So Mitt Romney has his day in the sun Thursday, as he accepts his party's nomination to become President. His coming out party in Tampa has featured retreads, wannabes, and never weres singing his praises. Yet while this Republican National Convention has been long on Obama bashing, it's been painfully short on substance. What exactly do they plan to do?
Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, actually did spell something out. During his speech Wednesday, Ryan promised a Romney Administration would set a goal of 12 million new jobs over the next four years. Now that's a big boast. If they managed to do that over eight years, they'd top Bill Clinton, the President under whose leadership 22 million jobs were created over an eight year period. Yet the question remains, how are they going to do this?
This question is not without consequence. Americans need jobs. Strip away all the nonsense about what the current president has done or will do, and the challenge remains putting Americans back to work. Maybe Paul Ryan thinks most people buy that they can do this by keeping federal spending at 20% or less of GDP. He's reaching. A lot of Americans don't know what GDP is.
Put simply, Romney and Ryan believe that you can cut your way out of hard economic times. And what would they cut? Amtrak, the NEA, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, you know, the things conservatives think are just symbols of liberalism. Here's the problem. Eliminating all the things the hard right doesn't like about government won't create a million jobs, much less the 12 million Paul Ryan promised on behalf of Mitt Romney. Demand creates jobs, and that means figuring out a way to put money in the pockets of the people who spend.
Romney and Ryan want to put more money in the hands of the wealthiest Americans, who are least likely to go out and spend. Put simply, their economic plan is put together with smoke and mirrors.
In November we'll find out just who is ready to buy into it.
Are you?
