"Mitt: My Plan Differs From Bush’s Because ... Uh" By Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine
Mitt: My Plan Differs From Bushs Because ... Uh
By Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/07/mitt-my-plan-differs-from-bushs-because-uh.html
"SNIP...............................
President Obamas effort to discredit Mitt Romney as a credible economic repairman has several elements: using his business career to cast doubts on his desire to help the middle class, tying him to the radical proposals of the Paul Ryan budget, and something hinted at in Obamas recent minute-long, talking-to-the-camera ad portraying his plan as a mere reprisal of the failed George W. Bush approach.
Last night, Brian Williams asked Romney to distinguish his approach to economic growth from Bushs. The answer was a mere recapitulation of his plans (Well, let me describe actually, there are five things that I believe are necessary to get this economy going
). I wont reprint the entire answer, but Romney did not make the slightest attempt to distinguish his approach from Bushs. Of course that is because its the same thing! Every single idea Romney listed low taxes, free trade, less regulation, developing energy, etc. was part of Bushs program.
Now, the usual Republican answer here, on how their approach will succeed where Bushs failed, is to shout, spending! Romney promises to cut it. Bush also promised to cut it, but didnt. I dont think this really answers the main objection lower spending may help the long-term budget picture, but the policies Republicans most directly associate with economic growth are taxes, regulation, and energy. And here Romney really is proposing the exact same policies as Bush.
But the surprising thing is that Romney didnt even have that, or any other handy answer to the question. This is a pretty bad political messaging slip-up, but it also indicates a larger problem: Republicans havent really internalized the degree to which Bushs policies truly failed to produce strong economic growth. They blame him for letting spending grow too high, and they recognize that the crash was a bad thing, but conservative rhetoric almost uniformly fails to acknowledge that even pre-crash growth under Bush was absolutely miserable.
...................................SNIP"