WHAT ROMNEY SHOULD HAVE SAID I -- THE PROBLEMS

by Tom Brown

We do not have enough people employed and will not unless we change course.  The present system of government investments, bailouts and unemployment insurance is not working.  It is especially disheartening that the massive alternative energy investments have not worked, yet have consumed precious taxpayer dollars.

We have a lot of unemployed and marginally employed people, often with skills that do not match the needs of the job market.

We have an education system that often does not train our children on the basics as measured by test scores.  Nor does the education system help the children sort out whether college is right for them or if they should pursue a job skill directly.  Needless to say college is very costly and, for most, unaffordable without financial assistance and loans.

We have a large number of illegal immigrants, some with citizen children, that cannot or will not go back to their home country for a variety of reasons.  We also have a dysfunctional immigration system for legal immigration.  Adding to this there have been some border protection and immigration scandals that the present administration has not been able to fix.

We have an extremely high cost of living with many people that cannot afford health care (or health insurance) because it is so expensive.  And we are spending perhaps 50 to 75% more than other developed countries without more results.

We have a retirement system that is underfunded for both social security and private pensions.

The public sector for now is the most generous, but is the most underfunded and may not be the most generous for long.

The private sector has some generous retirement programs, but most people in the private sector have little or no benefits beyond Social Security and Medicare both of which are going broke, Medicare being in the worst shape.  And if payroll taxes are not collected, Medicare and Social Security go broke faster. It should be understood that these programs rely on the general fund subsidizing them for the deficit in payroll tax collections.

Our infrastructure is crumbling and is not being generally repaired or replaced.

When you add federal, state and local taxes together, our taxes are as high for most as in other countries, but we are not getting the mix of services that we need most. Yet we are spending nearly 1/3 more than we are collecting on government services.

We have a tax code full of loopholes, preferential rates and exemptions that is making it difficult to raise sufficient revenues without hurting taxpayers who do not have access to these loopholes.

Besides, it is clear that we cannot simply add spending or tax our way out of this. We need to make government much more efficient and tuned more to our real needs and priorities, which would include some economically efficient stimulus in the short range.

Sorting through this requires hands on leadership and compromises between the political parties