Swing and a Mitt!

Both the WSJ Ed Page and Larry Kudlow find the same fault with Governor Romney's 6,751 page jobs plan. In point 1504 (out of 9,071), there's a wee bit of class warfare:

On taxes, Mr. Romney would immediately cut the top corporate income-tax rate to 25% from 35%. His advisers say there's already a bipartisan consensus that the U.S. rate hurts American companies, and they're right. Even Mr. Obama agrees.

But on other taxes, Mr. Romney shrinks from a fight. He says he favors tax reform with lower individual tax rates but only "in the long run." His advisers say that means in the first two years of his Presidency, but then why not sketch out more details?

The answer may lie in his proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax--but only for those who earn less than $200,000 a year. This eviscerates most of the tax cut's economic impact and also suggests that he's afraid of Mr. Obama's class warfare rhetoric. He even picked Mr. Obama's trademark income threshold for the capital gains cut-off.

If Mr. Romney thinks this will let him dodge a class warfare debate, he's fooling himself.

Governor Mitt cut an impressive figure on Kudlow last night. The man would represent an astronomical leap up from the policies of President Obama. And, with a good tea-party contingent in Congress leaning him the right direction, would probably make a good 45th POTUS.

But I see a bit of Hooverism in his lengthy plans. And am I correct that he brought up Six-Sigma in an early debate? If it was not him, I apologize but I think it was. The problem is not that government is inefficient, the problem is that government is over-scoped.

I'll support him proudly if he is the GOP 2012 nominee. But several of the other candidates will have to vanish mysteriously before he becomes my choice in the primaries.

2012 Posted by John Kranz at September 7, 2011 12:46 PM