OK I read Romney's plan and I feel pretty much the same way the editors of the WSJ do. His plan is too vague, not radical enough and is weak in regards to specifics. I have a feeling we'll end up with more of the same...........pre-obama/GWB/McCain Jr............same old same old.
online.wsj.com
I would encourage people to check out Gingrich's "Jobs and Growth Plan" and read his white paper on entitlement reform. The whole thing is sober, straight forward, inventive, creative, understandable and most of all workable. I would suggest people watch the videos at the link and hear for themselves in plain English where Gingrich stands on the issue of the economy.
Art Laffer endorses his plan and that alone is a high honor.
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"The Gingrich Jobs and Growth Plan
America only works when Americans are working. Newt has a pro-growth strategy similar to the proven policies used when he was Speaker to balance the budget, pay down the debt, and create jobs. The plan includes:
Stop the 2013 tax increases to promote stability in the economy. Job creation improved after Congress extended tax relief for two years in December. We should make the rates permanent.
Make the United States the most desirable location for new business investment through a bold series of tax cuts, including: Eliminating the capital gains tax to make American entrepreneurs more competitive against those in other countries; Dramatically reducing the corporate income tax (among highest in the world) to 12.5%; Allowing for 100% expensing of new equipment to spur innovation and American manufacturing; Ending the death tax permanently.
Move toward an optional flat tax of 15% that would allow Americans the freedom to choose to file their taxes on a postcard, saving hundreds of billions in unnecessary costs each year. This optional flat tax system will preserve deductions on charitable giving and home ownership, and create a new personal deduction of $12,000 for every American. This deduction is well above the current poverty level, ensuring that this new system does not unfairly target the poor.
Strengthen the dollar by returning to the Reagan-era monetary policies that stopped runaway inflation and reforming the Federal Reserve to promote transparency.
Remove obstacles to job creation imposed by destructive and ineffective regulations, programs and bureaucracies. Steps include: Repealing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which did nothing to prevent the financial crisis and is holding companies back from making new investments in the U.S; Repealing the Community Reinvestment Act, the abuse of which helped cause the financial crisis; Repealing the Dodd-Frank Law which is killing small independent banks, crippling loans to small businesses and crippling home sales; Breaking up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, moving their smaller successors off government guarantees and into the free market; Replacing the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency that works collaboratively with local government and industry to achieve better results; and Modernizing the Food and Drug Administration to get lifesaving medicines and technologies to patients faster.
Implement an American energy policy that removes obstacles to responsible energy development and creates jobs in the United States.
Balance the budget by growing the economy, controlling spending, implementing money saving reforms, and replacing destructive policies and regulatory agencies with new approaches.
Repeal and replace Obamacare with a pro-jobs, pro-responsibility health plan that puts doctors and patients in charge of health decisions instead of bureaucrats.
Fundamental reform of entitlement programs with the advice and help of the American people. Read an extended white paper on this here.
"Unleashing Growth and Innovation to Move Beyond the Welfare State
Today, Newt Gingrich will detail a vision of how we can fundamentally move beyond the welfare state through growth and innovation
The static twentieth-century entitlement and welfare model is undeniably failing, and Americans should no longer tolerate it.
Social Security pays hardworking Americans dismally low returns, yet still faces insolvency. Medicare unfairly limits options for seniors yet costs are still running out of control. Poverty remains as tragically rampant as it did at the outset of the "War on Poverty" welfare programs in the mid-1960s.
There are three radically divergent paths we can take today:
A "Fantasy" Path that maintains that nothing is wrong, Social Security and Medicare will survive without any structural reforms, and that there are no problems with the "Welfare Empire" that keeps nearly 50 million Americans in poverty.
An "Austerity" Path that concedes that our best days are behind us, then cuts benefits, rations care, and concedes that poverty will always be an inevitable facet of American life.
Finally, there is a Gingrich "Growth and Innovation" Path that rejects the two previous notions, and attests that incremental change is not enough to meet our current challenges.
This path insists that by unleashing choice and the power of the market, we can dramatically reduce inequality, create expansive opportunities for Americans of every income level, and overhaul our welfare and entitlement systems so that they are more secure, fairer, and can encourage even more economic growth.
Growth and innovation means securing and strengthening Social Security by empowering Americans with the option to invest in personal savings accounts. This gives Americans ownership over their retirement and the opportunity to unleash the power of the market to enjoy prosperous retirements beyond their most optimistic expectations. At the same time, this reform will wipe out all future liabilities in the Social Security system. We would build on the successful models in Galveston, TX and Chile, where workers contribute into personal accounts and receive double the benefits that they would have under traditional social security models.
Growth and innovation means liberating the poor from the trap of the Welfare Empire through new programs that are tailored to local communities, that promote work and that incentivize lifelong study. Building on the success of the 1996 welfare reforms, block-granting all federal means tested welfare programs back to the states would help millions move from dependency to prosperity while saving taxpayer trillions.
Growth and innovation means rejecting the centralized control and rationing of Obamacare, and creating a broad Patient Power system. When patients are empowered and information is transparent, the cost of healthcare will go down for all, while the quality will go up.
Growth and innovation means creating options beyond the current Medicare system for American seniors. Any individual who wants to remain in the current Medicare system should be allowed to do so, but we will also give Americans the option to purchase a wide variety of private insurance plans with a regular "premium support" payment. Unleashing competition will dramatically increase options for American seniors, while also lowering costs.
Moving Beyond Welfare State"
newt.org
Video"
newt.org
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