Obama vs. Romney Economics

With the Obama campaign releasing a new ad attacking Mitt Romney's record with Bain Capital, it might be a good idea of review the economic ideas of both candidates.

President Obama has stated that he believes that the way out of the jobs recession is through economic growth.  He advocates repairing existing national infrastructure and, in some cases, building new infrastructure. 

The president is also a strong supporter of green technology, not to keep the environment clean and safe, but also to help in achieving national energy independence.  Obama wants to use the US Money Reserve as little as possible for this task.  Instead, he advocates measures like rolling back the Bush tax cuts, increasing the capital gains tax, and lowering or eliminating dirty energy subsidies.

Gov. Romney, on the other hand, wants to take a course similar to his Republican predecessors in further lowering taxes especially for the upper tier of taxpayers.  Romney’s plan will slightly increase taxes for the poorest Americans, while establishing major breaks for the highest earning Americans.

Romney’s plan closely resembles European austerity programs in that there is a major thrust toward reducing the deficit by cutting spending.  Since he wants to cut tax rates at the same time, then one has to expect that Romney’s cuts in government programs and jobs will be severe.  His idea is that taxes hurt the private economy and that by lowering taxes further, it will stimulate growth.

However, Romney’s experience at Bain Capital is not comparable to the situation of restoring the American economy.  Bain Capital made money through methods often known as “predatory capitalism.”  The principles involved are completely different than those found in the national economy.