Conservatives point out that we, as a society, have never tried an entirely free enterprise system. They’re right — and there’s a reason for it

Even so, the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan plan for the economy is not free enterprise.  It is a plan that would exploit the most vulnerable in our society and funnel wealth to the top, all in the name of job creation.

They say balancing the budget would somehow encourage job growth. To do that, they propose the following things: cut taxes, cut spending and close loopholes in the tax system.

There are many tax breaks that we on the left do not like — for instance, those to oil companies and the one Romney got for his dancing horse, Rafalca. However, nearly everyone takes a few tax breaks.

The largest of which are the breaks on mortgages to encourage home ownership, on children to help parents, on marriage to encourage families to settle down, on retirement to encourage people to save and on charitable donations.

Which of these deductions would they cut?

Romney has said he doesn’t want to cut defense spending a single dime, instead suggesting he would increase it. So all of his spending cuts would come from what’s called domestic discretionary spending.

This spending includes programs like NASA, the National Park Service, the FBI and my personal favorite, the National Weather Service.

Which of these programs will they cut?

And he wants to sacrifice these things to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires — you know, so they can buy more yachts.

Colin Crowley is a senior political science and philosophy major. His column appears online weekly. He can be reached at cocrowle@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @colincrowley.

 

Published on October 2, 2012 at 1:00 am