Romney Wants Different Standard Than Obama

by Stuart Shapiro

Governor Romney regularly attacks the Obama Administration’s job record.  What about a Romney administration?

Mitt Romney sat down with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, and made a curious observation. He said voters who want a strong economy should vote for him, but Americans “ought to give, whichever president is going to be elected, at least six months or a year to get those policies in place.”

At first blush, that may sound fairly reasonable. A president takes office, he or she needs time to put a team in place, craft an agenda, and get to work. What’s more, we generally don’t see the results of economic policies immediately; the agenda needs to time to take effect. In Romney’s mind, six months to a year seems fair.

Of course, as Steve Benen shows in the graph above, if you use that standard, the Obama Administration looks pretty good.  So I guess if Romney is consistent, then he’ll start praising the Obama jobs record.  Oops I went and used “Romney” and “consistent” in the same sentence.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.