Romney in Iowa

From the Des Moines Register:

Romney's dark hair, graying sideburns and intense eyes give him the look of a seasoned politician. But he's relatively new to politics. Before one term as governor of Massachusetts, he spent his entire life in the private sector, including doing consulting work and founding a venture capital and investment firm.

He's plenty seasoned, though, at being in the glare of the media spotlight. His father was George Romney, auto executive, governor of Michigan and a presidential candidate, too. The eyes of the world fell on the son when Mitt Romney took the helm of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. His book "Turnaround" details his efforts to rescue the Games from financial crisis and stage a safe gathering of the world community after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Or perhaps encounters with Boston media have steeled him for any question, in any situation. It was hot and stuffy in the meeting room, but he fielded questions easily, never breaking a sweat.

His private-sector orientation threads through his views, such as his preference for "market solutions" when it comes to tackling health care, one of this country's biggest domestic challenges.

snip

His message of bringing fiscal discipline back to Washington includes a pledge to cap non-defense discretionary spending at inflation minus 1 percent. He also said he would veto any budget that exceeds that amount.

"Washington is broken. Americans know it. And the reason I am running is to fix Washington and to get America on track so that we can defeat the jihadists, we can be competitive with Asia, we can fix our schools, we can get health care for all our citizens that's private, market-based health care, we can solve our immigration problems."

The fiscal discipline approach is needed, but rather than the inflation minus 1 plan, how about a zero-start budget. Where the federal government starts like everyone else, at zero, not a inflation minus 1.