Politics & Current Events
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Romney's Leaked Fundraiser Video
I bet you guys have seen this floating around: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/17/controversial-private-fund-raiser-video-shows-candid-romney/?hpt=hp_c1
I've heard a few news outlets discuss it as a major problem for Romney. But I don't find it surprising at all. I found his quotes about Snooki way more shocking. This speech makes me think, "Yup, that's Romney. Not really notable." WDYT?
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Re: Romney's Leaked Fundraiser Video
I was thinking the exact same thing
Sure, blaming the people on assistance is easy - they're always an easy target - but why don't we actually discuss the why's instead of point fingers?
No. Bootstraps, people!
And if that fails, borrow money from your (obviously wealthy) parents. Duh.
Ditto!
Greater dependency on goverment assistance programs has greatly increased under the Obama administration. Yes. I agree that we need to get to the source of the problem. Obama has failed in this area.
As to your other questions, well, so many homes are being foreclosed on because many people wanted the American dream of owning a home, and so when presented with loans too good to be true, they took them. This is what happens with not enough govt oversight, those with the money take advantage of those without. They had these great loans dangled in front of them while banks were counting on that adjustable interest after a couple of years to make their money, never thinking that hey, these people with the questionable credit may not be able to make their payments and we will be stuck with a bunch of houses that no one can buy and the mortgage industry might tank. Same with the bailouts. We gave the banks money so they would provide more loans and help people, but the banks just paid their CEOs and invested the money or saved it instead of putting it towards people. Same with any other big business where instead of hiring with their Bush tax credits, they just invest in the business or stow it in offshore accounts or whatever, and why would they pay people more when they know their employees cant afford to quit? Just lay off people and get the fewer number of employees to do more work for the same shitty pay, and hey, they're right, no one can afford to quit so they have no reason to provide incentives to stay because everyone stays just for the normal paycheck. I've seen it over and over again, with a friend who quit her job because over the course of a year they let three of her coworkers go and she got to do the work of four people before her health got so bad she had to quit. See it all the time in my work place. Why pay someone more to do a good job when the temp and placement agencies will just have fresh fodder, among which there will the people who are desperate enough to work for that crappy pay. And they dont need to hire a lot of people, so there are more Americans out of work. Those out of work dont buy or spend as much, meaning less income for companies, and rather than reduce costs at the top with people making 6 figures, lets get rid of those at the bottom, so now more people out of work. Its a crazy cycle and until it gets fixed or stopped, its not going to get any better.
Let me speak in your language, cats.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AnuDkXlX0o
Also, please do read the rest of your "ZOMG Obama is an evil narcissist diagnosed by a fake doctor who is a narcissist himself" thread, I'd like to hear what you think about what was said.
You dems are beyond rude. I refuse to click on the link. Your tone is shitty!
Dear Mitt-
CHUCKLES.
http://taxfoundation.org:81/article/states-vary-widely-number-tax-filers-no-income-tax-liability
Romney's comments were RUDE. How can a presidential candidate wrongfully classify a group of people as lazy, and feel they are victims. I'm for Obama don't receive a penny from the government.
Half of the 47% he is criticizing are people on social security. The remaining 12% are people who benefit from child dependents.(republicans voted this into effect)The final 12% is are the people who live in poverty and receive the earned income benefits. Everyone pays Medicare, social security and sales tax.
Why haven't we seen his taxes?!
Okay, which die hard Mitt supporter can defend his statement that it would have been easier to get the presidency if he were Latino? Yes, rich white men have a much harder time winning that dang presidency!
I would honestly love to hear a defense of this. I need a good laugh.
I have a serious question for you. Do you think that the increase government assistance was as a result of the 2008 Financial Collapse, rather than the 2008 election of Barack Obama? Perhaps the timing of these events makes it easy to say it's Obama's fault, when in reality it's because of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression? Is that at all possible?
You can ignore our links, sources and views because you chalk up any opposition to your rants as liberal dems. This makes it easier for you to be willfully ignorant. So go ahead and scrounge You Tube for invalid sources to back up your hate for Obama. But don't expect us to take you seriously.
Andplusalso- I am not a Dem. So I will continue my tone of voice with you. You can't chalk that up to my political allegiance.
It's a dreary day outside, work is dead. That you god for this crap!
I am actually not affiliated with any party.
Yes, there is no question that Obama inherited a crappy economy. But what has he done to help? I am unsure of the age demographic of this board, but President Reagan inherited a really crappy economy from Carter...by this time is Reagan's presidency things were WAY better than they are now. IMO, Obama is too busy dividing different groups of the country than to worry about a real solution to the country's fiscal crisis.
The national debt also tripled under Reagan's first term because of his massive deficit spending. Do you think Obama should do that?
Certainly NOT a diehard Mitt supporter, but as I understand it, it was just an ignorant 'if I were Latino, Latino people would vote for me and not the other guy!' remark, echoing the idea that Obama gets above-average support from black voters for being black. Though Obama also gets above-average Latino support for not being a pr!ck on immigration, and above-average support from woman for not being a pr!ck on their reproductive rights, so I don't think Mitt quite gets it. Just another example of how he views his would-be electorate- shallow and stupid.
Yes, you are correct; when President Reagan took office in January 1981 the total debt was $848 billion. When he left office in January 1989 the debt had risen to $2,698 billion. However, it needs to be noted that when President Obama took office the total debt was $10.6 trillion and now in a little less than 4 years in office the deficit has risen to $16 trillion. Currently the debt is about 78% of US GDP and will likely be above 100% of GDP by the end of the next fiscal year. Debt as a share of GDP under Reagan only rose to 40.9% in 1988. Yes, not great?but it provides a comparison
Under Reagan the U.S. economy grew, and strongly, making the annual new debt to GDP ratio something that could be absorbed as increased revenues filled federal coffers. Under Obama, the new spending along with the projected tax increases that will occur when he allows the Bush tax cuts to expire will lead to a decline in future federal revenues, making the new total debt--nearly half of which has been amassed under the current president alone--something that may handicap the U.S. economy for at least a generation.
So, if you would like to make a counter argument?at least provide the whole story and not just one little snippet of a talking point.
It should also be noted that under Reagan, economic growth went almost entirely to the top 10% of households. Most middle class and lower class households saw no growth or actually lost economic ground during the 1980s.
I am confused as to how the Bush tax cuts expiring = more debt. More revenue actually means a lower deficit. If you're concerned about the national debt, then letting the tax cuts expire is the wisest thing to do.
It should also be noted that under Reagan, economic growth went almost entirely to the top 10% of households. Most middle class and lower class households saw no growth or actually lost economic ground during the 1980s.
I am confused as to how the Bush tax cuts expiring = more debt. More revenue actually means a lower deficit. If you're concerned about the national debt, then letting the tax cuts expire is the wisest thing to do.
I am not sure where you are sourcing that information but real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years.
And the way to create more revenue to the government is to CUT taxes, not increase them. Letting the Bush era tax cuts expire is the worst thing that could be done in this economy. Historically every time there have been tax cuts, revenues to the government have increased (both Kennedy and Reagan did this successfully). They key to counteract an increase to the deficit is to cut spending to below 20% of GDP.
This is just not true. Tax cuts cost revenue. They do not increase it.
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/06/do_tax_cuts_ever_increase_government_revenues.html
http://rricketts.ba.ttu.edu/Tax Rates and Revenues.htm
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/06/29/economists-agree-tax-cuts-cost-revenue---
Second, Kennedy-era income tax cuts brought the top marginal rate from an eye-watering 91 percent down to a still-eye-watering 70 percent in 1964. The wealthiest earners paid more tax afterthe tax cut, some say, even though the rate dropped 21 percentage points. An analysis by Laffer showed, for instance, that in 1965 people making more than $100,000 a year paid $3.76 billion in taxes, versus the $2.1 billion forecast under the higher rate. A few economists say that Ronald Reagan's income-tax cuts, which dropped the top bracket's rate to 50 percent, had a similar effect. Berkeley economist Brad DeLong, for instance, writes, "Arthur Laffer is probably right at the top end: reducing the top tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent is probably a revenue gainer and surely not much of a loser."Third, we look abroad. In the 1990s, Ireland's parliament enacted legislation that took certain corporate income tax rates down to 12.5 percent, one of the lowest rates on earth. Receipts climbed. The country, in its "Celtic Tiger" boom period, rapidly became richer. Corporate tax revenues jumped from less than 2 percent of GDP to more than 3 percent of GDP.In all three cases, the tax cuts likely helped to increase tax receipts. How do lower taxes raise the amount the government takes in? Three answers are commonly given. First, tax cuts encourage businesses and individuals to be more honest about their earnings. Rather than hiding income, taxpayers just fess up and pay their share. Second, lower taxes encourage businesses and individuals to move money from lower-productivity, tax-free investments and shelters to more productive, taxable investments. Third, most importantly, perhaps, tax cuts goose growth. The government might be taking a smaller piece of the pie, but the tax cuts make the pie bigger. (In Ireland's case, of course, there's a fourth: The country became a kind of tax haven.)The problem, according to most economists, is that Republicans now apply that dogma to all taxes, in all situations, even though there are few times when tax cuts actually pay for themselves. And even the case studies that do argue for supply-side economics are more ambiguous than they seem at first blush.Both the Kennedy and Mellon tax-cut packages actually lowered overall revenue, relative to a baseline where the tax cuts did not happen. They just increased some receipts from richer families. Take a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Kennedy-era cuts. No studies "showed that the increased economic activity generated by the tax cut raised revenues and lowered countercyclical transfer payments enough to make the tax-rate reductions self-financing," it wrote in 1978. "Instead, the models showed a net increase in the federal deficit, after three years, of $5 billion to $13 billion," versus models where the tax cuts never took effect. Shorthand: The tax cuts did pay for themselves a little bit by inducing growth, but not nearly enough to pay for themselves entirely.Moreover, economists stress that tax cuts (and increases, for that matter) hardly work in a vacuum to bring about changes in receipts. Income-tax payments tend to naturally increase year-on-year because of population growth, GDP growth, and inflation. Monetary policy, government spending, and the business cycle also have a major impact. Thus, showing causation becomes a tricky exercise when it comes to taxes. Receipts often climb after tax cuts, but not necessarily because of them.The Irish case also offers little support for the idea that tax cuts always pay for themselves by goosing growth. The cut in the corporate tax rate did not aid Irish companies' bottom lines so much as it attracted extraordinary amounts of foreign capital. International firms like Pfizer relocated their European headquarters to the country to take advantage of the low tax rates. All those new companies contributed to an expanded corporate tax base. (Now, Ireland, suffering from crippling debts, is scared to raise the tax rate, which might encourage the companies to leave.)In short, those who say that every tax cut pays for itself are simply wrong. President Bush, for instance, insisted, "You cut taxes, and the tax revenues increase." GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty thinks the same (but adds a wan caveat): "As people look back to the historical examples, there's been other chapters where tax cuts have been enacted, and almost always they raise revenues if you just isolate the effect of the tax cuts." Sorry, governor. A few examples hardly prove the rule.
Mitt Romney has an issue of coming across as Stiff and Robotic as he parrots Republican Talking Points. The video in question was one of the first times I've seen him look natural and like a real person. And he was basically saying "poor people are lazy".
The 47% thing is an old talking point that has been discredited so hard it's barely worth mentioning. I will add that 190,000 of those are active duty combat soldiers. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear Mitt thinks they are lazy. A friend of mine posted a picture on FB of a man with two disabled brothers who Mitt probably thinks are lazy too. Although the poor do support Obama in greater numbers than they support Romney, there are plenty of parts of the poor South and West that vote Republican. And Florida is just full of voters in "the 47%" thanks to all their old folks.
Publicly, Mitt has very carefully tried to create an image of "we want to make the lives of everyone better", but these comments hammer home he honestly thinks everyone without a job is just lazy and should go to whatever Mormons call hell.
A bar?
A planet where you can only have one wife?
In your example, you prove my point. Under Kennedy and Reagan tax revenues increased when taxes were cut.
The economy we are in now is quite similar to what Reagan inherited from Carter. Increasing taxes would only hurt the situation...certainly not help.
In 1980, the last year before Reagan?s tax cuts, tax revenues were $956 billion (in constant 1996 dollars).
Revenues exceeded that 1980 level in eight of the next 10 years. Annual revenues over the next decade averaged $102 billion above their 1980 level (in constant 1996 dollars).
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2002/12/~/media/Images/Reports/B_1544_Chart_1lg_4/taxcuts2002.ashx
Conversely, when Clinton took office he raised taxes sharply, hiking the top bracket from 35% to 39.6% and raised taxes on gasoline. The result was that the economy, which had been recovering, staggered. GDP growth dropped to 0.7% in Clinton?s first quarter (down from 4.3% in Bush?s last quarter) and stayed around 2% for the rest of 1993. Personal income rose 6.3% in 1992 under Bush but slowed to 4.1% under Clinton in 1993.
The tax increases Clinton passed failed to generate the revenue he had expected. The tax paradox set in. Martin Feldstein, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, summed it up in his Wall Street Journal article, ?What the ?93 Tax Increase Really Did,? published on October 26, 1995. He said taxpayers reduced their incomes when they saw the tax hikes coming. Feldstein writes that ?the Treasury lost two-thirds of the extra revenue that would have been collected if taxpayers had not changed their behavior.? Because of Clinton?s tax hikes, real personal income fell by $25 billion. High income taxpayers, facing the prospect of a tax increase reported 8.5% less taxable income in 1993 than they would have if their tax rates had not changed. The tax paradox!
Then Clinton got wiped out in the Congressional elections of 1994, losing control of the Senate and the House ? the first time the Republicans had run the House in forty years!
Clinton suddenly saw the error of his ways and began to hold down spending and push for a tax cut. In 1997, he and the Republican Congress combined to cut capital gains taxes from 28% (the rate to which Bush had increased it) to 20%. The result was electrifying! Real wage growth was 6.5% in the four years after the tax cut compared to minuscule wage growth of 0.8% over the four years after Clinton?s tax increase!
And the tax paradox was again evident: lower rates produced higher revenues! In 1996, the year before the capital gains cut, the tax collected revenues of only $66 billion. In the four years after the cut, they averaged $100 billion a year. But, what was more important was the surge in economic activity that the capital gains tax cut generated. In 1996, before the tax cut, there were $261 billion in capital gains in America. In the three years after the cut, capital gains rose to an average of $440 billion. The increased tax collections and the greater economic activity were such that they pushed the budget into a surplus for the first time since the 1950s.