Romney switches his stances on key issues as often as most of us change clothes. Add this to the fact that he refuses to reveal any real facts about his apparently flawless plans, and the result is a frightening formula for a prospective leader of the free world.
This immediately became evident to me during the debate, during which Romney consistently rejected Obama’s arguments. Simultaneously, he claimed that he never held the opinions in question and that he would do no evil to the country. Good examples of this are Romney’s budget proposal and his stance on education subsidies, which are incredibly important for many of us. Romney has not remained consistent in any of these key issues.
At this point in a long, cutthroat and most expensive campaign ever; it is obvious that Romney’s new strategy is distance. By distancing his proposals with statements like, “I will not do anything to raise the deficit” he makes himself appear the better choice, mending our deeply wounded nation but is not so cut and dry. Obama fought this general statement by saying that the only way to go about putting forth Romney’s previously proposed $5 trillion tax cut and $2 trillion increase to military spending without grievously increasing the deficit is to heavily burden the middle class. But Romney, of course, stated that he did not know where those numbers came from, and that he would neither burden the middle class nor create a deficit. Romney does have a $5 trillion tax cut planned and it would be the result of a 20 percent tax decrease over 10 years.
He states that he would offset this by removing deductions, exemptions and other exclusions to broaden the tax base, but he gives no examples of which deductions and exclusions he would remove. Obama, on the other hand, states that the amount of deductions and exemptions will not cover this added $7 trillion burden. Obama also added that Romney would cut subsidies to student loans in order to keep the deficit where it is, while adding military spending and cutting taxes. Romney said that this was simply not true, even though the Pell Grant system would be severely cut in the proposed budget of his running mate Paul Ryan.
Romney has gone back and forth on whether or not he fully supports this controversial budget. This is another example of his undecided nature when it comes to making the tough decisions on who to help and who to hurt. This strategy of seeming to only make flawless choices that will not possibly harm anyone is great at snaring uninformed voters, but hopefully those of us who have a semester’s understanding of economics and a general understanding that presidents make tough choices that are almost never black and white are not fooled as easily.
Whether you support Obama or Romney, I hope you take neither of their statements at face value. During a campaign, both sides will say whatever makes them more likely to win.
