Governor Mitt Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan do not present a moderate alternative to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Romney and Ryan’s economic policy proposals are misguided, and they do not adequately recognize the interests of low and middle income college-bound students. Their dangerous policies would spawn a regression in civil rights, climate change policy and foreign policy in the United States.

Suppose you’re a college-bound student. Student loans and debt likely count amongst a heaping set of concerns weighing on your future. While Obama has been supportive of such measures as Pell grants to help low income students pay for college, Romney’s solution vaguely outlines school choice and involvement of the private sector in the loan process. That’s weak. His plan is a certain profit reaper for enterprises wishing to extort students for every penny possible, and it’s surely not something that college students need as student debt reaches crisis levels.

A March report by the New York Federal Reserve Bank declared, “the outstanding student loan balance now stands at about $870 billion, surpassing the total credit card balance ($693 billion) … With college enrollments increasing and the costs of attendance rising, this balance is expected to continue its upward trend.”

Romney denounces the role of federal funding in affordable education, so he fails to understand that an investment in education is an investment in the future productivity of the country. If Romney is so concerned about the supposed burdening of future generations by the public debt, why is he not concerned about the burdening of current generations by private debt?

Recent economic research on the causes of the late-2000s recession has determined that a decline in housing prices, a major component of American household wealth, caused a sharp decline in demand because of balance sheet constraints, thereby causing mass unemployment. Romney’s plans of slashing taxes and cutting regulation to inspire confidence in the private sector demonstrate a serious misunderstanding of the causes of the economic crisis. In 2011, McClatchy Newspapers surveyed small businesses, which they claim account for about 65 percent of U.S. jobs, and found that taxes and regulation were not holding them back from employing more people.

According to economists such as Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, at a time when government borrowing costs are extraordinarily low, the government should be active in generating projects such as infrastructure redevelopment to put idle workers back to use. The private sector declined its consumption not because of a loss of confidence in the government, but rather because there is a shortage of demand. It is the paradox of thrift. Households chose to save instead of spend. Romney and Ryan have turned blind eyes to this economic reality, and their policies, if implemented at a time of high unemployment, could prove injurious to the US economy.

The lack of detail in Romney’s plans should be exceedingly concerning for all Americans, and it’s insulting that he believes he does not need to divulge them, if they exist. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center attempted to evaluate his tax proposals but could not do so completely: “because Gov. Romney has not specified how he would increase the tax base, it is impossible to determine how the plan would affect federal tax revenues or the redistribution of the tax burden.” For someone who claims to be concerned about budget deficits, he really doesn’t seem to be concerned about making up for massive losses in revenue.

A limit to Romney’s mendacity does not exist. He misses no opportunity to misrepresent the truth about a voting constituency, Obama’s jobs plan or the relationship between his Romneycare and the Affordable Care Act. Romney’s statements about a certain 47 percent of Americans was no gaffe. The sheer lunacy with which he equated Americans who pay no income tax with Obama voters left jaws dropped as people realized that this is the same man who wants to be President of the United States. Never mind that that 47 percent includes groups such as the elderly, students, and the military. His grievous lack of empathy for those demographics leaves us wondering if his policies, or those of another conservative Congress, would leave any of them better off.

Romney was right about one thing in the first presidential debate: it presented an opportunity to see two very different views about what direction the country should take. Out of a circus of a Republican primary Romney emerged. Is he really the best Republicans have? Romney, a candidate with no real policy proposals, ineffective economic ideologies and poor plans for students, is surely the wrong man for the job.