Chris Jepson: Quite the contrary

“Fiddle-dee-dee, I'll think about that tomorrow.” So says Mitt Romney on how he’ll balance the federal budget. First he’ll cut taxes by, oh, $4 trillion to $5 trillion, and then he’ll square the accounts by eliminating loopholes, cutting waste and fraud and other specific government programs. None of this adds up, of course, but when pressed to give specifics, Romney demurs, saying all will be revealed after he is president. Just wait.

Anyone with half a load on (and that is you, dear reader) knows that it will require a combination of tax increases and program cuts to achieve a balanced budget. It will involve cuts to the military and Medicare for sure. Age requirements for Social Security will be raised and SS payroll tax rates will be increased as well. What has to be done isn’t that complicated except for the political will to do the unpopular. Neither political party speaks candidly to the nation about realistic solutions for fear of alienating specific voting blocs.

What absolutely slays me is how any American considers the Republican Party the party of fiscal sanity or responsibility. What a joke. The Republican economic mantra — brayed long and loud — is “cut taxes and job-killing regulations” for a stronger America. Kids, we’ve tried that, and how’s that working out for you?

We deregulated Wall Street and banking (a big mistake, Bill Clinton) and got the economic debacle of 2008. Bush 43 cut taxes, predominantly for the wealthiest Americans, and here we are today coming out of a Republican-induced recession, and the GOP has the unmitigated gall to claim that if only, if only we cut taxes further and eliminated all those troublesome business regulations, all would be right as rain. Republicans, ironically enough, support taking government out of the boardroom, yet think nothing of putting it in our bedrooms.

Again, how’s that trickle-down economics working for your family? Clean water? Clean air? A clean environment? At the expense of jobs? What? Are you un-American? Republicans would allow soot in our air and the deterioration of our water and call it progress.

We Americans should be slapped in the face for thinking so short term. Perhaps we have been collectively “slapped in the face” by this recent recession. We should be throwing the spear down the field 10 or 15 years (minimum) and developing strategies for achieving long-term sustainable prosperity. Lifting the entrenched impoverished out of “their” circumstances has to be pursued (over decades) from a multi-generational approach. What will America be like once the bulge-in-the-python boomer generation passes (by 2040)? Do we really need/require another 150-200 million Americans in the lower 48 states? How do you balance generational needs (education vs. health care for example)? Is it possible to have a sustainable economy that is environmentally green (healthy)? Could money spent on an imperial foreign policy (war) be better invested at home, in America?

Should we respect today’s Republican Party? Is there a “we” in their vocabulary that is inclusive of all Americans? Or, has the Republican Party devolved into “we” vs. “them?” You know, them — “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Once upon a time America stood for something besides the next quarterly earnings report. Remember.

Mitt Romney has been good at making money, but it does not follow that he’d be good for America. Quite the contrary.