Do as I say,
not as I do.
Recently, I sent a LTE to TIME. It didn't get published, which most letters to national magazines don't. This letter, however, was unpublishable. I wrote it on-line, and I'm always verbose on-line. Mostly, though, it involved too many ideas. A good LTE involves only one. It was in response to this story. Here is the letter, with my second thoughts after it.
Mittt Romney's basic claim is that his experience as a venture capitalist gives him insights that make his judgment on the economic results of public policies better than anyone who merely has experience in public policies. Halperin specifically asked hi8m for concrete policy proposals, and he declined. So, the Romney candidacy depends on this claim. But Romney left Bain Capital decades ago, and didn't take a vow of silence. We can see his judgment on public policy issues which are far enough in the past for their consequences to be seen by all.
In 1994, a major issue raised by Romney in his senate campaign against Kennedy was Kennedy's vote for the Clinton tax increase on top incomes. Romney said it would not improve the deficit and would result in catastrophically low growth. In fact, it was followed by the healthiest six years of growth that the economy has seen since 1968, and Clinton was the first president since LBJ to submit a budget to Congress which ended up balanced.
During Romney's tenure as governor, Massachusetts had the 47th best growth in employment among the 50 states. Admittedly, a governor's contribution to job growth is different from a president's but the Romney campaign has to explain how the experience at Bain applies to one and not the other.
Most recently, Romney wrote an op-ed blasting the auto-company bailout that Obama promoted. The program is acknowledged to be a great success. So, here is one specific case where his judgment was inferior to Obama's. What is a specific case which has been resolved in which it was superior?
Now, the basic idea was that Romney is arguing that his ideas for the national economy ought to be effective ideas; let's look at whether his ideas have been effective ideas. That will pass as one thought, and every single example I cited was a good example. Any single one of them would have made a more effective LTE.
Criticized the Clinton tax hike as an economic killer, when it was followed by the highest growth spurt since LBJ.
Served as governor of MA while the Massachusetts economy underperformed the nation.
Panned the GM bailout, which was a great success.
Probably, the arguments get better as they go down. 1994 was a long time ago. The auto bailout was a direct contrast with President Obama.