Cincinnati Enquirer Presidential Endorsement: Mitt Romney
Accomplishments as governor, experience in business make him best choice to heal economy, D.C. dysfunction
October 27, 2012
The No.1 issue in our region and our nation today is how to recharge our economy and get more people working in good-paying jobs.
President Barack Obama has had four years to overcome the job losses of the Great Recession he inherited, but the recovery has been too slow and too weak. It’s time for new leadership from Mitt Romney, a governor and business leader with a record of solving problems.
Obama took office in January 2009 as the nation’s economy was imploding. That year alone, 4.7 million U.S. jobs were lost and the unemployment rate ballooned past 10 percent. The president can’t be blamed for that. In fact, he and his administration took bold action to prevent further disaster.
Four years later, though, we’re still at risk of backpedaling into another recession, the housing market is still suffering and we have a sense of drift, not of common purpose.
Romney’s experience as a chief executive, business leader and governor position him to be the best candidate to lead us into a new era of streamlined but effective government with a renewed focus on maintaining America as the world’s leading economy.
The best indicator of how Romney would lead is his record as governor. There we have evidence of a Romney who governs more moderately than he was forced to campaign in the long runup to the presidential election.
He came into office in 2003 facing an immediate budget shortfall of $450 million and projections of much worse. It was Massachusetts’ worst recession in decades.
Romney’s approach was businesslike, and he didn’t spare any sacred cows. He made deep cuts in local government funding and to education. He didn’t raise state taxes, but he increased fees for many government services, which raised hundreds of millions.
He took heat from businesses for closing loopholes that saved them money but cost the state revenue. He blocked companies from transferring intellectual property to out-of-state shell companies, and he barred banks and other companies from avoiding taxes by paper restructuring.
The bottom line: He erased the deficit in Massachusetts (which was required by state law) and left office with a $600 million surplus. He replenished the state’s reserve fund two years into his term, pushing it to $2 billion by the time he left office in 2007.
He had more modest success in job creation. The dot-com economic bubble had burst. Job growth in Massachusetts over Romney’s four years equaled about 1 percent, less than the 5 percent growth nationally. Unemployment fell, in line with the national rate.
Romney adopted a businesslike, managerial approach to leading his state, appointing competent managers and listening to consultants. That approach was especially evident when Massachusetts’ health care plan was created. Romney involved business leaders, including insurance industry executives, and hired consultants to dig into the finer points.
He approached health care-insurance reform as a problem to be solved and ended up with a system that was a model for the Affordable Care Act by requiring virtually everyone to have insurance and levying a penalty on the state’s income tax return for failing to buy insurance. That experience in legislating big health care changes will be valuable if he has the opportunity to amend Obamacare.
Romney’s health care plan starts with allowing the states to waive the federal law. He would enable individuals and small businesses to set up purchasing co-ops, make block grants to states for Medicaid, the health care coverage for the poor, and reform insurers’ pre-existing condition rules.
His other defining experience was as president and chief executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. In 1999, he took over an organizing effort that had gone off track and revived it by trimming spending, raising hundreds of millions and working closely with businesses and governments in what was a giant public-private partnership. He left the games with a $100 million surplus.
Romney’s plans for recovery revolve around the economic principles of reducing government regulation, cutting corporate taxes and opening more global markets. It’s an approach consistent with who Mitt Romney is – a businessman and a moderate conservative who doesn’t believe so much in government’s making things happen as he does in lifting government interference so they can happen.
On foreign policy, he would maintain the withdrawal schedule in Afghanistan and tough sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. He’s proposed increasing the size of the military by 100,000 troops, but he’s abandoned the tough, warlike talk of George W. Bush in favor of a more diplomatic approach.
If Romney can stabilize and expand the U.S. economy, his greatest foreign policy contribution could be employing reinvigorated U.S. economic muscle to influence the global economy.
This is a precarious time for America. We’d expect a President Romney to lead toward the center, to resist the calls for a hard turn to the right that are sure to come from within his party.
Romney has accomplished progress with divided government – the Massachusetts General Court (the state’s Legislature) is overwhelmingly Democratic. The gridlock in D.C. is entrenched, and we’d urge him to make a priority of finding the common ground and using his leadership to forge compromise, coalitions and solutions.
Romney as president should stay true to who he is – a moderate leader who can work with the left and right, with business and with government, and who will set an example, both as an individual and as the leader of the United States of America.
Re: 2012 Election
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