8/14/2012 4:51:58 PM

I have been on the fence for a while, but just like 4 years ago, the VP nomination has sealed my voting fate. Paul Ryan is a dangerous, counterproductive, hypocritical ideologue who would be a fucking disaster as a VP.

I supported McCain in 2008 until the moment he announced Sarah "mama bear" Palin as his VP. I had no choice at that point but to vote for Obama. Even the outside possibility of Palin running the country scared the shit out of me, and Ryan is no different.

The Republican party is so far off in the weeds, it's really sad for all conservatives. Why in the world would you nominate a hard-line VP? How is that going to pull in independents and moderates? It's just going to alienate even more undecided voters.


Now, all this bullshit about "he didn't pay taxes, he's rich, he's religious, blah blah blah" is all propaganda back and forth.

Here's a few legitimate reasons why I can't conscionably vote for the Romney/Ryan pair:

1) Both Romney and Ryan are "supply-side" economic policy believers. To the core. They believe that cutting taxes and deregulation of markets will spur growth that offsets the cuts, netting an increase in total tax revenue.

Just one problem. It doesn't work. It has never worked. There's not a shred of evidence that it will ever work. Reagan did this in the 80's with "trickle down" economics, which LITERALLY called "supply-side economics" then too. It failed, horribly.

President Bush did the exact same thing during his tenure, with none other than Paul Ryan being one of the biggest backers of the push (going so far that even the Bush administration had to pull the reigns back on Ryan). Not only did it not work the second time, it resulted in an additional 2 TRILLION in debt AND is arguably one of the contributing factors to the financial market meltdown.

Next up was the 2010 election cycle and the beginning of the "job creator" rhetoric. The notion that the wealthy (over 250k'ers) are the people who create jobs in the US. And the implication that raising or lowering their taxes will directly impact their hiring decisions.
Two problems with this.

First, there's zero evidence that the majority of people who make hiring decisions fall into the top tax bracket (and in fact, if you look at small business stats, it points to most small business owners making far less than 250k a year). The majority of the 1%'ers, including Romney himself, make their money from institutional investments (aka capital gains) which has NO impact on jobs.

Second, the causal implication that raising taxes on this population of people will directly affect their hiring decisions. The problem here is that it's completely made up. Every single study, survey, analysis and even personal interviews people say over and over again that their tax rates has NO effect on their hiring decisions. Market growth affects hiring decisions, personal income taxes do not.


So here we are on generation 5 of "supply-side economics". It's failed every time before, the entire economics community thinks the idea is laughable, and we now have 30 years of evidence to say it doesn't work.

You can look at the marginal income tax rate from the 1920's to today. The top 1% have watched their marginal tax rate decline steadily over the past century, with a marked decline starting in the late 70's through to today. If the "job creator/supply-side/trickle down" theory worked, we should have seen the middle class grow larger, the US tax base grow faster than population and inflation, income per capita increase steadily, social welfare programs growing at population growth rates and open markets growing in a healthy, sustained manner.

Instead we have watched our national debt balloon, the middle class shrink, our social welfare systems ballooning, our tax base shrinking, infrastructure crumbling, and the richest getting a LOT richer while everything else falls down around them.

2) Paul Ryan's budget plan is vaporware and completely laughable. Romney is, as with everything else policywise, unwilling to confirm or deny or do anything concrete.

That really is my biggest gripe with Romney. The entire Republican machine is content to blast Congress and Obama on every single decision made, being critical at absolutely pedantic levels, yet I have not seen ONE concrete policy that Romney has put forth. He continually backpedals, restates, flip-flops and puts his foot in his mouth.

Changing your opinions and views over time is a natural, human thing. But doing so multiple times in one year, on tape, in front of different audiences is just bullshit. His level of pandering, double-speak, and non-committal speaking points just give me a ton of distrust in the guy.

Everyone knows politicians make claims and promises they won't be able to keep. Obama has plenty of those under his belt already. But at least he PUT SOMETHING OUT THERE. Romney is still running not to lose, rather than running to win. I've yet to see how he is going to be fundamentally better in any regard than Obama, because he won't actually commit to anything, it's a "just trust me guys" mentality that I don't believe in.

3) Romney is a foreign policy disaster waiting to happen. A big part of being an effective president is being able to find common ground and, for lack of a better term, "schmooze" foreign dignitaries to further the policies with other countries and regions.

Romney has botched every foreign engagement he's had so far. He pissed off the UK, he pissed off Israel AND Palestine in the same visit. He is a wooden figure, the guy is completely unapproachable in casual conversation, has no idea how to talk to people on THEIR level, and spews shit out of his mouth that just makes you shake your head.

He has the "bull in the china shop" mentality. He see's something wrong or stupid and calls it out, regardless of the context or audience. He's not wrong (for example, the London Olympics planning WAS a disaster) but you don't fucking say that on national television on your FIRST visit to the country. For being a politician and successful businessman, it amazes me how often he puts his foot in his mouth.

That's all fine and good on these candy-cane publicity tours, but what's going to happen when there's serious business to attend to? If he gaffes with North Korea, Syria, China, Russia or Iran, the consequences could be HUGE. Like it or not, Obama is a SHIT TON better speaker than Romney, and that carries real weight in foreign policy.
----------------

I'm not a huge fan of Obama either, but it depresses me how much everyone vilifies him for double-speak political bullshit. Obama is not a socialist, not a communist. The guy is the most centrist democratic President in the last century.

Eaton Bush: You couldn't be more fucking wrong about his defense or foreign policy. We are pulling out of Afghanistan (which we shouldn't be, but that's another issue). We didn't "go into Libya", never landed a single soldier. It was a multi-lateral military effort that cost America little monetarily, no deployments, no loss of US life and toppled a major regime in a matter of months. Because we have stopped the unilateral operational bullshit of the Bush years, we don't HAVE to go in to every warring country and nation build. And that is due to Obama's administration. We won't be landing troops in Syria, Iran or SE Asia with Obama.

We have not "alienated our allies". Israel still loves us, Saudi Arabia does too, we actually have diplomatic relations with Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Turkey for the first time in decades. Now that we're pulling out, Afghanistan is warming back up the US, Egypt fucking loves us (they did before, but now the people and elected government do versus a dictator). Relations with China and even North Korea are better than they have been in a long time.

Guantanamo being open and bigger should be a Republican thumbs up, shouldn't it? Every Republican I know of was fucking irate at the thought of shutting it down. So how is that a bad mark for Obama from a Republican standpoint?

Gov't transparency is a wash. Certain parts have become much more open and shared (petitions, census data, data consolidation, foia process, financial accountability), others have continued to be locked down (TSA and Homeland Security). But again, what Republican hasn't pushed for exactly the same things?

Fuel prices have not skyrocketed. They have remained inline with crude prices, and markedly below the global price of fuel.


In addition, Obama has opened up offshore drilling, coal, reopened nuclear in the US and every other possible energy policy to end our dependence on the global crude price. The guy has done more deregulation and market opening for the oil and coal industry than ANY democratic president, and more than many former Repblican presidents.

There's plenty to be upset with Obama over, and frankly there's quite a lot of upside I see to Romney, but we should all stop following the pandering propaganda machines on both sides and pay attention to the POLICIES, historical facts, real data, and stop trying to polarize these guys.

[Edited on August 14, 2012 at 5:41 PM. Reason : .]

8/14/2012 5:34:59 PM

8/14/2012 5:41:05 PM

^You can't have a meaningful political discourse around one-liners and sound bytes. All that stuff is bullshit, or at worst, half-truths. The truth is complicated, and is a discussion worth having.

8/14/2012 5:43:15 PM

Quote :

"Now, all this bullshit about "he didn't pay taxes, he's rich, he's religious, blah blah blah" is all propaganda back and forth."

How are these first two propaganda? If the accusations are right then they're facts. No liberal ever tried to claim that being born in Kenya or being a Muslim would be inadmissible. The problem with that propaganda about Obama was that it was wrong, not just subjectively wrong, but disproved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Romney still hasn't released tax returns, and in the meantime, anyone who votes against him for being rich and paying a 14% tax rate is being dumb, but at least based their decisions in truth, like conservatives voting against Obama because he's black. A dangerous and bigoted ball-o-hate? Yes, but one that based their decision on an indisputable fact.

I wouldn't hold the 14% tax rate against Romney myself. It's playing by the rules perfectly. I believe you can get that from the 15% capital gains plus some deductions, which are probably pretty controversial and probably commendable because of charity giving. However, if true, I will hold it against him that he lied to the SEC about his CEO position, and that he intentionally undervalued his IRA contribution as a tax dodging maneuver. I'll change my position on the truthfulness of these claims as I see the evidence, and if you have relevant evidence, please present it to me. To the extent of my current reading, however, he probably did these things.

Romney is most likely a sociopath manipulative liar. I find that to be plenty of reason to vote against him, and even campaign for the other guy. The fact that he is rich isn't a reason to hate him, but it is correlated with being a sociopath liar. This isn't hateful toward our rich people, it's hateful toward our system that selectively gives scumbags power. I don't have any problem hating that system. I have as little reason to defend our crony capitalism as I do tyranny. In another world, John Edwards might have been a pleasant and principled person. In the real world, slimness begets slimness, and success in these circles.

8/14/2012 6:07:15 PM

^You just proved my point. As long as he is operating within the legal confines of our Tax code, how much or how little tax he paid doesn't fucking matter. Being poor or being rich doesn't fucking matter, neither does it matter how he got the money or what his lot in life was or is.

It doesn't matter if they are facts or not. As you put it, hating Obama for being black and voting against him is based on the fact that he is black. Basing a major decision on unrelated truths is NOT BETTER than basing a decision on ignorance or lies.

Deciding which college you attend based on it's proximity to a Bojangles would be a fact based decision, but it would still be a fucking stupid way to decide and wouldn't net you any better results than basing a college on the opinions of your high school friend's gossip.

It may well be true that Romney is a sociopath (btw, being a manipulative liar is part of the definition of a sociopath/psychopath, so you're being redundant). But so are a fair number of the most successful businessmen and politicians in history. As long as HIS agenda lines up with OUR agenda, I have no problem with it. The uncertainty in that alignment is what scares me, and his total fluidity in his stances (much akin to John Kerry) really doesn't instill my confidence in him as a candidate.

8/14/2012 6:24:51 PM

8/14/2012 7:10:21 PM

^^but obamas a dick?

[Edited on August 14, 2012 at 7:51 PM. Reason : and i hate his cunty wife]

8/14/2012 7:51:02 PM

If being an asshole or douchebag disqualified you from employment, we would be fucked.

8/14/2012 8:12:36 PM

wow, dont want to read all that.

Romney... The Anti -Obama.
I'm all in.

[Edited on August 14, 2012 at 9:22 PM. Reason : ]

8/14/2012 9:21:44 PM

Quote :

"^You just proved my point. As long as he is operating within the legal confines of our Tax code, how much or how little tax he paid doesn't fucking matter. Being poor or being rich doesn't fucking matter, neither does it matter how he got the money or what his lot in life was or is."

This misses the bureaucratic nature of law today. Our laws aren't written for the citizens, they're written for the lawyers and mega-corps, basically unreadable to most. There isn't a clear legal and illegal in many things, and this is the line that our corporate leadership walks, but in reality, dangling their feet a constant depth into the "illegal" side of the gray. This is exactly what Romney did, or at least thought he was doing, with the SEC filings. Other actions as well, actions we will never know about.

I don't want to vote for someone who spent their careers using obstructionist legal tactics to win cases. You know what I'm talking about - legal badgering to the end game of the other party running out of money. The practices of the upper echelon of our corporate leadership is equal and worse to this, to an extent that neither you nor I, nor anyone else knows based on public information. I don't want to put them in jail, but I don't want to elect them as president. I still want someone who understands the slime at the center of our institutions, but preferably someone who's been on the receiving end, not the dealing end, of their underhanded practices. People will self-organize themselves into professions according to what moral hazards they are willing to tolerate, and so, there is a premium on positions where you screw people with underhanded tactics because decent people avoid that role. That's fine, I'm not trying to change that, but I don't want that sort of person to become president. I'm not casting this net of horrible immorality on all business leaders today, just many. There are a lot of rich people we respect and have validly shown themselves to be genuinely principled people. Romney is a good example of the opposite. He lies in the space between legal and the "probably un-prosecutable".

8/14/2012 9:44:55 PM

Quote :

"People will self-organize themselves into professions according to what moral hazards they are willing to tolerate, and so, there is a premium on positions where you screw people with underhanded tactics because decent people avoid that role. That's fine, I'm not trying to change that, but I don't want that sort of person to become president."

I rather like this quote...

8/14/2012 10:38:22 PM

Quote :

""

Quote :

"1. Reforming the excise tax on arrow components. Ryan is a bow-hunter and avid supporter of the archery industry; he once served as honorary chair of the Archery Trade Association. H.R. 5394 reformed the excise tax on arrow shafts amending the “Internal Revenue Code to impose a 39-cent tax per arrow shaft, instead of a 12.4 percent tax on the sales price.” Domestic arrow manufacturers argued that the old system gave an advantage to foreign arrow-makers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/14/from-archery-to-air-fresheners-paul-ryans-most-obscure-legislative-proposals/

8/15/2012 1:55:01 AM

OH.MY.GOD.

Why hasn't the national media picked that little gem up?

This changes everything.

8/15/2012 10:02:22 AM

Quote :

"wow, dont want to read all that. Romney... The Anti -Obama. I'm all in."

What a great summary of why I'm continually ashamed to be a Republican.

Romney isn't the anti Obama. Republicans aren't the anti Obama. And the super sad part is that you and most of the conservative base are too fucking lazy, ignorant and or stupid to realize that.

8/15/2012 1:40:21 PM

if anything romney is going to be a slightly to the right of obama, probably still within handholding distance

8/15/2012 1:44:22 PM

"(Romney) is going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street. He is going to put y'all back in chains." - Biden to an African American crowd

I didn't realize Romney wanted to reinstate slavery. This changes everything!

8/15/2012 5:54:40 PM

Quote :

"I have been on the fence for a while, but just like 4 years ago, the VP nomination has sealed my voting fate. Paul Ryan is a dangerous, counterproductive, hypocritical ideologue who would be a fucking disaster as a VP. "

This guy voted change the Constitution to ban marriages like mine because apparently the Constitution is in the wrong not including that, voted in favor of having Don't Ask Don't Tell, voted against stem cell research, and is anti-choice. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law rated him a negative 10. He voted to build a fence on Mexico's border. Americans United for Separation of Church and State give him a 0 rating.

I wasn't happy with Romney getting the nomination to begin with over guys like Huntsman and Johnson, but picking an extreme social conservative VP kind of seals the deal for this being an awful ticket.

[Edited on August 15, 2012 at 6:27 PM. Reason : .]

8/15/2012 6:25:06 PM

if by "African-American crowd" you mean "a crowd of not all white people" then your point is spot on

8/15/2012 6:25:24 PM

regardless, biden isnt exactly doing obama any favors here.

kind of like his entire stint as VP?

obtuse is about the nicest thing you can call the man.

8/15/2012 7:58:53 PM

8/15/2012 8:07:09 PM

Once this thread gets to 15 pages Barack Obama will post in it.

8/15/2012 8:08:16 PM

Quote :

"He voted to build a fence on Mexico's border"

oh, the horror

8/15/2012 8:18:40 PM

8/15/2012 11:37:40 PM

8/16/2012 1:11:37 AM

lawrence o donnell....

jesus christ pryderi, just settle down and knock on the ceiling for your grandma to fix you a hotpocket.

8/16/2012 7:46:41 AM

Both Romney and Ryan are "supply-side" economic policy believers. To the core. They believe that cutting taxes and deregulation of markets will spur growth that offsets the cuts, netting an increase in total tax revenue.

Just one problem. It doesn't work. It has never worked. There's not a shred of evidence that it will ever work. Reagan did this in the 80's with "trickle down" economics, which LITERALLY called "supply-side economics" then too. It failed, horribly. - Noen


THIS!

8/16/2012 8:19:52 AM

i esp. love the fact that pryderi keeps bumping a thread in which he showed he has absolutely no idea how taxes work, even on the most basic level

8/16/2012 8:41:49 AM

supply side economics were fine for the late 70s/early 80s when inflation was so bad that it was pushing people into higher tax brackets when their real wages were much lower. the problem is that it gave republicans a reason to think the answer to every economic problem since then is to cut taxes and everything will be fine.

8/16/2012 9:54:57 AM

"we aren't going to be releasing any more tax returns because the more release, the more you're going to ask us questions" - Ann Romney

lol

Whatever they're hiding must be nuts

8/16/2012 10:30:28 AM

Whatever it is, it's the tax equivalent of a dead baby chained up in the basement.

8/16/2012 10:38:17 AM

maybe he invested in chik-fil-a?

NOES.

8/16/2012 10:47:06 AM

I bet he found, exploited, and then closed a tax loophole allowing him to make millions of $$ off the backs of undocumented workers and child rape victims.

8/16/2012 10:59:57 AM

I mean, he did fund Bain Capital (initially) with money from death squads in El Salvador.

8/16/2012 11:09:32 AM

Quote :

"But I did go back and look at my taxes and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. So I paid taxes every single year."

- MITT

He still won't say what his income tax rate was.

And if he did pay 13% in Income tax, a third of what normal Americans pay, it makes me even more curious about what he's hiding.

8/16/2012 1:27:48 PM

Quote :

"And if he did pay 13% in Income tax, a third of what normal Americans pay"

hold on there, champ. Let's not be intellectually dishonest and compare Mittens' effective tax rate with normal Americans' marginal tax rate.

I'm a pretty 'normal American' with no crazy tax loopholes. My wife and I have (well, had for 2011) a mortgage, and one child. I take a 401k pre-tax deduction, and my healthcare premiums are also pre-tax.

My effective rate for 2011 was 12.86%

I think Romney is a typical shitty GOP candidate who will fuck over the middle class. But far too much is being made out of what is equally petty to the birther bullshit.

[Edited on August 16, 2012 at 1:45 PM. Reason : .]

8/16/2012 1:44:46 PM

Quote :

"hold on there, champ. Let's not be intellectually dishonest and compare Mittens' effective tax rate with normal Americans' marginal tax rate. I'm a pretty 'normal American' with no crazy tax loopholes. My wife and I have (well, had for 2011) a mortgage, and one child. I take a 401k pre-tax deduction, and my healthcare premiums are also pre-tax. My effective rate for 2011 was 12.86% I think Romney is a typical shitty GOP candidate who will fuck over the middle class. But far too much is being made out of what is equally petty to the birther bullshit. "

Agreed.

8/16/2012 2:11:38 PM

Quote :

"Both Romney and Ryan are "supply-side" economic policy believers. To the core. They believe that cutting taxes and deregulation of markets will spur growth that offsets the cuts, netting an increase in total tax revenue. Just one problem. It doesn't work. It has never worked. There's not a shred of evidence that it will ever work. Reagan did this in the 80's with "trickle down" economics, which LITERALLY called "supply-side economics" then too. It failed, horribly. - Noen "

This is the type of nonsense that urks me to no end. Revenues skyrocketed under Reagan. What planet are you living on? Where is YOUR evidence that that tax cuts do not increase revenue? Everything I see points the contrary.

The economy was booming like crazy under Clinton, yet Bush and Obama raised more revenue with the Bush tax cuts in place. How do explain this?




[Edited on August 16, 2012 at 2:51 PM. Reason : /]

8/16/2012 2:42:41 PM

Okay, so he's paying the same tax rate as most hard-working, middle-class bread-winners (bullshit)

He's still hiding something

^Supply-side economics historically hasn't done shit but increase budget deficits.

[Edited on August 16, 2012 at 2:53 PM. Reason : ]

8/16/2012 2:46:05 PM

^ that sounds as batshit as the birthers or those that believe he's a secret muslim.

he's hiding _something_

there's plenty of fail associated with Romney and Obama that doesn't require descending into cheap demagoguery, yet that's all people can do. This is why we have two shitty candidates to choose from.

And even worse there are those of you who actually believe Obama is a great president, and those that actually believe Romney will be the Mormon Messiah of the US economy. And all of you are idiots.

8/16/2012 2:51:32 PM

http://www.mtgriffith.com/web_documents/taxcutfacts.htm

8/16/2012 2:52:12 PM

kudos, Noen, kudos

guy makes an adult, rational explanation of why he is going to vote the way he's going to vote and gets a "too fucking long, brah"

America in a nutshell

[Edited on August 16, 2012 at 2:58 PM. Reason : clarification]

8/16/2012 2:53:51 PM

^^

Yeah! Everyone is an idiot but you! Maybe you should be runnin shit, right?

8/16/2012 2:54:23 PM

all of you blind party hacks are idiots, yes.

because that's your TEAM. and whatever TEAM DONKEY says you believe.
and likewise, whatever TEAM ELEPHANT says, people like prep-e believe.

8/16/2012 2:55:40 PM

yeah, i'm not a huge romney fan, but his taxes couldn't be any less of a concern to me. is he unpatriotic for stashing money offshore? do people consider it 'stealing' from the government? i really don't get the angle.

if you ask me, the only thing he's hiding is his blatent use of loopholes to avoid paying high tax rates.

it doesn't matter how many zeroes are at the end of your salary - pretty much everyone does what they can to pay as little tax as possible. to say he's unpatriotic for doing that is backwards. seems to me to be the american way.

8/16/2012 3:00:10 PM

^^Damn, you must be EXTRA smart to know these intimate details about me while you don't know me, and I don't even know who the fuck you are!

Seriously, you should be president, random internet douchebag!

^ That's probably how most people feel, which is why it leaves people like me wondering why he doesn't just do what all the other rich presidents did and release his tax returns.

[Edited on August 16, 2012 at 3:02 PM. Reason : ]

8/16/2012 3:00:24 PM

Quote :

"all of you blind party hacks are idiots, yes. because that's your TEAM. and whatever TEAM DONKEY says you believe. and likewise, whatever TEAM ELEPHANT says, people like prep-e believe. "

Not so fast. I have plenty of issues with both parties, believe me. I would rather not vote for either of these candidates. But Obama is so toxic in my opinion that I will vehemently support Romney in this election.

8/16/2012 3:06:59 PM

how is he toxic?

8/16/2012 3:12:58 PM

I remember having the supply-side economics lectures in Nelson hall at NCSU by an econ professor who was clearly, and admittedly conservative. Even he wasn't trying to even hint to us that supply-side economics was good for anything more than increasing the budget deficit.

Isn't this pretty much accepted as fact by economics everywhere? I didn't know this was really still an argument.

8/16/2012 3:17:09 PM

MODS move this to soapbox

8/16/2012 3:19:14 PM