Mitt Romney's first day in office

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When following politics, I want to hear concrete solutions to the problems our nation faces. I am just as critical to the GOP as I am to the Democrats, and expect great things from them.

When Romney wins (I hope), he has pledged to take 10 major actions on his first day in office. They are as follows:

5 Bills For Day One

1) The American Competitiveness Act

Reduces the corporate income tax rate to 25%

2) The Open Markets Act

Implements Free Trade Agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea +

3) The Domestic Energy Act

Directs the Department of the Interior to undertake a comprehensive energy review

4) The Retraining Reform Act

Consolidates federal retraining programs and return these programs to the states

5) The Down Payment on Fiscal Sanity Act

Immediately cuts non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent ($20 billion) ?

5 Executive Orders For Day One

An Order to Pave the Way to End Obamacare

1) Secretary of Health and Human Services to return the maximum possible authority to the states ?

An Order to Cut Red Tape

2) All agencies to initiate the elimination of Obama-era regulations that burden the economy or job creation

An Order to Boost Domestic Energy Production

3) Department of the Interior to implement a process for rapid issuance of drilling permits to

An Order to Sanction China for Unfair Trade Practices

4) Department of the Treasury to list China as a currency manipulator and the Department of Commerce to assess countervailing duties on Chinese imports ?

An Order to Empower American Businesses and Workers

5) Reverses the executive orders issued by President Obama that tilt the playing field in favor of organized labor

Source

+=Already in place

?=An action I am concerned with

Overall I think this is a great set of actions for Romney to complete on his first day in office. I will hold him to this and will be highly disappointed if he wins and does not follow through on this. As of late I have not heard him talk about concrete solutions (although most politicians tend to be too afraid to give concrete solutions while they are running).

My concerns:

• Bill #5: I would like to know where we plans to make cuts. Also I think he needs to be more aggressive and start looking at some of the mandatory spending. At the same time, while entitlement programs need to be reformed, we also need to find ways to help people get off these programs, who can sustain themselves. More jobs would be a good solution. I know his plan was non-defense discretionary spending, but I wanted to make a point about it. To maintain the most dominant military force on the planet and protect our interests, we need to continue investing money in upgrading our military hardware and technological advances. If we were to make any cuts in military, the best place to make cuts would be in troop numbers. We can decrease active duty troops but also increase reserve troop numbers.
  
• Executive Order #1: Although returning powers to the state is advantageous in many cases, will it actually be more efficient in this instance? Wikipedia states that the Secretary of Health and Human Services has the following duties: "The duties of the secretary revolve around human conditions and concerns in the United States. This includes advising the President on matters of health, welfare and income security programs. It strives to administer the department of Health and Human Services to carry out approved programs and make the public aware of the objectives of the department [1]." How exactly would this do anything? If someone understands why this would help please inform me.
  
• Executive Order #4: I for one am very very concerned about China and their threat to our economy and everything we stand for. China is willing to use force to retake Taiwan and will use force to to assert an unwarranted claim in the South China Sea. China seems to be willing to only follow international law when it benefits themselves. With this being said, I feel that putting duties on Chinese Imports will have negative affects for both sides. Its a lose-lose situation. We need to beat China at their own game, creating quality products at low costs (Create almost fully autonomous factories that only require human technicians so service equiptment). I used to think protectionist measure were a good thing. Then I learned how beneficial free and open trade can be. Foreign Direct Invesment is such a vital form of investment in our country. For example Hyundai has factories in the US and hires many US workers. There are many foreign companies that invest in our country. China needs to be coerced into investing in our country. We can still remain the largest, most vibrant and innovative economy without taking protectionist action. We just need to make the U.S. more business friendly.