rightly hits Romney for being unprincipled, but that doesn’t mean Romney isn’t the best of the current field of Republican contenders (and this probably is the complete field - more is the pity.) The Ohio story is just perfect. Romney was visiting a phone bank that was working in favor of Question 2, which would have limited collective bargaining for public employees. This measure is strongly supported by right-leaning voters and Ohio’s Republican leadership, but polls indicate it is not popular with swing voters. When Romney was asked if he approved of the ballot measure, Romney said he had no position on the issue. So apparently he just likes making random visits to rooms full of people who are making phone calls. When he got heat from conservatives, Romney then came out for Question 2 and said he had always been for Question 2 before he had refused to be for it. And now he is for it again 100%. Romney’s game is pretty clear. He wanted to signal support for Question 2 to right-leaning voters while not alienating swing voters. So he hoped right-leaning voters would pick up on the signal of him showing up at the phone bank ant that swing voters wouldn’t notice. He waffled when he was pressed on the question. Then Romney decided he was better off risking the ire of Ohio general election swing voters in November 2012 (and how many of them are going to be caring about Question 2 in 12 months?) than conservative Republican primary voters in January and February of 2012. Romney doesn’t just provide examples of political opportunism. He provides satires of political opportunism. And this is all just one more reason for people like me to worry that Romney, for all his brains, lacks the principles and grit to carry through the reforms we need against determined opposition.
The problem with Will’s column comes when he writes “Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this ? “ The horrible answer is maybe. Romney’s main current opponent in the polls is running on a combination of sharp tax increases on high earners and middle-class tax increases. It still hasn’t sunk in with the general public that the third nine in the 9-9-9 plan is a modified VAT on top of the 9% sales tax. It doesn’t matter how much Cain denies it. There is more than enough time between now and Iowa for the truth to out. Even Cain’s own analysis describes Cain’s “business tax” as a “subtraction method value-added tax” and as having a “basic value-added structure.” If something else doesn’t get Cain first, this VAT will do him in.
Then there is Rick Perry’s tax simplifying optional flat tax. Well it turns out it really isn’t a flat tax when you take into account all of the deductions in the plan and how those deductions impact different groups of taxpayers. It also doesn’t simplify the tax code since it leaves the old tax code in place and many middle-class taxpayers would have to calculate their tax liabilities twice to figure out which plan works better for them.
And those are the good parts of the plan. By sharply reducing taxes on high earners and investment income, Perry’s plan reduces government revenues during a period of enormous budget deficits. The amount of government revenue that the federal government would lose is a matter of some dispute. The CBO estimate is $4.7 trillion from 2014-2020. The Perry campaign says his plan would reduce federal revenues by $1.7 trillion. There is reason to believe that the CBO number is closer to the truth. but let’s be generous to Perry and split the difference and call it a revenue loss of $3.2 trillion over six years from 2014 to 2020. What does this mean for the budget?
The Ryan budget contains sharp cuts (it cuts$4.5 trillion from the CBO baseline from 2014-2020) and is supposed to be “revenue neutral.” The Ryan budget adds $3 trillion dollars to the budget from 2014-2020. If Perry’s tax plan reduces federal revenues by $3.2 trillion and he doesn’t want to increase the already large deficit, he will have to cut an average of $533 billion dollars a year over and above the cuts in the Ryan budget. To put that in perspective, if you cut the entire budget for non-defense discretionary spending (goodbye interstate highway system, see you later FBI), you would still need to cut tens of billions of dollars just to get to the Ryan budget’s deficits of around $400 billion a year.
But politically speaking, these are quibbles. Perry’s spending cuts are vague and mostly procedural and so they will seem painless when spoken of in front of friendly audiences. Perry is a desperate politician peddling a deeply unrealistic policy, but we have been getting fantasy-based budgeting from both parties for a quite a while now. At least Perry’s plan doesn’t raise taxes on the middle-class. Perry’s plan has a better chance of making it past New Hampshire than does 9-9-9. But we are headed for economic disaster and Perry isn’t leveling with us.
“”Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this ? ”
Good question. Complaints for this sad circumstance are best addressed to two groups of people:
1. The non-Romney announced Republican presidential candidates.
2. Those principled, competent and conservative Republicans who chose not to run for President
