President Obama: The Most Polarizing Moderate Ever

Mitt Romney's Secret Fundraiser Remarks Put The Lie To Supply-Side Economics
Posted: 09/19/2012 2:21 pm Updated: 09/19/2012 5:47 pm

WASHINGTON -- Lying just beneath Mitt Romney's dismissal of nearly half the electorate at a high-dollar fundraiser in May is an admission not as immediately damaging, but perhaps more important in the long run.

Romney told his donors back then that his campaign's political calculation assumes people who do not pay federal income taxes will not be interested in a candidate who proposes tax cuts. But that ignores the decades-long argument that the GOP has employed on behalf of tax cuts -- that wealth in the private sector will "trickle down" and spur economic growth, and therefore benefit everybody. If trickle-down economics is true, Romney should have no problem selling it to all the people who will supposedly benefit.

Unless he doesn't buy it either.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1897501.html

And Romney said not a word about all the redistribution upward in a tax code that favors investment over labor income. That’s why Romney pays federal taxes at a much lower rate than do many in middle class — and why, given his stress on the importance of paying income taxes, he might usefully release a few more of his own tax returns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...y.html?hpid=z3

Mr. Stewart once again shows Fox News to be propagandists for the Republican Party.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1899787.html

http://www.dailykos.com/

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.
And I mean the president starts off with 48,49... he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. So he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Others have dissected the fallacies of the 47 percent figure; the presumption that those 47 percent pay no taxes at all, when in practice often they pay more taxes, as a percentage of their income, than others; the rather unremarkable circumstances that can land one in that bracket, by definition unremarkable if nearly half of the nation can count itself a part of it, and so on. That the figure is a favored talking point of lower wingnuttia is also not especially surprising, as the Mitt campaign staff seems to fairly wallow in those dregs.
No, what impresses me most about Mitt's little Sermon by the Fount is that, remarkably, we may have found an instance in which Mitt Romney actually believes what he says. He speaks easily, and off the cuff; much of the awkwardness of his public appearances is, seemingly, tempered. This is not something memorized and delivered by rote. Wherever Mitt first heard this thing, he believes it, and has internalized it, and has internalized the inherent irresponsibility and entitlement of, according to him, approximately half of the nation.

You cannot write off "who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing" as merely inelegant wording. That is not an inelegant expression of campaign strategy towards half of America; it is, however, a perfectly elegant statement of contempt for them. There are plenty of ways to note that half of America will not be voting for you without lumping the lot of them together as believers in their own victimhood, or people who merely think of themselves as entitled to free things. We have moved on from belittling the help to belittling wide swaths of the retired, of troops overseas, of people working two jobs, or three. It is now half of America that has been assigned shameful loafer status, and by a room full of people who have multiple homes, who may have a yacht here or there, who may summer in the Hamptons, and who have more money to spend on a single speech and plateful of food than half the country might see in a year. And there is Mitt, giving the speech that does it. Members of the wait staff flit in and out of the picture as he delivers these remarks: Shirkers, slackers and hooligans, the lot of them.

Obama Praised ‘Competition’ And ‘Innovation’ In 1998 Remarks


PEMA LEVY SEPTEMBER 20, 2012, 7:44 AM 2723
Republicans’ line of attack this week is that President Obama favors wealth-redistribution policies based on a clip of Obama from 1998 in which he says he believes in “redistribution” — setting up the campaign as a choice between free enterprise and big government.

But the clip circulated by Republicans fails to include part of Obama’s remarks in which he went on to advocate for “competition” and “innovation,” according to a video of the full relevant remarks obtained by NBC News. The clip used by Republicans was posted to YouTube Tuesday by a user who has not been identified, according to an ABC News report.

“I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody’s got a shot,” Obama says in the clip released earlier this week.

In the fuller remarks, Obama went on to say: “How do we pool resources at the same time as we decentralize delivery systems in ways that both foster competition, can work in the marketplace, and can foster innovation at the local level and can be tailored to particular communities.”


http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/20...ref=fpnewsfeed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...g.html?hpid=z1


But now NBC News has obtained the rest of Obama’s comments, and it is clear his remarks were taken completely out of context. Obama is not talking about redistributing wealth at all — instead, he speaks about competition, the market place and innovation in an effort to improve government services in Chicago.
Nevertheless, the Romney campaign had seized on the remark as evidence of Obama’s apparently socialist tendencies. “You know, President Obama said he believes in redistribution,” GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said Tuesday. “Mitt Romney and I are not running to redistribute the wealth. Mitt Romney and I are running to help Americans create wealth.”
Below is the YouTube version — which now has more than 500,000 views — touted by the Romney campaign. You can see it is missing the section outlined in bold in the quote above.

A Romney campaign spokesman said that the campaign only had the clip that was used on YouTube, not the rest of the Obama’s remarks.
We realize that the Romney campaign was trying to change the subject from the damaging video of Romney’s remarks in a private gathering just a few months ago. Perhaps this is a lesson that they might check the facts before they rush out with unfounded accusations — let alone ones based on remarks from the distant political past.

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Gotta love this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...738_story.html


The financial tide has turned against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his key allies, who spent more than they brought in and were outraised by President Obama during the month of August, according to disclosures filed Thursday.

Romney’s presidential campaign committee raised nearly $67 million last month — a strong figure — but spent about the same amount building its campaign organization and responding to a barrage of attack ads from Obama and his allies. Even so, the campaign spent just $13.7 million on ads, which was less than the $15 million it spent in July.


Romney was also forced to take out a $20 million loan because the campaign had run out of money raised during the primary season. The campaign also fell behind in its attempts to reach grass-roots donors despite the addition of tea party favorite Paul Ryan to the ticket, records show.

The spending left the campaign with about $50 million cash on hand at the start of September, not including the remaining debt, according to the disclosures.

Obama’s campaign account, by contrast, had nearly $90 million on hand going into September, even after spending $83 million in August. Officials said Obama had 1.19 million donors last month — more than a third of its total for the 2012 cycle.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-more-cam...-election.html



WASHINGTON (AP) — At the end of August, President Barack Obama had about $88.8 million to spend on the final months of the campaign, nearly twice as much as Republican rival Mitt Romney, according to campaign fundraising reports released Thursday.
While Romney's report showed he had $50.4 million to spend as of Aug. 31, he also owed $15 million on a $20 million loan taken that month.
The loan helped Romney pay for mailings, staff salaries and TV advertising — and it helped his finances appear healthier on paper. It also boosted his cash-on-hand total from $35.4 million — a number that's closer to a third of Obama's haul.
While Romney raised about $66.6 million in August to Obama's $84.7 million, the $20 million loan boosts Romney's total receipts to $86.6 million, slightly higher than his Democratic opponent's take.
Both Romney and Obama spent about as much as they raised during the month of August. Romney spent about $66.4 million, while Obama spent about $83.7 million.
Romney and the Republican Party raised more than $111 million combined. That was less than Obama and the Democrats, who raised more than $114 million.
Romney took out a $20 million loan in late August, in the days before his campaign had access to funds they had raised for the general election because he was not yet the official nominee. He used general election money as collateral for the loan.

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/09...its-80145.html

And then, well, here’s a sampling.

• Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard: “It's worth recalling that a good chunk of the 47 percent who don't pay income taxes are Romney supporters—especially of course seniors (who might well "believe they are entitled to heath care," a position Romney agrees with), as well as many lower-income Americans (including men and women serving in the military) who think conservative policies are better for the country even if they're not getting a tax cut under the Romney plan. So Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him.

“It remains important for the country that Romney wins in November (unless he chooses to step down and we get the Ryan-Rubio ticket we deserve!). But that shouldn't blind us to the fact that Romney's comments, like those of Obama four years ago, are stupid and arrogant.” http://bit.ly/OM58Q8

• Michael Gerson in the Washington Post: “Republican ideology pitting the “makers” against the “takers” offers nothing. No sympathy for our fellow citizens. No insight into our social challenge. No hope of change. This approach involves a relentless reductionism. Human worth is reduced to economic production. Social problems are reduced to personal vices. Politics is reduced to class warfare on behalf of the upper class.” http://wapo.st/SenhfB

•

This is a core SiriuslyWrong talking point taken apart right before your very eyes. lol

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...y.html?hpid=z3
Five Myths
Challenging everything you think you know
Five myths about the 47 percent

By William G. Gale and Donald B. Marron, Published: September 21

As Mitt Romney recently noted, about 47 percent of U.S. households do not pay federal income taxes. Some see this as evidence of a welfare state run amok. Others think that gimmicks and loopholes let both rich and poor Americans duck their taxes. Let’s correct some misconceptions about about this group, now colloquially called the 47 percent.

1. Forty-seven percent of Americans don’t pay taxes.

The most pernicious misconception about people who don’t pay federal income taxes is that they don’t pay any taxes. That oft-heard claim ignores all the other taxes Americans encounter in their daily lives. Almost two-thirds of the 47 percent work, for example, and their payroll taxes help finance Social Security and Medicare. Accounting for this, the share of households paying no net federal taxes falls to 28 percent

And those aren’t the only other taxes they bear. According to economic research, the corporate income tax discourages domestic investment; that depresses wages, so workers are effectively paying some of the corporate tax. More directly, many households pay federal taxes on gasoline, beer and cigarettes. And then there are state and local sales, property and income taxes — all of which are often less progressive than the federal income tax. Putting all these together, a family of three with an income of $30,000 would owe no federal income tax (in fact, they would get money back). But they could easily pay more than $4,500, or 15 percent of their income, in taxes.



Keep reading.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...190_story.html

In an elegant dining room where the self-satisfaction was thick enough to cut with a knife, Romney made clear that he sees this election as “us” vs. “them” — wealthy Republicans vs. the unwashed hordes, makers vs. takers. Romney believes half of America is lazy, dependent and, frankly, not too bright.

Voters will soon have the opportunity to show him we’re not as stupid as he thinks.

During his failed 1994 Senate race, Mitt Romney tried to reassure liberal Massachusetts voters that "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush; I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush." Now, Reagan's ghost is getting his revenge.

After Romney defended the carried interest exemption that allows him to pay a lower tax rate than many middle-class families, the Gipper's apparition emerged from 1985 to insist that "the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver." And now that Mitt Romney has slandered the 47 percent of Americans who pay no federal income taxes thanks to measures like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the ghost of Reagan is haunting him once again.

As BusinessWeek explained, it was with good reason that President Reagan described the EITC as "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress."

Reagan strongly supported the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which sends checks to Americans who work but earn less than around $46,000 a year, depending on family size. Recipients of the credit are among those who don't pay income tax, but Reagan never regarded that as a problem. His administration estimated that the 1986 reform of the tax code would remove 6 million working poor from the tax rolls. Reagan called the reform a "sweeping victory for fairness" and "perhaps the biggest antipoverty program in our history."
Which is exactly right.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162...y-in-one-term/

Mr. Clinton connected Romney's tax rate to the larger political debate about the economy, taxes and the deficit.

"I don't think we can get out of this hole we're in if people at that income level only pay 13 or 14 percent," he added.

As for Mitt Romney's comments about 47 percent of Americans who don't pay federal income tax, Mr. Clinton said they are out of the federal income tax pool, in part, because of the economic crash. He also said a reason is because of bipartisan efforts to reduce the tax burden on working families.

He said that as president he doubled the Earned Income Tax Credit and President George W. Bush doubled the Child Tax Credit. An "enormous number of these people who were dropped out were dropped out for reasons of work and family, not dependents. These people are working their hearts out," Mr. Clinton said.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/b...-election.html



Bill Clinton: Romney’s ’47 percent’ remark could haunt him in debates
By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 7 hrs ago

Bill Clinton thinks the upcoming presidential debates are crucial for Mitt Romney, and that the Republican candidate's controversial "47 percent" remarks could come back to haunt him.
"I think if he's going to double down on that 47 percent remark, that will cause difficulties," the former president told Piers Morgan on Tuesday in an interview taped at the Clinton Global Initiative. "Because we now know the overwhelming number of those people work and have children, and the reason they don't pay federal income taxes is that median income is as low as it was in 1995 now, and until the current election season, Republicans and Democrats supported both the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit."
In a secretly taped video published by Mother Jones last week, Romney told attendees of a fundraiser that President Barack Obama's core supporters—47 percent of voters, according to the GOP hopeful—"believe they are victims" and "are dependent upon government."
"This is a rejection of basically more than three decades of bipartisan policy to support working families," Clinton said. "It's not a bunch of freeloaders."

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/20...ref=fpnewsfeed
Mitt Romney argued Tuesday that President Obama has not yet raised taxes during his presidency, contradicting a line of attack congressional Republicans have lobbed against the president for years.

“I admit this, he has one thing he did not do in his first four years, he’s said he’s going to do in his next four years, which is to raise taxes,” Romney told a crowd at a campaign stop in Vandalia, Ohio.

The Republican nominee’s assessment is mostly accurate — as president, Obama temporarily cut taxes for working families via the 2009 stimulus package and signed an extension of all the Bush-era tax cuts until the end of this year. He intends to let the lower rates expire on incomes above $250,000 expire in January 2013.

Averting a tax increase on high incomes is a top Republican goal.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...ref=fpnewsfeed

SAHIL KAPUR OCTOBER 2, 2012, 10:44 AM 952
Mitt Romney’s health care platform would leave 72 million Americans without insurance by the year 2022, according to a new study by the Commonwealth Fund. President Obama’s approach, the researchers found, would mean 27.1 million are uninsured.

The study illustrates a stark contrast between the two candidates’ health care platforms. The projections are derived by contrasting the impacts of Obama’s plan to implement the Affordable Care Act with Romney’s promise to repeal it and scale back Medicaid. (Romney’s proposed Medicare changes would only take effect after 2022.)

“The health reform law will reduce the number of uninsured people by an estimated 32.9 million, leaving 27.1 million people uninsured,” the report said. By contrast, “Nationally, Romney’s proposals are estimated to increase the number of uninsured people by 12 million compared with the baseline (no Affordable Care Act), leaving 72 million people uninsured in 2022.”

The Commonwealth Fund study concluded that repealing the Affordable Care Act — which would unwind the subsidies and market reforms to expand coverage and roll back the law’s expansion of Medicaid — would swell the ranks of the uninsured. Taken together, Romney’s other proposals to convert Medicaid into a block grant and equalize the tax treatment of employer-provided and individually-purchased insurance would add to that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/op...t-jobs.html?hp

If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Friday’s better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right — and we’re not just talking fringe figures — was to cry conspiracy.

Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the “B.L.S. truthers” was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obama’s re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.

It was nonsense, of course. Job numbers are prepared by professional civil servants, at an agency that currently has no political appointees. But then maybe Mr. Welch — under whose leadership G.E. reported remarkably smooth earnings growth, with none of the short-term fluctuations you might have expected (fluctuations that reappeared under his successor) — doesn’t know how hard it would be to cook the jobs data.

DANVILLE, Ky. — Whatever Joe Biden was drinking Thursday night, Barack Obama ought to order a case of it.

Biden took on Paul Ryan in the one and only vice presidential debate and did what Obama had failed to do last week in his debate with Mitt Romney: Biden not only won over the audience, but got under his opponent’s skin.

Biden smirked, sneered, and openly laughed at many of Ryan’s responses. It could have looked rude, but Biden made it look tough.

After all, Biden was the 69-year-old defender and Ryan was the 42-year-old challenger. But by the end of the evening, Joltin’ Joe had done real damage to his opponent.

In fact, as the 90 minutes flew by - - it was the rare debate where one actually wanted it to go longer - - Ryan began looking younger and younger. And not in a good way.

Both men have been in politics most of their adult lives, but Biden’s adult life has been longer. Biden was in the Senate so long, he knows a dozen ways of observing outward forms of politeness, while sticking a knife in your ribs and twisting it.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz293x570Me

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/1...ustrian-School

I was completely unsuprised when the New York Times wrote back in August that Paul Ryan is a fan of the economist Friedrich von Hayek, a member of the Austrian school of economics. After all, the Ryan budget takes from those mooching poors and gives to the rich übermenschen who've earned the upward redistribution of wealth because CAPITALISM! Ayn Rand couldn't have designed a more sociopathic budget herself, and we're talking about a woman who thought there was something praiseworthy about William Edward Hickman.

But in the same way that libertarians generally espouse Rand's ideas about the evilness of traditional values like altruism and equality, they've also decided to endorse yet another fantasy world where the rules are made up and the facts don't matter. If you don't know much about the Austrian school, they're so far up their own asses that they think Milton Friedman is a socialist. That's not even the looniest part about the Austrian school, the favored economic system of most Randists and Libertarians.

If you're like me, you may have found yourself yelling some version of "there are four lights!" or "Two Plus Two Equals Four!" at republicans on television over the past few months. You may have loved Bill Clinton's mathtastic takedown of the Republican party at the DNC. But Paul Ryan's economic theory is much harder to rubble, because it relies on special magic math that is immune, in the eyes of its beholders, from any kind of outside criticism.

Im happy to bring this thread to s close. I hope all reasonable people are able to see now that i was correct in describing President Obama as a fairly moderate, center/left politician and not a radical Communist as Mr.Siriuslywrong has suggested.

Justin Green:
"...How could he possibly have a shot at being re-elected, people must think, if he is so bad for America? Because the truth is, he isn't so awful, and most people know it.

As a Romney supporting, moderate Republican, here's my basic view of the President. He is a liberal man who has governed (whether by design or fate) in a largely pragmatic, centrist style. Obamacare has origins on the right, as does the stimulus, and his execution of foreign policy is not unlike his predecessor."



It has truly been fun debating here. Hasta luego.