I’m Not Mitt Romney

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NYT

Last week Politico reported that, ever since announcing his re-election bid, President Obama’s campaign has been struggling to find a slogan to sum up his reason for running. He’s cycled through “Winning the Future,” “We Can’t Wait,” “An America Built to Last,” “A Fair Shot.” Bruce Newman, Bill Clinton’s message adviser, was quoted as saying of Obama: “He’s all over the place.” So far, the most accurate slogan for Obama’s campaign would have to be: “I’m not Mitt Romney.” And when you consider that Romney — a former liberal Republican governor — has spent the whole campaign disavowing his past, for the first time in history both candidates could legitimately run on the same slogan: “I’m not Mitt Romney.”

And that’s our problem. Romney has embraced the Republican budget drawn up by Representative Paul Ryan that proposes to shrink our long-term structural deficit in a way that not only would make the rich richer and the poor poorer but would deprive the country of the very discretionary spending required to do what we need most: nation-building at home. Sure, Ryan makes deep spending cuts to balance the budget in the long term. If I cut off both my thumbs, I’d also lose weight. But I’d also have a hard time getting another job.

What do we need from a presidential candidate today? We need a credible plan to do three specific things: cut, tax and invest. As the economy improves, we need to cut spending, including all entitlement programs, to fix our long-term structural deficit. We also need to raise revenue through tax reform so we don’t just shred our safety nets and so we still have resources, not only for defense, but to invest in all the things that have made us great as a country: education, infrastructure, quality government institutions and government-funded research.

Finally, the plan has to win bipartisan support, so the candidate advocating it not only wins the election but has a mandate to implement his plan afterward.

(More here.)