U.S. 2012 Election

[Rifleman62]

I realize it is public record. Lets say someone gives Bloggins 200 bucks. That's 50 bucks for you Bogglins, and we will send 150 bucks for you, in your name, to, quote THE President unquote.

 

[Redeye]

I realize it is public record. Lets say someone gives Bloggins 200 bucks. That's 50 bucks for you Bogglins, and we will send 150 bucks for you, in your name, to, quote THE President unquote.

I'm not even going to touch that with a ten foot pole, other than to say, I don't suppose you happen to have any evidence to suggest that happens?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Yup, no such thing as bogus campaign contributions  :facepalm:

FFS! Welcome to 2012 :

 

[vonGarvin]

He can spent it on attacking - or he can spend it on presenting ideas - I hope for the latter, but American politics doesn't lend well to expecting that.

FTFY.  Politics isn't about ideas: it's about marketing.  Looks matter.  Rational discourse is above the masses.  It's all groupthink and going with the flow and trying to not upset the boat.  Most of all, it's to appear to not be a knuckle-dragger or insensitive.  And it's all over, not just in the USA. 

I agree, however, that the attack ads (etc) in the USA appear to be more viscious and prevalent.  But then again, I don't think the USA could fart without the world noticing.

 

[Kirkhill]

.......

You mentioned ethanol subsidies, that's one part of a complex, ridiculous series of problems in American agriculture that I'm starting to study with great interest. Again, that is a whole other complex kettle of fish.

....

I wouldn't look too hard or make it too complex when it comes to agriculture.

In a world of finite resources (although infinite possibilities) one of the most finite is arable land.  There are only so many hectares available to convert sunlight to carbon calories.  Those carbon calories can be used as food or as fuel.  If they are used as fuel they are not available as food.  Food is scarce.  Fuel isn't. 

Digging up carbon from the ground permits us to build, and feed, more people.
Burning fields of food in cars will inevitably lead to higher prices, more starvation and fewer people.

Ethanol, Biodiesel, Switchgrass Biomass......it makes no odds.  A burnt food is a wasted food.  And that is equally true in Europe where they are burning their agricultural surpluses to inflate local prices and support their ridiculous Common Agricultural Policy that is keeping African farmers trapped on backyard plots.

You want a simple, understandable policy for Democrats and Republicans to run on?  Don't Burn Food.

 

[Brad Sallows]

"the issue the Americans have is not entitlement programs - but that they want the programs but don't want to pay for them"

Looking around the world, that is really just a template for the critical economic problems of the day:

"the issue the [nationality] have is not entitlement programs - but that they want the programs but don't want to pay for them"

But looking at the numbers, a focus on whether the problem is "willingness to pay" is a diversion from the real problem: the required amounts are literally much larger than the ability of a nation to produce wealth - "ability to pay".

 

[Brad Sallows]

"The Republicans will likely offer their usual position of tax cuts and deregulation, and the Democrats will again argue that they didn't work before, and there's no reason to expect they will now, especially when coupled with the current fiscal mess."

The Democrats seem to be on board with at least some tax cuts (FICA holiday).  Their only real objection seems to be with respect to income taxation rates "for the rich", notwithstanding the fact that unless "rich" is stretched to include "middle class", there literally is not enough income to solve the revenue/expenditure imbalance.  As to regulation, plenty of new regulations were added in the last three years, many of which are claimed to be counterproductive to growing the economy.  Is that also to be included among things that have been tried and did not work?

 

[Redeye]

Yup, no such thing as bogus campaign contributions  :facepalm:

FFS! Welcome to 2012 :

Evidence please. And evidence, specifically, that only one particular party engages in such practices. Otherwise I'll just ignore the assertion as being baseless.

 

[Redeye]

"The Republicans will likely offer their usual position of tax cuts and deregulation, and the Democrats will again argue that they didn't work before, and there's no reason to expect they will now, especially when coupled with the current fiscal mess."

The Democrats seem to be on board with at least some tax cuts (FICA holiday).  Their only real objection seems to be with respect to income taxation rates "for the rich", notwithstanding the fact that unless "rich" is stretched to include "middle class", there literally is not enough income to solve the revenue/expenditure imbalance.  As to regulation, plenty of new regulations were added in the last three years, many of which are claimed to be counterproductive to growing the economy.  Is that also to be included among things that have been tried and did not work?

The Democrats do indeed agree with certain tax cuts, particularly the FICA holiday in the hope it might spur hiring and consumption. It's true that "taxing the rich" alone will not solve their problems, and they do have to address spending, and neither party seems to have a grasp on how to do that, not least in part because they won't touch defence spending.

 

[a_majoor]

The math is pretty simple and frightening, the real question is which candidates are willing to look the electorate in the eye and tell them (or follow through once elected):

http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/12/27/its-the-math-stupid-seven-devastating-facts-about-2012/

It’s the Math, Stupid!: Seven Devastating Facts About 2012
by Wynton Hall

As we enter 2012, the presidential candidates would do well to wrap their minds and messages around these seven mathematical facts:

Every day, the U.S. government takes in $6 billion and spends $10 billion.  This means that every day the federal government spends $4 billion more dollars than it has.

The real unemployment rate is a jaw-dropping 11 percent.

Every fifth man you pass on your way to work is now out of work.

College graduates are now 34% less likely to find a job under Obama than they were under President George W. Bush.

Every seventh person you pass on the sidewalk now relies on food stamps.

The ravages of the Obama economy now mean that more Americans live under the federal poverty line than at any time in U.S. history since records have been kept.

Under President Barack Obama, every fifth child in America now lives in poverty.

These are not partisan jabs, manufactured statistics, or ideological swipes.  These are mathematical facts.  And the presidential candidate who can most clearly and credibly articulate them—and their concomitant solutions—is bound to win.

Why?  Because these facts point toward the solutions America must implement to avert the kinds of economic and social upheaval seen in Europe and elsewhere.

Start with mathematical fact number one—deficit spending.  No person, family, business, or nation can spend more than it takes in and remain sustainable; it defies the simple laws of math and reason.  And yet even as Washington hemorrhages $4 billion more than it has each day, citizens have watched as the farce that is “Super Committee” has proven it cannot even shave $1.2 trillion from America’s $15 trillion debt.

The time for carping over the appropriate size of government is over.  The laws of math have settled the argument: either we return to limited government or we face economic collapse.  Those are the choices.  Period.  As Robert Samuelson noted yesterday, “We are shifting from ‘give away politics’ to ‘take away politics.’”

Mathematical facts two and three—11% real unemployment and 20% male unemployment rate—focus the nation on the priorities of spurring economic growth, eliminating Obamacare, and adapting to the realities of the digital economy.  Why aren’t employers hiring?  As a September 2011 report by UBS explained, “arguably the biggest impediment to hiring (particularly hiring of less skilled workers) is healthcare reform.”  And lest one forget, Obamacare hasn’t even gone into full effect and won’t until 2014.  Even still, under Mr. Obama, the average family’s health insurance premiums have risen $2,393.

As for the male unemployment rate, the problem is threefold.  First, male graduation rates continue to lag behind those of women.  Second, American manufacturing, which used to be a primary source of male employment, is dying a quick death.  Third, incarceration rates of males continue to skyrocket.  In 1982, there were 500,000 people in prison (the majority of them males).  Today, that figure stands at a towering 2.5 million.  And that is to speak nothing of those whose crimes do not warrant jail time but will nonetheless permanently appear on their record when applying for a job.
Once former inmates and those with arrest records attempt to enter the workforce, they will be slapped by the new reality of the digital economy: no longer can people with blights on their record fudge or fib on job applications; employers can and do run national background checks for a few dollars and the click of a mouse.

What this means is that the old days when a kid could mess up and rebound are rapidly evaporating as competition among job applicants becomes fiercer by the minute.  Couple this with fact number four—a drop in college graduate employment from 90% under Mr. Bush to 56% under Mr. Obama—and the fierce competition of a digital age comes into sharp relief.

Facts five, six, and seven—1 in 7 Americans on food stamps, 46 million under the poverty line, and historic childhood poverty rates—speak to the failures of Mr. Obama’s entire economic approach.  Again, the argument over whether government should spend more on social programs has already been settled by the laws of math.  Mr. Obama has added more to the national debt than all presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan–combined.  The Keynesian experiment has been a miserable failure.  Math doesn’t lie.

These seven facts mean that all presidential candidates must speak to a singular reality: America is a debtor nation.  Indeed, America has $15 trillion less than the homeless man you see on the street.  Put another way, that homeless man is $15 trillion richer than the United States of America.  All the presidential candidates–including Mr. Obama–should stop and ponder that reality for a moment.

After all, it’s a mathematical fact.

As Brad says, people have been fed the idea that you can have something and not pay for it, but as Margaret Thatcher told us, we have run out of other people's money. A surge in economic growth is needed for many reasons (employing people and deleveraging come to mind); the multi trillion dollar explosion in spending since the Democrats took the Congress in 2006 demonstrates what does not work and emptied the till, so the only open options are in the opposite direction anyway.

The Presidential election is highly symbolic, but unless there is a sea change in the political culture, the range of options and the time frame to fix the damage will narrow down to nothing. Look for the downline elections and see what sorts of candidates and solutions are presented (and win) at the State, municipal, local level and the judiciary to see how American politics will play out for decades to come.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Two good, true, ideas jump out at me from this and the related US Economy threads:

1. Entitlements, for which someone must pay or which, if we/they run out of payers, must be reformed (a nice word for slashed), are THE most serious US budget problem; and

2. The way to achieve necessary reforms, in the mid to long term, is for the GOP, led, for the moment, by the Tea Party movement, inchoate though it may be, to gain control of city and state governments.

 

[a_majoor]

Who needs attack ads when you simply substitute an alternative reality?

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/02/obama-re-election-congress/

Obama Enters the Twilight Zone
Peter Wehner
01.02.2012 - 11:25 AM
 
If you want to gain a better appreciation for the fantasy world that President Obama is trying to create in order to win re-election, you couldn’t do much better than to read this New York Times story. The thrust of the article is that the president is planning to step up his offensive against an unpopular Congress, concluding that he cannot pass any major legislation in 2012 because of Republican hostility to his agenda. He intends to “hammer the theme of economic justice for ordinary Americans rather than continue his legislative battles with Congress,” said Joshua R. Earnest, the president’s deputy press secretary, previewing the White House’s strategy.

But here’s where things get interesting. “In terms of the president’s relationship with Congress in 2012,” Earnest said at a briefing, “the president is no longer tied to Washington, D.C.”

True enough. Obama isn’t tied to Washington, D.C.; it’s more accurate to say he embodies it. He is, after all, the nation’s chief executive. He lives in the White House. His desk is located in the West Wing. And his home and work area code is 202. Obama is primus inter pares of the political class.

Moreover, Obama, during the first two years of his presidency, was enormously successful in getting his agenda enacted into law. He got almost everything he wanted, which some of us believe is precisely the problem. And to the extent that we’re facing a “do-nothing” Congress today, the responsibility lies with the Democratically-controlled Senate, not the GOP House. These days the Senate (which has not passed a budget in more than 900 days) is the place legislation goes to die.

But to really enter the Twilight Zone, consider these two priceless sentences from the Times story: “Winning a full-year extension of the payroll tax, Mr.  Earnest said, will still be a top priority. He noted that House Republicans were now also arguing that it should be extended for a year, after some initially opposed extending it at all.”

Come again? On December 13, the GOP House passed a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut – and was promptly criticized by – you guessed it — the president. Obama favored a much shorter, two-month extension. House Republicans, under intense political pressure, eventually agreed to the two-month extension. Now the White House is declaring a full-year extension is a “top priority.” Yet as recently as three weeks ago the opposition to the president’s “top priority” came not from House Republicans but from Obama himself.

We are now reaching the point in which the president is running a truly post-modern campaign, in which there is no objective truth but simply narrative. Obama’s campaign isn’t simply distorting the facts; it is inverting them. This kind of thing isn’t unusual to find in the academy. But to see a president and his campaign so thoroughly deconstruct truth in order to maintain power is quite rare. The sheer audacity of Obama’s cynicism is a wonder of the modern world.

 

[exabedtech]

This generation has grown up with the understanding that you do not have to balance your income with expenses.  You can expend whatever you choose by simply borrowing more. Should that fail, you can always declare bankruptcy and start all over again.  When you compound that view with the fact that the government has only so many years to offer enough handouts to ensure re-election,  the one thing you can count on is that rather than solutions, there will be finger-pointing.  Will the US be able to solve its economic mess?  Not in my opinion unless of course they can find a crapload of oil since that's what REALLY makes the world go round.  Yes, Canada has a better banking system but the real reason we are weathering the storm has more to do with Ft MacMurray than Ottawa.  Thank god for that! 
So where does this leave the US?  They may simply need to get used to lower standards of services and of course lower standards of living.  Not like they'd be the first empire to go down that road.

 

[Redeye]

Who needs attack ads when you simply substitute an alternative reality?

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/02/obama-re-election-congress/

A great link with great spin. Why did President Obama blast the GOP for this? Because it was a poison pill-filled bill the GOP pass, one he had stated that he would veto because it contained a number of provisions unrelated to payroll tax hikes that were totally unacceptable to the White House. In fact, it wouldn't likely have gotten that far, because it never would have passed the Senate either, because of all the extraneous provisions. Here's a counterpoint story that explains it. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/13/1044900/-House-votes-on-payroll-tax-extension-plan-today?via=blog_595751

Moral: don't believe everything you read until you get the whole story.

 

[muskrat89]

Moral: don't believe everything you read until you get the whole story

Unless redeye reads it and agrees - and then of course, it's gospel. You don't see how silly it looks to constantly refute others' sources while touting your own? We get it. Nothing is true on Fox, everything is true on MSNBC.

 

[Redeye]

Unless redeye reads it and agrees - and then of course, it's gospel. You don't see how silly it looks to constantly refute others' sources while touting your own? We get it. Nothing is true on Fox, everything is true on MSNBC.

Actually, I generally check the facts from multiple sources. This particular example stuck out because it was such a glaringly inaccurate statement. Most interestingly, as I understand it MSNBC didn't really cover it in any depth either - but it took me about 30 seconds looking for more of the story to get more detail. While several sources had the info, the DailyKOS, which often has great commentary, covered the key points in the most detailed but concise manner.

Let's recall that no less than seven separate studies found Fox News viewers to be more misinformed than viewers of CNN or MSNBC - or even that people who don't even report watching news regularly. I can't help that, as Stephen Colbert said, "Facts have a well known liberal bias."

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Actually, I generally check the facts from multiple sources. This particular example stuck out because it was such a glaringly inaccurate statement. Most interestingly, as I understand it MSNBC didn't really cover it in any depth either - but it took me about 30 seconds looking for more of the story to get more detail. While several sources had the info, the DailyKOS, which often has great commentary, covered the key points in the most detailed but concise manner.

Let's recall that no less than seven separate studies found Fox News viewers to be more misinformed than viewers of CNN or MSNBC - or even that people who don't even report watching news regularly. I can't help that, as Stephen Colbert said, "Facts have a well known liberal bias."

The only sources you check are the ones that agree with your POV. Your skull is brainlocked to reject anything outside your norm.

We understand your game. You are not a 'go to' person for this stuff.

It's not suprising the the Ignore button gets so much use.

 

[Redeye]

The only sources you check are the ones that agree with your POV. Your skull is brainlocked to reject anything outside your norm.

We understand your game. You are not a 'go to' person for this stuff.

It's not suprising the the Ignore button gets so much use.

Hey, you don't have to agree with reality, it doesn't really care what you think.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/

Dramatic night in Iowa
Romney edges Santorum by just 8 votes in caucuses

Mitt Romney beat rival Rick Santorum in what appears to be the closest-ever margin of victory in a GOP presidential contest. Ron Paul finished a close third.

FULL  STORY

Romney:    30,015 votes = 25%
Santorum:  30,007 votes = 25%
Paul:          26,219 votes = 21%
Gingrich:    16,251 votes = 13%

 

[a_majoor]

What the electorate actually wants seems distinctly different from what is on offer:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/3/what-happened-to-spending-cuts/

GHEI: What happened to spending cuts?
Debt ceiling to surge to $16.4 trillion
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES and Nita Ghei-The Washington Times Tuesday, January 3, 2012

President Obama sent a request last week to raise the debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion. That would push the limit on federal borrowing to an eye-popping $16.4 trillion, a move regarded as business as usual in Washington.

This was all set up last summer by the deal that created a deficit supercommittee to come up with an equivalent $1.2 trillion in offsetting budget cuts. Because Republicans and Democrats couldn’t agree on any specific budget reductions, there will be a “sequestration” of an equivalent amount - but actual spending won’t go down.

These “cuts” are only cuts by Washington math. Even with the sequester, the federal budget is expected to grow by $2 trillion by 2021. The difference is that the rate at which the federal government will grow will slow ever so slightly. No real effort has been made to take us off the same path as Greece and Europe’s other basket-case economies.

Even the insane amount of money the Internal Revenue Service extracts from Americans each year isn’t close to covering Uncle Sam’s spending addiction. The gap between spending and revenues is covered by borrowing, and the U.S. government currently asks countries including China for a loan of 36 cents for each $1 we spend. The bureaucracy costs $3.6 trillion, but the IRS and other revenue sources collected just $2.3 trillion. The remaining $1.3 trillion will have to be paid by future generations.

In theory, Congress could decline Mr. Obama’s request by passing a “resolution of disapproval.” This would be a mostly symbolic exercise because the president can veto the resolution, allowing the increase to go forward. It’s unlikely that even the House could come up with the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.

This isn’t what Americans want, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Thursday. The survey of 1,000 likely voters found a growing number want government to shrink. More than three-quarters of all those surveyed want the deficit cut, and 71 percent want government to cut spending. Even among the left-leaning voters who somehow think government isn’t doing enough, 52 percent want government to cut spending.

They’re not talking about the phony definition of “cut” that involves an ever-increasing budgetary base line. They mean actual spending in 2012 ought to be significantly lower than in 2011.

Americans, it would seem, have seen the results, or lack thereof, from Mr. Obama’s Keynesian stimulus spending spree. They don’t want programs that yield mountains of debt with little growth and no jobs. The larger the government sector, the greater is the burden on the productive sector. If the economy is to expand, Congress needs to start paying attention to what voters want. It needs to start thinking about serious ways to shrink the size of government.

We still have time to correct course before suffering an economic collapse like Greece. That means instead of increasing the debt ceiling, it’s time to close down nonessential government functions.

Nita Ghei is a contributing Opinion writer for The Washington Times.