It's really questionable whether or not Romney is even that much different than Obama is.
I know it's a Presidential race so we have to think that both of the candidates are significantly different, but I really do question that.
On the economy both Mitt and Obama seem very similar. Both of them plan on changing the tax code by getting rid of lots of deductions and lowering rates. The only significant difference is that Obama wants to raise the last margin on the income tax while Mitt wants to decrease it. However when it comes to every other marginal tax and the corporate tax, both want to decrease them.
Both are strongly pro Israel and both want us to stay in Afghanistan. I know Obama has said in public that he wants to take us out of Afghanistan by 2016, but behind the scenes they may be extending that deadline for another 8 years.
Both believe in global warming, but both haven't done and probably won't do very much about it at all. Obama hasn't done really anything about the Kyoto Protocols. Although Obama claims to be dedicated to fighting global warming, which is true to an extent because his stimulus package gave money to green causes like tax breaks for people who buy electric cars and other home appliances that are more green. However Obama also increased the EPA emissions cap a few months ago.
Both are most likely not going to do anything about tightening financial regulation. The only possibility is that in Obama's second term maybe he will. But the reason why he hasn't done anything this first term is because in 2008 his top donors were financial banks. However this year all of Romney's top donors are those same financial firms that supported Obama in 08. Now Obama is not being supported by those firms any longer.
If you care about social issues like gay marriage, then yes Obama probably will legalize gay marriage at the federal level. However when it comes to abortion I'm skeptical if anything will be done about it even if Romney gets elected. The only way something might happen would be if during Romney's term if he was given the opportunity to elect 2 new supreme court judges. However even then, it still makes me wonder if he'll even elect people who care about repealing Roe vs Wade. Ever since Roe vs Wade has been enacted, Republican Presidents every 4 years running for office have been saying they're going to overturn it. Well it's been almost 40 years now and nothing has happened, it just makes you wonder if anything will ever happen.
So overall when it comes to issues I care about, I honestly don't see that big of a difference between the two. Sure I mean if we were going to look at it purely from a public policy perspective, you could say that the details do make a big difference. And to an extent that is true, but to be perfectly honest I don't think I would be able to tell the difference in my daily life whether Obama or Romney was the president for the next four years.
I'm already thinking about leaving this country after I get my PHD. That's going to be a long time from now, but this country is not going down a good path for most people. Most of westernized countries are much better for most people to be honest. When you ignore all the rhetoric about how awesome America is and you just look at the numbers and the statistics and compare them to other westernized countries, it really does make you wonder how much better of a living standard we have here in the U.S. than in other countries.
I personally don't think this country is going down the right path and I don't think it's going to whether we get a Republican president in office or a Democrat president. I think a Democrat president generally speaking will only making the process of going down the wrong way a slightly slower and less painful process. But in the long run I don't see a significant difference between the two when it comes to economics and public policy with exception to social issues.
I also don't have any confidence that the population is going to make this country better off either, I don't have faith that the population is intelligent enough (or has the patience) to do the research necessary to figure out how to fix this countries problems. I don't even think the population even knows what the biggest problems are in this country, to be honest the population is just completely out of it and lives in a different world.
The fact that the Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly debate was the top watched video on YouTube for days and people consider these two people to be towering intellectuals that know what's going on, this just says a lot about the country. It says that people really do live in a fantasy world, where apparently entertainers are the intellectuals now. The people like Jon Stewart, the TV pundents, and all the radio hosts are the people most often listened to in the U.S. when it comes to politics. Again, anyone with common sense will realize that these people are entertainers, they are not well educated when it comes to politics. But the population believes that these are the well informed intellectuals in this country, which to me is a big red flag.
So therefore, no I won't be doing anything specifically for the reason of whether Romney is President or not, however in the long run (probably in the next decade) I am strongly considering leaving this country and moving into some other country. And the more I read about the world, the more I lean towards this.
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