Why Mitt Romney Would Make a Good Treasury Secretary, But a Bad President

This past week, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney embarked on a foreign policy tour through the UK, Poland, and Israel. The trip is a "diplomatic audition” for the Republican candidate. 

This is the man who wrote a book called No Apologies, which is ironic as the centered purpose of his trip is focusing on apologizing for the deemed “mistakes” of President Obama. It is interesting, because throughout this campaign cycle, Romney has not talked much about his vision for the rest of the world.

Romney’s principal argument for the presidency has been his business experience, which has been used to highlight a supposed “weakness” in Barack Obama. Yet Romney has been slow to attack the president on the foreign policy end, where he has been largely successful. 

Ending the war in Iraq, killing Osama Bin Laden, bringing down Gadhafi without a single U.S. casualty, and sending important treaties such as START 1 have been some of the most important accomplishments of the Obama administration in foreign policy; and it’s hard to say if Romney would have ended the Iraq War, ordered the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, had the will to go after Gadhafi, or negotiate with Russia for START 1. 

Romney, with all his business experience, is more fitting to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve, or Secretary of Treasury than to be the President of the United States. The role of the Commander in Chief was outlined as the duty of the President in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers, there was no such provision about the economy.

Why you may ask? Because the president has no correlating effect on economy. Now, he can pass policies to spur economic growth, but our capitalistic economy is in at the hand of the consumer. Thus, I believe it is time Romney began to give the president credit for the things he can control; and show how he is different on the things that the president cannot control.

That is the only this country can change from the current polarized political environment to focus on the issues that affect the everyday lives of the American people.

Mitt Romney will say a lot of things during his time in abroad, but one thing that I hope he acknowledges is that the United States and its allies are more secure because of the leadership of President Barack Obama. If he can start with just that concession, I believe it would be fair to begin the debate of all the president hasn’t done. And that's a debate worth having.