This is why Mitt Romney should win the US election | Article | The ...

Mitt Romney is not a stylish politician. He will never match the uplifting rhetoric or easy charm of current US President Barack Obama. But if this week?s presidential election were to be decided purely on substance, Romney would win in a landslide.

For months, Democrats have depicted Romney as an extreme, uncaring plutocrat who wants to steal from the poor and give to the rich. President Obama, who promised to change the tone of politics for the better four years ago, has made the personal destruction of his opponent the centrepiece of his reelection strategy.

There?s just one problem. Romney doesn?t fit the caricature. In fact, his policies would do far more to help disadvantaged Americans than anything Obama has offered.

Romney?s campaign has focused almost exclusively on the economy, and you can understand why. Millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the financial crisis are still struggling to find work, and poverty levels are at record highs.

In his first term, Obama has managed to take the economic situation from ?harrowing? to merely ?terrible?.

Romney can do better than that. He has proposed a comprehensive reform of America?s complex tax code, which would cut every income tax rate while also limiting deductions and loopholes for the wealthy.

By returning money to the private economy, this plan would stimulate the job growth that unemployed Americans so desperately need.

But it is also fundamentally progressive. Middle and lower income earners would have their taxes reduced, while the wealthy would contribute a higher proportion of the total tax take. A simpler system would also cut down on cronyism and tax avoidance.

The Democrats, and many American journalists, have criticised Romney for failing to spell out exactly which deductions he would eliminate. Fair enough. But the principle is sound, and this sort of reform is long overdue.

Romney has also pledged to ease the regulatory burden on small businesses, which are suffering under Obama?s leadership. The President?s policies, from finance to healthcare to the environment, have swamped the private sector with new red tape at the worst possible time.

Large corporations can employ legions of lawyers to deal with new rules. Small businesses can?t. So while big business is thriving under Obama, the economy is actually being weakened from the bottom up.

The regulatory relief that Romney offers would accelerate hiring and, in some cases, keep struggling businesses open.

Beyond the need for stronger economic growth, debt reduction is the most urgent task facing America today. The federal government has run a trillion dollar deficit in each of the last four years, and the national debt now exceeds $16 trillion.

This problem cannot be addressed without touching entitlements. Programs like Medicare and Social Security currently account for more than 60 per cent of federal spending, and that figure continues to grow at an unsustainable rate. The higher it gets, the less money there is to spend on other government priorities like education and infrastructure.

Romney has plans to reform the major entitlement programs and make them solvent. President Obama does not.

For two consecutive years, the President?s proposed budget has failed to earn a single vote from either party in the Congress. Not one. He isn?t taking the debt issue seriously, and even his allies know it.

Obama prefers to focus on building a ?fair? economy. As the President rightly says, social mobility is sorely lacking in America. But greater mobility will not be fostered by expanding welfare or bitterly raising taxes on a handful of millionaires.

Actually, social mobility is first and foremost a product of education. At the moment, America has a decrepit and nonsensical education system, which traps disadvantaged children in poorly funded, ineffective schools.

Obama has done some good things for education, but his party?s close ties to the teachers? unions prevent him from properly reforming the system.

At the behest of the unions, he has cut funding for good initiatives like the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which gives low-income children in Washington DC the chance to attend a private school of their choice.

Romney wants to take the premise of that program, school choice, and implement it nationwide. Under his proposed changes to the education system, low-income parents would be able to choose where to send their children.

This is a crucial reform. If America?s disadvantaged children continue to be trapped in the worst schools on offer, they will never break out of poverty.

Of course, nothing will ever get done in Washington without some level of bipartisanship. As Governor of Massachusetts, Romney demonstrated an ability to work effectively with his political opponents, serving alongside an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature. As President, Barack Obama has produced only partisan gridlock.

Obama just isn?t very good at governing. He was elected without a shred of executive experience, having served in the US Senate for a single year before leaving to campaign for the presidency.

That inexperience has hurt Obama badly, and he has been unable to negotiate effectively with the Republicans in Congress. Sadly, there is nothing to suggest that he would be any more effective in a second term.

The Republicans deserve their share of the blame, but it is not enough for the President to call his political opponents obstructionists. Good leaders find a way.

Now, embittered by Republican intransigence, the conciliatory candidate of ?hope and change? has become deeply cynical and fiercely partisan. Instead of presenting a fresh, forward-looking agenda, the President panders and slanders his way toward a second term.

This new Obama is not the man who inspired us in 2008. He is just another politician.

Romney is certainly not a dangerous radical, as Obama would have voters believe. The desire to balance a budget is not extreme. The idea that job growth, not tax and regulatory growth, should take precedence during a slow recovery is not extreme.

In truth, Romney is a pragmatic centre-right politician who, unlike the President, has a plausible plan to get the nation out of its current mess.

America faces huge problems, and it needs a President who can work across the political divide to solve them. Mitt Romney is that man. His policies would unshackle the private economy, accelerate the recovery and lay the foundations for greater social mobility.

Romney is clearly the better candidate in this election. American voters should make him the next President.

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Source: http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/this-is-why-mitt-romney-should-win-the-US-election/

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