I have had a lot of difficulty finding good discussions about the differences in policy between the two men running for President. Ezra Klein reminds me why in post about policy preferences as currently revealed by the two candidates.
Romney’s offerings are more like simulacra of policy proposals. They look, from far away, like policy proposals. They exist on his Web site, under the heading of “Issues,” with subheads like “Tax” and “Health care.” But read closely, they are not policy proposals. They do not include the details necessary to judge Romney’s policy ideas. In many cases, they don’t contain any details at all.
Take taxes. Romney has promised a “permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates,” alongside a grab bag of other goodies, like the end of “the death tax.” Glenn Hubbard, his top economic adviser, has promised that the plan will “broaden the tax base to ensure that tax reform is revenue-neutral.”
It is in the distance between “cut in marginal rates” and “revenue-neutral” that all the policy happens. That is where Romney must choose which deductions to cap or close. It’s where we learn what his plan means for the mortgage-interest deduction, and the tax-free status of employer health plans and the Child Tax Credit. It is where we learn, in other words, what his plan means for people like you and me. And it is empty. Romney does not name even one deduction that he would cap or close. He even admitted, in an interview with CNBC, that his plan “can’t be scored because those details have to be worked out.”
Compare that to Obama’s tax plan, which you can read on pages 37 through 40 of his 2013 budget proposal (though not, it should be said, on his campaign Web site, which is even less detailed than Romney’s). In these pages, Obama tells you exactly how he would like to raise taxes on the rich. He proposes allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for income over $250,000, capping itemized deductions for wealthy Americans at 28 percent, taxing carried interest as ordinary income and more. The total tax increase, compared to current policy, is $1.5 trillion.
Whether you think it’s a good idea or a bad idea to raise taxes on the rich, Obama has told you exactly what he wants to do. Conversely, whether you think it’s a good idea or a bad idea to cut marginal tax rates by broadening the base, Romney hasn’t actually told you what he wants to do…….Obama’s vision for the health-care system is almost absurdly detailed.
Romney’s plan spans 369 words. He would “promote alternatives to ‘fee for service.’” Which alternatives? It’s a mystery. He would “end tax discrimination against the individual purchase of insurance.” That can mean any of a couple of huge policy changes. It could mean, for the first time ever, that employer-provided health plans are taxed — a massive tax increase. It could mean that all spending on health insurance is made tax free — a giant, and expensive, tax cut. Which is it? Romney doesn’t say.
On financial regulation, Romney would “repeal Dodd-Frank and replace with streamlined, modern regulatory framework.” That is literally his entire plan…..On deficit reduction, Romney’s plan “requires spending cuts of approximately $500 billion per year in 2016.” He has not released spending cuts that come anywhere close to that goal. He does have some nice words to say about the Ryan budget, but Romney advisers have told the media that their candidate disagrees with large parts of it, including the Medicare cuts.
The comparison to Obama is, again, instructive. Pages 23 through 37 of Obama’s budget detail dozens of spending cuts and tell you how much money they’ll save. You might not like those spending cuts, or you might want to see more. But at least you know the specifics of the president’s plan.
As I follow health care policy most closely, I find this unacceptable. Health care costs are the major source of our long term debt problems. It is consuming ever more of our economy. Someone who has been running for the presidency for over four years, should have some plans. That is also true of financial regulation, debt reduction and tax policy. Romney initially claimed that his plans would give us a growth in jobs of 500,000 per month. He has now backed off of this, claiming his policies will create 250,000 jobs per month, but still no specifics. (500,000 per month has never happened for any extended period.) While I suspect this will be by replicating the policies we had during the Bush administration, which gave us job growth of about 11,000 per month, I do not really know what he intends, except in very vague generalities.
Maybe running as “not Obama” will be good enough to win. Running as “not the crazy one” was sufficient to win the primary. However, it will make for a very tedious election.
Klein conflates budget proposals with policly proposals. Of course, Obama’s most recent budget was defeated unamimously. Four years ago, Obama had no such specific details either. More than anything Obama can write down or say, we have a record of his actual performance, pitiful. Plus, his administration lacks credibility and transparency.
Romney has a record of success. The only thing Obama has succeeded at is taking advantage of affirmative action. Romney knows how the economy works, natioanally and internationally. (You know how important that is. You told me so once, yourself.) Obama thinks participating in the global economy is evil and anyone whoe does shouldn’t be president. Plus, we know Romney is smart and honest, plus Klein is more than slightly biased. Romney would have to work at it to be worse than Obama.
McCain and Obama had debated health care. They had laid out their plans. We know what Obama is planning to cut. We dont know what Mitt is going to cut.
” Plus, we know Romney is smart and honest”
You do. I dont. I see no reason to trust him more than any other politician. What I know for sure, setting aside propaganda from the left and right, is that he will not show us his tax returns, which could cast light on the honesty issue. I know that he has made some specific promises about balancing the budget, while increasing military spending. How he does that matters a lot to me. In this age of cynicism, I guess it is encouraging that you have such total faith in your candidate who is not revealing anything about himself or his plans, but I dont have that kind of trust in anyone.
Steve
Ezra Klein also once said, “I’d like Boehner to show us where in the Constitution it says that the president sets the agenda for the government,” in The Cult of the President lives on.
Looks like Ezra joined the cult.
While it is certainly theoretically possible that Mitt Romney may secretly feel exactly the same way and may publicly do exactly the same thing if elected, President Obama has already as a matter of accomplished fact raised the stakes on his own re-election in one particularly troubling, absolutely intolerable way: he believes and consistently continues to act on the belief that his particular administration’s policy beliefs should supplant the previously legislated law of the land whenever and wherever it is possible for him to make that so, his latest major act being to neutralize the work requirements of Clinton’s hard-negotiated welfare reform.
Thus, whatever else we do or do not know about either candidate, we do know without question that removing President Obama from office will forever stop him from continuing to overwrite the duly legislated laws of the land.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
My dear H.M., you may like to read Publius Huldah’s take on The President’s Enumerated Powers, Rulemaking by Executive Agencies, & Executive Orders.
Of course, I heard Harry Reid has an anonymous source claiming you and she are one in the same. :D
The states, one with GOP governors, asked for waivers. The work rule was not overturned.
“The statement from Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s office said: “Utah’s request for a waiver stems from a desire for increased customization of the program to maximize employment among Utah’s welfare recipients,” adding that the state had needed “flexibility to customize work-focused solutions.”
Meanwhile, the statement from Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval’s office maintained that its request to the White House was “not a request to weaken work requirements“ or a request for a “waiver to eliminate welfare work requirements for recipients.”
So neither office views the policy changes they are implementing in the wake of Obama’s new directive in the terms Romney has described. The natural follow up question: Do they believe the Obama policy change they requested would allow any states to weaken the work requirement? Both offices declined to comment on today’s charges and countercharges.
The Romney camp insists that the new Obama policy opens the door for a weakening of the work requirement because it allows states to prioritize the type of employment recipients get over their participation rate. But the policy explicity says wavers will only be granted to state proposals that make the realization of work goals more effective.”
Link to actual policy at link below. I find it difficult to understand why people would want to oppose the efforts of states to make their programs work better.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line
Steve
I find it difficult to understand why people would want to oppose the efforts of states to make their programs work better.
My good Steve,
While what you find difficult to understand may indeed be interesting as insight into your personal limitations – it was only days ago I had to explain the politics of mass layoff notices to you, as I recall – it remains ultimately the measure of you and you alone, not of an issue.
My comment was prompted not by a blog post but by this analysis by the Senate Finance Committee:
http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/ranking/release/?id=47ada91c-07ac-4c7f-bc20-182df03d2654
I have no doubt that the recession has put political pressure on politicians at all levels, hence the increased drive by states to seek sources of relief directed by them but funded, not by them, but by the federal government. That Republican governors may be desperate to avail themselves of an executive branch policy overreach because it lessens the political pressure recession economics has placed upon them does not make that arrogation of power right.
Your elective difficulty in understanding things, of course, absolves me of any requirement to provide additional detailed explanation of electioneering patronage that only need function until the votes are counted. In short, though, as with the DHS DREAM Act pandering which may or may not ever actually function beyond election day, this new HHS directive cynically uses arrogant overrides of existing federal law by executive branch functionaries to selectively promote the political campaign of the incumbent over that of his opponent.
The executive branch of the U. S. government including all of its executive departments and the Obama reelection campaign have become one and the same machine, indistinguishable from one another. This is also known as the classic Chicago Way.
The national Department of Homeland Security/Obama campaign DREAM Act advertisements broadcasts the message nationally that a vote for Obama secures your DREAM Act student from deportation, while a vote for Romney leaves him imminently at risk for deportation. Quid pro quo.
The national Department of Health and Human Services/Obama campaign work requirements for welfare rollbacks broadcasts the message nationally that a vote for Obama secures your TANF income if you do nothing more than participate in bed rest, personal care activities, massage, exercise, journaling, motivational reading, smoking cessation, weight loss promotion, parent teacher meetings, or helping a friend or relative with household tasks and errands, while a vote for Romney insures that this easy federal money will vanish if you do not find and engage in meaningful work. Quid pro quo.
But the policy explicitly says – explicitly! – waivers will only be granted to state proposals that make the realization of work goals more effective.
That is, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explicitly – explicitly! – says that it will be the one to decide whether waivers it has elected to grant in this election season to consider motivational reading to be work valid enough for a potential Obama voter to keep receiving TANF income will make the realization of work goals more effective.
I myself have every confidence that Ms. Sebelius intends to work very closely in this regard with any and every state containing even one potential Obama voter, explicitly – explicitly! – if not personally judging the dispensations of her staff at every step of the way on whether they will make the realization of work goals more effective – at least until November 6, 2012.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
Additional links:
The 2005 DRA changes to TANF work requirements (pp. 8+):
http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publications/files/0339.pdf
The recent HHS directive itself:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203.html
The Camp-Hatch letter to Sebelius concerning the directive:
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/7.12.12_TANF_work_requirements_letter.pdf
Yup, from your very own link.
” As described below, however, HHS will only consider approving waivers relating to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of meeting the work goals of TANF.”
Do you even read this stuff? Ultimately, I will have to grant this was a quite clever ploy by the GOP. First they request waivers so that they can put more people to work. Then they accuse Obama of granting waivers to do away with the work requirement. Very clever election politics.
Steve
My good Steve,
Apparently you did not read where I addressed it above, three times, mocking the fox guarding the hen house each time. As a crafty ole pol and student of politics yourself you do understand Qui custodiet ipsos custodes, do you not?
Given the Camp-Hatch letter, I must have missed where the GOP requested waivers, Steve. Please show where they did. Or are you claiming HHS chose to make its illegal overreach on the basis of one Republican governor’s waiver request?
Ultimately, I will have to grant this was a quite clever ploy by the GOP… Very clever election politics.
But Steve, prior to this monkey-see, monkey-do imitation of my own claim just above – not at all the foot you originally started out on, above, you have already revealed quite clearly here and elsewhere that election politics confuses and befuddles you where it does not elude you entirely.
You can’t have it both ways: you can’t play the earnest, pious naif here
and then suddenly become the crafty ole pol here
It makes you look pathetically desperate when you do so, seizing on anything you can find without even understanding it, flinging it, reaching for something entirely unrelated, flinging it, just to shore up an untenable point.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
Policies? We don’ need no stinkin’ policies! Policies imply that the would-be elected official is proposing to DO something. We no longer expect that. We elect people on the basis of what we perceive them to BE–pro-life, pro-choice, pro-family-values, pro-gay-rights, whatever. Most of the “issues” our candidates espouse these days don’t require them to do anything, and many are actually in areas in which doing anything is not even possible or legal (especially where federal office is involved.) So a campaign consists of the candidate saying “I’m the pro-life/pro-choice etc. candidate. That other guy is pro-choice/pro-life. So you should vote for me because all reasonable people resemble me, not the other guy.” It sounds a whole lot like campaigns for 6th grade class president. And the results are similar.