Politics

[Bogtrotter07]

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney could balance the federal budget by the end of the decade, one of his top advisers said Sunday.

“I think that is an achievable objective by the end of his second term,” Eric Fehrnstrom, senior adviser to the Romney campaign, said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Mr. Fehrnstrom’s comments come as Mr. Romney’s critics press for more details on how he would meet his pledges to lower tax rates, raise defense spending and restore more than $700 billion in cuts to Medicare spending enacted by President Barack Obama.

Earlier in the week, Mr. Romney’s running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and senior campaign adviser Ed Gillespie declined to say when Mr. Romney’s financial plan would balance the budget.

No offense, but this is just more meaningless bull shiit. There is no plan here, just the say so of one advisor, when his running mate, and chief advisor remain silent.

 

[Domina Nostra]

Bogs that is a sad story.

Not to be trite but I've had enough of this abortion stuff. Anybody see that the GOP is using the "we built this" theme in a convention center built using largely public funds? Oh sweet irony. Maybe they should've just had the convention in Sheldon Adelson's backyard. Let's go Golson!

Republicans aren't arguing tax money doesn't build anything. Where did anyone get that idea? Infastructure (and other things like national Defense that individuals cannot accomplish on their own) is EXACTLY what Republicans think goverenment is for.

No businessman has ever said that they could have been successful without customers or suppliers or infrastructure. Its almost a contradiction in terms.
But there is no reason to get into verbal semantics and say that the success of every company is, therefore, given to it by government or someone else.

For example, it would be really silly to bend over backwards to insist that, say, Steve Jobs didn't build Apple, UPS built apple, because without UPS, Apple's product wouldn't get to the customer. Thats true in some insignificant sense, but its an argument with no one. UPS certainly had nothing to do with inovating computers which is why Apple is a viable business. If youtake it to the next level and say "Therefore, Steve Jobs owes UPS something more than the costs of their contracts/accounts"-- now you are into new territory. Everyone agrees that the goverenemnt provides vital services, but that does not mean that the goverenemnt is somehow directly responsible for all successes and has a stake in it. I don't have to thanks City Hall for paving the roads so that I might study in school and get lunch, they are elected and paid to do that.

Construction workers don't work for free hoping that businessmen will remember them, someday, when they use the roads that they built. Rather, construction workers build roads because they are getting paid to do so. Ussually, its because some developer approached someone in goverenment and said that they were planning on building something there. If the community thinks its a good idea, it pays for a road. Teachers don't teach hoping that their students will remember them if they ever become successful. Instead, they sign contracts and get income and benefits.

 

[NDFan4Life]

Have to agree with Bog on this one. People don't want to hear lip service. They want to know exactly what Romney will do to balance the budget. I want to hear what he'll do before the election. Not after it.

 

[95NDAlumNM]

2020.

Romney Adviser: GOP Candidate Could Balance Budget by 2020 - Washington Wire - WSJ

hahaha..Where is the beef?...I mean where is the specifics?

 

[Irish Houstonian]

Didn't read the article, but I hold out zero hope that anyone can balance the budget. Even if Romney wanted to, the chances of Congress going along with the steps that would be necessary, make it a pipe dream. When you have people screaming bloody murder when you simply talk about slowing the growth of spending and not even real cuts from current spending levels. There are simply to many special interest groups and to many people with their hands out, who like the concept of controlling spending, but only if it's in areas that don't directly impact them.

I tend to agree -- there was just a critique earlier that Romney doesn't say anything substantive. I think that's a bit unfair if you look at his plans and proposals. (Admittedly, this research may require a bit of Googling.)

Whether or not his plans will actually work is speculation, but he's hardly an empty suit filled with magic underwear, as some have claimed.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

I believe Buster meant Kenya.

Anyway, this is a policy that may be worth looking into:

Fuel Fix » Romney unveils plan for energy independence

What some were saying is if being born out of the country to an American parent would exclude you from being President, Romney's dad couldn't have run because he was born in Mexico, within a poligomous Mormon sect.

 

[NDFan4Life]

What some were saying is if being born out of the country to an American parent would exclude you from being President, Romney's dad couldn't have run because he was born in Mexico, within a poligomous Mormon sect.

I'm not a "birther" by any stretch. I was just stating that I think Buster meant Kenya instead of Indonesia.

 

[Irish Houstonian]

No offense, but this is just more meaningless bull shiit. There is no plan here, just the say so of one advisor, when his running mate, and chief advisor remain silent.

No kidding there's no plan there, because that wasn't the point. If you want his plans, look them up. I can't spoon-feed you everything about him.

 

[95NDAlumNM]

No kidding there's no plan there, because that wasn't the point. If you want his plans, look them up. I can't spoon-feed you everything about him.

Gee..How did this start..oh yeah


Originally Posted by Ultimate Penn St. Hater
...Doesn't Romney have anything of substance to talk about? He's been avoiding specifics for months now.
Irish Houstonian
Romney has several white papers published, all outling specific proposals in different areas. They're on his site, but I'm sure you can also find them using Google.

Is there a specific policy area you're interested in?

 

[Bogtrotter07]

No kidding there's no plan there, because that wasn't the point. If you want his plans, look them up. I can't spoon-feed you everything about him.

There is no budget plan I have looked. When everybody from the CBO to the most responsible conservative and liberal think tanks say there will be no balanced budget without instituting an over all tax increase, increasing top tier tax rates by a greater rate, and cutting spending especially but not limited to ending elective wars.

 

[Irish Houstonian]

There is no budget plan I have looked...

There is a budget plan on his website. It involves streamlining and simplifying the tax code, capping taxes and spending at a certain level of GDP, and pursuing a Balanced Budget Amendment.

 

[Buster Bluth]

No offense, but this is just more meaningless bull shiit. There is no plan here, just the say so of one advisor, when his running mate, and chief advisor remain silent.

It's pretty rare for a candidate to actually issue a plan. It opens he/she up to a crapton of criticism that you don't have to take, the incumbent can easy pick and choose the popular parts and then lambaste him for other parts. It's basically political suicide. Go look at Obama's acceptance speech from Aug 28, 2008. It's loaded with false promises; and the clips of that will be out within the next month for sure.

That's why I plead for use to ignore the quotes and speeches, and stop playing the "he said/she said" game. Go instead and look at the accomplishments of the candidates.

Romney - Balanced the Salt Lake City budget; balanced the Massachusetts state budget. But situations were in dire straits.

Obama - ....

I think I'll be taking my chances with Romney. He's at least done some things worth mentioning in his career when it comes to budgets.

 

[irishog77]

So nothing of substance comes out of Romney's mouth, i.e. he's not talking about the issues? Is this basically the argument you Obama supporters are making? By claiming that, you are inferring that Obama IS talking about the issues. Then please, oh enlightened ones, bestow on us mere mortals all these important issues that Barry is talking about.

 

[Bluto]

Meanwhile, I think lower tax rates while eliminating most deductions would raise more revenue today AND tomorrow.

More importantly, corporate tax rate adjustments offer the most bang for the buck. Think about a flat 15%, permanent corporate rate with 5% repatriation of profits? Think some companies would move operations here and get us working? That structure may cost the US about $100B in revenue on the corporate side upfront but likely is quickly made up by increased payroll and income taxes along with faster growing corporate taxes as companies look to work in the US first. Obama has indicated some flexibility on corporate taxation and may have a legitimate chance if he is reelected.

So defense spending and corporate tax reform, the only two areas I think Obama is not toxic to the economy. Thankfully, they may be two of the biggest bang for buck trade-offs and can make up ground for the other destructive actions (and the fact the private energy business is thriving in spite of Obama's regulatory environment).

RDU all that stuff from your posts was interesting and the stuff you suggested fairly reasonable. Would rep you if I could. I don't think the Obama administration has been overly draconian to the energy industry. It would seem counter intuative that they would be thriving if it had been.

Anyhow, I just can't fathom how Romney can be taken seriously as a "budget hawk" now that he has pulled the old defense budget as sacred cow move.

Throw in the crazy birther movement, the climate science deniers, the legitimate rape stuff, the President is a Muslim slander, the Citizens United ruling, the no new taxes ever stance (same policy has been a disater in California) and that to me makes a pretty good case to never vote for a GOP presidential candidate because all of that stuff is either bat shiza crazy or completely unreasonable.

 

[Domina Nostra]

Didn't Obama's proposed budgets get basically no support in the Democratic Senate (voted down 99-0)?

Senate rejects Obama budget, Republican alternatives - 2chambers - The Washington Post

 

[Domina Nostra]

RDU all that stuff from your posts seems reasonable. Would rep you if I could. I don't think the Obama administration has been overly draconian to the energy industry. It would seem counter intuative that they would be thriving if it were.

This is the one industry I know about, and yes, some of it has been draconian- especially on coal. The President has been very pro-alternative energies, but there is no reason to think those technologies are going to be doing much in the near future.

The reason that there has been a "counter-intuitive" energy boom is because the incredibly high oil prices of the last decade incentivized the R&D that made huge expanses of otherwsie inaccessible oil and natural gas suddenly accessible (mostly through fracking). Basically a ton of wells that were considered abandoned are now all half-full, so to speak.

Energy to keep booming no matter who's president - Aug. 24, 2012

The amount of natural gas now available is changing the whole debate dramatically. The clean energy people are pretty frustrated with this development because natural gas is just really clean, not really, really clean. The cheap NG is going to make green energy increasingly uneconomical.

HOwever, in the short-term clean coal is still necessary to keep costs down (which is vital to businesses and households in a recession). It is also good to have some energy diversity because the future is unpredictable, and we have a ton of coal in the U.S.

 

[Bluto]

This is the one industry I know about, and yes, some of it has been draconian- especially on coal. The President has been very pro-alternative energies, but there is no reason to think those technologies are going to be doing much in the near future.

The reason that there has been an energy boom is because the incredibly high oil prices of the last decade incentivized the R&D that made huge expanses of otherwsie inaccessible oil and natural gas suddenly accessible (mostly through fracking). Basically a ton of wells that were considered abandoned are now all half-full, so to speak.

Energy to keep booming no matter who's president - Aug. 24, 2012

I'm guessing your referring to the new requirements on emmisions on old coal plants? If so that ties back to the climate change debate. It's going to cost a heck of a lot more money to build sea walls around Florida than to transition away from older coal plants.

 

[ab2cmiller]

I'm guessing your referring to the new requirements on emmisions on old coal plants? If so that ties back to the climate change debate. It's going to cost a heck of a lot more money to build sea walls around Florida than to transition away from older coal plants.

LOL. So there you have it. In its simplist terms. If we use older coal plants, we will have to build sea walls around Florida. If we don't use older coal plants, then the seal walls will be unnecessary. WOW ... You make it sound so simple.

 

[Domina Nostra]

I'm guessing your referring to the new requirements on emmisions on old coal plants? If so that ties back to the climate change debate. It's going to cost a heck of a lot more money to build sea walls around Florida than to transition away from older coal plants.

That among many, many other things. EPA does not justify most of its action in terms of climate change.

Well, I guess you can justify any spending against the catostrophic costs predicted by someclimate-change models. That is a major politcal problem in itself, whatever you think about global climate change. However, the climate change debate is a little over-the-top even on its own terms, considereing all those billions spent to lower carbon emissions will be meaningless if China keeps building one new coal-fired power plant every week or two.

 

[NDFan4Life]

Interesting:

<embed src="http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf" scale="noscale" salign="lt" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" background="#333333" width="425" height="279" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" FlashVars="si=254&&contentValue=50123283&shareUrl=http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7405692n&tag=mg;mostpopvideo" />

 

[Bluto]

LOL. So there you have it. In its simplist terms. If we use older coal plants, we will have to build sea walls around Florida. If we don't use older coal plants, then the seal walls will be unnecessary. WOW ... You make it sound so simple.

Actually all this stuff is pretty simple on its face. It has more to do with will than ability. Anyhow, I heard an interview with the Professor from Cal Berkeley (cant remember his name) who was a big climate change skeptic until recently. He said the key to turning around or stabilizing the climate change trend was ditching coal (this would include China as well) transitioning to natural gas and eventually renewables. If fracking can be done in an environmentally sound manner I'm all for it. Same goes for nuclear.

I would suggest reading the Jared Diamond book Collapse. Lots of civilizations big and small have stood at the crossroads we now do. Some chose to succeed others to fail. Kind of a bummer seeing us choosing to fail as a nation on what to me is thee biggest issue on the planet.

Below is another interesting perspective on all this from the dude who connected CFC's and such with the hole in the ozone layer.

Blogs - philly.com

 

[pkt77242]

There is a budget plan on his website. It involves streamlining and simplifying the tax code, capping taxes and spending at a certain level of GDP, and pursuing a Balanced Budget Amendment.

You mean the one that would give even bigger tax breaks to the rich? Also they could cause problems for the middle class and could even widen the deficit. Smart move on his part. The balanced budget amendment is one of the worst ideas I have heard. The government needs to be free to spend more than it takes in during rough times. The problem has been that during good times (2005-2007 and maybe even 2003 and 2004) we kept running deficits instead of putting the extra money away for a rainy day. The odd thing about capping it at certain levels of GDP is that right now we are running at near historic lows in terms of taxes as a percentage of GDP, so that makes no sense currently and while it could be important later, it is more of a rallying the base tactic than good economic policy.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Exactly, we need to be responsible, and reactive to situation, not play into political cliche like it is going to address a real problem.

 

[pkt77242]

It's pretty rare for a candidate to actually issue a plan. It opens he/she up to a crapton of criticism that you don't have to take, the incumbent can easy pick and choose the popular parts and then lambaste him for other parts. It's basically political suicide. Go look at Obama's acceptance speech from Aug 28, 2008. It's loaded with false promises; and the clips of that will be out within the next month for sure.

That's why I plead for use to ignore the quotes and speeches, and stop playing the "he said/she said" game. Go instead and look at the accomplishments of the candidates.

Romney - Balanced the Salt Lake City budget; balanced the Massachusetts state budget. But situations were in dire straits.

Obama - ....

I think I'll be taking my chances with Romney. He's at least done some things worth mentioning in his career when it comes to budgets.

I assume you mean the Salt Lake City Olympics, and that is laughable. He took money from the federal government to balance it. Lots of money and not just for security as he has claimed. FactCheck.org : Slaloming Through Olympic Facts

Yes he did a good job with the Olympics, but only because the federal government gave him nearly 400 million dollars for which he had lobbied to get.

 

[Buster Bluth]

I assume you mean the Salt Lake City Olympics, and that is laughable. He took money from the federal government to balance it. Lots of money and not just for security as he has claimed. FactCheck.org : Slaloming Through Olympic Facts

Yes he did a good job with the Olympics, but only because the federal government gave him nearly 400 million dollars for which he had lobbied to get.

They gave him $342mil. Up from $135mil for LA (when you take into account inflation). I am not happy about that, but was well aware of it. When you take into account the $100mil in the black, it comes out to $107mil in the red I guess (subtracting the LA amount, and $100mil in "profit"). It's sorta moot I guess, le me explain...

Still, I know more than the average bear about Olympic game planning. I've had the opportunity to analyze plans with fellow planners who worked on the London and Turin games (although these folks were out of Milan). The consensus is that if you can keep the games from horrific cost overruns, you've done a great job. If you keep the games from having cost overruns, and you're in a smaller city/region and have to build a lot more, then you've done an amazing job. Places like Montreal (1976) were more than a BILLION in the red--I think they're still paying it off. Most Olympic games run something like 130% of what is planned. Even Vancouver's 2010 failed pretty miserably. And Atlanta's games didn't take a huge amount from the Feds because they quite literally sold the games to corporations via marketing deals--which is why they are an absolute embarrassment for corporatism to the world.

To say that Romney's handling was only "good," is what is laughable. Yes, he took a crapton from the Feds but even that taken into account it's still a superb job of management. His Winter Games management (a totally different animal than Summer Olympics) has been the gold standard for future Winter Games.

It wasn't perfect though, so the factcheck has its points. But he did that job so well that a team of Massachusetts liberals begged him to run for governor to save them from their fiscal cliff--which he did. And yes, even then I think he lobbied for $700mil from the Feds there too. I'm not against full disclosure haha

 

[Buster Bluth]

Whoa. Mitt Romney is human after all:

Mitt Romney previews his big week

The Romneys at home

While noting the obvious non-answer on medicare and not too fond of his Planned Parenthood stance (although we do have to stop printing money...), it is sorta nice to see that they are, at heart, just a bunch of Mormons. haha and I mean that in a great way, honestly. When I grew up my best friend was Mormon and he had seven siblings and his whole family operated with machine-like efficiency and were so insanely family-oriented. The guy irons his own **** and his wife shops at Costco, and they don't have butlers and maids. They have to be in the minority for people worth $250bil.

 

[BobD]

Whoa. Mitt Romney is human after all:

Mitt Romney previews his big week

The Romneys at home

of course he's human.....robots aren't vain or power hungry.

although, robots will change their mind when told and have no personality.....hmmmmm.

 

[Rhode Irish]

Whoa. Mitt Romney is human after all:

Mitt Romney previews his big week

The Romneys at home

While noting the obvious non-answer on medicare and not too fond of his Planned Parenthood stance (although we do have to stop printing money...), it is sorta nice to see that they are, at heart, just a bunch of Mormons. haha and I mean that in a great way, honestly. When I grew up my best friend was Mormon and he had seven siblings and his whole family operated with machine-like efficiency and were so insanely family-oriented. The guy irons his own **** and his wife shops at Costco, and they don't have butlers and maids. They have to be in the minority for people worth $250bil.

Haha.....if those are humans, they are the most incredibly awkward humans I've ever seen. I could barely sit through it because their obvious discomfort was making me so uncomfortable. Ann Romney is even more intolerable than her husband, if that is possible.

I don't think trying to prove to voters that he is "normal" is a winning proposition for the Romney campaign. Especially in this election against this President, they are going to lose that battle every time. Better off not drawing any more attention to it. Although it was nice of Fox News to provide the free infomercial, you'd think both they and Romney's handlers would know better.

 

[BobD]

Whoa. Mitt Romney is human after all:

Mitt Romney previews his big week

The Romneys at home

While noting the obvious non-answer on medicare and not too fond of his Planned Parenthood stance (although we do have to stop printing money...), it is sorta nice to see that they are, at heart, just a bunch of Mormons. haha and I mean that in a great way, honestly. When I grew up my best friend was Mormon and he had seven siblings and his whole family operated with machine-like efficiency and were so insanely family-oriented. The guy irons his own **** and his wife shops at Costco, and they don't have butlers and maids. They have to be in the minority for people worth $250bil.

hmmmmm?

Mitt Romney's Maids' Salary Raises Questions (UPDATE)

 

[Buster Bluth]

No one is saying they are normal. No one who is normal runs for President.

They are not, however, of the super-rich and glitzy douchebag trustfund ilk. I know my fair share of those people, and I know my fair share of Mormons. The Romneys are very, very Mormon in their functioning.

This country could use more Mormons. I've never met a Mormon who wasn't absurdly polite, hardworking and honest. And I've never met someone who was polite, hardworking, and honest who wasn't pretty successful in accomplishing their goals.