Mitt Romney and the Fantasy Budget

If elected president, Mitt Romney has promised he will create 12 million jobs, replace Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, slash corporate tax rates, preserve the Bush income tax cuts, and then cut an additional 20 percent to boot. And, oh yes—balance the budget. How does Romney propose to pull off this feat of budgetary magic? He isn’t saying.

All presidential hopefuls paint rosy scenarios and rely on a few questionable assumptions. Yet with less than two months to go until Election Day, Romney’s campaign has distinguished itself by the chasm between what’s been promised and what’s been revealed. Absent details, he’s essentially selling a fantasy that depends on voters’ faith that he’ll be able to keep all these vows once elected. Polls suggest voters aren’t buying it. Since the party conventions, President Obama has opened up a six-point lead in Gallup’s daily tracking poll. Republicans “have the tactics down,” says John Weaver, who ran John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. “God knows, between the campaign and its super PAC allies, they have the negative advertising down. What’s missing are the details about where he’ll lead the country and how he’ll do it.”