Just going to give a few thoughts.
Romney's plan is basically to cut taxes dramatically while increasing spending and reducing the deficit. Which is kind of like losing weight while eating more bacon and ice cream. He says the positive, popular things he will do (bacon and ice cream are yummy), but then refuses to say how he will actually pay for any of it (you will have to do nine million jumping jacks a day and eat only one meal) because that would be unpopular, then just lies and says it won't increase the deficit (bacon and ice cream aren't really fattening) when in the short term at the very least it would have to. Even if tax cuts were the magic tonic to cure the economy overnight, they would still add to the deficit just like the stimulus did. And by the way, part of the stimulus was the largest tax cut in US history and we're still not out of the woods, so call me crazy but I doubt the magical economy-healing power of tax cuts.
I would also like to point out again that romney claims he has a plan to create 12 million jobs over the next 8 years only now that economists predict the economy is on track to create exactly that many jobs in exactly that time frame even if no one does anything for the next 8 years. Which romney has actually said would help, so long as it's him doing nothing. From the hidden camera fund raiser tape:
"If it looks like I'm going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president's going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy. It depends, of course, which markets you're talking about, which types of commodities and so forth, but my own view is, if we win on November 6th there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital come back, and we'll see—without actually doing anything—we'll actually get a boost in the economy."
He then continued:
"If the president gets reelected, I don't know what will happen. I can never predict what the markets will do. Sometimes it does the exact opposite of what I would have expected."
So yeah. Anyway, I thought the president did much better from a not being full of shit perspective, but romney did better in a "lie about your opponent so rapidly they don't have time to rebut all your claims and it looks like a net win" department. I thought romney made some good jabs like saying obama was a hypocrite for wanting to cut a few billion because he spent 90 billion on clean energy - which is not actually true the real figure is about a third of that (not all of which has even been spent) most of the rest of the 90 billion went to weatherizing homes and other things - and the spending was from the stimulus which was meant to inject cash quickly into the economy to stop job losses (which it did). The claim that half of the companies that got "green" energy stimulus money are out of business is also a lie, only four of the 23 companies that received money have gone under or been sold since the stimulus passed.
But yeah, people said this debate was so impressive for romney because he showed he could talk about specifics and specific policies and figures, but he outright refused to give specifics on key issues like tax policy and gave a lot of "specifics" that were specific, but not actually accurate.
For instance, 57% of the claims romney made have been ranked untrue by 5 of the leading non-partisan fact-checking organizations. Is that the case? I don't know. But it sure is specific, so you should rec' this blog, and vote for mitt romney.
Comments (40)
The rest of this post was great, but the losing weight analogy out the starting gate was freaking laugh out loud fun! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
You need to read Romney's lips - He told Obama several times that that was not the case about taxes. It's a distorted Obama deception.
@ItsWhatEyeKnow - Thanks, I try : )
@Randy7777 - Actually it's about 80% accurate, the only thing incorrect about it is that obama did what every politician today does, say what something will cost over 10 years. It's no less dishonest than romney saying obama cut medicare by over 600 billion dollars (which is more than the annual cost of the entire program).
i thought it funny that Romney said, you put your money where your heart is because it made me think immediately of the millions Romney has hidden away in the Cayman Islands and in Swiss banks in order to avoid paying income taxes....the avoidance of paying income taxes....exactly what he's accused 47% of Americans of doing.
last night Romney reminded me of Dan Quayle in a VP debate with Al Gore. with a smirk on his face Quayle insisted Gore had written something in Gore's book. Quayle went as far as to tell him the page number it was written on told Gore, "You should read your own book". back then the internet was not what it is today and there were no fact-checking organizations like we have today but by the time the debate was over press organizations got their hands on copies of Gore's book and found Quayle's claim was a total fabrication.
@TheSutraDude - It made me think of the 3% he gives to charity and the 97% he spends on himself.
mmm...bacon.
@agnophilo - Obama did not challenge Romney's statement last night about medicare. The main difference between Obama and Romney on Medicare is who is going to take care of it. Obama -Federal and Romney -States. Romney wants to put the 600 billion dollars back into Medicare that Obama took out and put it in Obamacare. (Obamacare - Federal)
@TheSutraDude - Romney reminded me of Reagan. His soft voice and sometimes the Reagan head tilt.
@agnophilo - ha! yes. and that reminds me of something else. before the debate Chris Matthews held a short mock debate in which former RNC chairman Michael Steele (a decent guy) played Romney and Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent Eugene Robinson played Obama. playing the debate host Matthews asked Steele about Romney's pro-Vietnam War stance. he asked how Romney could justify actively demonstrating for the war while exempting himself from the draft. it was a funny moment. Steele, a Romney advocate playing Romney in this mock debate answered his religion makes him a conscientious objector. Matthews laughed and asked what kind of religion is that? your religion says you can't fight in a war but the other guys can?
btw, Romney mentioned Solendra again. Solendra was actually vetted by the Bush administration but probably because of the economic collapse the Bush administration didn't have time to push the go ahead through. instead it was left as an item on the to-do list for the incoming Obama administration. Obama's only mistake was to not spend the time and money to re-vet Solendra and to instead take the word of the Bush administration.
@Randy7777 - i can see that but i'm guessing you think that's a good thing. Reagan's economic adviser who talked him into trickle-down economics apologized after the 2008 economic collapse, admitting he was wrong and trickle down did not work and did not bring about its intended result. Alan Greenspan also apologized. Romney and Ryan still believe in the economic policy and want to bring it back.
@Randy7777 - Romney intends to cut the marginal tax rate by 20%.
@TheSutraDude - The Reagan years were some of the greatest years for America for economic growth. I don't think you'll find too many people that thought otherwise.
@flapper_femme_fatale - Yes - & Obama intends on increasing taxes. If Obama gets his way I will be loosing a couple thousand dollars on taxes because of not repealing Bush's tax plan. I don't make that much.
@Randy7777 - [The Reagan years were some of the greatest years for America for economic growth.]
Not really. There was a terrible recession that began during the second year of Reagan's first term that crippled the manufacturing sector and slowed entry-level and management job growth to one of the worst rates in modern American history. His economic policies also increased the federal debt as a percent of GDP by 11.3%, which was an exceptionally high rate over the last 100 years. Also, for middle and low income Americans, the Reagan years were pretty awful. Interest rates on everything from cars to mortgages were exceptionally high, making it difficult for many people to live/work where they wanted to, further limiting their employment opportunities. For instance, my medical school loan rates shot up by 9% after Reagan's first 3 years in office, which formed me to stay in-state for medical school instead of attending one of the more prestigious schools I was matched at; furthermore, the lowest interest rate I could find in a car in Texas during that period was 19%. Those are both strikingly bad. Lastly, his pro-deregulation rhetoric was the basis for the Federal Reserve's non-interventionalist policies that directly and primarily contributed to the financial collapse in 2007-2008, which will likely cripple job growth for at least a decade. Some of his specific economic policies were successful, but his broad economic ideology has proven to be one of the most damaging in modern American history.
The only modern president who presided over an economy that had almost across-the-board economic prosperity was Clinton, and his general economic ideology is virtually the exact opposite of Reagan's. If we are going to use any president's policies as a framework, it should be his, not Reagan's.
@complicatedlight -
@UTRow1 - Reagan was once asked about the critism he was recieving. He replied, "History will remember my record correctly" I don't care how much you want to change history you can't. The Reagan years were very economically successful. It was a great time to be an American. It was a great time to be in the military.
You missed the part where he explained that cutting the taxes for small businesses will allow them to hire more people, who will then be taxed and bring in more revenue.
Cut taxes, move in the direction of a balanced budget. That's the plan. How do you get spending increases out of that?
@musterion99 - Except that's what was tried under Bush, continued under Obama and still sluggish job growth. It's a huge myth, and someone like Mark Cuban made the point that very few entrepreneurs even worry about what their tax burden would look like based on what they do; they just try and make the most successful business they can.
There are so many other variables - compensation for current workers, research and development, marketing, technology upgrades, benefit packages, dividends, profit margins - that simply saying "Cut taxes and see job growth off the charts" is crazy talk.
It's the same approach to reigning in the deficit and paying down the debt. It's not simply tax cuts, or spending cuts, but a measured, balanced approach between paying less for some stuff and bringing in more revenue elsewhere. All the tax cuts are going to do - especially in this economy - is going into savings accounts rather than spending, even on new jobs.
@musterion99 - You're like Obama who is destorting the facts. Obama needs to run on something and quit running on destorting what his opponent is saying and blaming the past.
@Randy7777 - Was that comment meant for me or cmdr_keen?