You worry about unemployment.
Even if you don’t care that two men are telling you what you can and can’t do with your own body, you’re probably still concerned about jobs. Romney claims he’s going to add 12 million new jobs. One study that the Romney campaign cited said that a Romney tax plan would add over 7 million new jobs, but the study they cited said it would be over 10 years, not four, and also assumes the plan is fully paid for, and is based on an economy in full swing,1 neither scenario being remotely likely.
Also, the 3 million energy-related jobs Romney cited would be gained over 8 years, not four, and are based on Obama’s current policies. The remaining two million jobs would be created by cracking down on China’s infringement of US Intellectual Property rights.2 Since Romney still has financial interests in China,3 his claim that he’ll crack down on China lacks credibility.
Aside from the insulting false choice women have been offered—reproductive rights or jobs, like it’s an either-or situation—it’s impossible for Romney to deliver on his jobs promise. This jobs promise is on par with $2 per gallon gas; it’s laughable. Even with completely unrealistic scenarios of optimism in economic computer models, this type of recovery cannot be achieved.4
The math of his budget just does not stand up to scrutiny. His budget allows for between $1 trillion and $2 trillion more than the Defense department asked for (depending on how you run the numbers) and all non-defense discretionary spending would have to be cut by 40 percent to make Romney’s math actually work.5,6 This means draconian cuts to education and training, transportation, low-income programs, public safety and disaster relief, and veteran services.
The information they’ve provided so far does not specify which tax breaks will get cut for the middle class. Do you like your mortgage interest deduction? Do you like your child tax credits? The Romney campaign has refused to answer repeated questions about which tax breaks would be cut for working families. Romney does not earn actual wages like most of the country, his income comes from investments. Federally, the top tax bracket for wages is 35 percent. Investment income is taxed under capital gains, which is currently at 15 percent. He plans to make the capital gains tax rate 0 percent! This would make his personal federal income tax liability zero. Sadly, taxes will most assuredly go up for the rest of us.
We are also disturbed by his secrecy around his tax returns. He gave McCain 23 years of his tax returns, and McCain ended up running with Palin! Romney made Ryan provide 10 years of his tax returns for the VP slot. We’ve only gotten to see one full year and the very misleading “summary” of his taxes this year. Even with the one year we’ve seen, do you really feel great about his paying 13.9 percent in federal income taxes? We would venture a guess that he paid a much smaller percentage of his income than you did in income taxes.
His bragging about balancing the budget when he was governor is also very misleading. He raised fees and cut services. Much of what he did impacted lower and middle-class people. He tried to raise fees on services for mentally challenged people and blind people.7 If you think Romney is going to look out for the poor and middle class, you need to do some more research.
Not to mention the fact that Paul Ryan is not a fiscal conservative!8 He voted for ALL of the things that took us from the Clinton-era surplus to the terrible deficit that Obama inherited from Bush, which the Republicans are still trying to pin on Obama.