Maybe some of you have heard this five-point plan before:

1. Restrain spending and balance the budget.

2. Make America energy independent to create jobs.

3. Expand trade and increase exports to create jobs.

4. Protect small business owners because the current tax code is a drag on the economy.

5. Blah blah blah.

If all this looks familiar, it should. This was George W. Bush’s plan from the 2004 election. I know many of you thought this was Mitt Romney’s current five-point plan to save America. It is not, but, yes, it is almost identical.

There is no secret that the Bush years were disastrous to our economy, but the fact that Romney has a very similar plan for it should be troubling to us all. Republicans seem incapable of having any new ideas, but that is because their beliefs have not changed in spite of all the evidence we have seen in the last decade that their economic polices do not work.

Cutting taxes on the wealthy does not magically make them want to hire people. What makes them hire is a demand for the product or service that their business provides. And working people and the middle class supply that demand. Well, unless that wealthy person’s only business is to hide money in a Cayman Island tax shelter and live off the capital Bain — oh, oops, I meant GAIN, capital gains.

Do not get Romnesia. Do not forget how this mess all started. And do not forget the progress we have already made.

No more trickle-down. Vote Democrat.

 

Brian Anderson

Albert Lea