How is that not a vision? How is that not a good hunk of conservative/libertarian philosophy in a nutshell (at least economically): less government?

The problem is that "less government" is not really a description of anything. The same goes for "cut taxes" and "less regulation". Unless you can tell people specifically where and by how much, it's just platitudes.

How about this?

Implement a pro-growth tax policy. Instead of raising taxes, he would lower taxes to 25% for the top marginal income tax rate, and combine all the other brackets to a 10% tax rate on the first $100,000 for couples. He would also lower the top corporate tax rate, and eliminate the capital gains tax. This would increase, rather than suppress, the incentives to work, save, and invest.

How about 25% for the top corporate tax rate? link, link

There are lots and lots of variations on the themes: flat tax, fair tax, etc. Regulation issues are similar. There are plenty of particulars out there. Unfortunately, I think too many folks just glaze over at the specifics and cry, "All I ever hear is “tax cuts!” and “less regulation!”"

Frankly, I doubt a McCain Administration stimulus package would look very different than Obama’s.

Though I can give JohnG an ironic answer to this question:

What in the world would John McCain's stimulus have had in it that would cost 780 odd billion dollars

Think "Iran"

Unless you mean "the Democratic Congress would never have passed a substantially different stimulus" in which case I agree with you.

How is that not a vision? How is that not a good hunk of conservative/libertarian philosophy in a nutshell (at least economically): less government?

The problem is that "less government" is not really a description of anything. The same goes for "cut taxes" and "less regulation". Unless you can tell people specifically where and by how much, it's just platitudes.

My preferred solution to get government out of it is to abolish the publicly traded corporation entirely, or at the very least radically change its form from the quasi-governmental functions it has today.

Bithead -- Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, Peregrine & WorldCom took a lot of investors for a ride.

Perhaps so. Yet, what has govenment done about it? Did S-O solve these issues, or make them worse?

I'd call multiple trillions of tax dollars a bit of a ride, wouldn't you?

Newt's the one who suggested replacing it.

He makes a large number of suggestions... most fairly good, but many of them aren't particularly conservative or libertarian, either. I'd suggest the one you point up as a case in point.

Then again, he's never calimed Libertarian roots. You however did, in this very post. So once again, comes the question; If you're going to argue from that perspective, shouldn't the question 'should govenment be involved with this thing at all' be question one on any proposal for legislation?

All I ever hear is “tax cuts!” and “less regulation!”

How is that not a vision? How is that not a good hunk of conservative/libertarian philosophy in a nutshell (at least economically): less government?

I jotted a few things down the other day (mostly a collection of links), and it seems that there are plenty of boring details, but you could essentially boil things down to the quote above.

I suppose I could summarize the Obama plan in a similar fashion: "All I ever hear is 'raise taxes!' and 'more regulation!'". How is that a vision?

This has been another edition of easy answers to simple questions.

If you read more carefully, you would see that I don't think that McCain's policies would be much different from Obama's. I voted for Obama because he was a superior candidate in virtually all aspects, but that doesn't mean I agreed with him on all aspects.

Bit,

Newt's the one who suggested replacing it. And as long as corporations are quasi-state entities, I agree.