On fiscal issues, he [Romney] definitely had me. He pledged to keep non-defense discretionary spending one percent below the inflation rate. -AS
Who is paying for the defense spending increases? Are those to be "paid for" with more voodoo tax-cuts?
What about the war that he hopes will be over by the time he is in office? He's pledged no war-time tax, if I read one of this other speeches correctly. Not even a one-time tax, to replace some of what the GOP has bled, willingly, from the coffers.
What about the "emergency" billions that were appropriated for Katrina? No one has gotten their assessment for those yet, so far as I know, because it wouldn't be "pro-growth" to do so, on some people's calculus?
We ought to expect GOP candidates to improve the fiscal position of the country in absolute terms, not just stop bleeding quite as fast ...
I loved his phrase: "simpler, smarter and smaller government." Yes, please.
Actually, I'll bet you that the government gets larger under the next Presidents Administration. Newt Gingrich has called for a 50% increase in the State Department in order to meet gathering National Security threats. The DHS is in its infancy as the pork chop of the Executive. We are spending Federal dollars on more and more border security, without a comprehensive plan (just wait until the final figures come in on the fence that Bush & Co. rammed through the last Congress, which could come in at over a million dollars a mile?). The GOP wants everyone to hurry up with the national ID cards, aka driver's licenses, and just recently turned on the national spigot to help the states out with this 'unfunded mandate'.
As for the rest, the GOP have been in power for eight years - I'd bet the tiles are scrubed. The hope for "smaller government" is odds-off.
As for "smart government", Dick Cheney hasn't been nearly as involved as was Al Gore in modernizing the Agencies. When Romney says that he is going to hold his Agency appointees to a 1% productivity improvement per annum, my ears will pop up, but I suspect that kind of accountability would keep his friends at their distance ...
sullylink
