Past Performance as Predictor: Romney Pt. 1

     From the outset it is important for me to draw a clear picture of what the goal is with this post. The idea is not to smear Romney or his campaign for the presidency. Smearing requires ad hominem attacks or half-truths. I will attempt to steer far clear of either of them. I am merely reproducing Romney's own statements on various topics in order to persuade the reader to consider again whether Romney is really for "small government." With this said, I don't need to remind you that the other party's candidate, our current president, is most certainly not for small government. We now have close to four years of experience, which is enough to convince voters one way or the other.

On to the question at hand, "Is Romney pro-small government?

First, Romney seems to support government involvement in corporate governance and compensation. He uses the word "encourage," but we don't know what his type of encouragement may include:

From his book, No Apology

• 17) Encourage shareholders and boards of directors to adopt reasonable compensation and long-term incentives for CEOs and executives.
• 18) Encourage measurement of corporate CEOs and union CEOs on the basis of teamwork, productivity, and long-term success of the enterprise.

His eleventh item in this same list says "Get the government out of General Motors - and other private companies." This further muddles our understanding of Romney's intent with items 17 and 18. We're left to wonder, but with some uneasiness.

Source: GoogleBooks

Next, Romney apparently believes that one of the president's duties is to create jobs:

"One is, is [Obama] going to get more jobs in this country? Is he going to find a way to have paychecks in people's hands at the end of the week?" -Fox News

Source: FoxNews Transcript

Further, Romney's foreign policy includes using military force outside our borders without a declaration of war. To be fair, this is not unique to him. Obama, G.W. Bush, Clinton, etc. have  all waged war, engaged military in battles on foreign soil without formal declarations of war. However, just because "everyone's doing it" doesn't make it right... or constitutional:

The GOP candidate stood by his position that the U.S. should "keep a military option available" to handle Iran, should diplomatic efforts and sanctions not "dissuade them from becoming a nuclear capability nation." 

Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/30/romney-to-blitzer-nuclear-iran-is-number-one-national-security-threat/

To be continued...