Romney’s fake cuts
” Like a street façade on a movie set, Romney’s economic plans are designed to project an outward appearance of functionality. But when you look behind their cleverly made-up fronts, there’s nothing to see,” writes Reason magazine’s Peter Suderman.
Looking for a candidate who will reduce the size and cost of government? Don’t look to Romney.
Suderman writes:
The candidate has also promised to balance the budget while capping federal spending at roughly 20 percent of the economy by 2016. “Achieving this goal,” his campaign website says, “will require spending cuts of approximately $500 billion.” Romney would have voters believe that he has laid out exactly which cuts he would like to make: “I favor deep cuts in federal spending,” he wrote in a recent op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, “and I’ve previously outlined exactly where I would cut.” Except that he hasn’t.
Romney’s “cut the spending” campaign web page does identify some savings. But many of the figures his campaign cites are, to put it kindly, aspirational. He takes credit for $100 billion in cuts from “empower[ing] states to innovate.” Block granting Medicaid as part of this would save some money—about $28 billion a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office—but there’s no indication as to where the other $72 billion would come from. He also suggests he’ll cut $60 billion through endlessly convenient reductions in “waste and fraud,” which may as well be a proposal to save money through the acquisition and planting of magic budget beans.
Even if we take Romney at his word, all of the cuts he lists add up to about $320 billion. Where will the rest come from? It’s telling that his plan focuses on small-bore spending cuts to Amtrak and Planned Parenthood, which would reduce federal expenditures by less than $2 billion annually. Moreover, making Romney’s tax plan revenue neutral would require even more budget slashing beyond the basic budget balancing. If he is not willing to identify additional cuts now, is there any reason to believe he’ll do so later?
Want to reduce the size and cost of government? Voting Republican won’t do it. Vote Libertarian.
