Topic: Obama or Romney ? - page 11. (Read 21126 times)

Right... it couldn't have anything to do with Bush fucking up the economy and getting us involved with two wars.  Sure, Obama's very far from perfect, but I doubt you could have done better given the same situation.

I, for one, am tired of voting for the lesser of two weevils.   

Nobody for president 2012?

Now that's a vote I can get behind.

Both candidate has to lie about certain things in the campaign, that's just the way it is. Otherwise you simply won't get elected. The most honest president in the past 100 years was Jimmy Carter, and he wasn't really that great as President.

I'm going with the honest man.  The liar pisses me off. 

That's mostly thanks to Obama, increasing the debt from 10T to 16T in a matter of 4 years.

We're at 80% of GDP and well over 100% if you look at gross debt.  Plus, we aren't as responsible as Canadians.

When Romney got elected to MA governor in 2002, MA was also facing a huge budget deficit, few would even lend money to MA anymore, the state was nearly insolvent. 4 years later, MA had a balanced budget almost every single year under Romney, the financial situation certainly turned around.

Sure it's not enough to just close loopholes, and that's not what Romney is saying, this is just one method to help achieve his goal. In MA, closing the loopholes created $1.5B new revenue, it was not enough to erase the deficit, but these little things add up, and they do help.

The best plans means nothing if it's implemented by an imbecile. Obama simply don't have the necessary experience and business sense to implement Romney's plan, this is why in the business world, as a fresh college grad you don't usually get good jobs, because you lack experience. Obama can steal Romney's idea to win the election, but he can't actually implement them correctly due to his inexperience and incompetence.

That's ludicrous. While it is most likely that the problems will not be remedied, it certainly is possible with persistent focus and time to get out of the debt problem we have. Canada went from ~64% GDP public debt in 1997 to ~28% public debt in 2008. I don't think we WILL course correct, but its definitely possible.

The only possibility I can think of is that he's imagining that the plan will create enormous additional economic growth and that will lead to increased tax revenue over the next ten years or so. If that's what he's thinking, his numbers are probably wildly unrealistic. But we can't really know since he won't share them.

On an unrelated note, I was thinking about more about Kokojie's "Why he hasn't disclosed which loopholes he want to close on the Federal level? because that would be too easy for Obama to steal, Obama has already stolen his idea of "closing loopholes" shown by yesterday's debate." That sounds almost treasonous to me. Is winning the election really more important to him than balancing the budget? If Obama will commit to the key elements of Romney's super-awesome tax plan, that means the country probably gets it no matter which candidate wins. Putting winning the election ahead of the country's best interests would totally disqualify him, IMO. I hope that's not what he's thinking.

there is nothing, NOTHING! that will create "enough" revenue

not defense cuts, not social security, certainly not the more politically palatable pittances bandied about by one candidate or another

it is all smoke and mirrors now, until the wheels come off in earnest

Why is it not a loophole? Other loan interests aren't deductible but home mortgage interest is. Why isn't the special treatment for this one type of interest a loophole? But the point is that there is no objective test for whether something is a loophole. Roughly speaking, it's something that is given a special break relative to other things that are similar and objectively should have similar treatment perhaps as a social engineering way to encourage things, perhaps as a special gift to a privileged group. Objectively, home mortgage interest is essentially no different from credit card interest and there's no reason taxes should treat them differently.

I'm not sure why it's a loophole that you pay Massachusetts tax for a purchase made in a store in Massachusetts but not for a purchase not made in a store in Massachusetts. If that's a "loophole" then so is mortgage interest being deductible if it's for a home but not for a car. At least in the sales tax case, it's the absence of a State nexus that controls taxability, not the product purchased.

Okay, fine. So what *Federal* loopholes would he close?

If Romney is going to keep his plan a secret, there is no way I can evaluate whether it's a good plan or not. Bluntly, it seems *impossible* -- they're just aren't the kinds of loopholes that would create enough revenue, other than loopholes that would hit the middle class and small businesses heavily.

Is the earned income tax credit a "loophole"? I don't know if Romney considers it one. Is the home mortgage interest deduction a loophole in Romney's eyes? What about the self-employed health insurance deduction? Frankly, I have no idea what his plan is, and I can't reliably assess who it will help and who it will hurt. This is a huge *negative* against Romney to me.

That's a good way to not answer my question. Do we know of even one loophole Romney would close? Romney said part of his plan was closing loopholes, but the only loopholes that make any real difference are loopholes used by average middle class people such as the home mortgage interest deduction. Regardless of what tricks he has up his sleeves, either closing loopholes is a bogus promise or he should be able to give at least one example of a loophole he might want to close. It sounds like he's promising to do magic.

I have to make much the same point with his comment about cutting government funding of public broadcasting. I think he's right and that's a good example of government spending that could be cut, largely a subsidy to the rich. But if that's the best example he can come up with -- something that won't make any difference to the bottom line -- it suggests he has no better ideas and has no plan for things to actually cut that will make an actual difference.

That's a really good question. Based on long-term party history, you have to favor the Republicans on this. But based on short-term party history, neither party has done much when they were in power. It used to be that you could at least figure that if Congress and the President are from opposite parties, compromise will hold down spending. But a lot of the recent compromise has been "you spend money where I want, and I'll let you spend money where you want". Honestly, I'd say it's a pretty close tie with maybe a slight edge to Romney because he might actually return to old-school Republican reductions in government spending. But if you want tax increases to be part of the solution over cutting government services, then you may prefer Obama, even if you don't think he'll cut the deficit quite as much.

Closing loopholes would have the equivalent effect of raising tax on the high income earners, without actually raising tax. The top 5% pays 60% of the income tax, as stated in the debate. It's quite brilliant actually, so brilliant that Obama actually stole Romney's idea in the debate, saying HE will close loopholes, which I thought was pretty shameless, Obama has had the job for 4 years, and closed 0 loopholes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX_1B0w7Hzc&list=PL96675BDF95286773&index=1&feature=plcp

The government shouldn't subsidize ANYTHING.

M

LittleShop/JoelKatz

If you were a one-issue voter, debt-reduction was your single issue, and you had to vote for Obama or Romney, who would you vote for?

I'm asking because I'm legitimately curious. I was planning on not voting this election but decided that even though neither is a good candidate, their outlooks are sufficiently different that it *might* impact the debt situation.

Just curious to hear what your opinions are, and anyone else who feels they have a well-researched opinion on the matter.

As for me, I'm weighing a four year period where Obama did nothing to address the $1 trillion dollar deficits he inherited from bush in his entire four year term, vs. Romney clearly lying about the net effect of his 20% across the board tax cut and his litmus test of 'not adding to the deficit' as a freakishly low bar given our deficit spending rate these days.

On the plus side for Romney, he did balance the budget in Mass. but its not as impressive as it sounds. Massachusetts, like most US states, has a balanced budget law that requires the budget to balance every year.

Thoughts?

He has said he will not raise taxes for anyone, even the high earners.  He has said what he will not cut in terms of the budget, leaving no room to balance the budget.  Getting rid of big bird is not going to be enough.  Obama has not outlined a plan that will do it either. 

A combination of taxing higher earners 39% , a 10% defense cut, stopping subsidy money to oil and farming interests as well as moderate cuts throughout the budget could do it.  Neither side has the balls to do it.