After watching interviews of Governor Romney and the debates, both Presidential and VP, I'm starting to fully get my arms around how Governor Romney works and the details of his tax plan.
Governor Romney is a successful financier. He is an amazing deal maker. When he has control of a situation, he knows exactly how to get things done. He knows exactly what he wants to do and he knows exactly the process he needs to take to get there. He is incredibly confident in his ability.
I see some of me in him. When it comes to my companies, I know what i want to do and I have complete confidence that I will get to where i need to go. I might not always get there, but I tend to only get into businesses and battles where I am extremely confident I can come out ahead. My failures have never stopped me from having absolute confidence in how I approach business. I have the feeling that Governor Romney has this trait to a far greater degree than even I do. No failure will ever slow down Governor Romney's confidence.
That confidence is exactly the foundation of his tax plan. This is how I see his plan:
- He will work to create bipartisan agreement to reduce federal spending as a share of GDP to 20 percent - its pre-crisis average - by 2016.
- He will work to create bipartisan agreement to simplify the Tax Code
- He will work to create bipartisan agreement to Reform Entitlement Programs To Ensure Their Viability
- He will make Growth And Cost-Benefit Analysis Important Features Of Regulation.
- He will work to remove regulatory impediments to energy production and innovation that raise costs to consumers and limit job creation.
- That the rich will continue to pay the same share of taxes as they pay now.
- He believes that income and corporate tax cuts across the board will increase economic growth which will offset the impact of any tax cuts that he is able create in a revenue neutral manner
- He intends to first negotiate a bipartisan agreement to eliminate corporate and individual deductions other than mortgage interest deductions, health care deductions and several other tax deductions that he feels are important to the middle class
- Once he has negotiated a bipartisan agreement to eliminate corporate and individual deductions he will be able to access the impact on revenues and determine what tax cuts that can be reasonably made. His goal and hope is that those tax cuts will be 20pct across the board for individuals and to 25pct for corporations. But he has been clear that it is not absolutely certain that these will be the exact numbers.
If I spent enough time I bet I could create an algorithm that covered all the above, but that is far more work than I am willing to do. More importantly each variable in the algorithm would have to have such a large range of possible outcomes, solving the algorithm wouldn't create much value. It is this fact that make people believe that Governor Romney has not provided details for his tax plan.
Well I'm going to fill in those details in a second. But first I want to provide a little more detail on my perception of Governor Romney. As I said at the beginning of this post Governor Romney is a deal maker who has extreme confidence in his ability to get his deals done.
Agree or not, I am certain that Governor Romney firmly believes the following - at Bain he created a company that was built on his ability alone to close deals to buy or invest in companies. He knew that he took people's money and he was relentless in getting profitable deals done to make them money. He was hired to fix the Olympics. and he did. He was hired to fix the state of Massachusetts and he feels certain that he did. Add all this together and I believe that Governor Romney firmly believes that he is as good a negotiator and dealmaker as there is.
If you put a problem in front of him, he knows in his mind that given enough time, resources and control he can solve the problem.
Which is the exact detail of the Romney Tax Plan that makes all the numbers add up. Governor Romney is the detail. He will take all the unsolved variables in the algorithm that is our desire to reduce the budget deficit , increase economic growth and thereby increase employment and negotiate them into the outcome that will solve this country's financial problem.
Can he do it ? I don't know. What I do know is that in order for him to have a rational negotiation on all of these variables it requires the politicians he will be negotiating with to negotiate in the best interests of the country rather than for their own personal interests and for the projections of the economists advising him to be accurate. Those are both high risk factors that will be difficult to overcome. I don't know that anyone can over come them, including Governor Romney. I think it will be difficult for anyone to walk in to the office and get to a compromise that solves the algorithm. But I know Governor Romney has no doubt in his mind that he is more than up to the challenge. Which leads to the next algorithm, what happens if he gets elected and can't get bipartisan agreements ? That has to be part of the equation as well.
So what does all this mean ? It means this is how I was thinking and I wanted to get it out there to let people comment on it. Thats the beauty of a blog, it can create discussion on topics i am interested in.
I'm not saying you should or should not vote for either of the candidates. That is up to you. Nor am I saying that economic issues should be the only factor in who you should vote for. Everyone needs to make their own decisions. Just as I will make my own decision on Nov 6th.
Thanks for reading this far. I hope you jump in on the comments
Cross-posted from Blog Maverick.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829
Romney as president would send women and minority rights back decades. The reason GOPers are flooding legislatures with arcane social bills is to get liberal organizations to challenge (in hopes these bills make it to the Supreme Court.) They'll roll us back to the 50s.
It's not worth a whim and a prayer to allow Romney to take over the White House. We more than leaned our lesson that supply-side doesn't work. It's a matter of getting enough of us to the polls.
Supply-side and baggerland social policy is too much for our fragile democracy to handle. We'll go off the rails.
However, your problem is that someone put out an opinion that bothers you.
Obviously, you are someone who believes in freedom of speech - as long as that speech is something that you agree with.
As to the rest - how on earth can anyone have trust in what Romney will do - even when declared. Is there a position the man has not held at one time or another? The dems should make an ad featuring Mitt arguing with himself over all his various stances. There's a lot of material to work with....
1. Finally win a championship.
2. Basketball championship are based on good defense. Take your best defensive player, tell him you won't sign him to a decent contract.
3. Watch the team allow a lot of points and lose the first round of the playoffs.
4. Wait at least 10 years for another championship.
5. Get rid of your best player after you win.
Kudos, Mark for not threatening the electorate the way many others in your group have. You are a much smarter businessman than the likes of Adelson, Wynn, etc. and you will still have our business after the election, but we can see through your reasoning and know how much you love to win!
Forward not back
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
simply one (successful) man's perception on what romney is presenting
an example: i work in software and a large part of the application i support is 3rd party - we do not have access to the source code to fix or change things. we call it a black box
romney is presenting himself as the "black box". feed him all of the parameters and conditions and he will crunch the numbers and provide and optimal solution
the wrench in romney's box is that at the same time he is so confident of bi-partisan support for tax overhaul, he is (per his own words) going to repeal obamacare on day one
biden called out ryan on this very thing: do NOT expect bipartisan support for taxes while at the same time acting in so completely a partisan manner in regard to healthcare (especially when offering nothing to replace it, not to mention that many people like many elements of it that have already been implemented)
that is where romney's hubris will doom us all
Mark, take your snake oil somewhere else as we're not buying it!
As said by Come on think... Forward not back - Obama/Biden 2012!
The last thing a business owner does is hire people. They only hire when demand for their products exceed the current output provided by the current employees.
The only way demand goes up, is if the middle class has money to spend on said business owners products.
Romney has put all of his extra tax breaks in offshore accounts. That does not help stimulate our economy. Swiss bank accounts help Romney, not the US. Caymen Island tax shelters help Romney, not the US.
A tax break is a raise for not producing anything or working harder.
Tell your boss you want a raise this year, but you will not take on added responsibility or you will not work longer hours, see what she says.
I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.
Jackie Robinson
Also, personal money making schemes are hugely different than running the economic schema on behalf of all Americans. Cuban is looking out for his best interest as he is included in the 1% (rich) of the wealth in America.