Sure Fire Formula for US Political Success

Robert Reich in his blog has a post talking about Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential candidacy and how he is the only Republican contender talking about serious things, specifically the economy. But this set of Romney proposals caught my eye:

– match U.S. corporate taxes with those of other developed economies,

– preserve the Bush tax cuts for everyone, “especially small business,”

– allow businesses to write off capital investments made in 2010 and 2011 rather than over time,

– eliminate taxes on investment dividends,

– eliminate taxes on capital gains and interest for households earning less than $250,000 a year, and

– balance the federal budget.

Only the US is a screwball place where a politician can tick off a bunch of "cut taxes" followed up with a "balance the budget". Sure! Makes sense to me. You remove revenue, remove revenue, etc. and then for a final step you do a little "and then cover the enormous gaping deficit you created by some creative "balancing" of the budget and everything will be fine!

How the American people keep falling for this idiocy is beyond me. These guys should be laughed off the stage. But the "cut taxes!" Republicans are set to win big in the mid-term elections this year and Romney is eying to win with this popular formula. Nuts!

Here's Reich's comment on Romney's ridiculous economic "proposal":

Apart from the impossibility of simultaneously cutting taxes and balancing the budget without taking a meat cleaver to Social Security, Medicare, and defense spending (Romney delicately sidesteps this conundrum by urging we “reshape government programs” and “restructure entitlements”), his policies raise a more fundamental problem.

In the 1940s, 1950, and even the 1960s American were known as a pragmatic, down-to-earth, no-nonsense people. But under the mesmerizing political spin of right wing politicians since 1968, they have come to believe you can square the circle by "cut taxes!", that you can feed the world's hungry by "cut taxes!", that you can put a man back on the moon by "cut taxes!".