Romney Is the Presidential Candidate and America Is on the Edge

The race has started. At Tampa’s convention, the Republicans officially anointed Mitt Romney as their candidate for November’s presidential elections. The Democrats are expected to do the same, choosing Barack Obama for reelection at their gathering in Charlotte next week.

The vote is about 60 days away and the outcome is still unclear: Presidential polls indicate a slight advantage for Obama, but Romney still has a chance to win the race. The incumbent’s presidential campaign is in high gear, while his rival keeps making blunders and slip-ups. Were he, by some miracle, to stop stumbling, he could take the lead in the final stretch. Whether America and the world would benefit from that is quite another matter.

Whoever wins on November 6 will have to steady the American economy before it falls off the financial cliff. That is how economists deem such a rapid budget deficit, expected to hit in 2014. Two years ago, Congress decided that shortly after the elections sharp spending cuts – including in defense and healthcare – would be implemented. At the same time, tax cuts for the wealthiest, passed by the Bush administration, will expire. Both steps are to reduce the deficit by nearly half, and thus stop the further growth of public debt. But sharp belt-tightening in times of a frail economy will produce an outcome like that in Europe: It will throw America into recession again. And the world with it.

The “financial cliff dilemma” reveals American policy’s biggest weakness: a total polarization of debate. The deficit and debt could be brought under control by establishing a long-term business plan, but there is no chance for such a compromise in Washington. Instead, Congress will postpone the savings at the last moment, making financial solvency problems even worse. The Republicans have an absurd country-minimalization plan, but it is unreasonable to deny their warnings that the country cannot live on credit any longer. The Democrats rightly want to maintain the social gains of the past century, but do not say how to finance them. As a result, Americans have a purely ideological choice — between two stories about politics, and not solutions to key problems.