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On August 07 2012 04:25 xDaunt wrote:
I don't think that Romney's tax plan is detailed enough to fairly score.
But they didn't score it fairly. They weighted everything towards a progressive result*, added growth effects to GDP from a certain Gregory Mankiw**, and still came out with a more regressive tax code that raises taxes (or, more accurately, lowers post-tax income) on people making less than $200,000 a year.
*they even assumed Romney would take out the deduction for charitable contributions, and no one will EVER touch those. Only important things not touched were those that favor savings and investment, per Romney's campaign pledge.
**currently on Romney's economics team. You probably know him.
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On August 07 2012 04:29 Dagan159 wrote:
Do you guys think that corporations have the power to determine our elected officials?
A rep from Apple came in to one of my classes and said that their company alone has the economic power of roughly 25 US states. (not the big ones =P). If they really wanted to fix an election, couldnt they? If not with voter fraud, but instead with control of the politicians themselves or fincancial backing ( which we cant track anymore).
It seems to me the choices for this election are so terrible, (ineffectualy democrats and batshit crazy republicans) that they must me manufactured.
No, but I think you should worry that corporations have disproportionate influence over elected officials. Part of this is why you should support inherent limitations to government power, because you create a very dangerous system when the government is very strong but they closely align themselves with corporate interests, often at the expense of citizens.
You also have to be careful with the word "corporations". You have to focus on human beings. Corporations are irrelevant because they are non-human institutions. So you have to decide when you say "corporations have power" whether you're talking about the owners (stockholders) of the corporation, the employees (management, workers) of the corporation, or the customers.
However, corporations with brand name power can influence people. When Google says "You should oppose SOPA", a lot of people believe them and go along with it because they like Google. Whether that's good for the public forum or not is a question with very mixed feelings.
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Corporations have the money to use massive amounts of Lobbying power who then pressure and reassure politicians who are more worried about reelection than actual governance.
Unlike the regular 9 to 5 citizen.
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On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:On August 07 2012 01:01 Vega62a wrote:On August 06 2012 20:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 05 2012 23:07 Defacer wrote:Anyway, The Tax Policy Center's study may gain traction, because it proves indisputably exactly what everyone expected: that Romney's proposed tax cut will either drive up middle class taxes OR explode the deficit. It CANNOT be revenue neutral without closing tax preferences that benefit the middle-lower classes. Why is this an issue? Ezra Klein breaks it down pretty succinctly, but here's his best points. 1) The Tax Policy Center bent over backwards to make Romney’s promises add up. They assumed a Romney administration wouldn’t cut a dollar of tax preferences for anyone making less than $200,000 until they had cut every dollar of tax preferences for everyone making over $200,000. They left all preferences for savings and investment untouched, as Romney has promised. They even tested the plan under a model developed, in part, by Greg Mankiw, one of Romney’s economic advisers, that promises “implausibly large growth effects” from tax cuts. The fact that they couldn’t make Romney’s numbers work even when they stacked all these scenarios on top of one another shows just how impossible Romney’s promises are. 2) If they thought releasing more details would make the plan look better rather than worse, they would have released them rather than letting outside organizations fill in the blanks. It’s essentially the same theory as refusing to release the tax returns. But now the Romney campaign is receiving pressure — including from conservatives — to release those details, which they know they can’t do. And unlike on the tax returns, no one can say that the details of Romney’s plans for governing the country are irrelevant to this campaign. 3) They tried to brush the Tax Policy Center’s analysis off as “just another biased study from a former Obama staffer.” That former Obama staffer is Adam Looney, one of the study’s three co-authors, who was a staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2010. But William Gale, one of Looney’s coauthors on this study, was a staff economist on George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. And the Tax Policy Center is directed by Donald Marron, who was actually a principal on George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Calling the Tax Policy Center biased is ridiculous. Just ask…the Romney campaign, which referred to the TPC’s work as “objective, third-party analysis” during the primary. Oops. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/02/nine-takeaways-on-romneys-tax-plan/Meanwhile, unlike the Romney Campaign, GOP senator Tom Coburn is putting his hard work where is mouth is and issued a facsinating 63-page report on tax breaks he feels should be eliminated. It looks a little like a high school book report, but christ -- it's nice to know there are republicans out there actually doing leg work and digging into detail, instead of huffing and puffing and shitting their pants over taxes. Did you know there is a tax break on tackle boxes? Tackle Box Tax Break
Manufacturers, producers and importers of fishing tackle boxes were required to pay a 10 percent excise tax on all equipment they sold until 2004 when the law was changed, reducing the amount of the tax to only three percent.
Yet, other sport fishing equipment is still subject to the full excise tax, including manufacturing of fishing rods and poles (capped at $10), fishing reels, lures and hooks. The revenue produced from the tackle boxes and other fishing equipment pays for federal and state sport-fishing programs.
Link to full report below. Tom Coburn: Reforming Tax Expenditures … Ezra Klein has also written another article where he quotes the Tax Policy Center saying that Romney's tax plan is "not mathematically possible" without raising taxes on the middle class. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/04/romney-tax-plan-on-table-debt-collapses-table/ It is absurd to me that there are still people trying to say that Romney's plan is serious. Even the sincere members of his own party (few that are left) are saying it's absurd. Even the extremely right-leaning Economist has said it is absurd. We really do choose our own facts. We're close to a tipping point, I think - either the reality-denying crazies will take over and those who have any sense left will migrate to other countries, or we will see a massive political purge in which the rational finally reasserts itself and purges the crazy from both parties. (Although to be honest I see the left as more guilty of "I dont know how to handle myself" than of deliberate and reality-denying crazy.) I hope it's the latter. I get the feeling it will be the former. i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for?
You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years.
Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul
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On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:On August 07 2012 01:01 Vega62a wrote:On August 06 2012 20:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 05 2012 23:07 Defacer wrote:Anyway, The Tax Policy Center's study may gain traction, because it proves indisputably exactly what everyone expected: that Romney's proposed tax cut will either drive up middle class taxes OR explode the deficit. It CANNOT be revenue neutral without closing tax preferences that benefit the middle-lower classes. Why is this an issue? Ezra Klein breaks it down pretty succinctly, but here's his best points. [quote] [quote] [quote] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/02/nine-takeaways-on-romneys-tax-plan/Meanwhile, unlike the Romney Campaign, GOP senator Tom Coburn is putting his hard work where is mouth is and issued a facsinating 63-page report on tax breaks he feels should be eliminated. It looks a little like a high school book report, but christ -- it's nice to know there are republicans out there actually doing leg work and digging into detail, instead of huffing and puffing and shitting their pants over taxes. Did you know there is a tax break on tackle boxes? [quote] Link to full report below. Tom Coburn: Reforming Tax Expenditures … Ezra Klein has also written another article where he quotes the Tax Policy Center saying that Romney's tax plan is "not mathematically possible" without raising taxes on the middle class. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/04/romney-tax-plan-on-table-debt-collapses-table/ It is absurd to me that there are still people trying to say that Romney's plan is serious. Even the sincere members of his own party (few that are left) are saying it's absurd. Even the extremely right-leaning Economist has said it is absurd. We really do choose our own facts. We're close to a tipping point, I think - either the reality-denying crazies will take over and those who have any sense left will migrate to other countries, or we will see a massive political purge in which the rational finally reasserts itself and purges the crazy from both parties. (Although to be honest I see the left as more guilty of "I dont know how to handle myself" than of deliberate and reality-denying crazy.) I hope it's the latter. I get the feeling it will be the former. i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul
He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table.
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On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:On August 07 2012 01:01 Vega62a wrote:It is absurd to me that there are still people trying to say that Romney's plan is serious. Even the sincere members of his own party (few that are left) are saying it's absurd. Even the extremely right-leaning Economist has said it is absurd. We really do choose our own facts. We're close to a tipping point, I think - either the reality-denying crazies will take over and those who have any sense left will migrate to other countries, or we will see a massive political purge in which the rational finally reasserts itself and purges the crazy from both parties. (Although to be honest I see the left as more guilty of "I dont know how to handle myself" than of deliberate and reality-denying crazy.) I hope it's the latter. I get the feeling it will be the former. i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table.
Also the democrats would be more of a big tent party than the republicans, and have to deal with the complications of that.
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On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:On August 07 2012 01:01 Vega62a wrote:On August 06 2012 20:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 05 2012 23:07 Defacer wrote:Anyway, The Tax Policy Center's study may gain traction, because it proves indisputably exactly what everyone expected: that Romney's proposed tax cut will either drive up middle class taxes OR explode the deficit. It CANNOT be revenue neutral without closing tax preferences that benefit the middle-lower classes. Why is this an issue? Ezra Klein breaks it down pretty succinctly, but here's his best points. 1) The Tax Policy Center bent over backwards to make Romney’s promises add up. They assumed a Romney administration wouldn’t cut a dollar of tax preferences for anyone making less than $200,000 until they had cut every dollar of tax preferences for everyone making over $200,000. They left all preferences for savings and investment untouched, as Romney has promised. They even tested the plan under a model developed, in part, by Greg Mankiw, one of Romney’s economic advisers, that promises “implausibly large growth effects” from tax cuts. The fact that they couldn’t make Romney’s numbers work even when they stacked all these scenarios on top of one another shows just how impossible Romney’s promises are. 2) If they thought releasing more details would make the plan look better rather than worse, they would have released them rather than letting outside organizations fill in the blanks. It’s essentially the same theory as refusing to release the tax returns. But now the Romney campaign is receiving pressure — including from conservatives — to release those details, which they know they can’t do. And unlike on the tax returns, no one can say that the details of Romney’s plans for governing the country are irrelevant to this campaign. 3) They tried to brush the Tax Policy Center’s analysis off as “just another biased study from a former Obama staffer.” That former Obama staffer is Adam Looney, one of the study’s three co-authors, who was a staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2010. But William Gale, one of Looney’s coauthors on this study, was a staff economist on George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. And the Tax Policy Center is directed by Donald Marron, who was actually a principal on George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Calling the Tax Policy Center biased is ridiculous. Just ask…the Romney campaign, which referred to the TPC’s work as “objective, third-party analysis” during the primary. Oops. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/02/nine-takeaways-on-romneys-tax-plan/Meanwhile, unlike the Romney Campaign, GOP senator Tom Coburn is putting his hard work where is mouth is and issued a facsinating 63-page report on tax breaks he feels should be eliminated. It looks a little like a high school book report, but christ -- it's nice to know there are republicans out there actually doing leg work and digging into detail, instead of huffing and puffing and shitting their pants over taxes. Did you know there is a tax break on tackle boxes? Tackle Box Tax Break
Manufacturers, producers and importers of fishing tackle boxes were required to pay a 10 percent excise tax on all equipment they sold until 2004 when the law was changed, reducing the amount of the tax to only three percent.
Yet, other sport fishing equipment is still subject to the full excise tax, including manufacturing of fishing rods and poles (capped at $10), fishing reels, lures and hooks. The revenue produced from the tackle boxes and other fishing equipment pays for federal and state sport-fishing programs.
Link to full report below. Tom Coburn: Reforming Tax Expenditures … Ezra Klein has also written another article where he quotes the Tax Policy Center saying that Romney's tax plan is "not mathematically possible" without raising taxes on the middle class. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/04/romney-tax-plan-on-table-debt-collapses-table/ It is absurd to me that there are still people trying to say that Romney's plan is serious. Even the sincere members of his own party (few that are left) are saying it's absurd. Even the extremely right-leaning Economist has said it is absurd. We really do choose our own facts. We're close to a tipping point, I think - either the reality-denying crazies will take over and those who have any sense left will migrate to other countries, or we will see a massive political purge in which the rational finally reasserts itself and purges the crazy from both parties. (Although to be honest I see the left as more guilty of "I dont know how to handle myself" than of deliberate and reality-denying crazy.) I hope it's the latter. I get the feeling it will be the former. i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies would have been for the economy.
There have been plenty of "American Jobs Acts" which have made it through congress. They are a dime a dozen these days.
Obama's gotten plenty of legislation through - just because he hasn't gotten 100% of what he wanted though doesn't mean he gets a free pass.
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On August 07 2012 05:36 Saryph wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:On August 07 2012 01:01 Vega62a wrote:
[quote]
It is absurd to me that there are still people trying to say that Romney's plan is serious. Even the sincere members of his own party (few that are left) are saying it's absurd. Even the extremely right-leaning Economist has said it is absurd.
We really do choose our own facts. We're close to a tipping point, I think - either the reality-denying crazies will take over and those who have any sense left will migrate to other countries, or we will see a massive political purge in which the rational finally reasserts itself and purges the crazy from both parties. (Although to be honest I see the left as more guilty of "I dont know how to handle myself" than of deliberate and reality-denying crazy.) I hope it's the latter. I get the feeling it will be the former. i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table. Also the democrats would be more of a big tent party than the republicans, and have to deal with the complications of that.
I generally don't like to repeat points that have been made previously in the thread, but I am going to make an exception here because it is so important. Obama's failure to get much done in the way of legislation passed is strictly due to his failure as a leader. He enjoyed huge majorities in congress and in the senate during his first 2 years in office. All that he had to do to get a handful of republican votes (which is all that he needed) was to invite one or two republicans to write legislation along with democrats. Hell, Bush came to office in 2000 in an even more toxic political environment (he stole the election, remember?), but he still pushed and passed all sorts of legislation because he had prominent democrats (like Ted Kennedy) participate in the drafting process. I don't for a moment believe that some of the moderate republicans wouldn't have jumped ship and voted for the legislation had Obama done this. Instead, Obama took a hyper-partisan line and made it really, really easy for republicans to band together and obstruct him.
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On August 07 2012 06:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 05:36 Saryph wrote:On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:
[quote]
i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table. Also the democrats would be more of a big tent party than the republicans, and have to deal with the complications of that. I generally don't like to repeat points that have been made previously in the thread, but I am going to make an exception here because it is so important. Obama's failure to get much done in the way of legislation passed is strictly due to his failure as a leader. He enjoyed huge majorities in congress and in the senate during his first 2 years in office. All that he had to do to get a handful of republican votes (which is all that he needed) was to invite one or two republicans to write legislation along with democrats. Hell, Bush came to office in 2000 in an even more toxic political environment (he stole the election, remember?), but he still pushed and passed all sorts of legislation because he had prominent democrats (like Ted Kennedy) participate in the drafting process. I don't for a moment believe that some of the moderate republicans wouldn't have jumped ship and voted for the legislation had Obama done this. Instead, Obama took a hyper-partisan line and made it really, really easy for republicans to band together and obstruct him.
Somebody is forgetting Senator Snow.
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On August 07 2012 06:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 05:36 Saryph wrote:On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:
[quote]
i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table. Also the democrats would be more of a big tent party than the republicans, and have to deal with the complications of that. I generally don't like to repeat points that have been made previously in the thread, but I am going to make an exception here because it is so important. Obama's failure to get much done in the way of legislation passed is strictly due to his failure as a leader. He enjoyed huge majorities in congress and in the senate during his first 2 years in office. All that he had to do to get a handful of republican votes (which is all that he needed) was to invite one or two republicans to write legislation along with democrats. Hell, Bush came to office in 2000 in an even more toxic political environment (he stole the election, remember?), but he still pushed and passed all sorts of legislation because he had prominent democrats (like Ted Kennedy) participate in the drafting process. I don't for a moment believe that some of the moderate republicans wouldn't have jumped ship and voted for the legislation had Obama done this. Instead, Obama took a hyper-partisan line and made it really, really easy for republicans to band together and obstruct him.
Yeah, you could look at the recent failure of the cybersecurity bill as well. Sure, Republicans deserve their share of blame for obstructing the bill and kow-towing to special interests (such as the US Chamber of Commerce, which threatened to paint supporters as "anti-business"). But President Obama is at least equally to blame for threatening to veto any plan that compromised his main goals of centralized authority and contributing to the point-counting that made the environment toxic as both sides stopped trying to make progress and started fretting about who was coming out ahead politically. The ultimate failure was as much about continuing to paint Republicans as obstructionists as it was a collapse in negotiations.
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On August 07 2012 06:18 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:On August 07 2012 01:01 Vega62a wrote:On August 06 2012 20:51 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 05 2012 23:07 Defacer wrote:Anyway, The Tax Policy Center's study may gain traction, because it proves indisputably exactly what everyone expected: that Romney's proposed tax cut will either drive up middle class taxes OR explode the deficit. It CANNOT be revenue neutral without closing tax preferences that benefit the middle-lower classes. Why is this an issue? Ezra Klein breaks it down pretty succinctly, but here's his best points. 1) The Tax Policy Center bent over backwards to make Romney’s promises add up. They assumed a Romney administration wouldn’t cut a dollar of tax preferences for anyone making less than $200,000 until they had cut every dollar of tax preferences for everyone making over $200,000. They left all preferences for savings and investment untouched, as Romney has promised. They even tested the plan under a model developed, in part, by Greg Mankiw, one of Romney’s economic advisers, that promises “implausibly large growth effects” from tax cuts. The fact that they couldn’t make Romney’s numbers work even when they stacked all these scenarios on top of one another shows just how impossible Romney’s promises are. 2) If they thought releasing more details would make the plan look better rather than worse, they would have released them rather than letting outside organizations fill in the blanks. It’s essentially the same theory as refusing to release the tax returns. But now the Romney campaign is receiving pressure — including from conservatives — to release those details, which they know they can’t do. And unlike on the tax returns, no one can say that the details of Romney’s plans for governing the country are irrelevant to this campaign. 3) They tried to brush the Tax Policy Center’s analysis off as “just another biased study from a former Obama staffer.” That former Obama staffer is Adam Looney, one of the study’s three co-authors, who was a staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisers from 2009 to 2010. But William Gale, one of Looney’s coauthors on this study, was a staff economist on George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. And the Tax Policy Center is directed by Donald Marron, who was actually a principal on George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. Calling the Tax Policy Center biased is ridiculous. Just ask…the Romney campaign, which referred to the TPC’s work as “objective, third-party analysis” during the primary. Oops. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/02/nine-takeaways-on-romneys-tax-plan/Meanwhile, unlike the Romney Campaign, GOP senator Tom Coburn is putting his hard work where is mouth is and issued a facsinating 63-page report on tax breaks he feels should be eliminated. It looks a little like a high school book report, but christ -- it's nice to know there are republicans out there actually doing leg work and digging into detail, instead of huffing and puffing and shitting their pants over taxes. Did you know there is a tax break on tackle boxes? Tackle Box Tax Break
Manufacturers, producers and importers of fishing tackle boxes were required to pay a 10 percent excise tax on all equipment they sold until 2004 when the law was changed, reducing the amount of the tax to only three percent.
Yet, other sport fishing equipment is still subject to the full excise tax, including manufacturing of fishing rods and poles (capped at $10), fishing reels, lures and hooks. The revenue produced from the tackle boxes and other fishing equipment pays for federal and state sport-fishing programs.
Link to full report below. Tom Coburn: Reforming Tax Expenditures … Ezra Klein has also written another article where he quotes the Tax Policy Center saying that Romney's tax plan is "not mathematically possible" without raising taxes on the middle class. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/04/romney-tax-plan-on-table-debt-collapses-table/ It is absurd to me that there are still people trying to say that Romney's plan is serious. Even the sincere members of his own party (few that are left) are saying it's absurd. Even the extremely right-leaning Economist has said it is absurd. We really do choose our own facts. We're close to a tipping point, I think - either the reality-denying crazies will take over and those who have any sense left will migrate to other countries, or we will see a massive political purge in which the rational finally reasserts itself and purges the crazy from both parties. (Although to be honest I see the left as more guilty of "I dont know how to handle myself" than of deliberate and reality-denying crazy.) I hope it's the latter. I get the feeling it will be the former. i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies would have been for the economy. There have been plenty of "American Jobs Acts" which have made it through congress. They are a dime a dozen these days.
Erm, no they aren't.
On August 07 2012 06:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 05:36 Saryph wrote:On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:
[quote]
i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table. Also the democrats would be more of a big tent party than the republicans, and have to deal with the complications of that. I generally don't like to repeat points that have been made previously in the thread, but I am going to make an exception here because it is so important. Obama's failure to get much done in the way of legislation passed is strictly due to his failure as a leader. He enjoyed huge majorities in congress and in the senate during his first 2 years in office. All that he had to do to get a handful of republican votes (which is all that he needed) was to invite one or two republicans to write legislation along with democrats. Hell, Bush came to office in 2000 in an even more toxic political environment (he stole the election, remember?), but he still pushed and passed all sorts of legislation because he had prominent democrats (like Ted Kennedy) participate in the drafting process. I don't for a moment believe that some of the moderate republicans wouldn't have jumped ship and voted for the legislation had Obama done this. Instead, Obama took a hyper-partisan line and made it really, really easy for republicans to band together and obstruct him.
Your entire argument rests on the following - false - assertion: Obama has been hyper-partisan. This is completely untrue, as has been repeatedly demonstrated both in this thread and in countless non-partisan articles, and is even documented in Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein's book "It's Even Worse Than It Looks". It is very clearly the Republicans that have repeatedly refused to meet Obama half-way, because of their explicitly and openly stated #1 objective of making him a one-term president. That you are still refusing to acknowledge this is very telling about your attitude towards facts that don't fit your views.
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If Obama was hyper-partisan, we would have had the public option for healthcare and a much larger stimulus.
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On August 07 2012 07:05 Adila wrote:
If Obama was hyper-partisan, we would have had the public option for healthcare and a much larger stimulus.
I have no doubt that he would have pushed for all of that if he could have gotten it. The problem is that there were too many democrats who did not want a public option, which is why it was taken off of the table.
I stand by my characterization that Obama has been hyper-partisan. Again, all that he had to do was invite some republicans to be authors of some major legislation, which he did not do. He has been pathetically ineffective at leading on anything, whether it be on domestic issues or foreign issues.
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On August 07 2012 07:10 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 07:05 Adila wrote:
If Obama was hyper-partisan, we would have had the public option for healthcare and a much larger stimulus. I stand by my characterization that Obama has been hyper-partisan.
We know you do. We also know you're wrong.
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Several veterans slammed Mitt Romney on Monday for opposing and mischaracterizing an Obama campaign lawsuit which would expand early voting rights to veterans, cops, firefighters and all Ohio voters.
Romney had claimed — falsely — that the Obama campaign opposed allowing members of the military and their families to vote in-person in the three days before the election. Actually, the Obama campaign wants all people in Ohio — including, for example, veterans, cops and firefighters — to be able to vote during that period.
The Romney campaign has not responded to TPM’s multiple requests for comment on whether they believe Ohio firefighters and cops are worthy of early voting rights.
“When it comes to Mitt Romney, I feel like he lives in bizarro world,” Iraq veteran and former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) told reporters in a conference call organized by the Center for American Progress on Monday. “He’s suppressing millions of votes across our country in this election, and then he lies and says that President Obama is trying to do the same thing, when it couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Murphy said Romney’s opposition to the lawsuit was part of a coordinated effort to suppress the vote.
“President Obama is trying to restore voting rights for all people in Ohio and all across the country. They just want to give them a fair shake and let their voices be heard,” Murphy said. “I was absolutely dumbfounded when I found out over the weekend what Mitt Romney is trying to pull. He’s trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes and trying to use our veterans as props to further his lies.”
Jon Soltz, a veteran who now works with VoteVets.org, said that he was “appalled” by the narrative coming out of Ohio.
Source
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On August 07 2012 04:56 coverpunch wrote:
You also have to be careful with the word "corporations". You have to focus on human beings. Corporations are irrelevant because they are non-human institutions. So you have to decide when you say "corporations have power" whether you're talking about the owners (stockholders) of the corporation, the employees (management, workers) of the corporation, or the customers.
Didn't we decide that corporations were people?
Joking aside, though, I think that you need precisely to think about corporations, not people. Corporations are the way that people insulate themselves from the systemic implications of their actions... it is not them, it is the corporation. It is that the organizations of people act in ways in which no individual within that organization would act on their own.
He we have some recourse to the Foucauldian notion of "strategy," although that may be muddying the waters a bit.
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On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:On August 07 2012 01:01 Vega62a wrote:It is absurd to me that there are still people trying to say that Romney's plan is serious. Even the sincere members of his own party (few that are left) are saying it's absurd. Even the extremely right-leaning Economist has said it is absurd. We really do choose our own facts. We're close to a tipping point, I think - either the reality-denying crazies will take over and those who have any sense left will migrate to other countries, or we will see a massive political purge in which the rational finally reasserts itself and purges the crazy from both parties. (Although to be honest I see the left as more guilty of "I dont know how to handle myself" than of deliberate and reality-denying crazy.) I hope it's the latter. I get the feeling it will be the former. i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table.
Bill Clinton was able to pass significant Welfare Reform with a Republican Congress. And that was the same Congress that hated him enough to impeach him later.
So why couldn't Obama accomplish any sort of bipartisan success?
The answer is because Clinton went toward the middle. He was a Centrist and before elections he would go even more to the Center. Obama has only gone more to the Left and then complained that Republicans didnt' follow him.
If you go so far to the Left that even your Democratic allies won't support you, then you can hardly blame the Republican Party for obstructionism.
Obama has nobody to blame but himself.
On August 07 2012 06:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 05:36 Saryph wrote:On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:
[quote]
i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table. Also the democrats would be more of a big tent party than the republicans, and have to deal with the complications of that. I generally don't like to repeat points that have been made previously in the thread, but I am going to make an exception here because it is so important. Obama's failure to get much done in the way of legislation passed is strictly due to his failure as a leader. He enjoyed huge majorities in congress and in the senate during his first 2 years in office. All that he had to do to get a handful of republican votes (which is all that he needed) was to invite one or two republicans to write legislation along with democrats. Hell, Bush came to office in 2000 in an even more toxic political environment (he stole the election, remember?), but he still pushed and passed all sorts of legislation because he had prominent democrats (like Ted Kennedy) participate in the drafting process. I don't for a moment believe that some of the moderate republicans wouldn't have jumped ship and voted for the legislation had Obama done this. Instead, Obama took a hyper-partisan line and made it really, really easy for republicans to band together and obstruct him.
^^ Also this.
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On August 07 2012 08:16 Savio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:On August 07 2012 01:12 darthfoley wrote:On August 07 2012 01:01 Vega62a wrote:
[quote]
It is absurd to me that there are still people trying to say that Romney's plan is serious. Even the sincere members of his own party (few that are left) are saying it's absurd. Even the extremely right-leaning Economist has said it is absurd.
We really do choose our own facts. We're close to a tipping point, I think - either the reality-denying crazies will take over and those who have any sense left will migrate to other countries, or we will see a massive political purge in which the rational finally reasserts itself and purges the crazy from both parties. (Although to be honest I see the left as more guilty of "I dont know how to handle myself" than of deliberate and reality-denying crazy.) I hope it's the latter. I get the feeling it will be the former. i'm sure xDaunt will tell you how it makes sense, stupid biased left wing propaganda machines!!!!!1! I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves. The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table. Bill Clinton was able to pass significant Welfare Reform with a Republican Congress. And that was the same Congress that hated him enough to impeach him later. So why couldn't Obama accomplish any sort of bipartisan success? The answer is because Clinton went toward the middle. He was a Centrist and before elections he would go even more to the Center. Obama has only gone more to the Left and then complained that Republicans didnt' follow him. If you go so far to the Left that even your Democratic allies won't support you, then you can hardly blame the Republican Party for obstructionism. Obama has nobody to blame but himself. Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On August 07 2012 05:36 Saryph wrote:On August 07 2012 05:33 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 05:00 ThreeAcross wrote:On August 07 2012 04:24 Gorsameth wrote:On August 07 2012 03:55 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 03:31 kwizach wrote:On August 07 2012 02:33 coverpunch wrote:On August 07 2012 01:17 Vega62a wrote:
[quote]
I guess I understand some of the cynicism - from what I understand, Obama's plan is similarly vague, which will cause conservatives to become defensive; but if they want to promote their candidate, they have to do so by holding his feet to the fire, not by diverting the topic. We only benefit when we are honest about ourselves.
The difference, of course, is that Obama does not promise something that is mathematically impossible. Oh please. Let's not act like there's any intellectual honesty or substantive policy out there. This report is a snipe, pure and simple. Obama has empirical results from the last four years and his policies haven't worked either. He's just not getting hammered for it. He's getting hammered for it every single day by right-wingers, who conveniently forget that Congress and the Republican opposition have made it particularly difficult for Obama to pass the policies he wants. See for example the American Jobs Act, which never made it through Congress, or the continued blocking of debt relief implementation by the Republican director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. So no, the "empirical results" from the last four years don't really reflect how good Obama's policies were for the economy. So what part of this post makes you feel that Obama deserves re-election? He will still have to deal with Republicans for the next four years. So because the Republicans have decided obstructing Obama is worth destroying there country he shouldnt be voted for? You must have forgotten that Obama had a democrat congress for two years. Neither candidate is worthy to be president. We need someone else, and not Ron Paul He only had 60 votes in the Senate for about a year, since a Republican won Ted Kennedy's seat when he died. And it's not like every Democrat automatically votes for everything the President puts on the table. Also the democrats would be more of a big tent party than the republicans, and have to deal with the complications of that. I generally don't like to repeat points that have been made previously in the thread, but I am going to make an exception here because it is so important. Obama's failure to get much done in the way of legislation passed is strictly due to his failure as a leader. He enjoyed huge majorities in congress and in the senate during his first 2 years in office. All that he had to do to get a handful of republican votes (which is all that he needed) was to invite one or two republicans to write legislation along with democrats. Hell, Bush came to office in 2000 in an even more toxic political environment (he stole the election, remember?), but he still pushed and passed all sorts of legislation because he had prominent democrats (like Ted Kennedy) participate in the drafting process. I don't for a moment believe that some of the moderate republicans wouldn't have jumped ship and voted for the legislation had Obama done this. Instead, Obama took a hyper-partisan line and made it really, really easy for republicans to band together and obstruct him. ^^ Also this.
Give me an example of him going "too far to the left." I'm talking in terms of 1980-2004 political left, not the center-which-is-now-called-communism left of 2012.
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On August 07 2012 07:17 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 07:10 xDaunt wrote:On August 07 2012 07:05 Adila wrote:
If Obama was hyper-partisan, we would have had the public option for healthcare and a much larger stimulus. I stand by my characterization that Obama has been hyper-partisan. We know you do. We also know you're wrong.
Actually, your arguments have actually seemed pretty weak compared to his. Just making an observation.
Try comparing Obama to Bill Clinton and you will understand.
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On August 07 2012 08:11 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2012 04:56 coverpunch wrote:
You also have to be careful with the word "corporations". You have to focus on human beings. Corporations are irrelevant because they are non-human institutions. So you have to decide when you say "corporations have power" whether you're talking about the owners (stockholders) of the corporation, the employees (management, workers) of the corporation, or the customers. Didn't we decide that corporations were people? Joking aside, though, I think that you need precisely to think about corporations, not people. Corporations are the way that people insulate themselves from the systemic implications of their actions... it is not them, it is the corporation. It is that the organizations of people act in ways in which no individual within that organization would act on their own. He we have some recourse to the Foucauldian notion of "strategy," although that may be muddying the waters a bit.
You're joking but I think you bring up a good point. You have to think about the human beings, not the institutions. But in the case of corporations, we do give them separate and distinct shroud of rights. And people do like to muddy the waters a lot, making it difficult sometimes to tell them apart.
For instance, political ads by corporations are justified because the corporation has the right to free speech. So when Google puts up an anti-SOPA banner, that's their First Amendment right. There is a non-trivial question if you say corporations don't have rights about whether the government could force Google to take down banners as political statements.
On the other side, Chick-Fil-A's president makes a controversial statement and there is a shitstorm about whether he's saying it as a private citizen and where Chick-Fil-A as a corporation stands on the issue. They ended up having it both ways - the president can say it as a private citizen but people rallied behind the restaurant.
In the context of whether corporations have too much power, it comes down to whether rich and/or influential people have too much power. A lot of them use their corporate interests and brand names as leverage. Hopefully that kind of threads the needle =p.
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EPT
