Readers respond: We need business know-how at the top

Garry Duncan //September 25, 2012//

Readers respond: We need business know-how at the top

Garry Duncan //September 25, 2012//

(Editor’s note: This is one of an occasional series of columns from readers about their perspective on which candidate, President Barack Obama or Gov. Mitt Romney, would be better for business. We welcome your views! Please submit your 500-word opinion piece to [email protected], and we will post the best from both sides.)

Saying that the scale tips heavily toward President Barack Obama is analogous to saying that we are winning the war in Afghanistan. Here is why Gov. Mitt Romney is a better choice:

First, the country is broke. Sure, we can refinance the country’s debt short term, but when the Fed stops intentionally holding interest rates low, the debt is going to be a huge problem due to inflation. Raising taxes, as Obama wants to do, will not significantly reduce the debt. 

Cuts in public spending do impact Europe more, because Europe’s economy is more dependent on government entitlement programs than the U.S.  Here, we may have too much government spending, but we are not yet on the same level as Europe with their culture of entitlement and socialism.  In three years, Obama grew the national debt, $4.9 trillion dollars, more than the entire eight years under President George Bush. Only a growing private sector combined with across the board spending cuts, can significantly reduce our debt.

Capitalists like Bain Capital generally do not close or liquidate business that are producing and making profits. They buy distressed companies (on the verge of failing anyway) and make them work or fold them. An administration that understands how the private sector creates jobs, not the government, has a far better chance of growing our economy through the private sector.

Four years experience proves this administration cannot do it effectively. Some economists think that high government spending unnecessarily extended the Great Depression and is doing the same with this recession.  General Motors may be alive, but it still owes $26 billion in loans by some reports. 

Romney understands budgets, income and expenditures, while Obama has not submitted a budget to Congress in four years, nor reportedly met with his jobs council in the past seven months. His jobs czar, Jeffrey Immelt, sent thousands of jobs to China and his company, General Electric, paid zero taxes last year.  Actions are louder than words.

A significant portion of the trade deficit is because of high unemployment and the lack of consumer demand.  Another significant portion of the trade deficit is US dollars going abroad and not coming back because of the high use and demand for foreign oil.  Obama has restricted oil production and nixed the pipeline.  Romney, in contrast, wants to open up oil production and build the pipeline, which is a significant component of his immediate 12 million jobs creation plan, and it will reduce the trade gap.  When Obama took office gas was averaging around $1.84 and now is averaging around $3.65.

Alternative energy is unlikely to provide any near term relief.  A significant number of foreclosed homes are currently in possession of the banks and not on the market.  Once they go back on the market, and when the Fed ultimately has to increase interest rates, the housing market will take another jolt backward.  An uptick in housing over the last two months is not the same as a turnaround in the housing market. The housing market is years away from where it was in 2007. To create demand for housing requires we first get people working again.

Obama said in 2008 that if he could not cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term he should be a one-term president.  I am taking him at his word and voting for Romney.