Romney's Policy Director Says Obama's Regulatory Review Is Insignificant, Romney Would Do Much More

By Luke Gunderson | August 24, 2011 - 9:59 AM | 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Economy, Mitt Romney, Op-eds 1 views

Lanhee Chen, who is Director of Policy at Romney for President, posted a blog this morning criticizing the Obama Administration’s poor attempt at cutting job-killing, regulatory red tape.

Mr. Chen points out the insignificance of regulatory revisions that will save approx. $2 billion per year, when the administration has proposed or implemented more than $9 billion in new regulatory costs in the last month alone.

He also provides insight into what standards would be under a Romney administration:

Mitt Romney would take a radically different approach to federal regulation. The American people can rest assured that every cabinet member will know from day one that they are expected to “minimize regulatory costs” and that “imposing excessive regulatory burdens” is unacceptable. $2 billion of savings in the month after the administration proposed or implemented $9 billion in new costs may be the best that President Obama can offer, but such government expansion would be unacceptable in any month of a Romney administration.

Here’s the full blog post from the Official Mitt Romney blog:

NO CHEERS FOR OBAMA REGULATORY “REVIEW”

In an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein proudly announced the conclusion of “an unprecedentedly ambitious government-wide review of existing federal regulations.” The result? A smattering of insignificant regulatory revisions that will save approximately $2 billion per year.

To put in context just how small this savings is, compare it to the more than $9 billion in new regulatory costs proposed or implemented by the Obama administration last month alone. Even worse, compare it to the estimated $1.75 trillion in regulatory costs that the federal government itself estimates are borne by the American economy each year. If an “unprecedentedly ambitious government-wide review” only yields a one-tenth-of-a-percent reduction in regulation, perhaps it is long past time to give up hope that the Obama administration will ever understand the severity of our economic crisis and the need for fundamental reforms.

The worst indictment of President Obama’s leadership was actually buried at the end of the article where Mr. Sunstein – again with apparent pride – informed readers that “we are announcing today that Chief of Staff William Daley has given new instructions to the cabinet. He has asked cabinet members to minimize regulatory costs, avoid imposing excessive regulatory burdens, and prioritize regulatory actions that promote economic growth and job creation.”

One can only read those sentences and conclude that, for the first 950 or so days of the Obama presidency, cabinet members were not expected to “minimize regulatory costs” or “prioritize regulatory actions that promote economic growth and job creation,” and that they were free to “impos[e] excessive regulatory burdens.” Once again, the sad reality emerges: reduction of regulatory burdens and promotion of job creation were not even on President Obama’s radar screen for much of his term.

To quote Chief of Staff Daley’s own words, when confronted earlier this year by angry business owners frustrated by the rate at which President Obama’s regulatory agenda was destroying jobs: “Sometimes you can’t defend the indefensible.”

Mitt Romney would take a radically different approach to federal regulation. The American people can rest assured that every cabinet member will know from day one that they are expected to “minimize regulatory costs” and that “imposing excessive regulatory burdens” is unacceptable. $2 billion of savings in the month after the administration proposed or implemented $9 billion in new costs may be the best that President Obama can offer, but such government expansion would be unacceptable in any month of a Romney administration.

Yesterday, Governor Romney announced that on September 6 he will unveil his plan to grow the economy and create jobs. The Governor has worked in the private sector and he understands the ways that regulation can hinder job creation. Thus, one important part of his plan will be regulatory reform that relieves businesses and workers from some of the overwhelming costs and uncertainty currently imposed by Washington.
As President, he will perform the clean-up of federal regulation that our economy needs, but that President Obama has proven himself incapable of—and uninterested in—pursuing.

Lanhee Chen is the Policy Director at Romney for President

Romney Hits Obama on China Trade Policy, Makes Huntsman Look Like Jonny-Come-Lately

By Luke Gunderson | July 28, 2011 - 9:40 PM | Barack Obama, Economy, Foreign Policy, Free Trade, Jobs, Jon Huntsman Jr., Mitt Romney, Obama Isn't Working 1 views

4 Comments

Romney Gets Tough on China

I love the Romney camp’s recent focus on China and trade policy. It’s a super effective route to take at this point in the campaign for a few reasons: it correlates nicely with Mitt’s main jobs/economy theme — allowing him to hit one of Obama’s rarely mentioned weaknesses, all the while making Huntsman look like Jonny-come-lately (China being his supposed strong suit). Props to the strategy team at Romney for President for the timeliness of this rollout.

Below is an op-ed written by Romney’s Policy Director, Lanhee Chen:

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S RETREAT ON CHINA IS COSTING AMERICA JOBS

When he ran for president, candidate Obama said he would take China “to the mat” over its unfair trade practices – but instead he is the one being treated like a doormat.

China still does not play by the rules or provide an open and level playing field on which we can compete. In fact, the most recent data shows that while China continues to grow its economy rapidly, our exports to China are actually falling!

If Mitt is elected President, he will not tolerate this situation. He will get tough with China.

Make no mistake – Mitt is a strong believer in free trade and open markets. Opening new markets overseas creates new demand for American products and services, which in turn creates new jobs for American workers. As the world’s second largest economy, and one of the fastest growing, China offers incredible opportunities for American companies. If these companies are able to compete in the Chinese market, they will create countless jobs here at home.

Unfortunately, China is trying to deprive America of that opportunity. For too long, we have allowed China to take advantage of our goodwill and commitment to openness. We have opened our own markets to them, but we have gotten little in return. They steal our technology, manipulate their currency, and put up barriers that prevent us from competing. As a result, for every four dollars of goods China sells into our market, we are only able to sell one dollar’s worth into theirs. The resulting trade imbalance is the largest in the history of the world.

The company Mitt is visiting today, Screen Machine, is an example of the problem American companies face. Screen Machine represents the heart and soul of our economy and the potentially vibrant future of manufacturing in this country. Steel comes in one door. Incredibly advanced machines are driven out the other door by remote control, to be sold to countries around the world.

Selling to China is the biggest opportunity for Screen Machine to grow its sales and hire new workers – but they can’t. They worry that if they send their machines to China, then copies of the machines will start showing up around the world at knock-off prices. They already have seen websites in China that show pictures of their machines with the company logo blurred out. They can’t compete in an environment like that.

If we can confront China and persuade them to play by the rules, then companies like Screen Machine will be at the forefront of turning around our economy and creating the jobs Americans need.

-Luke Gunderson

What Happens When President Obama Doesn’t Get His Way?

By Rebel Ross | May 19, 2011 - 9:46 AM | Barack Obama, Economy, Mitt Romney 1 views

4 Comments

President Obama’s administration shut out a reporter from the Boston Herald from his Wednesday fundraising event in Boston. You might think that it would be insane for a politician to treat an important blue-state newspaper like this with an election coming up relatively soon, but hey, you’re not the President of the United States so what do you know!?

In any regard, what is the reason the Boston Herald was treated so poorly? The Obama administration is angry that Mitt Romney’s op-ed “The Obama Misery Index Hits a Record High” was put on the front page. We’ve all suspected that Gov. Romney is the candidate President Obama fears most, but can there be any doubt now? President Obama just can’t get Mitt Romney out of his head.

Fortunately for truth-seekers everywhere, Gov. Romney fired back at President Obama for barring the Herald from full access to the presidential visit to Boston yesterday.

‘I know the president and the White House are very sensitive about anyone who talks about the failures in the economy,’ Romney said. ‘They’re in denial about putting people out of work and the under-employed. When the Herald speaks the truth, they lash out.’

‘I think the president’s campaign promises in too many cases have gone by the boards. The transparency pledge was the first to go,’ Romney said. ‘The inclination toward retribution and lashing out toward people who disagree with his economic posture is only the latest chapter.’

‘I think it’s very hard for a Republican administration to try and punish the media for a story they don’t like,’ Romney said. ‘And this is not in keeping with the First Amendment principles that have governed the White House.’

If you actually click on either of the Boston Herald articles, they both link to Mitt’s original op-ed that the administration seems to angry about, so all President Obama has achieved is to bring even more attention to Gov. Romney’s op-ed. I can’t wait to see how the President reacts when Gov. Romney actually releases the Obama Misery Index and the American People have a visual depiction of how terrible President Obama’s policies have been for our economy!

UPDATE
Hugh Hewitt asks “Why is President Obama Trying to Raise Governor Romney’s Negatives?”

“It is almost as if the president wanted to make sure that Romney wasn’t the GOP nominee.” Yeah, almost ;)

Romney Op-Ed in USA Today Previews Health Care Speech

By Jayde Wyatt | May 11, 2011 - 2:35 PM | 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Conservatives, Health Care, Mitt Romney, Op-eds, RomneyCare 1 views

2 Comments

USA Today has published an op-ed today from Governor Romney previewing the health care speech he will deliver tomorrow:

Romney: As first act, out with ObamaCare

Health care is more than just one-sixth of the American economy. It is a source of well-being for individuals and families. We are blessed with much that is good in American health care. But we have taken a turn for the worse with ObamaCare, with its high taxes and vastly expanded federal control over our lives. I believe the better course is to empower the states to determine their own health care futures.

First, the good news: Health care in the United States has made remarkable advances in our lifetimes. Dramatic improvements in medical technology have expanded both the length and quality of life. And the U.S. health care system continues to provide consumers with many choices.

But our health care system has several well-known problems: high and rising costs, significant numbers of Americans without insurance, and glaring gaps in quality and efficiency.

We can fix these problems. Unfortunately, with the passage of ObamaCare last year, the president and the Congress took a wrong turn. ObamaCare will lead to more spending, greater federal involvement in health care and negative effects on U.S. economic activity. The president definitely forgot the admonition to “do no harm.”

My plan is to harness the power of markets to drive positive change in health insurance and health care. And we can do so with state flexibility (unlike ObamaCare’s top-down federal approach), no new taxes (as opposed to hundreds of billions of dollars of new taxes under ObamaCare), and better consumer choice (as opposed to bureaucratic, government choice under ObamaCare). This change of direction offers our best hope of preserving both innovation and.

Romney also reiterates his pledge that, should he become President of the United States, on his first day in office, he would issue an executive order to offer health care waivers for all states. Then, he would doggedly work to fully repeal Obamacare.

Romney states, again, his long-held belief in returning power to the states.

In this op-ed, five health care reforms are highlighted:

Step 1: Give states the responsibility, flexibility and resources to care for citizens who are poor, uninsured or chronically ill.[...]

Step 2: Reform the tax code to promote the individual ownership of health insurance. [...]

Step 3: Focus federal regulation of health care on making markets work. [...]

Step 4: Reform medical liability. [...]

Step 5: Make health care more like a consumer market and less like a government program. [...]

Don’t miss reading the details here.

We’re eagerly awaiting The Gov’s speech! (We’ll update here when broadcast info becomes available.)

UPDATE: May 12, 2011 LIVE on C-Span 3 – Gov Romney’s speech will air @ 2:00-3:00 PM ET. See www.C-Span.org. It is also being reported that his speech will air on Radio – XM Channel 119 at the same time, but I haven’t confirmed that.

UPDATE 2: Here is the C-Span LIVEFEED link to watch Gov Romney’s speech: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/. Unconfirmed: Some are saying FOX News will broadcast Gov Romney’s speech LIVE @2:00 PM ET, as well.

► Jayde Wyatt

Romney Critiques Obama’s Libyan ‘Mission Muddle’

By Jayde Wyatt | April 21, 2011 - 1:55 PM | Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Mitt Romney, Op-eds 1 views

2 Comments

Governor Mitt Romney has released a critique of Obama’s hash-up in Libya:

The Corner (National Review):

Mission Muddle in Libya (4/21/11)
By Mitt Romney

In a nationally-televised speech on March 28, President Obama defined the American military mission in Libya as humanitarian: We would enforce a no-fly zone to prevent Libyan forces from bombing civilians. I support that specific, limited mission. Last week, the president wrote in an op-ed with his British and French counterparts that “to succeed, Qaddafi must go and go for good.”

It is apparent that our military is engaged in much more than enforcing a no-fly zone. What we are watching in real time is another example of mission creep and mission muddle. In an op-ed in today’s Boston Herald, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton rightly notes that Obama has set himself up for “massive strategic failure” by demanding Qaddafi’s ouster “while restricting military force to the limited objective of protecting civilians.”
[...]

Full statement here

Ambassador Bolton’s op-ed:

Opponents of the Vietnam War — that seemingly endless, inconclusive, increasingly unpopular and ever-more-deadly and costly conflict — called it a “quagmire.” They said it was unwinnable and should never have been fought, and that America must avoid similar future wars. Today, our real risk of “quagmire” is Libya.

Our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president has gotten things badly wrong. By demanding Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster while restricting U.S. military force to the more limited objective of protecting civilians, Barack Obama has set himself up for massive strategic failure.

Yet America is now committed. Gadhafi won’t care that he’s being bombed for “humanitarian” rather than “regime change” reasons; once able, he’ll likely return to international terrorism, as he has already threatened. He may also resume his quest for nuclear weapons, and this time we’ll have no hope of negotiating him out of it as we did in 2003-04.
[...]

(Video Update) Mitt Romney Heads to Florida, Lauds Tea Party, FL Congressman Connie Mack Endorses Romney

By Jayde Wyatt | April 15, 2011 - 11:15 AM | 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Deficit Spending, Endorsements, Mitt Romney, Taxes 1 views

5 Comments

U.S. Rep Connie Mack, R-Fort Meyers, Florida

As Mitt Romney heads to Florida today, a hearty endorsement from influential Florida Congressman Connie Mack is welcome news:

Mack for Mitt: Romney Picks Up Florida Endorsement

MIAMI– Mitt Romney has picked up another important Florida endorsement as he continues to build his network in the crucial primary state ahead of his probable run for president. U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV has said that he will support the former Massachusetts governor because of his economic credentials.

“We need true leadership in the White House with someone who is uniquely qualified to grow the economy and create the quality jobs that Americans deserve and need,” Mack told the St. Petersburg Times.
[...]

“If Governor Romney decides to run for president in 2012, I will absolutely be supporting him and helping him in Florida,” Thrasher told FOX in March.” He would be a great GOP nominee.”

Romney sights are firmly focused on Florida, a state at the center of his political strategy to win the GOP nomination, according to Florida insiders who are backing him and his expected entry into the 2012 race.

A precursor to Romney’s Florida stops and Tax Day was an op-ed penned by Romney in the Orlando Sentinel yesterday. For Americans, who are busy crunching numbers this weekend to pay voracious Uncle Sam, Romney echoes many feelings regarding America’s complex, convoluted tax system. He writes that “our system of taxation is killing our nation’s once-strong economic engine.” (A special exception gives taxpayers until Monday the 18th to make the IRS happy.)

“The mind-boggling complexity of our tax system is only part of the problem,” he wrote. “As of last year, the U.S. tax code had mushroomed into 71,684 pages that no one human being can fully understand. Along with complexity comes a dizzying array of perverse incentives.”

Romney also writes about our national debt, states that one of the biggest tax reforms is reining in Obama, and lauds the Tea Party movement:

Almost 21/2 centuries after the original Boston Tea Party of 1773, the idea of limited government that inspired our forebears is very much alive. The growth of government is not some inexorable force. In a democracy, we the people decide. Thanks to the Tea Party, there’s real hope that we can rein in our profligate federal government.

Nate covers the full op-ed here.

UPDATE:

The Romneys attended a fundraiser in Orlando today. Among all that was said, a nugget was revealed: The Gov WILL campaign in Iowa. Read more here.

Video hat/ tip: RightSpeak.net (Bosman)

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Mitt Ups the Ante: Calls Out Obama in New Op-ed | UPDATE: Op-ed Twofer – Romney says ‘Rein in President Obama’ in Orlando Sentinel

By Nate Gunderson | April 14, 2011 - 7:11 PM | Barack Obama, Mitt Romney 1 views

13 Comments

Ouch! Take a peek at this list of words Romney employed in a new op-ed directed at Obama: failures, inexperience, misguidance, incompetence, deceptive, dishonest, demagoguery, divisiveness, deception, impair, depressing, short-comings, fault, impugning, disheartening, dangerous… and then the two harshest of them all… wrong and bad.

This op-ed makes an interesting departure from Romney’s give-Obama-the-benefit-of-the-doubt tone of the past two years. Read for yourself:

America saw a different President Obama yesterday. Over the last two years, the president’s job was to repair the economy and to make us safer. He has failed at both but at least he appeared to be trying — his failures were arguably attributable to inexperience, misguidance, and incompetence. Yesterday, however, the president went from being wrong to being deceptive and intellectually dishonest.

The peril of our nation’s present fiscal course has been amply documented. The facts are settled. The president’s own bipartisan deficit commission proposed entitlement and spending reforms to restore fiscal responsibility. The Republicans in the House of Representatives and Chairman Paul Ryan have offered alternative reforms of their own. With the resulting national recognition of financial peril, the country was presented with a once-in-a-generation opportunity. As the president summoned the nation, change was hoped for. Demagoguery, divisiveness, and deception is what we got.

Read the full op-ed at NRO.

What words would you have used to rate Obama’s job performance? (Keep it PG please :) )

UPDATE: Just a few hours later another op-ed by Romney is release in the Orlando Sentinel “Rein in government – starting with Obama”

Romney gives Obama the old 1-2 with concurrent op-eds in two different publications. This newer one, by only a few hours, talks Tea Party (including the original one in Boston), GDP, ObamaCare, mind-boggling tax code, small biz and entrepreneurs.

Snippet from the Orlando Sentinel:

(more…)

New Op-Ed by Mitt Romney: “Obama Turns his Back on Israel”

By Aaron Gundy | February 18, 2011 - 2:47 PM | Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Mitt Romney, Op-eds 1 views

4 Comments

Somehow, after having traveled to several states and across the country this week, Mitt Romney has found sufficient time to fire up the iPad and produce an op-ed slamming the Obama administration for flirting with the idea of releasing a ‘presidential statement’ condeming Israeli settlements as “three mistakes in one”. From the op-ed it’s interesting to see Romney’s feelings regarding the U.N. summed up as the “chamber of double-standards”.

With 40 states scheduled on his round-the-country tour, and his stepping-up of Obama criticism, I’d say Romney is looking more and more like a 2012 candidate for President! …And the Obama administration knows it.

From National Review:

The Obama administration has been seeking a way to avoid vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel. It has floated the idea of meeting Israel’s critics halfway with a U.N. “presidential statement” calling Israeli settlements “illegitimate.” Whether or not such a statement is actually issued, the very idea is a mistake. Indeed, we have here in this single idea a display of multiple foreign-policy failures of this presidency. Let us count the ways the administration’s proposed action has already injured Israel and the United States.

Obama Turns his Back on Israel
For one thing, the U.N. condemnation put forward by the president puts Israel, our closest ally in the region, in an untenable position. In exchange for peace, previous Israeli governments offered radical border concessions, surrendering most of the West Bank and even portions of Jerusalem. In 2005, the government of Ariel Sharon withdrew from the Gaza Strip, uprooting thousands of its own citizens. Yet all such proposals and steps toward peace have been met by Palestinian rejection, by intifadas, by suicide bombings, and by Qassam rocket fire. Isolated more than ever in the region, Israel must now contend with the fact that its principal backer in the world, the United States, is seeking to ingratiate itself with Arab opinion at its expense. Will an increasingly tenuous relationship with the U.S., at the very moment when it is becoming more vulnerable, encourage Israel to be as flexible as it has in the past, or the reverse? The answer is clear.

Continue reading at National Review.

*Note by Jayde – Just this past January, Governor Romney completed an intense ‘listening and learning’ tour of the Middle East – meeting with foreign leaders, groups, U.S. military officials, etc., including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Back in October 2009, he wrote an op-ed voicing his concern about the drift of our government’s relationship with Israel. In 2007, the Governor visited Israel and was a featured speaker at their 7th annual Herzliya Conference on Israeli security. Interestingly, he and Netanyahu worked together early on in their careers as consultants at the Boston Consulting Group. Romney also writes about Obama’s undermining of U.S. allies beginning on p. 27 of ‘No Apology‘ hardback (not sure if paperback pages are the same).

Mitt Romney vs. Health Care: “The Problem” (Or is it?)

By Jeff Fuller | February 15, 2011 - 8:02 PM | 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Health Care, MassCare, Mitt Romney, No Apology, Obamacare, RomneyCare 1 views

17 Comments

Part 1 in a developing series of in-depth analysis by Dr. Jeff Fuller (See Part 2 and Part 3)

Is Health Care a Problem for Romney?

It is now a central dogma of the GOP’s 2012 pre-primary that the biggest obstacle Mitt Romney will face is his history on the issue of Health Care – mainly that RomneyCare is similar to, and was a template for, ObamaCare (which Republicans rightly loathe). In this multi-part series I will discuss the issue in depth and debunk some of the superficial and opportunistic fire (both “enemy” and “friendly”) Romney has been taking of late.

By way of background, as a practicing physician I live and breath health care everyday. I strongly feel that, as Americans, we have the best health care available in the world and I’m proud to play a part in that. I was actually first drawn to investigate Romney back in 2005 when the Massachusetts Health Care bill (alternatively called MassCare or RomneyCare) was first passed. I was impressed with Mitt’s courage and skill in addressing such a controversial subject, and within such a liberal state. The fact that The Heritage Foundation was on board with the plan gave me an extra level of comfort as well. After thoroughly studying Romney’s history and platform on other issues as well, I strongly supported Mitt from that point, and continue to today. There are definitely major problems with our healthcare system, but rarely do you find conservative leaders willing to tackle any of those problems. It is almost ironic that it would have been a lot less headache politically for Mitt (in retrospect) if he had done nothing on this issue. What’s the old cynical saying? “No good deed will go unpunished” seems to apply here.

Never afraid to speak his mind, Democrat Ed Rendell (who is often known for his candor), summed up Romney’s apparent conumdrum quite well:

“If I were in charge of the Republican Party – by the way, this will be the kiss to death to the guy I’m going to mention – Mitt Romney would be the candidate, no ifs, ands, and buts about it,” Rendell said Friday night. “He’s got the best credentials to talk about the economy and job creation,” he said. “But Mitt Romney, I don’t think can get the nomination, because of healthcare.”

It’s that last point that is becoming the new “conventional wisdom” regarding Romney’s imminent candidacy. Even some conservative columnists have already written Romney’s obituary over the issue. In dramatic and grandiose fashion, John Podhoretz recently wrote:
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Gov Mitt Romney Praises President Reagan: A Legacy of Optimism, Strength (USA Today)

By Jayde Wyatt | January 24, 2011 - 10:22 AM | 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Conservatives, Deficit Spending, Economy, Family Values, Foreign Policy, GOP, Mitt Romney, No Apology, Taxes 1 views

2 Comments

President Ronald Reagan would have been 100 years old on February 6, 2011. With news of a historic, year long, soon-to-begin Centennial Celebration being planned by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, son Ron Reagan’s new book, My Father at 100, revealing his controversial opinion that president Reagan had Alzheimer’s disease while in office, son Michael Reagan’s countering that the issue of his father’s health should not tarnish his legacy, and the announcement of the first GOP presidential debate to be held at the Ronald Reagan Library this spring, President Reagan has certainly been in the national spotlight as of late. Even President Obama, in his not-so-subtle slide to the center, wrote about Reagan’s ‘Morning in America’ attitude and his transformational presidency.

This morning, in USA Today, Governor Mitt Romney writes of President Reagan’s legacy of optimism and strength:

An “amiable dunce” is what Washington super-lawyer Clark Clifford once called President Reagan.

That was the conventional wisdom among liberals back then. But opinions, at least in some important quarters, have shifted. Campaigning for the presidency, Barack Obama paid tribute to our 40th president’s remarkable achievements. Ronald Reagan, he said, “changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, that Bill Clinton did not.” He put “us on a fundamentally different path.”

I agree with President Obama. Ronald Reagan was a transformative president.

America entered the Reagan era as one kind of country and exited it another. His mixture of extraordinary personal and political qualities made it possible. One must begin with his sunny disposition: cheerful conservatism in flesh and blood. The Gipper’s irrepressible high spirits tapped into something deeply rooted in the country: optimism, faith in America itself.

Reagan came to occupy the White House in a moment of national crisis, not altogether dissimilar from the one we face today. broad, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had brought the Cold War to the boiling point. Islamic radicals in Iran humiliated our country in a 444-day hostage drama.
At home, the misery index — the sum total of unemployment and inflation — had reached a post-war high. Jimmy Carter, shivering in the under-heated White House, was complaining about American “malaise.”

Reagan would have none of this. His policies, foreign and domestic, reflected his optimistic spirit. He confronted the Kremlin frontally. He initiated a military buildup that outmatched the USSR, challenged it in Afghanistan, and launched the Strategic Defense Initiative that is now vital to our defense.
[...]

Governor Romney then proceeds to underscore President Reagan’s indomitable, positive approach to solving America’s formidable foreign and domestic challenges with strength and forthrightness.

Reagan would have none of this. His policies, foreign and domestic, reflected his optimistic spirit. He confronted the Kremlin frontally. He initiated a military buildup that outmatched the USSR, challenged it in Afghanistan, and launched the Strategic Defense Initiative that is now vital to our defense.
[...]

Here at home, Reagan saw a federal government that had become, like a diseased heart, enlarged and sclerotic. Paving a path trod today by the Tea Party, he sharply cut taxes to restore economic growth. He took painful measures to rein in double-digit inflation. He fought to cut federal spending. He sought to restore our Founding Fathers’ vision of American greatness and limited government.

Read entire article here.

Anyone familiar with Governor Romney knows he has frequently spoken and written about our nation’s current woes with similar optimism. In his book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, Romney provides in-depth analysis on economic and security threats from foreign nations, why America’s national advantages have eroded, and outlines how fresh, creative, bold ideas will strengthen America and preserve our global leadership.

As some did with President Reagan, some underestimate Gov Romney. As the Centennial Celebration unfolds this year, along with an almost 99% certainty of a Romney candidacy for president, we’ll have plenty of opportunity to celebrate our 40th President and to promote and enjoy the man who impeccably exemplifies Reagan’s ideals and unwavering optimism, who has the knowledge and strength of experience to assure us that it can be ‘morning in America’ again… Mitt Romney.

1//11/01 - Tournament of Roses Parade (Pasadena, CA) awards 'Best Depiction of Life in U.S. Past, Present, or Future' to float depicting Ronald Reagan's life.

The commemorative Ronald Reagan float was 55 feet long and 26 feet high. It featured 11 larger-than-life photos of ‘iconic’ moments in his life that were made of rice and poppy seeds. Former First Lady Nancy Reagan helped select the photos. NOTE: CLICK ON IMAGE TO MAKE LARGER

► Jayde Wyatt

To read other op-eds by Governor Romney, click here.