On October 04 2012 14:31 th3j35t3r wrote: Romney has had the same platform since the start of his campaign, try proving me otherwise. All the people complaining probably only get their news from the Huffington post.
I live in Southern NH, and as a Democrat I thought Mitt Romney did an excellent job as Governor. He was pro-choice, pro-gun control, and created the blueprint for the ACA in Massachusetts. He was quite liberal.
But then he sold out his ideals to run for President. He is now pro-life, doesn't support the assault weapons ban he supported as Governor, and now says that the ACA, when even the advisers to Romney when he created his healthcare plan claim what he did in Mass is essentially the same as the ACA, is bad.
So yes, his platform is same at the start of his campaign, but almost completely the opposite of what he did as Governor...
So who are we electing? What are his plans? What is his tax plan?
Please, tell me. Because no one, not even you, knows. Because he won't share them. So feel free to vote for the unknown.
On October 04 2012 13:18 screamingpalm wrote: I don't expect Obama to "win" any of the debates, but Romney may come up short. The question will be how much damage Obama can avoid from them.
I don't really think a Romney win would be the armageddon Dems are claiming though. It's not like Obama is running against a Santorum, and I wonder how much of Romney's current stances on issues are just pandering to the conservative base. I have a feeling, if elected, he would take a sharp turn to the center and revert to his "moderate progressive" side. Obama didn't end up being the ultra-progressive bastion of "hope and change" after he was elected, after all.
Don't be afraid to vote third party. It's not a waste of time if that is what represents your views the best.
Gary Johnson 2012 for me.
If I was going to vote, it would be either him or Jill Stein.
So if you don't vote for the extreme left candidate, you will for the extreme right? Your logic amuses me.
The real winner of the debates was the American people, both candidates know what they are doing and both appeared presidential. Obama not playing the 47% cheap shot was clever of him, It appealed to me, but Romney wins overall, and has my vote.
All the idiots complaining about how social issues were not in the debate are fucking idiots. The debate schedule was openly available before the debate itself. Why would there be 3 debates if they were going to ignore that issue? After all the program hasn't changed much since its inception in the 60's.
Romney has had the same platform since the start of his campaign, try proving me otherwise. All the people complaining probably only get their news from the Huffington post.
Ryan will decimate Biden, clearly you have never seen him in action. He is an insane policy wonk, never makes a single gaffe. Besides, no one watches the vice-presidential debates, or for that matter the 2nd and 3rd presidential debates.
Well said. If I was American I would definitely vote Romney. However since I am Canadian I will just watch. O.o
Ryan will decimate Biden, clearly you have never seen him in action. He is an insane policy wonk, never makes a single gaffe. Besides, no one watches the vice-presidential debates, or for that matter the 2nd and 3rd presidential debates.
What? He clearly made a gaffe on Fox News. When questioned on Fox News he couldn't even tell Fox News how much his big tax cut would cost... Check it...
WALLACE: So how much would it cost? RYAN: It’s revenue neutral… WALLACE: No no, I’m just talking about cuts. We’ll get to the deductions, but the cut in tax rates. RYAN: The cut in tax rates is lowering all Americans’ tax rates by 20 percent. WALLACE: Right, how much does that cost? RYAN: It’s revenue neutral. [...] WALLACE: But I have to point out, you haven’t given me the math. Ryan: No, but you…well, I don’t have the time. It would take me too long to go through all of the math
Why can't I know the math? Why can't Chris Wallace know the math? If it takes too long to explain in an interview put it on your website! We still don't know what deductions they are planning on cutting to balance the fact they are cutting taxes again.
Give us the math!
And apparently, you've never see Biden in a debate. He is well known as a superb debater, while Ryan is untested. It is going to be one sided, because Ryan won't live up to expectations, and Biden will surpass them.
On October 04 2012 13:18 screamingpalm wrote: I don't expect Obama to "win" any of the debates, but Romney may come up short. The question will be how much damage Obama can avoid from them.
I don't really think a Romney win would be the armageddon Dems are claiming though. It's not like Obama is running against a Santorum, and I wonder how much of Romney's current stances on issues are just pandering to the conservative base. I have a feeling, if elected, he would take a sharp turn to the center and revert to his "moderate progressive" side. Obama didn't end up being the ultra-progressive bastion of "hope and change" after he was elected, after all.
Don't be afraid to vote third party. It's not a waste of time if that is what represents your views the best.
Gary Johnson 2012 for me.
If I was going to vote, it would be either him or Jill Stein.
So if you don't vote for the extreme left candidate, you will for the extreme right? Your logic amuses me.
Your misconstruction of the political spectrum is what amuses me.
Romney basically as centrist as possible without alienating the super right wing during this debate. Where does this leave Paul Ryan? How many things did Romney say that Ryan disagrees with? @_@ Such a weird couple.
On October 04 2012 14:55 Zaqwert wrote: The real truth is that in 4 years from now things will be almost identical with Romney or Obama to be honest.
Given that the Republicans control the house and the Dems control the Senate, neither President will be able to push through that much, thank god.
Democrats could lose the Senate, especially if Romney wins (presidential coat tails). Also, in 2014, Dems will be defending the huge senate gains they made in 2008, so I expect them to lose a few more seats then. Although it's also true that if the first two years of a Romney presidency do not go well, his party will be held accountable in 2014 regardless of the reasons why or difficulty of the situation (ie, the same thing that happened to Obama's party in 2010).
Given the amount of state control the Republicans won in 2010 (with 2011 being a redistricting year), I do not expect the Democrats to win back House control until 2022 at the earliest. My bet is that the median congressional district will have a Partisan Voter Index of R+3, so it would basically take an election like 2008 for them to win control. So Obama will be working with a GOP House if he wins, in all likeliness.
Here's a little review of the First Presidential Debate of 2012:
If anyone wants to read, here's a bit of what I thought about the debate after letting it sink in, doing some reading, leaving the topic all together, then returning to it:
Congratulations to Goldman Sachs for winning tonight's First 2012 United States Presidential Debate!
Both candidates were extremely rude and even a little abusive to the moderator. They have no respect for the duration they were supposed to speak for, and they replied to each other whenever they wanted, whether they stayed on topic or not.
Romney is an idiot with no ideas, that he will admit to, at least.
Obama tried a strategy called taking the high road and got beat up by a bunch of lies that he failed to put the smack down on efficiently, even though it's commonly known debunked stuff that the right has been throwing for the last 6 months.
My guess is that the amount of lies that Romney told will be high. Flat out, Romney lied about a bunch of things and it started almost right away.
Obama on the other hand dodged some of the questions, seemingly relying on lectures about education, instead of ideas for job growth. I can understand that Obama's looking out for the children, but it seemed like he was missing some reassurance that the adults would have liked to hear.
What else... they didn't mention the FED in a conversation about the federal deficit whatsoever. World economic collapse via qualitative easing never became a conversation topic.
Romney kind of said all debate long that he wanted to cut gov't spending on everything, without anyone feeling the effects, which is something you can't really do. Where Obama has been shown to not have done enough, Romney has still given no details about what he'd do.
Romney flip flopped a lot. That's a big problem for me. He basically said that he wanted to repeal all of Obamacare, however, in the next sentence, he says he wants to them introduce a model that resembles the health care system of Massachusetts, which is the model that Obamacare is made from. Romney was even careful to say that it would be the same as Obamacare in many ways, such as pre-existing conditions not being able to bar you from coverage.
It seems like Romney doesn't want to change a thing, and Obama is trying to, but he's being a bit ineffectual.
A piece written by Robert Reich hits the nail on the head when he mentions that over the course of the debate there were five times where Romney accused Obama of raiding Medicare of $716 billion, which is a complete fabrication. Obama never mentioned the regressiveness of Romney's budget plan -- awarding the rich and hurting the middle class and the poor. He never mentioned Bain Capital, or Romney's 47 percent talk, or Romney's "carried-interest" tax loophole. Obama allowed Romney to talk about replacing Dodd-Frank and the Affordable Care Act without demanding that Romney be specific about what he'd replace and why. And so on.
There is time for this, but I personally suspect that Obama thinks it would have come off as cheap and low. There's still time to mention it all, anyway. A smart man doesn't shoot off all of his ammo in the beginning.
The next major debate is about foreign policy. I don't think we're going to see much of a difference between the two candidates. As far as I can tell they both want a war with Iran. They both will claim to pull out of the wars, because that's popular, but the drone strikes will probably continue either way. In this situation, the media may just stop reporting on them.
Romney made the comment that we are all children of the same God. As far as I can remember Obama didn't use the "g word". Romney, obviously being a Mormon, doesn't even believe that either.
In conclusion, I want to see Obama call Romney on his lies more often. I also actually want to hear Romney's ideas, because that's the only way he'll get me to even consider him seriously. I won't vote him in on faith. I'd rather see Obama just try hard for longer. You can see, though, that Obama looks tired. Being the President is not easy.
It basically sounded like:
Person 1 says," I will create jobs and give everyone health care everywhere, while I reduce the deficit and cut spending, while you want to do the opposite and oh yeah, YOU LIE!"
Person two then says, "I will create jobs and give everyone health care everywhere, while I reduce the deficit and cut spending, while you want to do the opposite and oh yeah, YOU LIE!"
... and the process sort of just repeats itself.
The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which citizens will ask questions of the candidates on foreign and domestic issues. Candidates each will have two minutes to respond, and an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate a discussion. The town meeting participants will be undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization.
That's surely going to be fun. I hope the questions are good from the audience and not pathetic or ignorant.
There's a real lack of choice on the ballot. I want to vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party, personally.
People can say all that they want about this being a victory for Romney, but I disagree.
I think the most poignant moment of the debate came from Obama when he said the following about Romney, " “He says he will close deductions and loopholes for his tax plan: we do not know the details,” said Obama. “He says that he is going to replace Dodd-Frank, Wall Street reform, but we do not know exactly which ones—he will not tell us. He now says he will replace Obamacare and assure all the good things and it will be in there and you don’t have to worry ... At some point the American people have to ask themselves, is the reason Governor Romney is keeping all of these plans to replace secret because they’re too good?” I laughed so hard. Thank you, Mr. President.
On October 04 2012 14:31 th3j35t3r wrote: Romney has had the same platform since the start of his campaign, try proving me otherwise. All the people complaining probably only get their news from the Huffington post.
I live in Southern NH, and as a Democrat I thought Mitt Romney did an excellent job as Governor. He was pro-choice, pro-gun control, and created the blueprint for the ACA in Massachusetts. He was quite liberal.
But then he sold out his ideals to run for President. He is now pro-life, doesn't support the assault weapons ban he supported as Governor, and now says that the ACA, when even the advisers to Romney when he created his healthcare plan claim what he did in Mass is essentially the same as the ACA, is bad.
So yes, his platform is same at the start of his campaign, but almost completely the opposite of what he did as Governor...
So who are we electing? What are his plans? What is his tax plan?
Please, tell me. Because no one, not even you, knows. Because he won't share them. So feel free to vote for the unknown.
His tax plan is to cut rates and pay for them by eliminating deductions / exemptions. Exactly how much rates will be cut by and exactly which deductions / exemptions will pay for that is unknown as it will be battled over. Specifying which deduction / exemption you want to get rid of realistically opens you up to attacks from special interest groups. He has stated that his goal is a 20% cut in rates and that he puts a priority on keeping deductions / exemptions that encourage savings and investment. He has also stated that he wants the overall tax burden on the rich to not fall and that the overall plan should be revenue neutral.
I think the most poignant moment of the debate came from Obama when he said the following about Romney, " “He says he will close deductions and loopholes for his tax plan: we do not know the details,” said Obama. “He says that he is going to replace Dodd-Frank, Wall Street reform, but we do not know exactly which ones—he will not tell us. He now says he will replace Obamacare and assure all the good things and it will be in there and you don’t have to worry ... At some point the American people have to ask themselves, is the reason Governor Romney is keeping all of these plans to replace secret because they’re too good?” I laughed so hard. Thank you, Mr. President.
What do you guys think?
Romney has decided to shift gears and run 'on principles' -- and he's chosen to completely ignore the reality, logistics, compromises and policies that would make his goals possible.
He reminded me of a business consultant that sets vague goals like, "We need to leverage social media!" or "Your plan should be to make high-quality, American doo-dads!" and expecting everyone else to figure out the details.
It might win over independents ... but he is making a conscious decision to ignore all the commitments he's made to his base up until this point. He's banking on them voting for him anyway. And to be honest, it's a safe bet.
Obama is going to have to make an argument that all the goals and principles in the world don't actually solve the hard problems and decisions the US government has to make ... and that we NEED a president that has a clear and practical plan for the future ... but it's a hard argument. Obama is the same candidate that campaigned on Hope and Change.
On October 04 2012 14:31 th3j35t3r wrote: Romney has had the same platform since the start of his campaign, try proving me otherwise. All the people complaining probably only get their news from the Huffington post.
I live in Southern NH, and as a Democrat I thought Mitt Romney did an excellent job as Governor. He was pro-choice, pro-gun control, and created the blueprint for the ACA in Massachusetts. He was quite liberal.
But then he sold out his ideals to run for President. He is now pro-life, doesn't support the assault weapons ban he supported as Governor, and now says that the ACA, when even the advisers to Romney when he created his healthcare plan claim what he did in Mass is essentially the same as the ACA, is bad.
So yes, his platform is same at the start of his campaign, but almost completely the opposite of what he did as Governor...
So who are we electing? What are his plans? What is his tax plan?
Please, tell me. Because no one, not even you, knows. Because he won't share them. So feel free to vote for the unknown.
Goto his website for all information, after all, that's were your supposed to learn right?
Romney is a complete fraud. Within the first several minutes he flip-flopped again and repudiated his entire tax plan. He says he has no plan to give tax cuts to the rich? Then what is this from this own website?
Reform The Nation’s Tax Code To Increase Growth And Job Creation. Reduce individual marginal income tax rates across-the-board by 20 percent, while keeping current low tax rates on dividends and capital gains. Reduce the corporate income tax rate – the highest in the world – to 25 percent.
That's a tax cut for the rich. This guy is a bold face liar.
This adds up to $5 trillion dollars in tax cuts, which cannot be made revenue neutral without raising tax rates on the middle class.
Then Romney continually insists that that he doesn't have a $5 trillion tax plan because he will make it revenue-neutral, and that he won't raise taxes on the middle class, yet these goals are mathematically impossible. He continues to repeat that he will not lower taxes on the rich, when he's own website says he will, as shown above.
Liar.
$5 Trillion Tax Cut
The president said Romney was proposing a $5 trillion tax cut and Romney said he wasn’t. The president is off base here — Romney says his rate cuts and tax eliminations would be offset and the deficit wouldn’t increase.
Obama: Governor Romney’s central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut — on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts.
Romney: First of all, I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don’t have a tax cut of a scale that you’re talking about.
To be clear, Romney has proposed cutting personal federal income tax rates across the board by 20 percent, in addition to extending the tax cuts enacted early in the Bush administration. He also proposes to eliminate the estate tax permanently, repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, and eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains and dividends for taxpayers making under $200,000 a year in adjusted gross income.
By themselves, those cuts would, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, lower federal tax liability by “about $480 billion in calendar year 2015” compared with current tax policy, with Bush cuts left in place. The Obama campaign has extrapolated that figure out over 10 years, coming up with a $5 trillion figure over a decade.
However, Romney always has said he planned to offset that massive cut with equally massive reductions in tax preferences to broaden the tax base, thus losing no revenue and not increasing the deficit. So to that extent, the president is incorrect: Romney is not proposing a $5 trillion reduction in taxes.
The Impossible Plan
However, Romney continued to struggle to explain how he could possibly offset such a large loss of revenue without shifting the burden away from upper-income taxpayers, who benefit disproportionately from across-the-board rate cuts and especially from elimination of the estate tax (which falls only on estates exceeding $5.1 million left by any who die this year). The Tax Policy Center concluded earlier this year that it wasn’t mathematically possible for a plan such as Romney’s to cut rates as he promised without either favoring the wealthy or increasing the federal deficit.
Except for saying that his plan would bring in the same amount of money “when you account for growth,” Romney offered no new explanation for how he might accomplish all he’s promised. He just repeated those promises in some of the strongest terms yet.
Romney: My number one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. … I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans. … I will lower taxes on middle-income families.
But he didn’t say how he’d pull off all those things at once.
‘Six Other Studies’
When the president referred to the Tax Policy Center’s criticisms, Romney claimed it was contradicted by several others.
Romney: There are six other studies that looked at the study you describe and say it’s completely wrong.
That’s not quite true, as we previously reported when the count was at five. We found that two of those “studies” were blog items by Romney backers, and none was nonpartisan.
The only one of those “studies” by someone not advising Romney was done by Harvey Rosen, a Princeton economics professor who once served as chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Rosen concluded that Romney could pull off his tax plan without losing revenue assuming an extra 3 percent “growth effect” to the economy resulting from Romney’s rate cuts. That’s an extremely aggressive assumption, and in conflict with recent experience. Despite Bush’s large tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, for example, real GDP grew by 3 percent or more for only two of his eight years in office. The average of the year-to-year changes was just over 2 percent.
Furthermore, Bush’s cuts reduced the total tax burden on the economy because they were not offset by base-broadening measures. In theory, at least, Romney’s revenue-neutral rate cuts would have even less of a stimulative effect than Bush’s cuts did.
On October 04 2012 14:31 th3j35t3r wrote: Romney has had the same platform since the start of his campaign, try proving me otherwise. All the people complaining probably only get their news from the Huffington post.
I live in Southern NH, and as a Democrat I thought Mitt Romney did an excellent job as Governor. He was pro-choice, pro-gun control, and created the blueprint for the ACA in Massachusetts. He was quite liberal.
But then he sold out his ideals to run for President. He is now pro-life, doesn't support the assault weapons ban he supported as Governor, and now says that the ACA, when even the advisers to Romney when he created his healthcare plan claim what he did in Mass is essentially the same as the ACA, is bad.
So yes, his platform is same at the start of his campaign, but almost completely the opposite of what he did as Governor...
So who are we electing? What are his plans? What is his tax plan?
Please, tell me. Because no one, not even you, knows. Because he won't share them. So feel free to vote for the unknown.
His tax plan is to cut rates and pay for them by eliminating deductions / exemptions. Exactly how much rates will be cut by and exactly which deductions / exemptions will pay for that is unknown as it will be battled over. Specifying which deduction / exemption you want to get rid of realistically opens you up to attacks from special interest groups. He has stated that his goal is a 20% cut in rates and that he puts a priority on keeping deductions / exemptions that encourage savings and investment. He has also stated that he wants the overall tax burden on the rich to not fall and that the overall plan should be revenue neutral.
That's about as much detail as you can expect.
The fact that he wants to cut taxes by 20% for everyone, but not cut taxes on the rich is a contradiction.
He continues to repeat that he will make his plan revenue neutral, but still doesn't specify how. And it's been shown that meeting these goals are impossible. The "6 studies" he cites in support of his tax plans have been debunked. Yet you say he isn't vague?
What part of "I will cut taxes and make it revenue neutral, but I will not tell you how" is not vague? If it's not vague, then what are the specifics?
And it's not just that. He's going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with what? Repeal Dodd-Frank and replace it with what? He's going to reduce the deficit by cutting spending on what? He's already said that he's going to increase defense spending, wants to waste $700 in Medicare savings that was part of Obamacare, and deliver a large tax cut, so what will Romney cut to reduce the deficit?
Not vague? Are you joking? There are ZERO specifics. What will Romney do? What will he cut? I have no fucking idea.
It's unfortunate that Romney made a better presentation of himself than Obama did, because throughout that debate, Obama had some practical explanations and ideas, while Romney had vapor.
Although, if Romney gets elected, we're gonna get a lot more cool war games and stuff. And hopefully an America which will be unimportant compared to now, in world politics in 4 years.
OK, so Obama did a terrible job in the debate, and Romney did well. But in the end, this isn’t or shouldn’t be about theater criticism, it should be about substance. And the fact is that everything Obama said was basically true, while much of what Romney said was either outright false or so misleading as to be the moral equivalent of a lie.
Above all, there’s this:
MR. ROMNEY: Let — well, actually — actually it’s — it’s — it’s a lengthy description, but number one, pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.
No, they aren’t. Romney’s advisers have conceded as much in the past; last night they did it again.
I guess you could say that Romney’s claim wasn’t exactly a lie, since some people with preexisting conditions would retain coverage. But as I said, it’s the moral equivalent of a lie; if you think he promised something real, you’re the butt of a sick joke.
And we’re talking about a lot of people left out in the cold — 89 million, to be precise.
Furthermore, all of this should be taken in the context of Romney’s plan not just to repeal Obamacare but to drastically cut Medicaid.
So enough with the theater criticism; Romney needs to be held accountable for dishonesty on a huge scale.
Virtually every time Mr. Romney spoke, he misrepresented the platform on which he and Paul Ryan are actually running. The most prominent example, taking up the first half-hour of the debate, was on taxes. Mr. Romney claimed, against considerable evidence, that he had no intention of cutting taxes on the rich or enacting a tax cut that would increase the deficit.
That simply isn’t true. Mr. Romney wants to restore the Bush-era tax cut that expires at the end of this year and largely benefits the wealthy. He wants to end the estate tax and the gift tax, providing a huge benefit only to those with multimillion-dollar estates, at a cost of more than $1 trillion over a decade to the deficit. He wants to preserve the generous rates on capital gains that benefit himself personally and others at his economic level. And he wants to cut everyone’s tax rates by 20 percent, which again would be a gigantic boon to the wealthy.
None of these would cost the Treasury a dime, he insisted, because he would reduce deductions and loopholes. But, as always, he refused to enumerate a single deduction he would erase. “What I’ve said is I won’t put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit,” he said. “No economist can say Mitt Romney’s tax plan adds $5 trillion if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan.”
In fact, many economists have said exactly that, and, without details, Mr. Romney can’t simply refute them. But rather than forcefully challenging this fiction, Mr. Obama chose to be polite and professorial, as if hoping that strings of details could hold up against blatant nonsense. Viewers were not helped by a series of pedestrian questions from the moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS, who never jumped in to challenge either candidate on the facts.
EPT
