Today, our economy is facing unprecedented challenges, both at home and abroad. There are warning signs everywhere that it’s slowing down and in need of a boost. The stock market is in turmoil, oil prices remain high, the housing market continues to slide, and the dollar is losing strength. Together, these and other factors are slowly creating the conditions for a recession. Such a result is probable, but not inevitable.

Since day one of his campaign, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney made it clear that complacency about our economy was not on his agenda by becoming the first candidate to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. He has continued to outline substantive ways to sustain economic growth and prevent a recession, including making the Bush tax cuts permanent, reducing marginal tax rates for all Americans, providing relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax, permanently killing the death tax, and rejecting Social Security tax-rate increases.

However, with economic and financial conditions apparently worsening, Romney believes Washington must act now. He has proposed a bold economic stimulus plan that would immediately help restore consumer and business confidence while providing new incentives to improve productivity and strengthen economic growth and America’s global competitiveness in the long term. Specifically, Romney is proposing a supply-side economic turnaround plan that would lower rates taxes on individuals, abolish taxes on saving and investment for middle-income investors, and significantly reduce taxes for business investment. The plan includes several core elements.

For individuals, it would permanently reduce the lowest tax rate from 10 percent to 7.5 percent, providing up to a $400 tax cut for those affected. It would also eliminate payroll taxes on workers older than 65. Romney believes it is simply unfair that seniors who have worked their entire lives and earned their full Social Security benefits continue to owe payroll taxes to the federal government. Taken together, these personal tax cuts would provide a much-needed boost to consumer confidence.

Additionally, the plan will allow Americans with adjusted gross incomes of less than $200,000 to save tax-free, by eliminating their tax liability on interest, capital gains, and dividends. The additional saving and investment will help meet the challenges of an aging population and ensure the financial security of America.

More than half of adult Americans have already invested in the stock market, but Romney’s tax-free savings plan will encourage even more middle-class Americans to join the investor class, which will help the capital increase needed for economic growth. The plan represents a bold down payment toward a fairer and simpler tax code.

For businesses large and small, the plan would provide new incentives for job-creating investment. Companies could immediately write off or expense the cost of new equipment purchased for a two-year period, retroactive to January 1, 2008, making them more likely to invest in such equipment. This would boost economic growth, create jobs, and benefit entrepreneurs and small businesses, which often face cash-flow difficulties.

Romney proposes to permanently reduce the corporate rate to 25 percent for 2008 and 20 percent in 2009. Today, at 35 percent, the U.S. corporate rate is the second among major industrialized countries. A permanent U.S. corporate-tax rate of 20 percent would attract capital, increase investment, and enhance American competitiveness with the rapidly growing economies of the world. And by encouraging new capital flows into the U.S, it would strengthen and stabilize the value of the U.S. dollar.

In 2008, we have a clear choice. We can select a nominee whose economic views have been shaped by almost 30 years spent in the free market, making businesses work and creating jobs. Or, we can pick a longtime politician who has never run a corner grocery store, much less the largest enterprise in the world — the federal government. The choice is clear, and the choice is Mitt Romney.

— Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota, serves as policy chairman of the Romney for President Campaign. Cesar Conda, a former chief domestic policy adviser to Vice President Cheney, is a senior economic policy adviser to the Romney campaign.