With this one trailing in the polls, Americans will see a new Mitt Romney emerge from the continuing flood of television commercials and, come Oct. 3, in the first of three presidential debates.

As reinvented, Mr. Romney will go into detail on the way he will govern if elected. He will, it is promised, say how he will cut taxes by 20 percent on the wealthy and keep the flow of revenues at present levels. He will continue to promise to produce 12 million new jobs in the next four years, but this time will tell the nation how that can be done, step by step. He will “fix the immigration problem.”

While Romney is on those missions of clarification, his teammate, Paul Ryan, will tell voters how the Romney-Ryan administration will reduce the deficit and the national debt while substantially increasing spending on the military.

Up to now, Romney has declined to say how he would revise the tax structure to allow another big tax cut and still keep tax revenues level. The only way that can be done, of course, is to eliminate deductions, such as those for the interest paid on mortgages and money given to churches and other charities. He frankly said earlier that he wouldn’t go into detail because he didn’t want to give his opponents ammunition.

He has never said how he would use the office of the presidency to create jobs in the private sector. That explanation can now be expected.

Ryan and others have said that cutting taxes will boost the economy and create jobs. The fact is, however, that the administration of George W. Bush pushed through one of the largest tax cuts in U.S. history in 2001 and 2003. The economy was sluggish throughout his two terms — until 2007-8, when it collapsed as the second-worst recession our nation has known began its destruction. 

Tax cuts didn’t create a booming economy in 2003. There is no reason to believe that still another tax reduction would do so in 2013. 

Economists who comment on this theory point out that tax reductions did have a stimulating effect when top earners paid 70 percent or more, which they did for about 40 years, ending in 1980. The effect is much less now that the top rate is half that, at 35 percent. U.S. taxes today take less of the gross national product than at any time in the past 60 years.

AS THE CAMPAIGN moves into the earnest stage, the republic will be well served if both candidates level with the people. 

For his part, President Obama should admit that he can’t balance the federal budget with higher taxes on the wealthy. The wealthy, goodness knows, should pay more. They have never paid less, yet the gulf between the one percent and the rest of us grows ever wider. But they don’t make enough to cover Washington spending, even if their tax rates were doubled.

The so-called middle class must pay more if government income is to match government spending. I say “so-called” because neither candidate uses a reasonable definition of middle class. The median income is about $50,000. That’s middle class, by mathematical definition. So take a little more from families with incomes of, say, $85,000 and above. Millionaires Obama and Romney are out of touch to put the middle class floor at the $200,000 level.

Both candidates should also agree to take the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles Commission seriously, make the commission permanent, keep it bipartisan and tackle the on-going challenge of budget and tax reform as the imperative that it is.

HERE’S A PREDICTION: if Mitt Romney does, indeed, stop basing his campaign on the destruction of the president and focus on his own plans for governing in frank and open detail, President Barack Obama will respond in kind. And the campaign will go down in history as one of a kind.

We must never give up hope.

— Emerson Lynn, jr.

When the Allen County Hospital building of today was built in 1951-52 brass plaques were fastened to most of the hospital room doors, which carried the names of those who had donated money to equip them with beds and other appliances. Perhaps the “naming” done was even more elaborate than that — as it will be with the new Allen County Hospital now in process of construction.

Donors today will have the opportunity to memorialize their family for years into the future by sponsoring a particular piece of equipment, an area of the hospital, such as an operating room, or maternity ward, or, for some thoughtful family of means, the hospital itself.

Jim Gilpin is chairman of the Uniting for Excellence Campaign which is seeking to raise $4.6 million to pay for the additional medical equipment and furnishings on the wish list of Cris Rivera, hospital CEO, and the medical and technical staff. She and others went through the memorial possibilities at a meeting at the Allen County Country Club Thursday evening.

Gilpin said his committee had agreed that a gift of $1 million or more would allow a donor family to name the hospital campus, as, for example, the Bowlus Fine Arts Center is named for the Bowlus family to honor the bequest left by Thomas Bowlus at his death in 1963. Similarly, the Sleeper Family Trust which funds a multitude of programs each year at Bowlus Fine Arts Center, keeps the Sleeper name alive even though there are no members living in Iola today. The number of Iolans who remember Roy and Mrs. Sleeper, their son John, or the furniture store and mortuary which bore their names, grows smaller by the year, but many school children throughout Allen County know that the Sleeper Trust is a generous friend.

Gifts of these kinds are living monuments that keep on giving. 

The family which decides to place its name on the hospital itself will be honored by literally tens of thousands of patients and their families for decades into the future. And the same can be said for those who underwrite the lobby, the maternity ward, a patient wing or purchase a critically needed piece of medical technology. 

Uniting for Excellence has come up with ways to make giving to the hospital campaign fit family situations. The gift can be through an insurance policy. It can be made in periodic payments. Land or stock can be given. Please also remember, campaign workers are quick to add, that gifts of any size are greatly appreciated and welcome.

We won’t borrow the barker’s line and urge you to give before it’s too late. Still, it is very true that this is an opportunity of a lifetime for many of us. The hospital will be built. The areas and facilities to be named, will be named.

Think about it. Call a family conference. Then get in touch with Mr. Gilpin, Mrs. Gilpin, Mary Kay Heard, Mary Ann Arnott or Mrs. Rivera and decide how your family name will be memorialized in what is destined to become the best equipped and staffed hospital in southeast Kansas

— Emerson Lynn, jr.