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Now that the Obama-Biden and Romney-Ryan teams are in place, voters deserve to hear a detailed, spirited conversation from both sides about the economic future of the country — specifically about the future of Social Security, of Medicare and how to plug the $1 trillion-plus annual federal budget deficit.
Romney running mate Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman who is chairman of the House Budget Committee, will help underscore the wildly differing visions of America each candidate wishes to promote. His selection presents an opportunity for a substantive conversation about the fiscal challenges facing the nation.
While the Obama and Romney tickets have sharply contrasting visions for how to put the country back on track, they owe it to Americans to come up with more detailed, concrete proposals on the major economic issues of the day.
We’ve been treated to lots of vague proposals and philosophical preferences, but too few specifics have been offered to allow many Americans to decide which courses of action are most prudent.
There are only a limited number of ways to plug the budget gap: raise more money (raise taxes) or cut expenses (reduce benefits), borrow money, increase government efficiency or do some combination of the three. What will not work, as the last two years have shown, is ideological rigidity, which in these hard times amounts to nothing more than fiddling while Rome burns.
Agree or disagree with Ryan’s number-crunching solutions (including his ideas for eliminating the capital gains tax, and partially privatizing Social Security), they at least provide some detail. But when it comes to which government programs to scale back or eliminate, he is still way too vague. What is utterly clear with Romney’s selection of Ryan as his running mate is that the stage has been set for a real conversation about deficit reduction and entitlement reform. Voters must demand that the campaign provide an intelligent, in-depth debate, devoid of platitudes and generalities.
The Obama handlers will try to rally voters on what has been called a “Mediscare” campaign: If the Republicans are elected, our grandparents will be thrown to the wolves. Romney will continue to demonize the Affordable Care Act.
Let us hear the positions of both camps on means testing Social Security, on raising the current 12.4 percent payroll tax, on raising the retirement age, on the best ways to lower the deficit and on how best to save the Medicare system.
And while they are at it, let us hear how they will achieve these feats, given the bitter ideological atmosphere in Washington.
Americans deserve passionate, sober debate — not mud-slinging and shallow talking points. The country has had its fill of that.
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