Yesterday, Mitt Romney released a one-minute ad in which he spoke directly into the camera about the failures of Obama’s economic policy — and it looks like Team Obama followed suit (upping the ante with a two-minute ad spot, mmm hmm), having the president talk in a face-to-face format about his economic plan for the next four years. I suppose we’re meant to believe that this is what “giving specifics” on an “economic plan” looks like:

Now, Governor Romney believes that with that even bigger tax cuts for the wealthy and fewer regulations on Wall Street all of us will prosper. In other words he’d double down on the same trickle down policies that led to the crisis in the first place. So what’s my plan?

Enough with the big, fat “the same policies that got us here in the first place” lie. It’s hogwash.

First, we create a million new manufacturing jobs and help businesses double their exports. Give tax breaks to companies that invest in America, not that ship jobs overseas.

Pardon me, but how is it that you’re going to create these million marvelous manufacturing jobs when you’ve only failed spectacularly so far? Because giving tax breaks, a.k.a. providing subsidies, a.k.a. picking economic winners and losers, for your preferred businesses does not create jobs. And enough with this relentless demonization of “shipping jobs overseas” — if doing so helps us to obtain goods and services more cheaply and efficiently, which it does, that can and does create jobs, because that means we all have more disposable income and thereby are all wealthier.

Second, we cut our oil imports in half and produce more American-made energy, oil, clean-coal, natural gas, and new resources like wind, solar and bio-fuels—all while doubling the fuel efficiencies of cars and trucks.

No. Your administration has been steadily and purposefully impairing Americans’ ability to tap into our own abundant natural resources and blocking business opportunities for natural gas; clean coal is an expensive and costly nightmare; and your record on coercing Americans into using more wind/solar/biofuels — which currently hold exactly zero serious potential as viable, widespread substitutes for oil and gas — has failed tremendously, as have your many “green jobs” initiatives.

Third, we insure that we maintain the best workforce in the world by preparing 100,000 additional math and science teachers. Training 2 million Americans with the job skills they need at our community colleges. Cutting the growth of tuition in half and expanding student aid so more Americans can afford it.

Is this code for “more stimulus”, which translates into spending even more money we don’t have? Who is going to perform and pay for all of this additional training, exactly? Oh, let me guess — the federal government. Whoop-de-doo. And does anybody in your august administration realize that subsidizing student aid so that more Americans can afford going to college is going to hike demand — which is going to make tuition even more expensive? You can’t have it both ways, and hey, it might be nice of all of those college graduates could find jobs and maybe become capable of paying off all of that debt.

Fourth, a balanced plan to reduce our deficit by four trillion dollars over the next decade on top of the trillion in spending we’ve already cut, I’d ask the wealthy to pay a little more. And as we end the war in Afghanistan let’s apply half the savings to pay down our debt and use the rest for some nation building right here at home.

Even if I believed that you were going to suddenly reverse your trend of growing more than trillion-dollar annual deficits (which, given all that government spending implied above, I don’t), taxing the wealthy more isn’t going to necessarily increase revenue by much — and the damage to our economy is going to be infinitely worse.

It’s time for a new economic patriotism. Rooted in the belief that growing our economy begins with a strong, thriving middle class. Read my plan. Compare it to Governor Romney’s and decide for yourself. Thanks for listening.

“New economic patriotism”? Does that sound severely creepy to anyone else?