President Obama delivers an earlier State of the Union address.
Mitt Romney, continuing his astonishing political ineptness, released his 2010 income tax returns today and his average federal income tax rate is about 14%, this on an income of $21 million. Romney and his camp have plenty of warning that the former Massachusetts Governor is going to be the President’s piñata this evening. The President won’t mention his name directly but everyone will know who Obama is referring to – and his surrogates will be brutally blunt.
How will Romney respond?
If he does it right, he will win the GOP nomination and the White House. If not….
Up to now the barely-frontrunner for the GOP nod has been remarkably incompetent and awkward in handling the issue of capitalism and his own personal wealth. He has come across as that typical individual who does extremely well and feels profoundly guilty about it, as if what he did to succeed was somehow immoral or at best, amoral.
America truly is at the crossroads: Are we a Big Government nation à la stagnant Western Europe or a vibrant nation of free markets as we have been since our inception?
It’s not enough to say capitalism “works” if people believe that underneath it all the system is not quite moral, that its success is based on our baser instincts such as greed and a lust for material things. Free enterprise needs now, as never before, a full-throated champion in the public square who will vigorously make the arguments why the system is moral and Big Government is not. In true free markets you succeed only by meeting the needs and wants of other people with entrepreneurs coming up with products and services we never knew we needed in the first place. As Steve Jobs answered when asked if he did market research, “No, because customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.”
Romney must demonstrate he truly understands that the foundations of the system that made possible his own success — and that of countless others — are a positive good. This means a combination of tasks: Convincingly defending his own career; laying out the moral foundations of free markets; and putting forth as quickly as possible radical, pro-growth proposals: simplifying our anti-growth tax code; making the dollar – in the words of John Kennedy – as good as gold; and pushing serious reforms to bring genuine free enterprise to health care.
The temptation for Romney will be to mouth a few bromides about the virtues of free enterprise; to say that what he did wasn’t illegal (it’s just amazing that a man who has been running for the Oval Office for five years would still have active accounts in the Cayman Islands and, until recently, in Switzerland); and heck, he gives away a bundle in charitable contributions.
This kind of approach absolutely won’t do. Even if he fumbles at the beginning, Romney must stick to it and learn – painfully – how to make the muscular free market case on the campaign trail. Doing so will demonstrate to voters he has substance, indeed has a soul, and is not merely an ambitious, energetic empty suit.
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