Romney's First Week: Not Going So Well

With Rick Santorum's decision to drop out of the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney is now free to continue doing what he's been doing for at least a few months: essentially ignoring his opponents, saying things that don't make sense, and misusing data to make the case that he knows what's best for America.

The first thing the Romney campaign did was to recognize that his numbers among women voters are terrible relative to Obama's. He recognized this by doing two things: cherry picking jobs data to "show" that job losses under the Obama recovery have been heavily skewed against women (that 92.3% figure), and giving a wishy-washy endorsement of the Lily Ledbetter Act (that legislation which gives additional power to women to sue on the basis of pay discrimination).

In a clear violation of the 11th Commandment, The Daily Caller debunked the 92.3% nonsense by actually talking to someone from BLS and confirming that the figure isn't just unfair (c'mon... blaming Obama for the job losses in January 2009??), but also misleading (both in terms of participation rates as well as the actual data itself), and stupid (many of the jobs lost by women resulted from government firings perpetrated by GOP governors).

The second thing was some apparent confusion over whether it would be prudent to endorse the Lily Ledbetter Act. After a "we'll get back to you on that" response, Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul said that Romney "supports pay equity and is not looking to change current law.". Yawn.

That first week of trying to turn the tables on Obama and make it seem like the President has been waging a war on women isn't going so well.

But, who knows? The week ain't over yet.

Paul Ryan's Strange "Plan"

OK, we've all heard about the evils of loopholes in the tax code.  Most of us figure those are most often used to the greatest benefit by those who are wealthiest.  Tax shelters, special trusts, special deductions/exceptions, etc., are vehicles traditionally enjoyed by higher-income earners.  Certainly you need a fair bit of dough at the start: the financial professionals & specialists who are fluent in these loopholes don't manage money or give advice for free.

This isn't to say that low-income folks can't utilize loopholes, and several come to mind, but it would seem that Ryan is targeting the larger aggregate number in his budget.

At least, that's the way Paul Ryan described it in several interviews in the last few days.  Try, as I did, to follow this reasoning:

Speaking on CBS Face the Nation, Ryan explained, “We’re proposing to keep revenues where they are, but to clear up all the special interest loopholes, which are uniquely enjoyed by higher income earners, in exchange for lower rates for everyone... We’re saying get rid of the tax shelters, the interest group loopholes and lower everybody’s tax rates.”

Ummm, let me get this straight.  This budget is allegedly revenue neutral, presumably in terms of revenue as a percentage of GDP, as opposed to a grossly irresponsible actual-dollar number.

Also, the idea is to lower the tax rates on everyone.

Also--this is very interesting--Ryan seems to be indicating that he has set his sights on loophole-related benefits specifically enjoyed by "higher income earners."

So a revenue-neutral, multiple-year budget proposes to drop personal and corporate tax rates by ~30% in many cases and accomplish this by offsetting the loss of revenue simply by closing loopholes that are primarily enjoyed by high-income earners?

When pressed for details, Ryan passes the buck to Ways & Means.  Sigh.

The only way this would make sense at all is if the spending side of the balance sheet changed drastically.  Remember, even if Congress undid all the Bush tax cuts on the top income-earners, the extra revenue would only be something in the $200billion range annually.  Ryan's budget eventually balances, roughly in 2040 or something, so I guess that's fine.

Anyway, my point here is to point out this disconnect.  We've seen more coherent arguments from Mr. Ryan in the past, regardless of whether you agree with his strategies.  We've seen more solid numbers.  Is he really jumping in front of Ways & Means on this, or is this obfuscation intentional?  Are we waiting to see how the plan will get attacked before they defend it with specifics?

I suppose time will tell.