Romney should be elected over Obama

The economy is most important, and Romney knows how to fix it An impoverished nation cannot afford entitlements, defense, education, or anything else. A prosperous economy allows us debate other priorities, but the economy must come first. President Obama has fulfilled none of his promises, and GDP is growing at a snail's pace. Unemployment has not improved, and both deficits and household income are substantially worse. Con says.”In his efforts, he's attempting to make it appear as if this economy is doing worse than it was 4 years ago.” I did not claim GDP was worse. My contention is that Obama has led the worst recovery of the post-War era. I provided the data to show that to be true. I acknowledged that the economy as measured by GDP is growing, but at a rate that has slowed in each successive year under President Obama. Con originally took the stance that unemployment ought to be the measure of economic growth, while I argued for broader metrics. Obama claims he created five million jobs, but at the same time five million jobs were lost. Unemployment has gone down solely because people have left the work force. As a result of the workforce shrieking, unemployment is now where it was when Obama took office. Con has not disputed the data showing this. Another metric is household income. Con did not dispute it has dropped by $4200. The recovery has hurt people worse than the original recession. Obama accused Bush of being unpatriotic for having deficits of $425 billion. Obama's deficits have averaged $1307 billion, with no end in sight. [19. http://www.weeklystandard.com...] Con's references Romney as agreeing the economy is improving. Sure, GDP is increasing, but nowhere did Romney say the improvement was satisfactory. When Boehner and others say Obama has made the economy worse, they mean worse than a normal recovery or worse than doing nothing. If government does nothing, a strong recovery comes from assets becoming cheap so investors rush in to buy them. That has not happened. The large and uncertain costs of Obamacare have kept small business from expanding. Dodd-Frank has greatly inhibited small business loans. Small business leads most recoveries, but not this one. Obama cut oil leasing on Federal land and stopped pipeline construction, preventing 4 million new jobs. The astounding regulatory burdens of the EPA, ADA, and the rest of the government have suppressed investment. Foreign Affairs Using whatever resources available, the President's oath of office ("to protect and defend") requires defense be top priority. Romney has articulated a measure and reasonable defense plan. [20. http://www.mittromney.com...] The costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have totaled around $150 to $200 billion per year, and have continued under Obama. [21. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...] Bush, Obama, and Romney have all assumed the costs will diminish, producing defense budget savings. The war costs were not a significant contributor to the recession. The recession was caused by Democrat-run Fannie and Freddie making, as a matter of policy, huge amounts of bad loans that ultimately led to the housing collapse. Con's R3 arguments In Round 2 I distinguished Romneycare from Obamacare. Romneycare is a small program, and it doesn't cut reimbursements or attempt to control methods of care. Con wonder's how states might have different needs for health care. They differ enormously in the makeup of rural and urban populations. Obamacare will effectively abolish the private practice of medicine by imposing regulations that require a large bureaucracy to ensure compliance. It will be devastating to rural states. States also have different circumstances with respect to geography (which especially affects emergency care), and factors affecting the prevalence of suicide, violence, drugs, and traffic accidents. Traditional living patterns vary. (Hawaiians have the best health, yet eat the most Spam.) Con did not respond to my argument that it is impossible to improve health care with increasing the number of provider, and Obamacare reduces the number. Even if all states were the same, people will have different ideas on what is best. The good ideas stand out by comparison. Federal programs freeze innovation to whatever the giant bureaucracy conceives. By comparison, if all people have similar computing needs, why should be have more than one computer company? It's obvious. The math of Romney's tax plan is defended by studies of the American Enterprise Institute, argued by economist Alex Brill. [22. http://tinyurl.com...] Romney wants to cut tax rates amounting to $5 trillion over 10 years and to recover about $3 trillion of that by curbing deductions. He claims the remaining $2 trillion will come from economic growth. Separately, the white House has provided numbers saying that there are a total of about $11 trillion in revenue lost to deductions. The main controversy in the calculations is over whether the economy will grow. Liberals who think the job of government is to redistribute wealth are uncomfortable with claims of a growing economy. The whole purpose of tax deductions is to redirect money from more productive investments to less productive ones that Congress favors. It is therefore inevitable that reducing deductions will increase growth, by redirecting investment into productive ventures. Growth also derives from energy sector expansion, repeal of Obamacare, reduction of regulation, and expansion of trade. My main argument is that beginning with his apology tour, Obama has systematically reduced American standing in the world through a theme of "leading from behind." That contention stands. The gist of Romney's differences with Bush and Obama are that the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan were wound down too quickly. Romney claims that Obama should have presented a soft deadline for withdrawal from Afghanistan rather than a hard deadline. Con claims that Romney has been ambiguous in specifying his policy. I agree Romney has not nailed down details, and that Romney has revised the details over the past five years. The details are unimportant, because the Presidents job is setting the policy objectives. Obama had no foreign policy experience, and set the tone of leading from behind. Romney has set the tone of building credibility through military strength and supporting our allies. Integrity Nothing Romney has done comes close to Obama's failure to fulfill his promises of transparency and bipartisanship. He's been an unswerving ideologue. Debate issues Con says he wants to save fact-based arguments for his final round. He agreed not to do that in accepting the debate, per “DR 4. No new arguments shall be made in Round 4. ... Con may not present any new evidence in R4.” The reason for the rule is that I have no opportunity to refute claims made by Con in his final round. Con must be content with summarizing previous arguments. Factcheck.org and Politifact were once reliable sources, but they are now no better than liberal blogs. Con should not have relied upon them. Factcheck said Obama did not promise the Stimulus would work, but it was very clearly sold to Congress that way. As I showed, losing two million jobs is not "close enough" to meeting a promise to add three million. I have many more pertinent sources, and Con argued only a few of my claims of facts. Con's heavy use of "wall of text" is difficult to parse. Sentences like, "If my opponent can make it clear that his minor debate has a realistic approach at the overall debate topic, I will be pleased to debate issue." cannot be parsed at all. Con's calling me "The Great Roy Latham" is a gratuitous insult and a conduct violation. I never suggested that anything but facts and arguments counted. =============== Thanks to my opponent for a spirited debate. The resolution is affirmed. It's about the economy and it's Romney.