Everyone in the media space is figuring out how to best cover the Obama administration and the Changed World, and we are no different. We can't be a blank canvass, we can't be a newsgathering entity with the resources of an Associated Press, and we're not an opinion site. Within weeks, within this space, you will see change. The blogosphere is a phantasmagoria of recursion, where one public links to another publication's coverage of another publication's coverage of an original event or item. Not so much here, anymore. This space will be transitioning away from covering the coverage of the coverage, to an extent. Where there are links, they'll be to original documents.
With that, here is the testimony (courtesy of National Review) that Mitt Romney, a once and future presidential candidate, is giving today on Capitol Hill. There is little new policy here; he proposes a laundry list of tax cuts, and his appearance is designed to give some intellectual ballast to the ideas that House Repbublicans are already throwing around. That said, he endorses spending money on infastructure and on renewable energy, even as he proposes significant additional spending on military construction projects.
Romney, who called in his convention speech for government to take a "weedwacker to excessive regulation," is a bit more circumspect today:
Let me add a thought about regulation. Smart regulation is good; dumb regulation is bad.
Housing finance is one of the most highly regulated sectors of our economy. And no one
will claim that that regulation was very smart. Yes, we need to improve regulation, in
housing and in financial services. But the right course is to make regulation that is
effective. Smart regulation will make these sectors more productive and more
competitive. Simply layering on burdensome regulatory schemes will depress these
industries, kill more jobs, and slow economic recovery.
He concludes with knock against EFCA:
And there is one very bad idea that is being promoted by a special interest group. It is an
idea that would have devastating impact on the economy--short term and long term. It
would lead investors to send their funds elsewhere, businesses to expand elsewhere and
jobs to relocate elsewhere. It is the plan to virtually impose unions on all small, medium
and large businesses by removing the right of workers to vote by secret ballot. Card
check is a very bad idea under any circumstances. In these circumstances, it would be
calamitous.
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