Andrew Rosenthal @ NYT:
Mitt
Romney is hardly the first Republican presidential candidate to assure
Americans that cutting taxes and ending regulation will bring joy to the
nation.
Ronald Reagan did it, George H.W. Bush did it, and George
W. Bush did it. They won. We got soaring deficits, the worst income
inequality since there was income and out-of-control financial
institutions that nearly destroyed the American economy. Mr. Romney
seems to have learned nothing from that history. He claims President
Obama’s stimulus-based policies made the recession worse and then
hamstrung the recovery, while his brand of austerity will restore
prosperity.
Mr. Romney keeps his economic platform pretty fuzzy,
with good reason. The more he spins his story, the more evidence there
is that it’s a fantasy.
Mr. Romney
has said, for instance, that he can cut marginal tax rates by 20
percent, eliminate the estate tax and the alternative minimum income tax
and end capital gains taxes for middle-income Americans without
reducing the amount of money flowing into the Treasury.
The
answer, he said, is getting rid of certain loopholes. He won’t say what
those are, of course...
