Romney's economists tie him to George W. Bush

I'm not going to weigh in on the merits of the white paper "The Romney Plan for Economic Growth, Jobs, and Recovery," by some of Romney's top economic advisers, until I read it (which may be awhile because I'm not going to create a login at the linked site just to download it). But one point should probably be made: when Barack Obama, or disgruntled Republicans, complain that Romney will just bring us more of the George W. Bush economic policies that helped get us into the present economic difficulties, Romney shouldn't be allowed get off by to dissociating himself from Bush's economic policies. Two of the authors of this study served as chair of W's Council of Economic Advisers: Hubbard from February 2001 through March 2003, and Mankiw from 2003-2005. Hubbard is often mentioned as one of the architects of the 2003 Bush tax cuts. Both are not just authors of this white paper, but advisers to the Romney campaign. Another author, John Taylor, was undersecretary of the Treasury for international financial affairs from 2001-2005. Kevin "Dow 36,000" Hassett was an advisor to the 2004 Bush campaign, but his cv doesn't list positions in the Bush administration.

You could probably do a lot worse than Mankiw or Taylor in particular... my point here is just that with these guys as his main economic advisers, Romney shouldn't be allowed to dodge the legacy of George W. Bush's economic policies. The substantive similarity (or in fact, identity, in the case of extending the Bush tax cuts) of these policies (more tax cuts!) should be noted in this context too.