Congressional Republicans love to blame “uncertainty” — ostensibly caused by the Obama administration’s tax and regulatory policies — for the country’s still too slow job growth. “By pursuing a steady repeal of job-destroying regulations, we can help lift the cloud of uncertainty hanging over small and large employers alike, empowering them to hire more workers,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), in one example.

However, two economists from Goldman Sachs took a look at the evidence and found that “uncertainty” is just something that comes along with a weak economy, not something that causes the economy to be weak:

In fact, the U.S. is right on pace for a recovery that takes place in the wake of a financial crisis:

However, the economists did find other events that cause “uncertainty” can hurt the economy: “The only real exception is the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, which did cause a large rise even in the purged policy uncertainty index.” So a debt ceiling standoff initiated by House Republicans caused more harm than any Obama administration proposal to raise taxes on the rich.

This jibes with the findings of other economists. “In my opinion, regulatory uncertainty is a canard invented by Republicans that allows them to use current economic problems to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. In other words, it is a simple case of political opportunism, not a serious effort to deal with high unemployment,” said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who worked for both the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations. The Economic Policy Institute found that “a simple review of investment and employment trends — what businesses are actually doing — reveals that employers are not behaving according to the narrative described in the uncertainty story.” (HT: Joe Weisenthal)

Arguably the centerpiece of Mitt Romney’s economic policy is his infamously vague tax plan. Romney has promised to reduce income tax rates by 20 percent, but claims the plan won’t add to the deficit due to the elimination of deductions and loopholes.

But the tax cut would cost nearly $5 trillion, and removing tax deductions doesn’t come close to offsetting that loss, unless deductions are cut for the middle-class. In spite of all this, the Romney campaign has adamantly claimed that the numbers do indeed add up.

But now, even Fox News seems be admitting that the math isn’t there. Fox Business host Stuart Varney — a stalwart conservative who openly cheers for Republicans — admitted on Fox and Freinds that he can’t explain how much revenue Romney’s plan would raise:

CARLSON: Alright, so let’s say you do go through these deductions, that, uh…or limiting them, that it doesn’t bring in enough money to offset the tax decreases that you’re going to give to the wealthy.

VARNEY: Yes, that is the other side of the argument, and I cannot calculate how much money would be brought in, because we don’t know the dollar value of the total deductions.

Watch it:

Every independent analysis has found that the various permutations of Romney’s tax plan all involve cutting taxes for the rich, and either raising them on the middle class or blowing up the deficit. There simply aren’t enough deductions used by rich Americans to offset the massive revenue loss that results from a 20 percent cut in rates.

Other Fox hosts have evinced even more frustration with Romney’s continued refusal to supply the details of his plan. Fox’s Greg Jarrett repeatedly tried to drag specifics out of Romney’s policy director during a heated interview, while Chris Wallace took senior Romney adviser Ed Gillespie to task for using debunked studies to claim that the plan adds up. (HT: Media Matters)

– Nathaniel Niemann

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney and his campaign advisers have made a habit of attacking the 2009 Recovery Act (i.e. the stimulus). Romney calls the stimulus, “the largest one-time careless expenditure of government money in American history.” During Monday night’s final presidential debate, Romney even scoffed at the very idea that government spending can lead to job growth, saying “it’s not government investments that make businesses grow and hire people.”

But just one day later, Romney and Paul Ryan will hold a rally at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a national landmark built by depression-era stimulus.

The iconic amphitheater only exists today because of a New Deal program called the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Civilian Conservation Corps employed three million workers over the course of its run. There is even a statue commemorating the workers who constructed the amphitheater, with a panel that reads:

Red Rocks Amphitheater was the Civilian Conservation Corps’ largest and most ambitious project. A crew of about 300 young men at any one time lived in barracks near Morrison and worked on the theatre from 1936 to 1941, with help from the National Parks Service and Works Progress Administration. They laid 10 boxcar loads of cement and put down 90,000 square feet of flagstone quarried at Lyons, Colorado.

FDR described the 1930s-era program in a radio address: “In creating this civilian conservation corps we are killing two birds with one stone. We are clearly enhancing the value of our natural resources and second, we are relieving an appreciable amount of actual distress.” Romney has repeatedly railed against federal investments at companies and colleges that collected stimulus funding.

The rescue of American auto giants Chrysler and General Motors has become a major issue in Ohio, the second-largest auto state in the country. And with the election just two weeks away, Mitt Romney and his surrogates are again trying to convince voters that the auto rescue he opposed was originally his idea.

Ohio voters will be “really surprised” to learn that President Obama ultimately followed the bailout plan outlined by Romney, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (R) told MSNBC this morning:

PORTMAN: Hey look, we’re really happy in Ohio that the auto industry has made a comeback, but the fact is the Ohio voter is going to be really surprised when they learn it was Barack Obama who took them through bankruptcy because these ads in Ohio are saying, “Mitt Romney wanted to take the auto companies through bankruptcy.” Well, you know what, that’s what Barack Obama did. It was a structured bankruptcy as Mitt Romney suggested. Mitt Romney said there ought to be federal guarantees and federal government involvement.

Watch it:

Though Chrysler and GM did eventually enter a managed bankruptcy, the crucial difference between what Romney outlined and the path Obama followed happened prior to the bankruptcy. GM and Chrysler needed a “bridge loan” just to finance their entrance into bankruptcy. The government ultimately provided that loan.

But Romney pushed the government to stay out of it. Instead, he supported private sector financing of the bankruptcy. Private sector companies willing to finance the bankruptcy were nonexistent, however, making it necessary for the government to step in. “The credit markets were bone-dry,” The Economist remembered this year, “making the privately financed bankruptcy that Mr Romney favoured improbable.”

Though Romney and his surrogates continue to claim that the entire rescue was his idea, the auto industry doesn’t share that belief. Auto insiders and reporters who covered the rescue, in fact, have said Romney’s plan was “reckless,” “dishonest,” and “pure fantasy.”

Elected officials, candidates who would like to be elected officials, and the media have reached a consensus that Social Security is broke and in need of immediate reform to ensure its long-term health. That consensus is false: the program has sustained itself for 75 years and is fully-funded until at least 2037, far longer than any of the other vital programs the government operates.

If lawmakers want to “fix” Social Security beyond that date, though, there is an easy solution: raise taxes on people like Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers star who will earn nearly $30 million next year on the basketball court alone.

Bryant’s 2012-2013 salary, according to HoopsHype.com, is $27.8 million. Over the next two years, he will make more than $58 million. But because the amount of income that can be taxed to pay for Social Security will be capped at $113,700 in 2013, it will take Bryant just one-third of one pay day (counting his 82 game days as pay days) to maximize his contribution to the program, sports accountant Robert Raiola noted on Twitter yesterday:

Max amount of earnings sub to Social Security taxes will be $113,700 in 13. It will take Kobe Bryant 33% of 1days pay to reach. #NBA #Lakers

— Robert Raiola, CPA (@SportsTaxMan) October 22, 2012

Even giving Bryant credit for working 260 days, he would reach the cap after just more than one day.

Put simply, the Social Security cap forces a worker making America’s median income of $50,054 — or any income below $113,700 next year — to pay payroll taxes on 100 percent of their income, while nearly $27.7 million of Bryant’s income is exempt.

Lifting that cap, according to the Congressional Research service, would ensure Social Security’s solvency for the next 75 years while creating a long-term surplus for the program. That’s a far bigger fix than what would result from means testing benefits for the wealthy or raising the retirement age, the two most popular reforms among the “Social Security is broke” consensus.

During last night’s final presidential debate, Mitt Romney once again promised to label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office, should he win the election. “I’ve watched year in and year out as companies have shut down and people have lost their jobs because China has not played by the same rules, in part by holding down artificially the value of their currency,” Romney said. “They’re making some progress; they need to make more. That’s why on day one I will label them a currency manipulator which allows us to apply tariffs where they’re taking jobs.”

President Obama responded by saying, “actually, currencies are at their most advantageous point for U.S. exporters since 1993.” Indeed, as this chart from Quartz’s Tim Fernholz shows, the Chinese yuan has appreciated by a significant amount since Obama came into office:

Fernholz added, “while the extent of Chinese currency manipulation isn’t clear, what is clear is that it’s declining. Even the most commonly cited method of manipulation, purchasing large quantities of US government debt, has been in retreat: US taxpayers owe China 10% less this year than they did last year.” As the New York Times noted today, “A dollar currently buys about 6.25 renminbi, down from about 6.8 when Mr. Obama took office.” And China is not even the world’s worst currency manipulator: Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and even Switzerland are worse.

Labeling China a currency manipulator would not immediately have any effect in terms of tariffs, but economists warn that it could, at worst, start a trade war. “The economic credibility of that action would be pretty thin,” said Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute of International Economics. “Moreover, it would be blatantly provocative at a time when the new leadership was getting in place in China, and the new administration as well.”