So Mitt Romney has a new economic plan and surprise, surprise, it isn't rooted in reality. According to Think Progress, Romney's plan makes
false claims about everything from taxes to regulation to the growth of government. A perfect example: Despite Romney's claim that government employment has gone up under President Obama, it's
actually gone down (although it did go up under Bush even as private sector employment declined).
But it's not just that Mitt Romney is bending the truth in order to sell his plan, it's also that his plan wouldn't actually help the economy. His basic pitch is that we need to cut taxes, cut spending and cut regulation. Pretty much every specific idea in his plan is a variant on one of those three goals, without a single idea to actually get the economy moving today.
In Romney's view, the problem with our economy is too much taxes, too much regulation and too much spending. But the real reason our economic outlook is so bleak is that consumer spending and consumer confidence still haven't recovered from the collapse of the housing market and the financial crisis of 2008. Romney's plan doesn't do a thing to address that. It's great that he wants to have a debate about the long-term impacts of fiscal and regulatory policy, but what most people are interested in is something that will deliver economic recovery starting now.
The stimulus bill in 2009 may have been too small, but at least it was a big down payment on what we needed to do. With a Republican House, we're obviously not going to get another round, but that doesn't mean Democrats, including the White House, shouldn't make the case for one. President Obama is fond of saying that the Recovery Act stabilized the economy and prevented a second great depression. Now he needs to make the case for another round of recovery spending so that we avoid the great stagnation. Or he can have a debate with Mitt Romney about what the net effective corporate tax rate should be in the year 2029.