CBO report = garbage, get over it. Not even the White House believes it. Dodge all you like!
Wow.
Anti-intellectualism at it's finest.
Really, the CBO report is garbage? Why? Based on what? Because the nonpartisan CBO disagrees your with ideological dogma?
Maybe, because the Fox News video you linked says otherwise? Where in that video does it say that the White House doesn't believe that Obamacare will reduce the deficit.
All that video shows is a memo which basically says don't talk about Obamacare unless it's in a personal story, obviously for political reasons. It does not say that the White House doesn't believe it will reduce the deficit. The memo also says to not list what Obamacare does, does that mean that the White House believes Obamacare will do absolutely nothing?
And somehow this is meant to prove the CBO report wrong? Where's the proof? Where's the analysis? You're dismissal of the CBO report as "garbage" and you're citation of the Fox News clip that doesn't even say what you claim it says shows that you're an anti-intellectual hack.
On October 12 2012 13:56 paralleluniverse wrote: I still think it's ridiculous that the Republicans have managed to lie their way into convincing people that their tax plan. which is devoid of details, can work through massive economic growth.
In the next debate, Obama should go over the details in these 6 partisan reports which suggest that Romney's plan can work, and use the same arguments we've shown here to debunk these reports, by pointing out how they ignore parts of Romney's plan, redefine middle class, and use very optimistic growth assumptions.
It's time to get inside the details of the "6 studies", just like we've done in this thread.
You have to remember that facts are "facts". When the people you're trying to convince are being bombarded by this:
it's a pretty damn steep uphill battle. Better to just act like you're right and say it with a straight face, Romney proved that in debate 1.
/I like the 5.1% gov't worker unemployment.
Government worker unemployment???
What does that even mean?
You can define government worker. You can defined unemployed. But how can you defined unemployed government worker?
1 minus #Government workers divided by #searching for government work? It's a completely undefinable and meaningless number.
Government employment is falling like crazy. If there was more stimulus to keep it growing like the rate under Bush, employment would be more like 7%.
Misleading chart is misleading. Show me what the graph looks like before Bush took office, and before Obama took office. Hurts to know math and how charts work, doesn't it? It's all in the trends. Looks bad right now, but let me see what the before chart looks like please. 99/00 while under Clinton and 07/08 under Bush.
There was a huge surge of jobs because we had just started going to war, and everyone knows going to war gets the economy up and running.
I'd say it looks pretty fucking amazing considering what happened in 07/08.
What's amazing?
That government employment ever since 1950 has never decreased with only 2 exceptions: the 80s recession and under Obama (spikes due to census hiring are ignored).
The private sector is recovering strongly, stronger than under Bush in the 2000 recession, whereas government employment is falling due to state and local government austerity.
The way a presidential candidate campaigns for office matters to the country. A campaign should demonstrate seriousness of purpose and a set of core beliefs, and it should signal to voters whether a candidate shows trustworthiness and judgment. Those things don’t seem to matter to Mitt Romney.
From the beginning of his run for the Republican nomination, Mr. Romney has offered to transfigure himself into any shape desired by an audience in order to achieve power. In front of massed crowds or on television, he can sound sunny and inclusive, radiating a feel-good centrism. His “severely conservative” policies and disdain for much of the country are reserved for partisans, donors and the harsh ideologues who clutter his party’s base. This polarity is often described as “flip-flopping,” but the word is too mild to describe opposing positions that are simultaneously held.
The best way to judge candidates is not by the popular way they describe their plans near the end of a campaign; it is by the most divisive presentations of themselves earlier on. A candidate’s political calculations when fewer people are watching is likely to say far more about character than poll-tested pleasantries in the spotlight.
That’s what is disingenuous about the “Moderate Mitt” in recent speeches and the first presidential debate. He hasn’t abandoned or flip-flopped from the severe positions that won him the Republican nomination; they remain at the core of his campaign, on his Web site and in his position papers, and they occasionally slip out in unguarded moments. All he’s doing is slapping whitewash on his platform. The immoderation of his policies, used to win favor with a hard-right party, cannot be disguised.
This week, for example, in the swing state of Iowa, Mr. Romney tried to cover up his strident anti-abortion agenda. “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda,” he told The Des Moines Register’s editorial board. But that carefully worded statement was designed to mislead, because the threat to women’s rights doesn’t necessarily come from legislation. He would cut financing for Planned Parenthood, and he has said he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade and would appoint justices who would do so.
And, though he has conveniently forgotten, he does support anti-abortion legislation — what he called in a 2011 essay the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to ban abortion when a fetus can feel pain. In 2007, he said he’d sign a bill prohibiting all abortions. He has also tried to paper over his positions on his $5 trillion tax cut, pretending it would be cost-free, and he now says he wants to cover pre-existing health conditions, though his plan does so only for those who have insurance coverage.
At last week’s debate, Mr. Romney presented himself as a bipartisan leader able to work with Democrats. But that’s not how Massachusetts Democrats remember his tenure as governor, as Michael Wines of The Times reported last week. He ignored or insulted Democrats and failed to achieve most of his big-ticket proposals, like reform of the Civil Service and pension systems. His decision to support a universal health care system in 2006, long advocated by Democrats, was seen at the time as a purely political calculation, at least until Republicans rejected the idea in 2009 when President Obama proposed it.
There isn’t really a Moderate Mitt; what is on display now is better described as Convenient Mitt. Anyone willing to advocate extremism to raise money and win primaries is likely to do the same to stay in office.
On October 13 2012 04:54 mordek wrote: [quote] I can see the truth in that. Now the examples I gave were merely anecdotal but it just seems wrong how what's supposed to help seems to incentivize laziness. How can the government accurately assess who deserves what? It seems impossible to manage on that level. I do hope we can make changes to not allow people to fall through the cracks. I think it's going to have to look different than it does now though.
It is wrong. At no point in time should the government allow people to get away with gaming the system. What's even more wrong, however, is a society that forces people into this pitiful, pathetic state. There's an inherent social problem that needs to be addressed when people are relegated to this situation in the first place.
I was nodding my head when I read this. Five minutes later this popped up: is society = government. Obviously they are related. I agree society has a responsibility, a burden, to care for those that are needy or oppressed. Is that also the government's? It seems difficult to mandate social responsibility. I feel like I'm scratching the surface of something much deeper.
Edit: letter
The one thing we must keep in mind is that we are far from a collectivist society. True collectivist societies are able to function relatively well in spite of government and/or without government. The U.S., for the most part, is not. Those who say things like welfare should mainly be left in the hands of local communities/churches/etc. are, in my opinion, extremely naive. Not only do people fall through the cracks, entire communities continue to fall through as well, and there's always the possibility of communities engaging in hostilities towards one another which requires government intervention.
However, we obviously do not want a government that arbitrarily treads on the rights of the people, and we also cannot afford to have a government that turns a blind eye to any suffering. A government that is too strong is too hard to control, and a government that is too weak is largely ineffective (and that's why we traded the Articles of Confederation for the Constitution).
My ideal notion of government has always been a government that can work side-by-side with the people, a government that is neither tyrannical nor feeble but rather a government that is a friend--a government that grants you aid when it's needed and tells you to get your shit together when you stray. Currently our government is but a skank whore, sniffing the leftovers of the rich and powerful. Follow the money and you'll find everything that's wrong with our government on both sides of the political spectrum.
Government as a "friend"?
Let's call government for what it is. It is an organization which is granted a monopoly on the use of force within a given geographic area. The bigger that organization, the more force is used in society, and therefore the more people who use that force to take advantage of others (ie. those rich and powerful you were referring to). Personally, I think a society in which force is a rare, last resort is the ideal. A society where force is only justified for absolute necessity, such as maintaining order, enforcing contracts, protecting from outside threat, preventing starvation and other severe poverty, etc.
Government should not be regarded as a friend, but as a necessary evil which must be restrained.
Except the government is not granted a monopoly on the use of force within a given geographic area. In its intended form it is the conglomeration of ideas that make up the voter base and any abuse of power can (should) be dealt with in many different ways. Nobody wants a government that wildly swings its club around, as I mentioned above; however, the government in its current form is the result of an extremely apathetic and/or hostile public that misses the target for the decoy. It is not government that people should be directing their hatred towards but rather those who have molded it into its current shape. Somewhere along the way the people have forgotten that the government is, in the end, made up of people subject to the same rules of nature and humanity as the rest of us. What we should be striving for is not a pathetic excuse for a government but an efficient, effective, and fair government. Ill will should be directed towards those in the shadows pulling the strings, getting us to fight amongst ourselves and destroying our country.
Your argument goes too far in saying the government should be a "friend". It's not. The government requires you to give them resources (taxes) and obey rules (laws). In extreme cases, it may require service of you and if necessary, possibly order you to do something that will result in your death. If you refuse to do so, the government reserves the right to take away your freedoms, possibly even imprison you.
It's better put this way: Ultimately, what people want is a government that doesn’t allow them to make bad decisions, rewards merit, makes everyone equal, and favors their social group. But market economies grow prosperous when built in favor of the business class. When governments intervene to shift resources and profits away from entrepreneurial and productive groups and shift it to others (i.e. consumers, bureaucrats, poor rice farmers), then economic development and growth will suffer. A government that takes a long-term view of its citizens’ best interests and invests to make them healthier and educated will do better than one that tries to buy or force prosperity on them.
So we have to find ourselves some degree of allowing the government to create laws and guide policy in a way that takes society's interests in a sustainably long-term manner, generating enough growth to pay for it. I don't think it's wrong for people to say we should be wary of giving the government too much power such that it feels it should take away choices from citizens because bureaucrats know better.
I don't think the notion that government or politics has lost its way is helpful, btw. The game is the same as always, it's about the power to move society. When Obama says new regulations or taxes on the rich will help empower the poor masses make better decisions or when Romney says cutting taxes on businesses will unleash them to generate growth, do you believe them?
Society deems taxes and laws necessary, not government. In fact society deemed government necessary. Government was not created out of a vacuum and neither are laws. Shifting resources and profits away from the filthy rich is not a short-sighted investment, it is the best long-term investment we can make. Trickle-down does not work, and the most prosperous societies are those with the strongest middle-class. It benefits no one but those at the top if there were no taxes. You're right, giving a poor man who has already given up on leading the life he's always wanted aid may not necessarily empower him, but maybe it'll help empower his children and not relegate them to the same lifestyle as their parents. That's what's important.
The game is not the same as always, and you're incredibly blind if you really believe that. Government is being bought off like never before. There has always been some amount of money in politics but what it is at this point of time is disgusting. Instead of blaming everything on government, how about people actually rise up and get all of the money OUT of politics so that our elected officials can cater to the public before having to reach into the pockets of scumbags who care not one bit about our nation nor the people in it?
Well, if it's money in politics that you think is the seminal issue of dirty politics, then America made a gigantic mistake electing Barack Obama, who hauled in money like never before against McCain who only used public funding.
But to be honest, I don't think it's the money that's the problem so much as the outsized influence of lobbyists. These are connected issues but they're not the same. The disease you're speaking of IMO is the credibility we give to experts and the way people are tempted to empower them in ways that open the door to corruption and self-serving. Of course, it is easier since lobbyists can buy their way into the door and convince politicians about their influence. But I don't think the problem will go away even if you get rid of money in politics so long as we have this cultural worship for experts.
Well, I never said Obama or Democrats were free of blame. I am fully aware that both parties are bought off.
Money plays a huge part in lobbying. Expertise only gets you so far currently. Removing as much money as possible from politics won't get rid of all corruption, but it will certainly push us towards the right direction.
No, but this where everyone gets REALLY hypocritical because the passion for removing money in political campaigns depends largely on who's winning.
It is wrong. At no point in time should the government allow people to get away with gaming the system. What's even more wrong, however, is a society that forces people into this pitiful, pathetic state. There's an inherent social problem that needs to be addressed when people are relegated to this situation in the first place.
I was nodding my head when I read this. Five minutes later this popped up: is society = government. Obviously they are related. I agree society has a responsibility, a burden, to care for those that are needy or oppressed. Is that also the government's? It seems difficult to mandate social responsibility. I feel like I'm scratching the surface of something much deeper.
Edit: letter
The one thing we must keep in mind is that we are far from a collectivist society. True collectivist societies are able to function relatively well in spite of government and/or without government. The U.S., for the most part, is not. Those who say things like welfare should mainly be left in the hands of local communities/churches/etc. are, in my opinion, extremely naive. Not only do people fall through the cracks, entire communities continue to fall through as well, and there's always the possibility of communities engaging in hostilities towards one another which requires government intervention.
However, we obviously do not want a government that arbitrarily treads on the rights of the people, and we also cannot afford to have a government that turns a blind eye to any suffering. A government that is too strong is too hard to control, and a government that is too weak is largely ineffective (and that's why we traded the Articles of Confederation for the Constitution).
My ideal notion of government has always been a government that can work side-by-side with the people, a government that is neither tyrannical nor feeble but rather a government that is a friend--a government that grants you aid when it's needed and tells you to get your shit together when you stray. Currently our government is but a skank whore, sniffing the leftovers of the rich and powerful. Follow the money and you'll find everything that's wrong with our government on both sides of the political spectrum.
Government as a "friend"?
Let's call government for what it is. It is an organization which is granted a monopoly on the use of force within a given geographic area. The bigger that organization, the more force is used in society, and therefore the more people who use that force to take advantage of others (ie. those rich and powerful you were referring to). Personally, I think a society in which force is a rare, last resort is the ideal. A society where force is only justified for absolute necessity, such as maintaining order, enforcing contracts, protecting from outside threat, preventing starvation and other severe poverty, etc.
Government should not be regarded as a friend, but as a necessary evil which must be restrained.
Except the government is not granted a monopoly on the use of force within a given geographic area. In its intended form it is the conglomeration of ideas that make up the voter base and any abuse of power can (should) be dealt with in many different ways. Nobody wants a government that wildly swings its club around, as I mentioned above; however, the government in its current form is the result of an extremely apathetic and/or hostile public that misses the target for the decoy. It is not government that people should be directing their hatred towards but rather those who have molded it into its current shape. Somewhere along the way the people have forgotten that the government is, in the end, made up of people subject to the same rules of nature and humanity as the rest of us. What we should be striving for is not a pathetic excuse for a government but an efficient, effective, and fair government. Ill will should be directed towards those in the shadows pulling the strings, getting us to fight amongst ourselves and destroying our country.
Your argument goes too far in saying the government should be a "friend". It's not. The government requires you to give them resources (taxes) and obey rules (laws). In extreme cases, it may require service of you and if necessary, possibly order you to do something that will result in your death. If you refuse to do so, the government reserves the right to take away your freedoms, possibly even imprison you.
It's better put this way: Ultimately, what people want is a government that doesn’t allow them to make bad decisions, rewards merit, makes everyone equal, and favors their social group. But market economies grow prosperous when built in favor of the business class. When governments intervene to shift resources and profits away from entrepreneurial and productive groups and shift it to others (i.e. consumers, bureaucrats, poor rice farmers), then economic development and growth will suffer. A government that takes a long-term view of its citizens’ best interests and invests to make them healthier and educated will do better than one that tries to buy or force prosperity on them.
So we have to find ourselves some degree of allowing the government to create laws and guide policy in a way that takes society's interests in a sustainably long-term manner, generating enough growth to pay for it. I don't think it's wrong for people to say we should be wary of giving the government too much power such that it feels it should take away choices from citizens because bureaucrats know better.
I don't think the notion that government or politics has lost its way is helpful, btw. The game is the same as always, it's about the power to move society. When Obama says new regulations or taxes on the rich will help empower the poor masses make better decisions or when Romney says cutting taxes on businesses will unleash them to generate growth, do you believe them?
Society deems taxes and laws necessary, not government. In fact society deemed government necessary. Government was not created out of a vacuum and neither are laws. Shifting resources and profits away from the filthy rich is not a short-sighted investment, it is the best long-term investment we can make. Trickle-down does not work, and the most prosperous societies are those with the strongest middle-class. It benefits no one but those at the top if there were no taxes. You're right, giving a poor man who has already given up on leading the life he's always wanted aid may not necessarily empower him, but maybe it'll help empower his children and not relegate them to the same lifestyle as their parents. That's what's important.
The game is not the same as always, and you're incredibly blind if you really believe that. Government is being bought off like never before. There has always been some amount of money in politics but what it is at this point of time is disgusting. Instead of blaming everything on government, how about people actually rise up and get all of the money OUT of politics so that our elected officials can cater to the public before having to reach into the pockets of scumbags who care not one bit about our nation nor the people in it?
Well, if it's money in politics that you think is the seminal issue of dirty politics, then America made a gigantic mistake electing Barack Obama, who hauled in money like never before against McCain who only used public funding.
But to be honest, I don't think it's the money that's the problem so much as the outsized influence of lobbyists. These are connected issues but they're not the same. The disease you're speaking of IMO is the credibility we give to experts and the way people are tempted to empower them in ways that open the door to corruption and self-serving. Of course, it is easier since lobbyists can buy their way into the door and convince politicians about their influence. But I don't think the problem will go away even if you get rid of money in politics so long as we have this cultural worship for experts.
Well, I never said Obama or Democrats were free of blame. I am fully aware that both parties are bought off.
Money plays a huge part in lobbying. Expertise only gets you so far currently. Removing as much money as possible from politics won't get rid of all corruption, but it will certainly push us towards the right direction.
No, but this where everyone gets REALLY hypocritical because the passion for removing money in political campaigns depends largely on who's winning.
No it isn't. Almost everyone at every time says that money in politics is a major problem regardless of who's winning. The only people who pretend this isn't a problem is the politicians and the media. This isn't a democrat vs republican issue. This is a people vs representatives issue.
On October 12 2012 13:56 paralleluniverse wrote: I still think it's ridiculous that the Republicans have managed to lie their way into convincing people that their tax plan. which is devoid of details, can work through massive economic growth.
In the next debate, Obama should go over the details in these 6 partisan reports which suggest that Romney's plan can work, and use the same arguments we've shown here to debunk these reports, by pointing out how they ignore parts of Romney's plan, redefine middle class, and use very optimistic growth assumptions.
It's time to get inside the details of the "6 studies", just like we've done in this thread.
You have to remember that facts are "facts". When the people you're trying to convince are being bombarded by this:
it's a pretty damn steep uphill battle. Better to just act like you're right and say it with a straight face, Romney proved that in debate 1.
/I like the 5.1% gov't worker unemployment.
Government worker unemployment???
What does that even mean?
You can define government worker. You can defined unemployed. But how can you defined unemployed government worker?
1 minus #Government workers divided by #searching for government work? It's a completely undefinable and meaningless number.
Government employment is falling like crazy. If there was more stimulus to keep it growing like the rate under Bush, employment would be more like 7%.
Misleading chart is misleading. Show me what the graph looks like before Bush took office, and before Obama took office. Hurts to know math and how charts work, doesn't it? It's all in the trends. Looks bad right now, but let me see what the before chart looks like please. 99/00 while under Clinton and 07/08 under Bush.
There was a huge surge of jobs because we had just started going to war, and everyone knows going to war gets the economy up and running.
I'd say it looks pretty fucking amazing considering what happened in 07/08.
What's amazing?
That government employment ever since 1950 has never decreased with only 2 exceptions: the 80s recession and under Obama (spikes due to census hiring are ignored).
The private sector is recovering strongly, stronger than under Bush in the 2000 recession, whereas government employment is falling due to state and local government austerity.
Wait a second. You need to clarify a couple points in this post.
For one, government employment has only decreased in two instances, but that's not by choice. Obama didn't say "I'm making sacrifices of public jobs for the greater good", just like Reagan didn't say that. Government employment decreased by necessity because tax revenues have dried up so much that the government has no choice but to trim jobs to salvage the budget. It's not a praiseworthy event, it's a measure of just how bad the recession was and how slow the recovery has been that tax revenue has not returned to pre-crisis levels.
And on that note, by what measure has the private sector recovered more strongly than Bush in the 2001 recession? Because the government should be measuring it by tax revenue, since the rest of the presidential discussion is moot unless it can get the taxes to pay for any of it.
New RNC Ad highlights how ridiculous Joe Biden's laughter was..it gave me a good laugh even though I don't find the current administrations actions very funny.
New RNC Ad highlights how ridiculous Joe Biden's laughter was..it gave me a good laugh even though I don't find the current administrations actions very funny.
"Joe Biden is laughing. Are you?"
Well I am at Ryan. What a kook.
I don't know if they want to emphasize how silly Ryan really is.
New RNC Ad highlights how ridiculous Joe Biden's laughter was..it gave me a good laugh even though I don't find the current administrations actions very funny.
This is so stupid. He was laughing because his opponent said something he deemed BS.
On October 14 2012 01:42 xDaunt wrote: Y'all may want to consider why only hardcore democrats and liberals are happy with Biden's antics.
You may want to reconsider how applicative "only" is in this case, especially as it pertains to media coverage. Then again, I'm sure the Drudge Report, the Daily Caller, and Fox News are excellent judges of moderate/independent voting tendencies.
New RNC Ad highlights how ridiculous Joe Biden's laughter was..it gave me a good laugh even though I don't find the current administrations actions very funny.
He's laughing at Ryan and his lies, not laughing at the issues.
I also don't recall you complaining about his laughing during the debate.
On October 12 2012 13:56 paralleluniverse wrote: I still think it's ridiculous that the Republicans have managed to lie their way into convincing people that their tax plan. which is devoid of details, can work through massive economic growth.
In the next debate, Obama should go over the details in these 6 partisan reports which suggest that Romney's plan can work, and use the same arguments we've shown here to debunk these reports, by pointing out how they ignore parts of Romney's plan, redefine middle class, and use very optimistic growth assumptions.
It's time to get inside the details of the "6 studies", just like we've done in this thread.
You have to remember that facts are "facts". When the people you're trying to convince are being bombarded by this:
it's a pretty damn steep uphill battle. Better to just act like you're right and say it with a straight face, Romney proved that in debate 1.
/I like the 5.1% gov't worker unemployment.
Government worker unemployment???
What does that even mean?
You can define government worker. You can defined unemployed. But how can you defined unemployed government worker?
1 minus #Government workers divided by #searching for government work? It's a completely undefinable and meaningless number.
Government employment is falling like crazy. If there was more stimulus to keep it growing like the rate under Bush, employment would be more like 7%.
Misleading chart is misleading. Show me what the graph looks like before Bush took office, and before Obama took office. Hurts to know math and how charts work, doesn't it? It's all in the trends. Looks bad right now, but let me see what the before chart looks like please. 99/00 while under Clinton and 07/08 under Bush.
There was a huge surge of jobs because we had just started going to war, and everyone knows going to war gets the economy up and running.
I'd say it looks pretty fucking amazing considering what happened in 07/08.
What's amazing?
That government employment ever since 1950 has never decreased with only 2 exceptions: the 80s recession and under Obama (spikes due to census hiring are ignored).
The private sector is recovering strongly, stronger than under Bush in the 2000 recession, whereas government employment is falling due to state and local government austerity.
Wait a second. You need to clarify a couple points in this post.
For one, government employment has only decreased in two instances, but that's not by choice. Obama didn't say "I'm making sacrifices of public jobs for the greater good", just like Reagan didn't say that. Government employment decreased by necessity because tax revenues have dried up so much that the government has no choice but to trim jobs to salvage the budget. It's not a praiseworthy event, it's a measure of just how bad the recession was and how slow the recovery has been that tax revenue has not returned to pre-crisis levels.
And on that note, by what measure has the private sector recovered more strongly than Bush in the 2001 recession? Because the government should be measuring it by tax revenue, since the rest of the presidential discussion is moot unless it can get the taxes to pay for any of it.
On the first point, yes. There wasn't enough stimulus money given to state and local governments to retain public sector workers. But look at the other recessions (grey shaded areas). Every other recession, except the 80's one, didn't see a fall in public sector employment.
On October 14 2012 01:42 xDaunt wrote: Y'all may want to consider why only hardcore democrats and liberals are happy with Biden's antics.
You may want to reconsider how applicative "only" is in this case, especially as it pertains to media coverage. Then again, I'm sure the Drudge Report, the Daily Caller, and Fox News are excellent judges of moderate/independent voting tendencies.
I could say the same thing about the Daily Show, the Daily Kos, and HuffPo.
On October 12 2012 13:56 paralleluniverse wrote: I still think it's ridiculous that the Republicans have managed to lie their way into convincing people that their tax plan. which is devoid of details, can work through massive economic growth.
In the next debate, Obama should go over the details in these 6 partisan reports which suggest that Romney's plan can work, and use the same arguments we've shown here to debunk these reports, by pointing out how they ignore parts of Romney's plan, redefine middle class, and use very optimistic growth assumptions.
It's time to get inside the details of the "6 studies", just like we've done in this thread.
You have to remember that facts are "facts". When the people you're trying to convince are being bombarded by this:
it's a pretty damn steep uphill battle. Better to just act like you're right and say it with a straight face, Romney proved that in debate 1.
/I like the 5.1% gov't worker unemployment.
Government worker unemployment???
What does that even mean?
You can define government worker. You can defined unemployed. But how can you defined unemployed government worker?
1 minus #Government workers divided by #searching for government work? It's a completely undefinable and meaningless number.
Government employment is falling like crazy. If there was more stimulus to keep it growing like the rate under Bush, employment would be more like 7%.
Misleading chart is misleading. Show me what the graph looks like before Bush took office, and before Obama took office. Hurts to know math and how charts work, doesn't it? It's all in the trends. Looks bad right now, but let me see what the before chart looks like please. 99/00 while under Clinton and 07/08 under Bush.
There was a huge surge of jobs because we had just started going to war, and everyone knows going to war gets the economy up and running.
I'd say it looks pretty fucking amazing considering what happened in 07/08.
What's amazing?
That government employment ever since 1950 has never decreased with only 2 exceptions: the 80s recession and under Obama (spikes due to census hiring are ignored).
The private sector is recovering strongly, stronger than under Bush in the 2000 recession, whereas government employment is falling due to state and local government austerity.
Wait a second. You need to clarify a couple points in this post.
For one, government employment has only decreased in two instances, but that's not by choice. Obama didn't say "I'm making sacrifices of public jobs for the greater good", just like Reagan didn't say that. Government employment decreased by necessity because tax revenues have dried up so much that the government has no choice but to trim jobs to salvage the budget. It's not a praiseworthy event, it's a measure of just how bad the recession was and how slow the recovery has been that tax revenue has not returned to pre-crisis levels.
And on that note, by what measure has the private sector recovered more strongly than Bush in the 2001 recession? Because the government should be measuring it by tax revenue, since the rest of the presidential discussion is moot unless it can get the taxes to pay for any of it.
On the first point, yes. There wasn't enough stimulus money given to state and local governments to retain public sector workers. But look at the other recessions (grey shaded areas). Every other recession, except the 80's one, didn't see a fall in public sector employment.
If I'm not mistaken the graph you previously posted shows employment since the start of presidential terms - not since the start of the recessions / recoveries. So it isn't apples to apples.
On October 14 2012 01:42 xDaunt wrote: Y'all may want to consider why only hardcore democrats and liberals are happy with Biden's antics.
You may want to reconsider how applicative "only" is in this case, especially as it pertains to media coverage. Then again, I'm sure the Drudge Report, the Daily Caller, and Fox News are excellent judges of moderate/independent voting tendencies.
I could say the same thing about the Daily Show, the Daily Kos, and HuffPo.
I've only heard hardcore republicans and conservatives whine about how unprofessional he was, so I'm confused by your statement.
Does nobody care about Ryan's antics? He lied over and over again unapologetically. Is this not considered unprofessional and disrespectful anymore?
On October 14 2012 01:42 xDaunt wrote: Y'all may want to consider why only hardcore democrats and liberals are happy with Biden's antics.
You may want to reconsider how applicative "only" is in this case, especially as it pertains to media coverage. Then again, I'm sure the Drudge Report, the Daily Caller, and Fox News are excellent judges of moderate/independent voting tendencies.
I could say the same thing about the Daily Show, the Daily Kos, and HuffPo.
Oh, you most certainly could, and one would be hard-pressed to prove you abjectly wrong. The issue here is that when someone comes to the political information table with a hardline bit of absolutism, "only hardcore democrats and liberals are happy with Biden's antics.", it is clear that they've been awfully selective with their information sources, and the conclusion is consequently going to be rather biased and discrete.
On October 12 2012 13:56 paralleluniverse wrote: I still think it's ridiculous that the Republicans have managed to lie their way into convincing people that their tax plan. which is devoid of details, can work through massive economic growth.
In the next debate, Obama should go over the details in these 6 partisan reports which suggest that Romney's plan can work, and use the same arguments we've shown here to debunk these reports, by pointing out how they ignore parts of Romney's plan, redefine middle class, and use very optimistic growth assumptions.
It's time to get inside the details of the "6 studies", just like we've done in this thread.
You have to remember that facts are "facts". When the people you're trying to convince are being bombarded by this:
it's a pretty damn steep uphill battle. Better to just act like you're right and say it with a straight face, Romney proved that in debate 1.
/I like the 5.1% gov't worker unemployment.
Government worker unemployment???
What does that even mean?
You can define government worker. You can defined unemployed. But how can you defined unemployed government worker?
1 minus #Government workers divided by #searching for government work? It's a completely undefinable and meaningless number.
Government employment is falling like crazy. If there was more stimulus to keep it growing like the rate under Bush, employment would be more like 7%.
Misleading chart is misleading. Show me what the graph looks like before Bush took office, and before Obama took office. Hurts to know math and how charts work, doesn't it? It's all in the trends. Looks bad right now, but let me see what the before chart looks like please. 99/00 while under Clinton and 07/08 under Bush.
There was a huge surge of jobs because we had just started going to war, and everyone knows going to war gets the economy up and running.
I'd say it looks pretty fucking amazing considering what happened in 07/08.
What's amazing?
That government employment ever since 1950 has never decreased with only 2 exceptions: the 80s recession and under Obama (spikes due to census hiring are ignored).
The private sector is recovering strongly, stronger than under Bush in the 2000 recession, whereas government employment is falling due to state and local government austerity.
Wait a second. You need to clarify a couple points in this post.
For one, government employment has only decreased in two instances, but that's not by choice. Obama didn't say "I'm making sacrifices of public jobs for the greater good", just like Reagan didn't say that. Government employment decreased by necessity because tax revenues have dried up so much that the government has no choice but to trim jobs to salvage the budget. It's not a praiseworthy event, it's a measure of just how bad the recession was and how slow the recovery has been that tax revenue has not returned to pre-crisis levels.
And on that note, by what measure has the private sector recovered more strongly than Bush in the 2001 recession? Because the government should be measuring it by tax revenue, since the rest of the presidential discussion is moot unless it can get the taxes to pay for any of it.
On the first point, yes. There wasn't enough stimulus money given to state and local governments to retain public sector workers. But look at the other recessions (grey shaded areas). Every other recession, except the 80's one, didn't see a fall in public sector employment.
If I'm not mistaken the graph you previously posted shows employment since the start of presidential terms - not since the start of the recessions / recoveries. So it isn't apples to apples.
There was a recession at the start of both the Bush and Obama term. Or should I just replace the word "recession" with "presidency" in my above post?
New RNC Ad highlights how ridiculous Joe Biden's laughter was..it gave me a good laugh even though I don't find the current administrations actions very funny.
I think this is going to be a really effective add. watching the debate, I didn't even realize that it was that bad; it's pretty clear that either 1) Biden is laughing at everything incredulously so as to create the image of Ryan being too ridiculous even to argue with, or 2) he seriously thinks all that stuff is funny.
I'm gonna channel Paul Ryan here real quick:
"The problem, Mr. Vice-President, is that the American people don't find lackluster job growth and dishonesty to be all that funny."
EPT![[image loading]](http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=steve-benen9777D716-1BE3-2F15-D79B-085DE4572DAD.jpg&width=600)
![[image loading]](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/images/public-private.png)
