Mitt Romney: U.S. economy needs ‘something dramatic’

What the American economy needs to recover, says presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, is “something dramatic.” What he’s not saying is

what exactly that something is.

Mr. Romney’s remarks follow the release of the latest unemployment report Friday. The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, but the unemployment report

ticked up to 8.3 percent.

It’s not another federal stimulus package or new government programs, Mr. Romney says. Nor would it be helpful for the Federal Reserve to commit to another

“massive” program of buying government bonds and mortgage-backed securities to drive long-term interest rates even lower.
“I can absolutely make the case that now is the time for something dramatic and it is not the time to grow government,” Mr. Romney said on Sunday in an

interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s the time to create the incentives and the opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses big and small to

hire more people and that’s going to happen. You’re going to see that happen in this country but not under this president.

Democrats continue to call on the former Massachusetts governor to release more years of personal tax returns. On Friday, Mr. Romney said again that he would

not release more than two years of returns. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid recently released an anonymous claim that the former Massachusetts governor

did not pay taxes for ten years.

Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus called Mr. Reid a “dirty liar,” for making the claims and Mr. Romney has told the Senate leader to “put up or

shut up.”

“Governor Romney can resolve this in 10 seconds. They can release the tax returns,” said top Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod on “Fox News Sunday.”

” They gave 23 years of tax returns to John McCain, they’ve given one year of tax returns to the American people. It was Governor Romney’s father who

pioneered the release of tax returns when he ran for president.”

“Why don’t they just put this to rest? What is it that he is hiding?” he asked.

In the interview on CNN, Mr. Romney promoted his economic agenda, which he says could create 12 million jobs in his first term.

“That’s what happens in a normal process,” he said. “When you come out of the kind of recession we’ve had you should see this kind of job creation.”

“Good things happen when you have a private sector that’s thriving,” he added.

The presumptive Republican nominee has said that he opposes Mr. Obama’s tax plan to extend only the Bush-era tax cuts for Americans who earn less than

250,000. Mr. Romney supports extending tax cuts for everyone.

“I also hope people understand when they talk about raising taxes on the wealthy – as the president does – he is also talking about the same tax rate that

applies to small business,” the Michigan native said. “The great majority of small businesses pay taxes at the individual rate so as he raises these taxes

‘on the wealthy’ he is raising taxes on small business.”

While campaigning in Indiana on Saturday, Mr. Romney attacked the president for what he called “an extraordinary series of policy failures.”