Skip to footer

Six points where Mitt Romney and his economic advisers are mostly wrong

Mitt Romney’s economic plan is largely based on a whitepaper written by several “heavyweight” economists. The problem is, it's riddled with fundamental flaws. Here are six points where Mitt Romney and his economic advisers are mostly wrong about what ails the American economy and how to fix it.

6. Class war and the Grover pledgers

Many Romney supporters have argued that Obama is engaged in a “class war” against the rich. Warren Buffett says that there is a class war going on, and it is being waged and won by some in the rich class.

Grover Norquist is the head of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), an organization that is purportedly funded principally by members of the rich class who want to keep their taxes low. ATR has a Taxpayer Protection Pledge pursuant to which legislators “commit themselves in writing to oppose all tax increases.” What about the Pledge of Allegiance to America?

To confront the mounting debts and deficits and do what’s best for America (not just the rich), lawmakers need the flexibility to raise revenue as circumstances demand. Pledges like Mr. Norquist’s not only stymie compromise and fuel gridlock in Washington, they undermine debt-reduction and economic recovery.

As one who had the privilege of serving this country as a captain in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, it is my opinion that these “Grover pledgers” have in substance converted the Pledge of Allegiance to America into a pledge to “one nation under Grover, indivisible, with liberty and justice for the rich.” Unfortunately, both Governor Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan are Grover pledgers. Sadly, through their support of only tax reform that is revenue neutral, the Romney economic heavyweights are tools in the class war and enablers of these Grover Pledgers.

Sam Thompson is a professor of law and director of the Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions at Penn State University Dickinson School of Law. He is the former head of the tax department of a large Chicago law firm and dean of the University of Miami School of Law. His most recent book is “The Obama vs. Romney Debate on Economic Growth: A Citizen’s Guide to the Issues.”

6 of 6
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.