Brad DeLong goes through the policies put forward by Romney during his campaign and shows that whether the nation had elected a center-left (Obama) or center-right (Romney) President, the outcomes would have been pretty close:
President Romney vs. President Obama: On global warming, Romney would have abandoned economists' preferred Pigovian carbon tax for the complicated, corporatist and business-friendlier approach of a cap-and-trade system. But he would have been no more successful than Obama in assembling a Senate coalition to achieve anything.
On healthcare, Romney would have taken his signature Massachusetts health care reform and expanded it nationwide: we would have RomneyCare. But that is precisely what we do have.
President Romney vs. President Obama: On global warming, Romney would have abandoned economists' preferred Pigovian carbon tax for the complicated, corporatist and business-friendlier approach of a cap-and-trade system. But he would have been no more successful than Obama in assembling a Senate coalition to achieve anything.
On healthcare, Romney would have taken his signature Massachusetts health care reform and expanded it nationwide: we would have RomneyCare. But that is precisely what we do have.