With about a week before my ballot has to be back in the
government's hands, I'm filling it out bit by bit. So far I've voted yes
on both I-1185 and I-1240, and approved R-74.
I-502, Marijuana
The Issue: I-502 would make it legal under state law (but not federal law) to possess and sell marijuana under a system of strict regulations. Marijuana producers could not have any financial interest in marijuana retailers and vice versa. Licenses to produce, process or retail marijuana would cost $250 to apply plus $1000 per year per location, with samples regularly submitted to state labs for testing.
Furthermore, marijuana would be taxed at 25% at each level of production and distribution, prior to state and local B&O and sales taxes. At the legally-mandated minimum of two steps of production (producer -> retailer), state taxes on marijuana would be approximately 68%. Total tax, including the state average for local sales taxes, would be over 70%.
I-502 also establishes many alcohol-equivalent rules for marijuana use. For example, marijuana possession would remain illegal for those under 21, driving under the influence of marijuana would be illegal for everyone, open containers in public would be prohibited, etc. The pro-502 website is here. The official anti-502 website, which is pro-legalization, is here.
My Position: I don't fully buy the arguments supporting the drug war, but I also don't buy a lot of the arguments opposing it. My libertarian leanings run up against path dependency, and I remain agnostic on the drug war as a whole.
I am opposed to I-502 because it won't bring any of the benefits of legalization, yet will create a massive new state bureaucracy under the guise of legalization.
My Reasons:
1) I-502 will directly contradict federal law, under which marijuana production, distribution and possession will all remain illegal. If passed, the initiative is likely to be struck down entirely or in part in federal court. (The counterargument is that I-502 allows but does not require violations of federal law, so that it is not pre-empted and will not be struck down. However, I-502 does seem to require violations of federal law by state marijuana regulators, particularly the prohibitions on possession and distribution of marijuana. The feds may also consider it money laundering to accept funds raised from the marijuana tax.)
2) Even if I-502 is not struck down, the threat of federal prosecution for marijuana crimes will prevent the benefits of legalization from being realized. Licensed marijuana producers, processors and retailers will have their names, addresses and precise details of their businesses recorded in a state database. Any guesses on how long it takes that database to get into federal hands? Anyone who opens a marijuana business is betting big on that never happening. New producers will be discouraged from entering the market; existing producers will be discouraged from becoming licensed.
3) Furthermore, the regulatory system set up by I-502 will place legal marijuana sellers at a substantial disadvantage to illegal sellers. Legal marijuana sales will have a cumulative tax of at least 68%, and possibly more than 100% if the production and distribution chain contains more than two steps. Then there's the significant regulatory burden placed on legal sellers-- the fees they must pay to the government, or to third parties because of government requirements; the restrictions on where they can sell, where and how they can advertise, what other businesses they can be involved in; and all of it with the threat of federal prosecution still hanging over their heads. Again, new producers will be discouraged from entering the market, and existing producers will be discouraged from becoming licensed.
4) The existing (illegal) marijuana market is an international one, yet legal marijuana sellers under I-502 will be limited to Washington state, both in who they buy from and who they sell to. With the other disadvantages placed on legal sellers, they will never be able to compete with existing illegal sellers, and those illegal sellers have scant incentive to become legal.
Whatever benefits full legalization might provide, we won't see any of them under I-502. Meanwhile, the state will spend tens of millions of dollars setting up a bureaucracy to regulate a market that will likely fail to materialize.
I will be voting NO on I-502.
Showing posts with label regulations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label regulations. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
If I Were the King of the World
Last Friday, Kevin Grier (Angus) at Kids Prefer Cheese listed the 5 things he would do as Supreme Ruler of the United States. Grover Cleveland at Pileus (ht Cafe Hayek) and later Brandon Christensen at The Republic of Liberty made their own lists. All three lists have some good ideas, and this sounds like fun, so I made my own.
I've tried to focus on more radical and interesting structural ideas, instead of more common policy ideas like tax reform or cutting sugar subsidies. That means I'm not so much convinced that these are actually good ideas. At present, I think on balance they probably might be mostly good (is that enough qualifiers?), but the academic's motto of "more study is needed" definitely applies to all five. So without further ado, here they are, in approximate descending order of probability (or ascending order of ridiculousness, if you prefer):
1. Submit Supreme Court Justices to Re-election
The entire Obamacare fiasco has underscored just how ridiculous the Supreme Court system is. By most accounts, whether or not we keep one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the last few decades will be decided by just one man-- the unelected, unaccountable Anthony Kennedy. The Constitutional idea of checks and balances was supposed to prevent exactly that.
My proposal is simple. Supreme Court Justices will continue to be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate, but they will also be subject, on a rotating basis, to re-election. Every two years, put one Justice up for re-election on a straight yes-or-no vote. If the result is yes, they stay in office, but if the result is no, they step down and a new one is appointed. Re-elections would rotate so that we always vote on the Justice that has gone longest without being re-elected. Without retirements, this means Justices would face re-election every 18 years; with retirements, it would usually happen faster. Hopefully, that's long enough that purely political motives will still be discouraged, but short enough to introduce at least some measure of accountability.
2. Create a Fourth Branch of Government - The Delegislature
As it stands, two of the three branches of government are entirely focused on creating new laws and new regulations. The judiciary is the only branch that regularly considers whether old laws should be eliminated, but they can only eliminate a law for being unconstitutional. The problem is that there are many bad laws and bad regulations that are perfectly constitutional, including many that once were good laws but no longer are.
The fourth branch of government, the Delegislature, would have as its sole power the ability to strike down bad laws and regulations. In a way, it would be like a Supreme Court that could focus on whether a law was actually good or bad, not just whether it was constitutional. It would also, of course, be elected in a similar manner to the Congress, and would be able to take on any existing law rather than be limited to court cases like the Supreme Court is. Politicians seeking re-election to the Delegislature would have to campaign on how many bad laws they've overturned. Hopefully, the underlying question of political discourse would eventually shift from "How should we control people?" to "How should we free people?"
3. Turn the Presidency into an Issue-Based Triumvirate
Just as concentrated power is bad at the Supreme Court, the same goes for the Presidency. At the same time, the nature of political discourse means that government's focus seems to grow without end. Rather than asking government to make us better off in general, we should seek a government that fulfills only those social functions that we need it to fulfill.
With an issues-based triumvirate, we would have three Presidents at once. We could stagger their elections; maybe they would serve six-year terms, with a new one being elected every two years. But once elected, each President would not have carte blanche to set policy in every area he can imagine. The three Presidential offices would each set policy on certain predefined issues. Very broadly, I'm thinking maybe they would be foreign policy, economic policy and social policy, although there are probably better ways to split up the issues. Obviously, there are some overlapping areas, so conflicts would be settled by a vote between the three. Hopefully, each election would focus more on the issues, and even if they didn't, the ongoing mission creep of the federal government would at least be slowed down.
4. Eliminate Elections in Favor of Democracy Markets
We see this time and again-- a politician is elected on promises of governing from the center, and then once in office immediately pushes through the most extreme parts of his agenda. Closer to the next election, he shifts back to the center enough to get re-elected, and the cycle starts over again. This works so often because voter memory is significantly shorter than terms of office. What if there was a way for voters to express their discontent and keep politicians in line all the time?
Enter what I call democracy markets-- think of a stock market, where the "stock" you own reflects which politician you support. You would get one vote per office, and at any time you could transfer that vote to anyone who had registered as a candidate. The system doesn't have to be any more complex than automated online or phone banking, and there's no reason it can't be just as secure. There's no need to wait 2, 4 or 6 years to have your voice heard, because you could change your vote at any time. No need to wonder if your ballot was actually counted, because you could check your current vote as easily as you can now check your bank balance. And most importantly, politicians would get active, real-time feedback. Hopefully, they would be forced to do what the people actually wanted.
5. Decouple Governance from Geography
For as long as there have been governments, they have been linked to and identified by geography. For most of human history, this was just a necessity, for reasons of defense if nothing else. But governments in general, and defense in particular, have changed a lot over the last century or so. Many, if not most, of the things governments now do have no direct relation to actual geography.
If I want to buy insurance, or save for retirement, or invest in an exciting startup, I don't have to be in a particular geographic area to do so, government restrictions aside. Living in a particular geographic area should not mean I have to join a particular government service provider either. If I don't like Washington state's laws, I have the right to move away. But why should I have to uproot my life, give up my home, my job, my friends in the area because I don't like what some doofus in Olympia is doing? Obviously there are some government services necessarily tied to geography, so leave those be. But for everything else goverunment does, we should encourage some healthy competition. Ideally, we should be able to switch governments as easily as we switch grocery stores. Hopefully, this would encourage existing governments to become more responsive to what people actually want, and maybe it would even allow new, more efficient, more competitive governments to sprout up wherever there was demand for them.
Your Turn
What do you think? Would you support any of these ideas? Do you see any problems with them? What five things would you do if you were the Supreme Ruler?
I've tried to focus on more radical and interesting structural ideas, instead of more common policy ideas like tax reform or cutting sugar subsidies. That means I'm not so much convinced that these are actually good ideas. At present, I think on balance they probably might be mostly good (is that enough qualifiers?), but the academic's motto of "more study is needed" definitely applies to all five. So without further ado, here they are, in approximate descending order of probability (or ascending order of ridiculousness, if you prefer):
1. Submit Supreme Court Justices to Re-election
The entire Obamacare fiasco has underscored just how ridiculous the Supreme Court system is. By most accounts, whether or not we keep one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the last few decades will be decided by just one man-- the unelected, unaccountable Anthony Kennedy. The Constitutional idea of checks and balances was supposed to prevent exactly that.
My proposal is simple. Supreme Court Justices will continue to be appointed by the President and approved by the Senate, but they will also be subject, on a rotating basis, to re-election. Every two years, put one Justice up for re-election on a straight yes-or-no vote. If the result is yes, they stay in office, but if the result is no, they step down and a new one is appointed. Re-elections would rotate so that we always vote on the Justice that has gone longest without being re-elected. Without retirements, this means Justices would face re-election every 18 years; with retirements, it would usually happen faster. Hopefully, that's long enough that purely political motives will still be discouraged, but short enough to introduce at least some measure of accountability.
2. Create a Fourth Branch of Government - The Delegislature
As it stands, two of the three branches of government are entirely focused on creating new laws and new regulations. The judiciary is the only branch that regularly considers whether old laws should be eliminated, but they can only eliminate a law for being unconstitutional. The problem is that there are many bad laws and bad regulations that are perfectly constitutional, including many that once were good laws but no longer are.
The fourth branch of government, the Delegislature, would have as its sole power the ability to strike down bad laws and regulations. In a way, it would be like a Supreme Court that could focus on whether a law was actually good or bad, not just whether it was constitutional. It would also, of course, be elected in a similar manner to the Congress, and would be able to take on any existing law rather than be limited to court cases like the Supreme Court is. Politicians seeking re-election to the Delegislature would have to campaign on how many bad laws they've overturned. Hopefully, the underlying question of political discourse would eventually shift from "How should we control people?" to "How should we free people?"
3. Turn the Presidency into an Issue-Based Triumvirate
Just as concentrated power is bad at the Supreme Court, the same goes for the Presidency. At the same time, the nature of political discourse means that government's focus seems to grow without end. Rather than asking government to make us better off in general, we should seek a government that fulfills only those social functions that we need it to fulfill.
With an issues-based triumvirate, we would have three Presidents at once. We could stagger their elections; maybe they would serve six-year terms, with a new one being elected every two years. But once elected, each President would not have carte blanche to set policy in every area he can imagine. The three Presidential offices would each set policy on certain predefined issues. Very broadly, I'm thinking maybe they would be foreign policy, economic policy and social policy, although there are probably better ways to split up the issues. Obviously, there are some overlapping areas, so conflicts would be settled by a vote between the three. Hopefully, each election would focus more on the issues, and even if they didn't, the ongoing mission creep of the federal government would at least be slowed down.
4. Eliminate Elections in Favor of Democracy Markets
We see this time and again-- a politician is elected on promises of governing from the center, and then once in office immediately pushes through the most extreme parts of his agenda. Closer to the next election, he shifts back to the center enough to get re-elected, and the cycle starts over again. This works so often because voter memory is significantly shorter than terms of office. What if there was a way for voters to express their discontent and keep politicians in line all the time?
Enter what I call democracy markets-- think of a stock market, where the "stock" you own reflects which politician you support. You would get one vote per office, and at any time you could transfer that vote to anyone who had registered as a candidate. The system doesn't have to be any more complex than automated online or phone banking, and there's no reason it can't be just as secure. There's no need to wait 2, 4 or 6 years to have your voice heard, because you could change your vote at any time. No need to wonder if your ballot was actually counted, because you could check your current vote as easily as you can now check your bank balance. And most importantly, politicians would get active, real-time feedback. Hopefully, they would be forced to do what the people actually wanted.
5. Decouple Governance from Geography
For as long as there have been governments, they have been linked to and identified by geography. For most of human history, this was just a necessity, for reasons of defense if nothing else. But governments in general, and defense in particular, have changed a lot over the last century or so. Many, if not most, of the things governments now do have no direct relation to actual geography.
If I want to buy insurance, or save for retirement, or invest in an exciting startup, I don't have to be in a particular geographic area to do so, government restrictions aside. Living in a particular geographic area should not mean I have to join a particular government service provider either. If I don't like Washington state's laws, I have the right to move away. But why should I have to uproot my life, give up my home, my job, my friends in the area because I don't like what some doofus in Olympia is doing? Obviously there are some government services necessarily tied to geography, so leave those be. But for everything else goverunment does, we should encourage some healthy competition. Ideally, we should be able to switch governments as easily as we switch grocery stores. Hopefully, this would encourage existing governments to become more responsive to what people actually want, and maybe it would even allow new, more efficient, more competitive governments to sprout up wherever there was demand for them.
Your Turn
What do you think? Would you support any of these ideas? Do you see any problems with them? What five things would you do if you were the Supreme Ruler?
Friday, May 25, 2012
Recent Reasons for Optimism Redux
Some more good news from this week:
1) Child mortality rates in Africa are falling rapidly, and the decline appears to be speeding up. Twelve African countries are seeing declines rapid enough to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of cutting child mortality by two-thirds from 1990 to 2015. Child mortality in three countries, Senegal, Rwanda and Kenya, is falling twice as fast as needed to meet the MDG.
2) In Israel, human skin cells from patients suffering from heart failure have been turned into functionally young, beating heart cells which were "equivalent to the stage of his heart cells when he was just born." The cells were successfully grafted onto rat hearts; human tests are still a ways off.
3) A telomerase gene therapy, when applied to adult mice, extended their lifespans by 24%. Telomerase encourages the regrowth of telomeres, the DNA equivalent of the plastic nub at the end of shoelaces. Telomerase has been shown to increase cultured human cell lifespans; the successful tests on mice have taken the treatment to the next step.
4) In non-health news, a British company is building robotic fish that can automatically test the seas for pollution. The latest buzzphrase seems to be "the internet of things," but the Brits are pushing past that to bring nature itself online.
5) MIT has developed a more life-changing technology for some of us: a nanotech coating for the insides of glass and plastic bottles that lets you get all of the ketchup out of the bottle. And it's not just for fun-- they estimate their coating could help save one million tons of food from being thrown out every year.
6) This morning, the SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully berthed with the International Space Station, becoming the first privately-built spaceship to do so. In the images below, which I captured from NASA's live stream, you can see both the Dragon capsule and the CanadArm used to catch it.
7) It's not quite space, but two California men launched a balloon to about 27 km and took the picture below of the recent solar eclipse (ht). As technology and living standards improve, everyday people are now accomplishing feats for hobbies and even school projects that were once the sole domain of governments and well-funded academics.
8) Earth is often thought of as the solar system's watery planet, but Jupiter's moon Europa has 2-3 times more water than we do. On the surface it's all ice, but geothermal heat could mean liquid oceans under the ice dozens of miles deep. That's good news for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
9) The provincial government of British Columbia decided this week that its mandatory vehicle emissions inspections had been successful. With the objective of cleaner vehicle emissions achieved, the government is now phasing out the program for non-diesel vehicles, which will save drivers $23 per year per vehicle, not to mention the hassle of the inspections themselves. That may not sound like much, but any time a government actually ends a program because it achieved its objective deserves celebration.
10) Finally, not really news per se, but a nice reminder in the form of Canadian graffiti. Photo courtesy of the Expected Optimist's better half on a trip to Tsawassen, BC.
2) In Israel, human skin cells from patients suffering from heart failure have been turned into functionally young, beating heart cells which were "equivalent to the stage of his heart cells when he was just born." The cells were successfully grafted onto rat hearts; human tests are still a ways off.
3) A telomerase gene therapy, when applied to adult mice, extended their lifespans by 24%. Telomerase encourages the regrowth of telomeres, the DNA equivalent of the plastic nub at the end of shoelaces. Telomerase has been shown to increase cultured human cell lifespans; the successful tests on mice have taken the treatment to the next step.
4) In non-health news, a British company is building robotic fish that can automatically test the seas for pollution. The latest buzzphrase seems to be "the internet of things," but the Brits are pushing past that to bring nature itself online.
5) MIT has developed a more life-changing technology for some of us: a nanotech coating for the insides of glass and plastic bottles that lets you get all of the ketchup out of the bottle. And it's not just for fun-- they estimate their coating could help save one million tons of food from being thrown out every year.
6) This morning, the SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully berthed with the International Space Station, becoming the first privately-built spaceship to do so. In the images below, which I captured from NASA's live stream, you can see both the Dragon capsule and the CanadArm used to catch it.
7) It's not quite space, but two California men launched a balloon to about 27 km and took the picture below of the recent solar eclipse (ht). As technology and living standards improve, everyday people are now accomplishing feats for hobbies and even school projects that were once the sole domain of governments and well-funded academics.
8) Earth is often thought of as the solar system's watery planet, but Jupiter's moon Europa has 2-3 times more water than we do. On the surface it's all ice, but geothermal heat could mean liquid oceans under the ice dozens of miles deep. That's good news for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
9) The provincial government of British Columbia decided this week that its mandatory vehicle emissions inspections had been successful. With the objective of cleaner vehicle emissions achieved, the government is now phasing out the program for non-diesel vehicles, which will save drivers $23 per year per vehicle, not to mention the hassle of the inspections themselves. That may not sound like much, but any time a government actually ends a program because it achieved its objective deserves celebration.
10) Finally, not really news per se, but a nice reminder in the form of Canadian graffiti. Photo courtesy of the Expected Optimist's better half on a trip to Tsawassen, BC.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Mitt Romney on Economic Policy
This is the second in a series of entries revisiting Mitt Romney's policies as stated in the debates. The first covered foreign policy, including immigration, trade and defense, as well as policies toward some specific countries and regions. This entry covers Romney's seven-point plan for economic growth (which he outlined in whole or in part in the 3rd, 6th, 7th, 17th and 19th debates) and the connected policy areas.
1: Taxes
Romney's position on taxes changed from debate to debate. For example, in the 3rd debate, he said, "I don't believe in raising taxes" and indicated he would walk away from a deal with Democrats offering a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes. But in the 4th debate, he said taxes should be "part of the American experience," so he was not concerned about raising taxes on those who do not pay federal income taxes. In the 8th debate, in Nevada, he advocated a state-level redistribution tax tied to acceptance of a nuclear waste facility. The state that built the facility would receive the money while the other 49 would pay the tax.
In the 16th debate he said the top tax bracket should be 25%, while in the 20th debate, he wanted to cut all marginal rates by 20%. Taken at face value, that would turn the current tax brackets of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% into brackets of 8%, 12%, 20%, 22.4%, 26.4% and 28% (assuming the Bush cuts are kept in place and the 2013 tax cliff is avoided), with two brackets higher than 25%.
He would cut the corporate tax rate to 25% to make it more competitive with other countries. When combined with state corporate taxes, this would move us from the highest rate to the 8th highest rate among the 34 OECD countries. He would also eliminate taxes on savings for people with incomes less than $200,000.
2: Regulations
He said he wants to improve the regulatory climate, and specifically mentioned Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and NLRB actions such as going after Boeing as regulations that are hurting businesses and preventing job creation.
He also wants to require every business to prove the legal immigration status of new hires through a national identification card connected to the federal E-Verify database. Any business that hires someone without the card or that accepts a counterfeit card would be "severely sanctioned."
3: Trade
I covered Romney's trade policy in the first entry in this series. It primarily consists of "cracking down on China," but he also advocated expanding our exports.
4: Energy
Romney said in the 8th debate, "We're an energy-rich nation that's acting like an energy-poor nation." He focuses on energy security-- getting our energy from domestic sources rather than importing them. In the 4th debate, he said he wanted to "make sure we stop sending about $500 billion a year outside our country, in many cases to nations that are not real friendly with ours." However, he does support the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.
To accomplish his goal of increased domestic production, he wants to reduce regulations on energy companies, especially oil and gas. At the same time, he has criticized Obama for subsidies to Solyndra and other alternative energy programs, indicating a general laissez-faire approach to energy. On the other hand, in line with his focus on domestic energy sources, he said he was willing to accept more expensive gasoline if that was the result of the "crippling sanctions" he wanted to place on Iran.
5: Rule of Law
While Romney often spoke of the fifth point as reinstating the rule of law, his focus with this point early on was labor policy. He viewed pro-union actions by the Obama administration as violations of the rule of law, in particular citing the GM bankruptcy and the NLRB case against Boeing. Romney believes the auto companies should have gone through the normal legal bankruptcy process from the beginning, saying in the 2nd debate that the GM bankruptcy allowed Obama to "put his hands on the scales of justice." However, in the 20th debate, he indicated he would be willing to bail out the auto companies after they've gone through a normal bankruptcy process, saying, "If they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can provide guarantees and get them back on their feet. No way would we allow the auto industry in America to totally implode and disappear." (Note that these positions on the auto bailout have apparently already been Etch-a-Sketched.) He also supports a federal right-to-work law.
In later debates he broadened the "rule of law" point to an opposition of "crony capitalism," citing Solyndra and the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline as examples. Since I think it's appropriate, I'll include here a few positions from even broader interpretation of "the rule of law."
Judicial Oversight: Romney does not want Congress to oversee judges directly in most cases, but he does believe Congress has the ability to "rein in excessive judges" (from the 13th debate) either through direct impeachment or by clarifying statutes or, of course, Constitutional amendment.
Extrajudicial Killings: In the 11th debate, he said there is "a different form of law" for those who "attack the United States" compared to those who merely commit crimes against American citizens. In the 10th, he said that anyone who joins a force we are at war with is "fair game" even if they are an American citizen. In the 16th debate, he said, "Let me tell you, people who join al Qaeda are not entitled to rights of due process under our normal legal code."
Indefinite Detention: In the 16th debate, he not only said he would have signed the NDAA, which authorized indefinite detention of American citizens, but also defended indefinite detention itself. He would have signed the NDAA not just as a flawed bill that would still get funding to the troops, but because he believes indefinite detention of American citizens is, in itself, a good policy.
Eminent Domain: In the 2nd debate, he said he believed in eminent domain for "a public purpose" but not for property that would end up going to private organizations.
SOPA: He opposed SOPA and considered opposition to SOPA to be "standing for freedom" in the 17th debate.
6: Education
In the 6th debate, he said, "We need to get the federal government out of education." He supports school choice and standardized testing. When accused by Perry of supporting Obama's Race to the Top program, which uses funding incentives to reward school systems for meeting certain goals, Romney said he did not support Race to the Top, but did support teacher evaluations and encouraging schools to hire better teachers and get rid of bad teachers. In the 20th debate, he supported No Child Left Behind because it stood up to the teachers unions and promoted school choice by establishing testing standards.
He also supports allowing illegal immigrant children to gain citizenship through military service, but not through attending college. He also frequently cited his policy requiring English immersion in Massachusetts schools as an example of how conservative he is.
7: Fiscal Responsibility
In general, Romney believes government should not spend more than it takes in. He frequently talked about the Cut, Cap and Balance plan-- cutting current spending, capping federal spending at 20% of GDP and thus balancing the budget through spending cuts rather than tax increases-- mentioning it in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th and 20th debates.
He often cited repealing Obamacare as a way he would cut spending, but also complained that money was being cut from defense to pay for Obamacare, and that he wanted to spend the money on defense instead. As mentioned in the previous entry on Romney's positions on foreign policy, he wants to increase defense spending.
Other ways he proposed to cut spending include returning discretionary spending back to its 2008 level, cutting federal employment by 10% through attrition, linking public sector compensation to private sector wages, eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, including public broadcasting, and block granting several programs, such as Medicaid, housing and food stamps, to the states. However, he would walk away from a deal with Democrats offering a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes.
He gave the impression that he would support spending-based stimulus, saying that the recovery was slow partly because we had "a stimulus plan that was not as well-directed as it should have been."
On Social Security, he said in the 4th debate, "Under no circumstances would I ever say, by any measure, it's a failure," because there are "tens of millions of Americans who live on Social Security." He made similar points again in the 5th and 6th debates. In the 16th debate, he said he would keep Social Security the way it is for those 55 and older. For the rest of us, he would apply two different inflation adjustments, a lower one for the rich and a higher one for everyone else. He would also raise the retirement age "a year or two," but for the most part would keep the system in place the way it is today.
Other Economic Policies
The Fed: He would not reappoint Bernanke, and believes the Fed should be less independent and have more Congressional oversight. But contrary to Ron Paul, he argued in the 5th debate that "we need to have a Fed… because if we don't have a Fed, who's going to run the currency, Congress?"
Housing: He wants to block grant federal housing programs to the states. In the 9th debate, he said we have a housing crisis because government was too involved in housing, and that when government is the problem, more government is not the solution. However, in the 18th debate, he added that he wanted to "help people see if they can't get more flexibility from their banks," although he didn't say how he would use government to make that happen.
Poverty: He wants a personal unemployment account system rather than the current unemployment benefits system. He wants most anti-poverty programs to be run at the state level through block grants, specifically mentioning food stamps, Medicaid and housing programs.
Pro-Market Quotes
In the 13th debate, asked what industries will create the most jobs in the next few years, he says, "The free market will decide that; government won't."
In the 17th debate, he said, "My view is, capitalism works. Free enterprise works."
Anti-Market Quotes
In the 18th debate, he said, "Markets have to have regulation to work-- you can't have everybody open up a bank in their garage."
In the 20th debate, he said, "That's the nature of what it is when you lead an organization or a state. You come to Congress and you say, these are the things we need."
1: Taxes
Romney's position on taxes changed from debate to debate. For example, in the 3rd debate, he said, "I don't believe in raising taxes" and indicated he would walk away from a deal with Democrats offering a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes. But in the 4th debate, he said taxes should be "part of the American experience," so he was not concerned about raising taxes on those who do not pay federal income taxes. In the 8th debate, in Nevada, he advocated a state-level redistribution tax tied to acceptance of a nuclear waste facility. The state that built the facility would receive the money while the other 49 would pay the tax.
In the 16th debate he said the top tax bracket should be 25%, while in the 20th debate, he wanted to cut all marginal rates by 20%. Taken at face value, that would turn the current tax brackets of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% into brackets of 8%, 12%, 20%, 22.4%, 26.4% and 28% (assuming the Bush cuts are kept in place and the 2013 tax cliff is avoided), with two brackets higher than 25%.
He would cut the corporate tax rate to 25% to make it more competitive with other countries. When combined with state corporate taxes, this would move us from the highest rate to the 8th highest rate among the 34 OECD countries. He would also eliminate taxes on savings for people with incomes less than $200,000.
2: Regulations
He said he wants to improve the regulatory climate, and specifically mentioned Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and NLRB actions such as going after Boeing as regulations that are hurting businesses and preventing job creation.
He also wants to require every business to prove the legal immigration status of new hires through a national identification card connected to the federal E-Verify database. Any business that hires someone without the card or that accepts a counterfeit card would be "severely sanctioned."
3: Trade
I covered Romney's trade policy in the first entry in this series. It primarily consists of "cracking down on China," but he also advocated expanding our exports.
4: Energy
Romney said in the 8th debate, "We're an energy-rich nation that's acting like an energy-poor nation." He focuses on energy security-- getting our energy from domestic sources rather than importing them. In the 4th debate, he said he wanted to "make sure we stop sending about $500 billion a year outside our country, in many cases to nations that are not real friendly with ours." However, he does support the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.
To accomplish his goal of increased domestic production, he wants to reduce regulations on energy companies, especially oil and gas. At the same time, he has criticized Obama for subsidies to Solyndra and other alternative energy programs, indicating a general laissez-faire approach to energy. On the other hand, in line with his focus on domestic energy sources, he said he was willing to accept more expensive gasoline if that was the result of the "crippling sanctions" he wanted to place on Iran.
5: Rule of Law
While Romney often spoke of the fifth point as reinstating the rule of law, his focus with this point early on was labor policy. He viewed pro-union actions by the Obama administration as violations of the rule of law, in particular citing the GM bankruptcy and the NLRB case against Boeing. Romney believes the auto companies should have gone through the normal legal bankruptcy process from the beginning, saying in the 2nd debate that the GM bankruptcy allowed Obama to "put his hands on the scales of justice." However, in the 20th debate, he indicated he would be willing to bail out the auto companies after they've gone through a normal bankruptcy process, saying, "If they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can provide guarantees and get them back on their feet. No way would we allow the auto industry in America to totally implode and disappear." (Note that these positions on the auto bailout have apparently already been Etch-a-Sketched.) He also supports a federal right-to-work law.
In later debates he broadened the "rule of law" point to an opposition of "crony capitalism," citing Solyndra and the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline as examples. Since I think it's appropriate, I'll include here a few positions from even broader interpretation of "the rule of law."
Judicial Oversight: Romney does not want Congress to oversee judges directly in most cases, but he does believe Congress has the ability to "rein in excessive judges" (from the 13th debate) either through direct impeachment or by clarifying statutes or, of course, Constitutional amendment.
Extrajudicial Killings: In the 11th debate, he said there is "a different form of law" for those who "attack the United States" compared to those who merely commit crimes against American citizens. In the 10th, he said that anyone who joins a force we are at war with is "fair game" even if they are an American citizen. In the 16th debate, he said, "Let me tell you, people who join al Qaeda are not entitled to rights of due process under our normal legal code."
Indefinite Detention: In the 16th debate, he not only said he would have signed the NDAA, which authorized indefinite detention of American citizens, but also defended indefinite detention itself. He would have signed the NDAA not just as a flawed bill that would still get funding to the troops, but because he believes indefinite detention of American citizens is, in itself, a good policy.
Eminent Domain: In the 2nd debate, he said he believed in eminent domain for "a public purpose" but not for property that would end up going to private organizations.
SOPA: He opposed SOPA and considered opposition to SOPA to be "standing for freedom" in the 17th debate.
6: Education
In the 6th debate, he said, "We need to get the federal government out of education." He supports school choice and standardized testing. When accused by Perry of supporting Obama's Race to the Top program, which uses funding incentives to reward school systems for meeting certain goals, Romney said he did not support Race to the Top, but did support teacher evaluations and encouraging schools to hire better teachers and get rid of bad teachers. In the 20th debate, he supported No Child Left Behind because it stood up to the teachers unions and promoted school choice by establishing testing standards.
He also supports allowing illegal immigrant children to gain citizenship through military service, but not through attending college. He also frequently cited his policy requiring English immersion in Massachusetts schools as an example of how conservative he is.
7: Fiscal Responsibility
In general, Romney believes government should not spend more than it takes in. He frequently talked about the Cut, Cap and Balance plan-- cutting current spending, capping federal spending at 20% of GDP and thus balancing the budget through spending cuts rather than tax increases-- mentioning it in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th and 20th debates.
He often cited repealing Obamacare as a way he would cut spending, but also complained that money was being cut from defense to pay for Obamacare, and that he wanted to spend the money on defense instead. As mentioned in the previous entry on Romney's positions on foreign policy, he wants to increase defense spending.
Other ways he proposed to cut spending include returning discretionary spending back to its 2008 level, cutting federal employment by 10% through attrition, linking public sector compensation to private sector wages, eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, including public broadcasting, and block granting several programs, such as Medicaid, housing and food stamps, to the states. However, he would walk away from a deal with Democrats offering a 10:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes.
He gave the impression that he would support spending-based stimulus, saying that the recovery was slow partly because we had "a stimulus plan that was not as well-directed as it should have been."
On Social Security, he said in the 4th debate, "Under no circumstances would I ever say, by any measure, it's a failure," because there are "tens of millions of Americans who live on Social Security." He made similar points again in the 5th and 6th debates. In the 16th debate, he said he would keep Social Security the way it is for those 55 and older. For the rest of us, he would apply two different inflation adjustments, a lower one for the rich and a higher one for everyone else. He would also raise the retirement age "a year or two," but for the most part would keep the system in place the way it is today.
Other Economic Policies
The Fed: He would not reappoint Bernanke, and believes the Fed should be less independent and have more Congressional oversight. But contrary to Ron Paul, he argued in the 5th debate that "we need to have a Fed… because if we don't have a Fed, who's going to run the currency, Congress?"
Housing: He wants to block grant federal housing programs to the states. In the 9th debate, he said we have a housing crisis because government was too involved in housing, and that when government is the problem, more government is not the solution. However, in the 18th debate, he added that he wanted to "help people see if they can't get more flexibility from their banks," although he didn't say how he would use government to make that happen.
Poverty: He wants a personal unemployment account system rather than the current unemployment benefits system. He wants most anti-poverty programs to be run at the state level through block grants, specifically mentioning food stamps, Medicaid and housing programs.
Pro-Market Quotes
In the 13th debate, asked what industries will create the most jobs in the next few years, he says, "The free market will decide that; government won't."
In the 17th debate, he said, "My view is, capitalism works. Free enterprise works."
Anti-Market Quotes
In the 18th debate, he said, "Markets have to have regulation to work-- you can't have everybody open up a bank in their garage."
In the 20th debate, he said, "That's the nature of what it is when you lead an organization or a state. You come to Congress and you say, these are the things we need."
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