I'm trying to glue together a Romney Victory, and what it would actually mean.
The Fiscal cliff would get a reprieve, congress would simply push the date by 6 months, and Obama would give it a lame duck signature. It is what you do when you lose.
So then what?
Obviously, the defense buildup is just a bunch of crap, he is not going to do that. He won't cut defense, but he'll come up with wording to make it sound like a build-up ... it won't happen.
Energy developmetn of extant technology ... yes, he will simply back off with the EPA/BLM/FS or anybody else with jurisdiction. This will create jobs, this will generate revenue, it will often be done against the will of the Governors (Republican Governors) in the effected areas. The KeystoneXL hick-up is as much about the state rights as anything else.
Certainly the jobs numbers derived from that are silly (from both sides of the aisle when they actually look at it):
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/04/792751/dont-believe-the-hype-media-fail-to-catch-campaign-lies-on-keystone-xl-jobs-numbers/
Issues with Pipeline Routing (while certainly shasred by the EPA etc) are of NEBRASKA origin ... RED Nebraska:
http://www.ibtimes.com/nebraska-governor-wants-keystone-xl-pipeline-other-side-state-366956
Once the brand new route was conjured, the FED said they needed to look it over and that it would take time. Congress required an up or down decision now, BO said ... I regret your decision to not allow review, so the thumb goes down ... for now.
Romney would just Wave this through, the last studied route had problems, so lets go with a new route without really studying it.
It is a real difference between left and right wing views, the left is more of a 'verify first' camp, the right wing is more of a 'build first' camp. The permitting processes can be a nightmare, the right may have a point, ... bunches of dead people and savaged grounwater can be a nightmare ... on this there is data, so the left, too, has a point.
For 6,000 jobs.
Much of Romney's 12 million ofr 12 billion jobs or whatever it is (varies from time of day) rest entirely on this one thing ...a thing that the let and right outside or governmental ... when they look at it, struggle to eclipse the 10k jobs mark.
But it is not just jobs one could reasonably argue .... it is, uh, supposedly "independence" what that actually means in energy terms more of political fancy than economic reality.
General budget: he would seek to gut much of the civil service, largely through changing compensation (federal defined benefit e.g., federal share of medical, step-in-grade progression rates, these sorts of things), but also by simply reducing the size for the force. This would likely be accomplished through hiring freeze .. going out and simply firing all these people would wreck chaos on joblessness numbers and crater the 2014 election. He won't do that. He will simply remove the federal government as a source for new jobs, allow people to retire, change the benefits of those currently employed, and, over 2-4 years result in a significantly reduced cost-to-government.
Whether so many fewer employees can get all of the work of government done is a separate matter, but I doubt one would see a flight from civil service as I believe his policies would likely crater the economy (or at least crater the value of private sector employment). Just as the nation at large is observing a "retirement Wave" so to is the civil service. This readjustment will be harrowing.
What is left is the whole area of whole department dissolution, Dept Edu a favorite. I don't know what they do, but they are a speck in the pan.
Please observe 2007 civil employment by agency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_civil_service
Noteworthy is the GWB department (DHS), perhaps the biggest single expanision of government since ... well, forever, with all of the Bill of Rights trampling proxy of a king.
The notion, it seems from Romney, is to disband those components of the Federal Go that, well, do things, and transit the FeGov entirely towards mil/police functions.
While these functions may or may not be sensible, the effect is to convert the government strictly into an agent that watches us, monitors us, imprisons us, and so on. I really don't think this is what tea baggers have in mind. But this is they will get.
Departments of HUD, Educ, Labor, Commerce (a right wing tool ... [this is 4 of the 3 Depts Rick Perry could not remember in a debate] they all add up to 70k federal civil service employees ... a fraction of the NewBigGov of GWB otherwise known as DHS. this is not a matter of savings, this is just a matter of thinning the consequences of neocon BigGovGrowth. Neocons prefer growth of gov that has unlimited carte blanche to ignore the Bill of Rights. Odd, but factually the case.
So, we have carved away about 65% of GWB GovGrowth, or NeoCon Gov Growth by trashing these other agencies.
I believe Romney will win, I believe this will happen.
So, we have't really shrunk anything, but we are approacing the Clinton years of the size of Gov (remebering, critically, that the size of gov EXPLODED under GWB, and has been flat or negative under BO).
The net effect is to diminish the size of current deficits ... EXCEPT this is all to be met with a reduction in revenue (tax cuts), rendering the thing largely a wash.
We end up with a modest increase in unemployment, no real change in deficit structure, and a retraction of Fed gov from areas where they have, IMO, held up the tent. So we lose the tent.
What does this accomplish? A tax cut for wealthy people ... and a beliet that a person like Romney, e.g., when faced with a marginal rate of 12% instead of a marginal rate of 14% will suddenly pull his money out of the Cayman Islands and out of Switzerland ... and, you know, invest it in American jobs.
That is plain ass stoned thinking. But lets go with it ... people will "create jobs" to serve swarms of unemployed people all sorts of "services". Doesn't wash.
The reality is it seems will be economic contraction, no real change in the federal fiscal circumstance, and the general slow wasting away that one sees if they do not maintain a car.
It won't be catastrophic, the policies of austerity and trickle down will ONCE AGAIN be shown to be fantasies, and we will whisk in somebody new in 2016.
The irony, the most vilified by the neocon wackos will be the one person with a brand towards a more balanced approach. HRC.
Fancy that.
By electing MR, they get HRC in 2016.
| 
