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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at McCandless International Trucks in North Las Vegas on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011.
By Karoun Demirjian (contact) 
Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2011 | 2 a.m.
Romney unveils economic plan in North Las Vegas
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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivered a speech in North Las Vegas Tuesday in which he set out a plan to turn the United States economy around.
Highlights of Romney's plan
• A call for no taxes on savings or dividends for middle-class Americans, whom he and Obama agree are individuals earning less than $200,000 a year. The corporate tax rate would be cut to 25 percent.
• Limiting new government regulations by eliminating an old regulation when a new one is introduced. He did not say where he would scale back government oversight.
• His most unusual proposal: creation of a "Reagan Economic Zone," a partnership among countries committed to free enterprise and free trade. The proposal is aimed at China, which he said steals our technology and intellectual property
• Loosening restrictions on fossil fuel extraction. "We’re an energy-rich nation, but we’re living like an energy-poor nation," he said. At the same time he attacked renewable energy, calling it in written materials the “unhealthy green-jobs obsession." To the crowd, he said, "Where are all those green jobs?"
• Not allowing union dues to be used for political purposes.
• Creating personal re-employment accounts, which would, in effect, privatize federal job retraining.
• A balanced-budget amendment, capping federal spending at 20 percent of GDP.
Romney vowed to introduce five bills on his first day in office to: reduce the corporate income tax 25 percent; implement a free-trade agreement with Colombia, Panama and South Korea; allow energy drilling in areas approved for exploration; consolidate federal job retraining programs and give money and responsibility to the states; cutting nonsecurity discretionary spending by 5 percent, or $20 billion.
Also on the first day in office he would issue five executive orders, including a universal waiver for the new health care law; to halt all Obama administration regulations; to examine trade sanctions against China; to prohibit unions from using dues for elections.
Four local reactions
Cliff Vellinga controller, Silver Dollar Recycling
I’m for reducing government regulations. The other thing I liked about Romney’s speech is reducing corporate income taxes. They should be zero. The taxes should be paid by individual shareholders, not the corporations. If that happened, our company would be inclined to hire more people.
Norm Schilling, owner, Schilling Horticulture Group
This is the wrong time to lower taxes because it would starve the government. We need more investment from the federal government to help with jobs and the economy. Eliminating capital gains wouldn’t help either. Capital gains are paid by people who make money investing, not working.
Joe Machin, owner, RO Truck & Equipment
I don’t see where getting rid of capital gains would create more jobs. I would like to see less government red tape. A free-trade zone with other countries would be good because we’re always buying everyone else’s stuff but we’re never able to sell any to them because there’s so much red tape.
Aaron Hawley, owner, Rakeman Plumbing
Anything that lowers my taxes helps my business. But will it create jobs? Probably not. I need work. Let’s work on the banking industry getting us loans. I’m all for eliminating the health insurance law. My health insurance will skyrocket.
Sun Coverage
He says he can create jobs.
He says he’s focused on the middle class.
He says he’s got a plan to help the economy grow.
He is both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
In this recession-framed election, there’s one top-line message that matters on the campaign trail: jobs, and a plan to create them for the middle class.
It’s a potent issue, especially in Nevada, where the statewide unemployment rate remains at a nation-leading 12.9 percent — a factor that played no small role in Romney’s decision to come to North Las Vegas on Tuesday to unveil his national economic plan.
Although Democratic and Republican presidential candidates may have settled on a common diagnosis about what’s ailing the economy, they have different prescriptions for how to return it to better health — so different, in fact, that the choice could simply come down to whom voters believe.
Although Obama’s “Believe 2012” campaign has focused on strategic government investments in infrastructure as a way to kick-start the economy, Romney’s “Believe in America” campaign focuses on telling government to make way for the private sector.
“Growth is the answer, not government,” he told a small crowd of supporters gathered at McCandless International Trucks of North Las Vegas.
Obama and Romney, the first GOP front-runner to articulate an economic agenda, both peg their vision on the experience of a particular slice of the past: the boom years of the 1950s and ’60s, when the middle class expanded and America’s dominance of the world economy was at its peak.
Obama’s attempts to replicate the economic growth of that era are clearly inspired by economic initiatives from the time, such as President Dwight Eisenhower’s unprecedented investment in the national highway infrastructure.
Romney, however, is eschewing the paths of the past, because, he says, they simply won’t work in the modern age.
“President Obama’s strategy is a pay phone strategy, and we’re in the smartphone world,” Romney said, calling Obama “a nice guy” who “just doesn’t have a clue what to do.”
As a point of campaign rhetoric, it’s a bold attempt by a politician who has at times, appeared stiffly out-of-step to try to wrest the mantle of freshness and youthful innovation from a president who as a candidate in 2008 personified it.
As a point of contention, it allows Romney to sidestep that taxes then were higher than they are now.
A call for lower taxes, both for individuals and corporations, is first and foremost in Romney’s economic plan because comparative tax rates matter in a globalized economy, he says.
He wants to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent and zero-out taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest rates for the middle class — which, like Obama, he defines as individuals making less than $200,000 a year.
Romney defines regulations in terms of tax policy, too. He noted an official government estimate that puts the total annual cost of regulations at about 150 percent of all the taxes the government collects.
Romney pledges to cap spending — balanced budget amendment style — at 20 percent of the gross domestic product, as part of keeping taxes low. But for Nevada, the plan leaves lingering questions.
Romney has said often that he thinks the experience that recommends him best for the presidency is his tenure as CEO of venture capital firm Bain Capital.
Although Romney sees a job-filled future in new initiatives and entrepreneurship, he’s silent on where, aside from the energy sector, those new enterprises might spring up — or how Nevada may be able to partake in recovery that seems to be passing it by.
Nevada doesn’t have the sort of export market that could easily benefit from free-trade agreements that open other countries to American goods.
And it’s clear Romney does not share the Democrats’ boosterism about green jobs being a ticket out of the recession: He appears ready to pull the plug on government assistance programs that could benefit Nevada’s fledgling green-jobs sector.
Even before Romney delivered his remarks, local Democrats had prepared a response that seemed to press on that. State Sen. Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, said Romney “has made a living killing middle-class jobs to increase profits for big corporations and CEOs,” and charged that his policies would leave Nevadans as casualties.
Neither Romney nor Obama brings a bit of an outsider’s solution to the Nevada problem. Neither is a member of the middle class, and neither has ever owned a small business.
Local small-business owners who came out to hear and support Romney were mixed, however, about how much they trust he can fix local problems.
Joe Wyson, who owns three businesses in Nevada, says a consultant’s point of view is just what the local economy needs. “I paid $65,000 for a consultant to come and set me up, and I made a fortune in the next 10 years,” he said of his construction business, which grew to 165 employees at its peak. “They got raises, they got commissions. We went crazy in this town.”
Darwin Rockantansky, whose consulting business fell apart in 2009 “because our insurance carrier doubled our rates ... when ‘Obamacare’ was announced as a possibility,” wasn’t convinced that Romney’s got the answers.
“He moved up a smidgen,” Rockantansky said of Romney, whom he voted for in the 2008 caucuses, after he spoke.
Romney must really be afraid he's not going to make the cut and that's got him making promises that are never going to happen. Oh yeah, 11 million jobs in four years, sure. And pigs fly.
It is all much clearer when you accept that the Republicans are all too willing to go so far as to destroy the country if they think it will improve their chances in the 2012 elections.
Romney says "corporations are people". If that is true, why is it that people are not allowed to average their incomes over the years?
Income averaging used to exist until Reagan-Bush eliminated it. If a person has lost their income, they should be able to average that into the next higher year's income to recover, but only Corporations have that tax advantage.
Employees should also be able to deduct their commuting expenses to and from work at 50 cents/mile just as Corporations do - but that is not allowed.
Romney says 'Corporations are People', but in truth, 'People are not Corporations'. The employed are not allowed to act like or be Corporations for tax purposes and that's where the big rip off begins.
There should be no difference between the Corporate Tax Code and the Personal tax code. See if Romney goes along with this...
The community organizer has a better track record in job creation. Not.
Killing off coal and making electricity rates "skyrocket" is part of the current 'plan'. How well is that working out for you?
Romney, Perry, it doesn't matter what their "plan" is, most of their plan won't work if not implemented by Congress and this applies to Obama too.
So Obama is actually debating/lecturing someone on how to "create jobs"? Meanwhile, 3 yrs into his presidency and millions of dollars spent on "stimulus", what is the unemployment rate now?
We need to make this country so efficient that it would be impossible for company's to not build there plants here.
Our electrical grid is only 34% efficient. In Japan it is 93%. We need a smart grid.
Our roads all need upgrading...same as the rails.
We need an educations system that is second to none.
After WWII we where the only country that did not have all it's factories bombed out. And we capitalized on that fact. At the time we had the best system...and that is why we had so many jobs.
I can remember when, if you did not like your job...you quit..and then got a job the next day.
Romney will create jobs in China, Mexico, India and all the other cheap labor countries. Old Mitt made his fortune buying up companies, ELIMINATING jobs and selling off companies at a profit,...time affter time. He's NOT your new jobs guy, he's a fraud.
At least Romney has a plan! Where's Obama's plan after 2 years? Oh, that's right, he doesn't have one, nor did he have a budget plan! It's so much easier to not do the work and criticize everyone else's attempt to fix things. People like Horseford who have shown their true 'colors' are the ones who still support Obama simply becasue he's black. I suppose within the confines of their own homes though, they must all be so humiliated and mortified that King Obama and his czars have failed so badly. Wake up people, for crying out loud. Put aside your pride, and see the reality smacking you in the face, Obama has failed everyone, simply because he doesn't know how to play President. It might have been 'cool' to vote for him, but we are the losers in the end.
Lots of the same old same old. President Obama has sent three jobs bills to Congress but the TeaGOP tables them. They are refusing to help Americans. This needs to be made straight in his address tomorrow about Jobs.
Romney is not for Americans, he is for Romney and the other rich folks out there.
Romney has never created a job in his life.Big business has two trillion dollars on the side lines thanks to tax breaks and favorable legislation and they want more,no, all of it. Romney is simply not credible, no, a liar.
In Massachusetts they call him Fraud Romney. And Nevadans should know that when Fraud Romney was governor, he raised more than 350 seaprate state fees, including licensing, inspection and insurance fees on trucks. Truckers were so furious with Fraud Romney that they organized a convoy protest of big rigs up and around the Massachusetts State House.
I found it amusing that Fraud ROmney would hold an event at McCandless International Trucks when Romney tried to drive a stake through the heart of the trucking industry in Massachusetts.
Trust Fraud Romney at your own risk.
Obama is worthless! He is promising the same stuff he did before, and he obviously has no clue how to creat jobs in the USA. I didn't vote for him because anyone with a brain could tell he was clueless (he is all fluff!) Small business owners and corporations are who create jobs for us!
romneyfacts.com
See Fraud Romney's stances on BOTH sides of issues!
Mitt Romney likely knew more about macroeconomics and job creation in 8th grade, than the entire Obama administration does currently.
Print money, kiss union pinky-rings and green jobs fantasies are not a jobs plan.
MittR is like the third guy you see in a Timeshare pitch.
"Ok how bout you wonderful folks commit to say, a lousy $500 today, and we add another parking space on our auxiliary lot 4 miles from here? whadda say to that?"
It is a nice study in BS the way these crooks have convinced everybody the problem is too much Government. Obviously we over regulated Wall Street and the Banks, lol. Government sure handcuffed Developers, lol. Government sure built walls against shipping Jobs overseas and forbid sheltering of profits via offshore schemes.
Yep the problem IS Government, right Ronnie Raygun breath?
Barrack Obama is a massive failure precisely because he has abandoned the Will of the People to use their Government to correct the MESS Bush-Idiot-Inc created.
When exactly does ONE person go to jail for the 2008 Economic Mess, Barrack? How is anybody going to seriously invest a dime, in a way which is more than just gambling, in a system which is unwilling to rid itself of even ONE crook?
This a massive FARCE. These clowns they are promoting for President are not qualified to run a Guard Shack at the Fountain Bleu.
He should add a provision that gambling loss up to 3000 a year, not just loss from gain which caps at zero, can be deducted from gross income. After all, if you win 3000 net from a casino they expect you to pay tax on that. That would help Nevada and the middle class!
Mitt's plan is to reduce corporate tax rates so that companies like GE get even a bigger refund every year.
But you have to give it to Mitt. Big money is what wins elections, and he is pitching it well to the very powers that put you in the White House.
Alberta minister on oil sands ... bring in U.S. workers...
Canada edging towards police state ...
http://canuckreport.ca
Worst job creationas Mass GOVO
Mr. Romney claims that "corporations are people too" yet he does not want them to pay income taxes at the same rate of people. Why?
"Believe in America"
America needs to become a "Job Machine".
59 steps is way to much. But in these economic times when you have a person in power that doesn't understand the economy I guess 59 steps is just right. We need to fix both Bush's and Obama's problems that they have inflicted upon the U.S.
I can't believe that all Romney has to offer is more trickle down--and like Kevin says, it's going to trickle down to workers in China. Hey Mitt, taxes on capital gains and qualified dividends are already low--and you want to eliminate them altogether while our infrastructure continues to crumble?