Romney: Obama Is Saving the Economy
This year the Republicans tried resurrecting the old Reagan slogan, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" But it has backfired on them spectacularly. The Democrats have taken up the same slogan and waved it back in their faces, saying, yes we are a lot better off than we were when George W. Bush left office.
Think Progress remembered an interview that Mitt Romney did last winter with Laura Ingraham, where he had this to say:
Think Progress remembered an interview that Mitt Romney did last winter with Laura Ingraham, where he had this to say:
INGRAHAM: You’ve also noted that there are signs of improvement on the horizon in the economy. How do you answer the president’s argument that the economy is getting better in a general election campaign if you yourself are saying it’s getting better?I think they'll get better traction if they keep talking about welfare and Obama not being a real American. I am not sure if there are enough racists in the US to win an election but it might be their best bet.
ROMNEY: Well, of course it’s getting better. The economy always gets better after a recession, there is always a recovery. […]
INGRAHAM: Isn’t it a hard argument to make if you’re saying, like, OK, he inherited this recession, he took a bunch of steps to try to turn the economy around, and now, we’re seeing more jobs, but vote against him anyway? Isn’t that a hard argument to make? Is that a stark enough contrast?
ROMNEY: Have you got a better one, Laura? It just happens to be the truth.
Romney: U.S. economy ‘getting better’ under Obama
posted by JimK at 8:49 PM
55 Comments:
HuffPo reports:
"...Those looking for a convention bump may find what they are looking for in the Gallup daily tracking poll, which produced good news on Friday for President Barack Obama.
Gallup's last three nights of interviewing of adults, conducted Sept. 4 to 6, shows Obama with a 52 percent approval rating, the highest approval percentage reported for Obama on the Gallup tracking poll since May 2011, just after the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The latest results represent a seven percentage point increase in Obama's approval rating, from 45 percent, from Gallup's previous three-day sample, conducted Sept. 1 to 3. Each sample is based on interviews with roughly 1,500 adults and has a margin of sampling error of +/- 3 percent."
And Obama's likability has always been higher than his approval rating.
Carly Rothman, The Star Ledger reports
"...Mitt Romney still needs to overcome: the "beer gap."
As in, "Which candidate would you rather have a beer with?"
In 2000 and 2004, Republican George W. Bush took that prize -- and the presidency -- from his more seemingly straightlaced opponents. In fact, Gallup reports that in every presidential race beginning with the one in 1992, featuring Bill Clinton's matchup against the elder Bush and Ross Perot, the more likable candidate has won.
This time, it's the Democrat with the upper hand: Prior to the conventions, 17 percent more Americans said President Obama is more likable than Romney.
And a USA Today/Gallup poll taken before the conventions gave Obama higher marks than Romney in six other key leadership traits: 1) caring about "the needs of people like you," 2) honesty and trustworthiness, 3) inclination to stand up to special interest, including allies, 4) strength and decisiveness, 5) ability to work well with both parties, and 6) ability to manage government effectively. "
Meantime, Ann Romney Declines To Answer Questions On Gay Marriage, Contraception
this is Romney's major problem
his intro film at the RNC was much better than Obama's though, so they should have the same team work on their commercials
and even the likability gap may be overwhelmed by economic interests this time
also, this whole likability thing is majorly influenced by the debates when the two are side by side
Al Gore lost his election by sighing and acting pedantic in his debate
Reagan won his with easy-going jocularity versus Carter's somber preachiness
Kennedy won just by shaving
as we saw in the Spring, debating is a Romney strength
"This year the Republicans tried resurrecting the old Reagan slogan, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" But it has backfired on them spectacularly. The Democrats have taken up the same slogan and waved it back in their faces, saying, yes we are a lot better off than we were when George W. Bush left office."
well, a better question might be, are you better off than you were five years ago but, still, Americans are worse off than four years ago and, unfortunately, than two years ago
unemployment is higher now than the day obama took office
it's actually worst than that though because the unemployment rate has dropped because people have given up
right now, only 63% of civilians participate in the work force, tellingly the lowest since we were recovering from the carter mess
obama is going down the carter road
and even more ominous, household incomes have fallen faster since the "recovery" started than during the recession
just because Democrats "wave" things in people's faces, it doesn't mean anyone believes them
a couple of economic calamities occurred at the end of Bush's presidency, partly as a result of Democrat taking the Congress two years earlier
at the time, Democrats not exactly civic-minded, made things much worse by hyping as the Great Depression and shaking public confidence, which in turns affects the economy
had the same occurred at the six year mark in Bush's presidency, the economy would have already recovered and been moving briskly in 2008
everyone knows Obama has failed miserably and, even now, has no plan for returning America's economy to health
even Obama knows this
on Thursday night, he didn't mention obamacare or his stimulus programs and didn't mention any jobs program, past, present or future
some have accused him of purposely borrowing us to ruin to reduce us to a second-rate socialist power
it's hard to find any evidence that's not true
Bad anonymous said "unemployment is higher now than the day obama took office".
The truth is the unemployment rate was already rising sharply in the last year of the Bush presidency. During that time the unemployment rate rose 2.8 percent and it was impossible for Obama to turn the course of the economy around immediately, it took time to undo the effects of the Bush presidency and unemployment continued to rise to over 10% in October of 2009. By that time Obama policies had a chance to work and the unemployment rate has dropped slowly ever since.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2011/10/06/limbaugh-falsely-claims-obama-created-widesprea/181526
Bad anonoymous said "it's actually worst than that though because the unemployment rate has dropped because people have given up
The same can be said of the unemployment rate throughout the Bush term. There are actually four different types of unemployment rates. The most commonly used one is U3 which is the the number of people actively looking for work which is currently down 2 percentage points from its peak on Oct 2009. The next us U4 which is U3 plus "discouraged workers" who have given up looking for a job. U5 is U4 plus persons marginally attached to the work force. U6 is U5 plus people working part time who want fulltime work. the U4 through U6 unemployment measurements are always higher than the commonly quoted U3 measurement and this is true regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in power. So of course when Republicans are in power they quote the lower U3 number and when they are in opposition they quote one of the U4-U6 numbers to make it sound as though the Democrats have done much worse than them. For example while the Romney campaign now wants to point to one of the higher U4-U6 unemployment figures now that Obama is in power when Romney was governor he quoted the lower U3 unemployment number and the same was true for Gingrich and other Republicans when they were in power - they quoted the lower and commonly used U3 measure. So as you can see this Republican "Its worse than it looks" is a deception since they'd never admit that statement applied just as much when they were in power as it does now that the Democrats were in power.
Bad anonymous said "right now, only 63% of civilians participate in the work force, tellingly the lowest since we were recovering from the carter mess".
As with the "worse than it looks" unemployment numbers that Republican talking point is also misleading. It assumes those who stopped participating in the work force did so involuntarily when the truth is that many left voluntarily for reasons including retirement and the retirement rate has increased as baby boomers have retired througout the Obama term so of course the participation rate is lower.
http://factcheck.org/2012/02/whats-the-real-jobless-rate/
Bad anonymous said "and even more ominous, household incomes have fallen faster since the "recovery" started than during the recession".
Once again, another misleading Republican talking point. The economy Obama inherited was really just starting the death spiral set off by the financial crisis. Economies struck by major financial crises generally take 10 years to fully recover. The U.S. is currently in Year 5 after the crisis first hit. Since median household income hit bottom in the first quarter of 2010, it has risen about $769.36, not nearly enough to cover the ground lost on the way down. So, once again, things continued to worsen until Obama's policies had a chance to take effect but since then there has been steady but slow improvement
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/fact-check-income-losses-under-obama/
Bad anonymous said "a couple of economic calamities occurred at the end of Bush's presidency, partly as a result of Democrat taking the Congress two years earlier at the time, Democrats not exactly civic-minded, made things much worse by hyping as the Great Depression and shaking public confidence, which in turns affects the economy".
LOL, right hype affects the economy when Republicans are in power and Democrats do it but when Democrats are in power and Republicans do it somehow magically it has no effect. And the economy under Bush was doing great and all of a sudden for no reason the Democrats started hyping a glowing economy as the Great Depression. Sure, that's believable, who wouldn't buy that?
As you can see from the link below, the rate of job loss inherited from Bush started to slow under Obama and reversed itself about January of 2010.
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/09/07/bikini-graph-time-unemployment-rate-down-to-8-1-lowest-since-president-obama-took-office/
Private sector job creation under President Obama has far exceeded private sector job creation under President Bush. 40 months into his presidential term, there are currently more private sector jobs in the economy than when Obama came into office. At the same point in President Bush’s term, the total number of private sector jobs was still down 1.7 percent from where it began.
The numbers are even starker when measuring each president’s record from the moment job creation returned. Private sector job creation returned in February of 2010, the 13th month of President Obama’s term. Since then, the economy has added 4.3 million private sector jobs, a 4 percent increase.
Under President Bush, the economy stopped shedding private sector jobs in July of 2003, fully 30 months into his administration. From that point until May of 2004, the economy added just 1.5 million private sector jobs, an increase of only 1.4 percent.
The unemployment rate would have been much worse under Bush if he hadn't added 3.7% more jobs to the government during his presidency, something the Republicans have always adamantly claimed to be against. But of course Republicans only get religion when Democrats are in office and so have blocked Obama's efforts to support state government employment and government employment has dropped 2.2% under Obama. If that hadn't happened the unemployment rate would be a full percentage point lower than it is right now.
Romney says slashing regulations and offering 5 trillion in unpaid for tax cuts is a jobs plan. One year ago Obama presented the American jobs act proposal. Economists, including Mark Zandy a former Mccain economic supervisor say it would have added 2 million jobs to the economy but every single Republican voted against it because they desperately wanted the economy to fail under Obama. What have Republicans been doing instead? The Republican party platform bans abortion with no mentions of exceptions for rape or incest. Paul Ryan sponsored an abortion bill that said public funding for abortion could only be used in cases of "forcible" rape, (apparently Republicans think a lot of women aren't really raped, they enjoy it and are willing participants). Since the election wins in 2010 the Republicans in the house have backed 55 votes on anti-women policies.
The GOP controlled House took 17 votes that would "allow health insurance companies to discriminate against women," while 11 votes would have "cut women's access to preventive care.". Ten "restricted or rolled back abortion rights," the report stated, and others cut key nutrition programs or weakened violence and discrimination protections for women. It’s the year 2012, yet American women are still disproportionately hurt by Republican stonewalling on basic issues, such as family planning, protection against domestic violence, reproductive rights and nutrition assistance for pregnant women and children.
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/abortion/247665-dems-house-gop-backed-55-votes-on-anti-women-policies
Despite the Republican's dishonest claim in 2010 that "We're going to have a relentless focus on creating jobs." not only did they fail to advance any job creation bills they've waged a relentless war on women instead and have done everything they can to harm the economy.
If you want the truth contrast how much of it was told by Ryan during the Republican convention, and how much of it was told by Obama during the Democrat convention:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/07/fact-checking-obamas-speech/
With the exception of one "Debatable", all the major points Obama made checked out as true. Contrast that with Ryan's speech where the concensus was as Fox news put it:
"to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.".
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/paul-ryans-speech-in-three-words/
http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2012/09/the-lies-this-time-around.html#comments
"as we saw in the Spring, debating is a Romney strength"
Ya think so?
I'll bet you $10,000 President Obama wipes the floor with him.
Bad anonymous said "some have accused him of purposely borrowing us to ruin to reduce us to a second-rate socialist power it's hard to find any evidence that's not true".
Of course, because that's so believable. Its not like the Republicans have every made absurd claims before *cough*obama is a muslim atheist kenyan *cough*
The American Jobs Proposal Act which would have created 2 million jobs and Republicans unanimously voted against one year ago comes up for a vote again on Monday. Many expect the Republicans to pass it this time because by the time it is able to have an effect and start creating jobs the election will be over. The Republicans hope they'll be in power and then they can claim credit for the Economic boon Obama's legislation has.
Bad Anonymous said "as we saw in the Spring, debating is a Romney strength"
Good anonymous said "Ya think so?
I'll bet you $10,000 President Obama wipes the floor with him.".
Its pretty clear from the conventions what's going to happen in the debate. Romney will tell multiple lies and claim he's going to create 12 million jobs with detail-less "plans" that amnount to "Make America Great", and "Slash regulations" while Obama will destroy him with facts, specifics and the truth. After the debate things will just get worse for Romney as the fact checkers pick through his lies one by one.
Romney reached his peak just after the Republican convention. Now Obama has opened up a four point lead over him:
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-widens-lead-over-romney-despite-jobs-data-201203713.html
Things are just going to get worse for Romney until the election just like they did for Mccain in 2008 after his bounce in the polls started declining after the Republican convention.
"Obama will destroy him with facts, specifics and the truth"
he must be saving that for the debate because he hasn't come up with any of it yet
his speech on Thursday night was a lengthy list of things he'd like to see
"100,00 new teachers"
"college tuition cut in half"
"veterans don't have to fight for food"
yada-yada-et al nauseum
he didn't say how he proposed to bring any of this about
but maybe he just wanted to assure us he wanted those things
because it's really hard to tell from his actions
and, as an incumbent, he doesn't have to wait to be elected to start on this
he could be sending proposals to Congress now
he could be President now, if he wanted to be
instead he's spent this whole year doing what he does best: campaign for President
if Obama's really serious about accomplishing these things, he should find someone to vote for who can do them
President Obama has had four years to fix the economy, and it’s not his fault he’s failed so far. He’s tried very hard, and he’s made some headway. But the task is so great that no one, not even FDR or Bill Clinton, could have done any better than he has. Thus, on effort and good intentions alone, Obama has earned four more years.
That’s a pathetically weak argument for reelection. But aside from attacking Mitt Romney, it’s the best Obama, Clinton, and Vice President Joe Biden could come up with at last week’s Democratic convention to defend a president bent on imposing policies that have produced consistently poor results.
The federal government’s ability to solve problems has worsened, according to a Resurgent Republic poll last month of 1,000 likely voters. Only 16 percent said it has increased since Obama took office in January 2009, while 54 percent said it’s gotten worse.
Given this situation, the excuses for Obama are, as a political matter, inadequate. Take Clinton. “No president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years,” he said.
No president? I doubt Clinton believes this. With 227,000 new jobs, last February was one of Obama’s best months. But in February 1996, when Clinton was in the White House, 434,000 jobs were created. Franklin Roosevelt did better too. By 1936, the economy was growing at a 13 percent clip, while Obama presided over 1.9 percent growth in the first half of 2012. In June 1984, the Reagan economy created 363,000 jobs. The Obama economy last June? Only 80,000.
Nor was Obama encouraging in his bland convention speech. “You elected me to tell you the truth,” he said. “And the truth is it will take more than a few years for us to solve the challenges that have built up over decades.”
He invoked FDR and “the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that [he] pursued during the only crisis worse than this one.” But Obama isn’t following the FDR formula. Rather than a course correction, he’s relying on government programs as the sole stimulus and job creator, precisely what failed to stir a strong recovery in his first term. Offering incentives to private sector growth and job creation—now that would be an experiment for Obama.
Rep. Joe Walsh took aim at Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke on Saturday, attacking her on the issue of government-subsidized birth control.
At a campaign event in Addison, Ill., Walsh pointed to Fluke's Wednesday evening speech at the Democratic National Convention, calling her remarks "embarrassing."
“Think about this, a 31-32 year old law student who has been a student for life, who gets up there in front of a national audience and tells the American people, ‘I want America to pay for my contraceptives,'" Walsh told the crowd. "You’re kidding me. Go get a job. Go get a job Sandra Fluke.”
Fluke entered the national conversation in February, when Democrats invited her to attend a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing. The topic at hand was the Obama administration's contraception rule, requiring health insurers to offer birth control coverage. But committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) barred Fluke from speaking, on the grounds that she was "not appropriate or qualified."
Walsh said that Fluke's remarks were offensive in light of the economic struggles many Americans are facing.
"We’ve got parents in this country who are struggling to buy sneakers that their kids can wear to school that just started," Walsh said. "We’ve got parents up and down my district who are barely keeping their house. And, and, and, we have to be confronted by a woman, the Democratic Party this is what they stand for. Their going to put a woman in front of us who is complaining that the country — you, me and you — won’t pay the 9 dollars per month to pay for her contraceptives."
"Of course, because that's so believable."
Dinesh D'Souza's new movie, 2016: Obama's America, explains how this is happening and is doing great box office across America as we speak.
you have to wonder about the motivation of someone from another country who comes to this blog and serves as an apologist for policies that dwindle America's influence
"The American Jobs Proposal Act which would have created 2 million jobs and Republicans unanimously voted against"
pretty propagandistic statement from a true fanatic
after Obama admitted he got his ass kicked in the 2010 election, he quickly assembled this embarassing piece of legislation to raise taxes on the rich and eliminate social security tax
at the time, Republicans in the Senate wanted to vote on it right away Dems still controoled the Senate and Harry Reid refused
since this legislation has chopped, diced and saute'd but there has yet to be a version the Dems could agree on
just a word about Obama's attacks on our society's safety nets:
both Social Security and Medicare were designed to be self-contained systems
seperate taxes were charged for each and these taxes were to pay for the benefits of each system
Obama has, however, been using these safety nets' revenue stream to advance his agenda
he has repeatedly reduce social security taxes to "stimulate" the economy and, in this original bill, tried to eliminate them altogether
and he has raided the Medicare tax revenues to plug the deficit caused by his Obamacare proposal
by using their revenue instead of the income tax for advancing his agenda, he threatens to undermine the security of our safety nets
to save Social Security and Medicare, vote for Romney
Bad anonymous said "President Obama has had four years to fix the economy, and it’s not his fault he’s failed so far. He’s tried very hard, and he’s made some headway. But the task is so great that no one, not even FDR or Bill Clinton, could have done any better than he has. Thus, on effort and good intentions alone, Obama has earned four more years. That’s a pathetically weak argument for reelection. But aside from attacking Mitt Romney, it’s the best Obama, Clinton, and Vice President Joe Biden could come up with at last week’s Democratic convention to defend a president bent on imposing policies that have produced consistently poor results."
Its Republican policies that caused the economic disaster in the first place and Republican obstruction that's kept things from improving more than they have. Obama inherited a disastrous economy from George Bush. It took time for Obama's policies to take effect but since the Oct-December 2009 time frame when things bottomed out Obama has performed better on almost every measure than Bush did at the same time in his term. Private sector job creation under President Obama has far exceeded private sector job creation under President Bush. 40 months into his presidential term, there are currently more private sector jobs in the economy than when Obama came into office. At the same point in President Bush’s term, the total number of private sector jobs was still down 1.7 percent from where it began But of course Republicans only get religion when Democrats are in office and so blocked Obama's efforts to support state government employment and government employment has dropped 2.2% under Obama. If that hadn't happened the unemployment rate would be a full percentage point lower than it is right now.
The numbers are even starker when measuring each president’s record from the moment job creation returned. Private sector job creation returned in February of 2010, the 13th month of President Obama’s term. Since then, the economy has added 4.3 million private sector jobs, a 4 percent increase.
Under President Bush, the economy stopped shedding private sector jobs in July of 2003, fully 30 months into his administration. From that point until May of 2004, the economy added just 1.5 million private sector jobs, an increase of only 1.4 percent.
The unemployment rate would have been much worse under Bush if he hadn't added 3.7% more jobs to the government during his presidency, something the Republicans have always adamantly claimed to be against. The Republicans forced Obama to cut government jobs and prevented him from passing a bill to preserve state jobs for teachers, firefighters and police. If Obama had grown government to the degree Bush did the already the degree to which Obama outperformed Bush would have been even greater.
One year ago Obama presented the American jobs act proposal. Economists, including Mark Zandy a former Mccain economic supervisor say it would have added 2 million jobs to the economy but every single Republican voted against it because they desperately wanted the economy to fail under Obama. What have Republicans been doing instead? The Republican party platform bans abortion with no mentions of exceptions for rape or incest. Paul Ryan sponsored an abortion bill that said public funding for abortion could only be used in cases of "forcible" rape, (apparently Republicans think a lot of women aren't really raped, they enjoy it and are willing participants). Since the election wins in 2010 the Republicans in the house have backed 55 votes on anti-women policies.
The GOP controlled House took 17 votes that would "allow health insurance companies to discriminate against women," while 11 votes would have "cut women's access to preventive care.". Ten "restricted or rolled back abortion rights," the report stated, and others cut key nutrition programs or weakened violence and discrimination protections for women. It’s the year 2012, yet American women are still disproportionately hurt by Republican stonewalling on basic issues, such as family planning, protection against domestic violence, reproductive rights and nutrition assistance for pregnant women and children.
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/abortion/247665-dems-house-gop-backed-55-votes-on-anti-women-policies
Despite the Republican's dishonest claim in 2010 that "We're going to have a relentless focus on creating jobs." not only did they fail to advance any job creation bills they've waged a relentless war on women instead and have done everything they can to harm the economy
"The truth is the unemployment rate was already rising sharply in the last year of the Bush presidency. During that time the unemployment rate rose 2.8 percent and it was impossible for Obama to turn the course of the economy around immediately, it took time to undo the effects of the Bush presidency and unemployment continued to rise to over 10% in October of 2009"
except that Obama's team said the rate would peak at 8% if Congress passed his (Pelosi's) stimulus plan, which they did
"By that time Obama policies had a chance to work and the unemployment rate has dropped slowly ever since"
Obama has repeatedly made false claims about this
you remember the summer of recovery that never happened?
every other recession since Reagan was elected has had a recovery to match it
this time, we had a socialist administration and the result was we setttled into permanently high unemployment
"The same can be said of the unemployment rate throughout the Bush term."
true, you could say this is always true to some degree
but the degree is significant
during Bush's term, people who wanted jobs found them easily
people felt free to quit if they didn't like their job, knowing they would find employment elsewhere, and they, thus, received better pay increases
"It assumes those who stopped participating in the work force did so involuntarily when the truth is that many left voluntarily for reasons including retirement and the retirement rate has increased as baby boomers have retired througout the Obama term so of course the participation rate is lower"
well, that could be true to a degree
but the degree is significant
truth is: most boomers are hesitant to retire because of the economy
many are giving up
kids getting out of college have a 50% unemployment rate
their lives and careers may never recover from the joke that is Obama's presidency
many are simply taking out more loans and going to grad school when they don't really want to
"Once again, another misleading Republican talking point. The economy Obama inherited was really just starting the death spiral set off by the financial crisis."
which was caused by a gay senator who should have thrown out of Congress decades ago
"Economies struck by major financial crises generally take 10 years to fully recover. The U.S. is currently in Year 5 after the crisis first hit. Since median household income hit bottom in the first quarter of 2010, it has risen about $769.36, not nearly enough to cover the ground lost on the way down. So, once again, things continued to worsen until Obama's policies had a chance to take effect but since then there has been steady but slow improvement"
but it shouldn't get worse when the recovery starts, you idiot
furthermore, if you know anything about economics, if this is truly a ten-year project, then a Keynesian approach is inappropriate
Keynesian stimulus is supposed to be short-term, by definition
long-term structural adjustments, like reforming the tax code is what is called for
"hype affects the economy when Republicans are in power and Democrats do it but when Democrats are in power and Republicans do it somehow magically it has no effect."
Republicans now aren't acting like we're in the second Great Depression
"And the economy under Bush was doing great and all of a sudden for no reason the Democrats started hyping a glowing economy as the Great Depression. Sure, that's believable, who wouldn't buy that?"
didn't say that
the events were real
the damage came from the hype
it was a serious situation and Democrats did serious damage to the economy
Of course the Republicans and bad anonymous have no hope of seeing Romney elected if they tell the truth so the rely on the same old whopper lies that have already been debunked. They think if they repeat a lie often enough people will believe them - no such luck bad anonymous, the American public isn't as stupid as you.
Bad anonymous said "and [obama] has raided the Medicare tax revenues to plug the deficit caused by his Obamacare proposal by using their revenue instead of the income tax for advancing his agenda, he threatens to undermine the security of our safety nets to save Social Security and Medicare, vote for Romney".
The truth is Obama has not touched Medicare tax revenues, he's made cuts to the costs of Medicare delivery and Ryan makes use of the exact same cuts in his budget.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/us/politics/costs-seen-in-romneys-medicare-savings-plan.html?pagewanted=all
And before he decided he'd been too truthful bad anonymous said "Ryan is simply reducing the cost of the [medicare]plan"
See that comment at September 03 2012 10:51 PM in this thread:
http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2012/09/the-lies-this-time-around.html#1035748089710151321
"Its Republican policies that caused the economic disaster in the first place"
that's debatable, and the Dem argument is not highly persuasive
the turning point was when the economy was doing great but the American public, weary of the Iraq war, turned over Congress to the Dems
prior to that, our economy was invicible
indeed, the economy was in a recession caused by the massive Clinton surpluses when Bush took office and the Bush tax cuts were timed precisely to counter the downturn quickly
true, this was partly luck, but the fact is Bush understood the danger of sucking money out of the economy by overtaxation
"and Republican obstruction that's kept things from improving more than they have"
you mean by allowing Obama to run trillion dollar deficits
"Obama inherited a disastrous economy from George Bush. It took time for Obama's policies to take effect but since the Oct-December 2009 time frame when things bottomed out Obama has performed better on almost every measure than Bush did at the same time in his term. Private sector job creation under President Obama has far exceeded private sector job creation under President Bush. 40 months into his presidential term, there are currently more private sector jobs in the economy than when Obama came into office. At the same point in President Bush’s term, the total number of private sector jobs was still down 1.7 percent from where it began But of course Republicans only get religion when Democrats are in office and so blocked Obama's efforts to support state government employment and government employment has dropped 2.2% under Obama. If that hadn't happened the unemployment rate would be a full percentage point lower than it is right now."
the Bush downturn was originally over-hyped
the biggest problem with the recovery is that obama has continually scapegoated business and is constantly throwing them under the bus with every new proposal so they are marshalling resources to prepare rather than expanding opportunity
they basically don't know what the future holds
"The numbers are even starker when measuring each president’s record from the moment job creation returned."
sorry, but there was no real unemployment problem for about 7.75 years of Bush's presidency
and your ridiculous claim that his policy took this long to take effect proves you are clueless
"The unemployment rate would have been much worse under Bush if he hadn't added 3.7% more jobs to the government during his presidency, something the Republicans have always adamantly claimed to be against"
you must be confusing state and Fed jobs
business was booming, state revenues were strong, and local governments were hiring teachers and policemen
and they didn't need to borrow from the Chinese to do it
"The Republicans forced Obama to cut government jobs and prevented him from passing a bill to preserve state jobs for teachers, firefighters and police. If Obama had grown government to the degree Bush did the already the degree to which Obama outperformed Bush would have been even greater."
see above, you fool
in America, this type of workers are paid for at the closest level possible to the service they are providing
"One year ago Obama presented the American jobs act proposal."
discussed above
don't make me laugh
"The Republican party platform bans abortion with no mentions of exceptions for rape or incest."
why should we kill someone because their father was a rapist?
"Since the election wins in 2010 the Republicans in the house have backed 55 votes on anti-women policies."
propaganda term
"The GOP controlled House took 17 votes that would "allow health insurance companies to discriminate against women," while 11 votes would have "cut women's access to preventive care."."
you mean not having the government pay for all the contraceptives in america?
the stuff is cheap and pregnancy is not a disease
"Ten "restricted or rolled back abortion rights,""
abortion rights?
synonymous with "license to kill"
is it also a war on women that we don't allow single mothers to murder their infants?
because that seems like the moral equivalent of abortion to me
it has a victim
Congress was right to act
"the report stated, and others cut key nutrition programs or weakened violence and discrimination protections for women"
seems like there are tons of these type of programs, both private and public
Dems have a tendency to redundant bills to use for political purposes, to make them look like they are doing something
"It’s the year 2012, yet American women are still disproportionately hurt by Republican stonewalling on basic issues, such as family planning, protection against domestic violence, reproductive rights and nutrition assistance for pregnant women and children."
most women who vote pay for their own doctors, contraceptives and nutrition
half of all women also oppose "reproductive rights" if that means killing unborn children
domestic violence is a local issue
"Despite the Republican's dishonest claim in 2010 that "We're going to have a relentless focus on creating jobs." not only did they fail to advance any job creation bills they've waged a relentless war on women instead and have done everything they can to harm the economy"
just blocking Obama's determination to increase taxes on wealth and success has been a help
everyone knows if you tax something, you get less of it
if Obama wins, no one will doubt that after we go over the January 2013 fiscal cliff
The social security payroll tax is regressive which means that low income earners pay disproportionately more than wealthier people. Most working, poor and low income families pay more in employment tax than income tax. Social Security is primarily a welfare system that keeps most of its recipients out of poverty. This temporary payroll deduction tax break measure was implemented provide short term relief until the economy improves. It in no way threatens the program as the Treasury will borrow more to compensate for the tax cut, and temporarily increase the deficit which can be paid back down after the economy makes more improvement. The Republicans VOTED FOR the payroll tax cut themselves, its the height of hypocrisy for them now to be claiming it was a bad idea and Obama shouldn't have done it.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/will-payroll-tax-cut-unravel-social-security-robert-gibbs-says-not-in-any-way/
The congressional budget office projects that Obamacare will decrease the deficit and destroying it as the Republicans plan will increase the deficit:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/105327/cbo-obamacare-deficit-medicaid-expansion-cost-revenue-exchange
Contrary to bad anonymous's often repeated lie that the $716 billion in Obama cost cuts to Medicare (the same cost cuts Ryan's plan makes!) will hasten the bankruptcy of medicare, it will actually extend the solvency of the program by eight years:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/us/politics/costs-seen-in-romneys-medicare-savings-plan.html?pagewanted=all
I said "The American Jobs Proposal Act which would have created 2 million jobs and Republicans unanimously voted against it"
Bad anonymous replied "pretty propagandistic statement from a true fanatic".
As usual, the propaganda and lies are entirely on your side. Economists that have looked at the American Jobs Act, including former Mccain economic advisor Mark Zandy and agree it will create 2 million jobs.
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2016163039_obamajobs10.html
The last thing the Republicans wanted last year was for that to happen so they voted in lockstep against it and instead waged a war on women holding 55 votes in the past 2 years on anti-women policies.
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/abortion/247665-dems-house-gop-backed-55-votes-on-anti-women-policies
It’s entirely possible that Ryan’s proposal could end the Medicare guarantee - and that, if implemented, some seniors might not be able to get comprehensive insurance. Ryan and Mitt Romney have called for the most profound, radical changes in the program’s history. But rather than clarifying the differences between their position on Medicare and President Obama’s, they’ve done their best to obscure them. Romney and Ryan have also been less specific than you might have heard. That’s particularly true for Romney, whose “proposal” consists of a fact sheet, plus a few speeches, statements, and op-eds. This allows them to escape responsibility for the inevitable trade-offs that their vision, like every effort to reform Medicare, would require. And it gives them a political advantage over President Obama, who must defend reforms of Medicare in the Affordable Care Act and his latest budget - right down to the last legislative clause and dollar figure.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/106298/guide-to-medicare-debate-romney-ryan-obama-voucher-premium-support
Romney and Ryan have said all private plans would have to provide coverage as good as what traditional Medicare provides, but they have not indicated whether they are prepared to endorse the steps necessary to make that promise a reality. Conservatives have criticized Obama for the Medicare cost cutting measures he's put in place (the same ones Ryan relies on!) saying they will reduce payments to service providers and they'll refuse to take on new patients. Trouble is the same thing can happen if private insurance plans pay service providers less which is likely given the effects of competition. The evidence that competition can reduce Medicare costs more quickly, or with fewer repercussions, is thin at best. Among other things, Medicare has enormous economies of scale, including very low overhead. Current projections suggest that, as a result of the Obamacare changes, the cost of Medicare will grow more slowly than the cost of private insurance on a per capita basis for the next decade. If the Obamacare's payment reforms induce the health care industry to deliver care more efficient, and there are early, though very limited, signs that might be happening, the Obama medicare cost savings should be even larger than the official projections suggest.
Turning Medicare into a more wide-open marketplace also asks a lot of seniors, many of whom may not be up for it. Nearly 30 percent of all seniors have cognitive impairment, making them easy targets for exploitation and fraud. And even seniors without cognitive impairment may not have an easy time navigating the private insurance marketplace: Studies of the Medicare drug benefit, which already has a similar competition scheme, suggest that seniors have generally not chosen the plans that best match their needs.
The Romney/Ryan option to stay in Medicare or take a voucher sounds good on the surface but in the long run will likely destroy traditional medicare. Private plans frequently save money by seeking out the healthiest customers, who cost less to insure. This creates potential for “adverse selection” - leaving Medicare with less healthy beneficiaries, driving up its costs, and leaving it less attractive to younger, healthier seniors. When that happens, traditional medicare will gradually disappear as Republicans want it to do anyway.
The truth is that both Republicans and bad anonymous want to end Medicare, Social Security, and ALL entitlement programs. As bad anonymous said earlier: "the choice this election is clear ... do you want an entitlement society or freedom loving society. It's that simple.". The overarching Republican policy that bad anonymous supports is that people shouldn't rely on the government for money (entitlement programs), they should pay it themselves. Anyone who hasn't been living in a cave has heard over and over what Republicans have been saying loudly for decades: They hate entitlement programs and wanto do away with all entitlement programs and Medicare is an entitlement program. Trouble for republicans is that Medicare is popular so they are afraid to oppose it openly because of the backlash they would experience. Republicans know the current vague Romney/Ryan plan will eventually increase costs to seniors and reduce benefits and that's exactly what they want. They want to take power and gradually increase dissatisfaction with the plan and so there will be less resistance from seniors when they get around to abolishing this Republican loathed entitlement forever.
"And before he decided he'd been too truthful bad anonymous said "Ryan is simply reducing the cost of the [medicare]plan""
and Ryan is not spending it on something else
Obama specifically earmarked the money to pay for Obamacare, which will result in higher Medicare premiums and bankruptcy of the fund
so Obama is not saving the money
he's simply wasting it on something else
too bad you don't understand the difference
I said "The truth is the unemployment rate was already rising sharply in the last year of the Bush presidency. During that time the unemployment rate rose 2.8 percent and it was impossible for Obama to turn the course of the economy around immediately, it took time to undo the effects of the Bush presidency and unemployment continued to rise to over 10% in October of 2009"
Bad anonymous said "except that Obama's team said the rate would peak at 8% if Congress passed his (Pelosi's) stimulus plan, which they did".
The damage Bush did to the economy was worse than expected, if it weren't for the stimulus unemployment would have been 12% or 14%. Obviously the stimulus worked because after it passed, the rate of job loss started decreasing and reversed itself. Private sector job creation under President Obama has far exceeded private sector job creation under President Bush. 40 months into his presidential term, there are currently more private sector jobs in the economy than when Obama came into office. At the same point in President Bush’s term, the total number of private sector jobs was still down 1.7 percent from where it began.
The numbers are even starker when measuring each president’s record from the moment job creation returned. Private sector job creation returned in February of 2010, the 13th month of President Obama’s term. Since then, the economy has added 4.3 million private sector jobs, a 4 percent increase.
Under President Bush, the economy stopped shedding private sector jobs in July of 2003, fully 30 months into his administration. From that point until May of 2004, the economy added just 1.5 million private sector jobs, an increase of only 1.4 percent.
I said "By that time Obama policies had a chance to work and the unemployment rate has dropped slowly ever since"
Bad anonymous said "Obama has repeatedly made false claims about this you remember the summer of recovery that never happened?".
Unlike you I don't just make up s*t and accuse the other person of lying without checking the proof they've provided. Look at the graph this time, moron:
http://mediamatters.org/research/2011/10/06/limbaugh-falsely-claims-obama-created-widesprea/181526
Economists generally agree it takes several months to a year for the policies of an incoming president to take effect and change the situation inhereted from the previous president. Notice that in December 2009 the unemployment rate peaked at 10.1 percent and has declined slowly eversince now resting at 8.1 percent. It'd be even lower but government lost 2.2% of its jobs in the period following peak unemployment and the Republicans blocked Obama's bills to provide funding to keep state teachers, firefighters, and policement employed, instead they wanted to focus on providing tax cuts to the super wealthy.
I said "Once again, another misleading Republican talking point. The economy Obama inherited was really just starting the death spiral set off by the financial crisis."
Bad anonymous said "which was caused by a gay senator who should have thrown out of Congress decades ago".
That was incredibly pathetic, you're not even trying now.
I said "Economies struck by major financial crises generally take 10 years to fully recover. The U.S. is currently in Year 5 after the crisis first hit. Since median household income hit bottom in the first quarter of 2010, it has risen about $769.36, not nearly enough to cover the ground lost on the way down. So, once again, things continued to worsen until Obama's policies had a chance to take effect but since then there has been steady but slow improvement"
Bad anonymous said "but it shouldn't get worse when the recovery starts, you idiot"
You really are dumber than you look. Not all economic indicators move at the same rate, household income can lag behind the period of the first rise in GDP, economics is a lot more complicated than that. Once again, it took time to recover from the Bush policies and about a year after Obama took office household incomes stopped dropping and have shown slow gradual improvement since then and the improvement would have been even larger if the Republicans hadn't obstructed every job creation measure Obama tried to take so they could wage a war on women.
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Bad anonymous said furthermore, if you know anything about economics, if this is truly a ten-year project, then a Keynesian approach is inappropriate Keynesian stimulus is supposed to be short-term, by definition.".
This was a short term approach and it started working several months after it was implemented. Even though Republicans obstructed further measures if they hadn't forced a reduction in the goverment work force the unemployment rate would be a full point lower and household incomes higher.
Bad anonymous said "long-term structural adjustments, like reforming the tax code is what is called for".
That's never worked. unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/05/142288/reagan-centennial/
Unemployment jumped to 10.8% after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disporportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/business/economy/22leonhardt.html?_r=1
Look at what happened when Clinton was in office. The top tax rate was 39.6% and 20.8 million jobs were created. Under Bush the top tax rate was lowered to 35% and 663,000 private sector jobs were lost
http://meetthefacts.com/2010/07/21/fact-check-rep-chris-van-hollen-bush-administrations-record-of-private-sector-job-loss-and-a-recent-poll-indicating-less-confidence-in-republicans-than-democrats/
During the time when the tax rate has been lowest its benefited the rich and increased their wealth but the average american has seen their share of the overal wealth drop or remain flat. Lowering the tax rate has only seen the gap between the ultra rich and the average American grow. Under Republican administrations, and allowing a one-year lag to provide for time for policies to have effect, unemployment has increased, while gross national product decreased. The opposite has occurred under Democratic control of the White House. This reflects the basic divergence in policy objectives of the two parties:
http://flathatnews.com/2008/09/23/princeton-prof-discusses-gap-between-rich-poor/
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=71284
I rebuffed bad anonymous's idiocy by saying "hype affects the economy when Republicans are in power and Democrats do it but when Democrats are in power and Republicans do it somehow magically it has no effect."
Bad anonymous said "Republicans now aren't acting like we're in the second Great Depression"
You're a joke, no person who's faintly familiar with U.S. politics believes the Republicans haven't been screaming "Disaster!" every chance they get.
I've provided facts, figures, and supporting documentation to support what I've said and everyone can check it out.
All Bad anonymous has provided is his misplaced bravado and naked lies.
Everyone can see the truth and its coming from me, not bad anonymous.
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First Bad anonymous accused Obama of cutting 716 billion from medicare and tried to make us believe Ryan didn't do the same thing. When I pointed out that Medicare costs were cut 716 billion and not benefits and that the Ryan budget relies on the same cost cutting bad anonymous admitted Ryan makes the same cost cuts by saying "Ryan is simply reducing the cost of the [medicare]plan"".
Then bad anonymous ignored the truth he had previously admitted and said "and [obama] has raided the Medicare tax revenues to plug the deficit caused by his Obamacare proposal by using their revenue instead of the income tax for advancing his agenda, he threatens to undermine the security of Medicare, vote for Romney". He again tried to fool us into believing that Obama is cutting Medicare funding when he's cutting costs and tried to fool us into beliieving Ryan is not making the same Medicare cost cuts as Obama
I ponted out that's a lie, Obama doesn't take any money from Medicare tax revenues, he reduces the costs of medicare service delivery by 716 billion, medicare tax revenues are untouched as are benefits and the Ryan budget makes the same 716 billion in cost cuts
Bad anonymous replied this time "and Ryan is not spending it on something else".
Bad anonymous just acknowledged for the second time he was lying when he said Obama had raided Medicare tax revenues to pay for Obamacare and threatens to undermine the security of medicare. He just admitted that contrary to the several times he's denied it Ryan makes the same 716 Billion in cost cuts to Medicare that Obama does.
Then Bad anonymous again told another lie I've repeatedly debunked: "Obama specifically earmarked the money to pay for Obamacare, which will result in higher Medicare premiums and bankruptcy of the fund so Obama is not saving the money he's simply wasting it on something else".
So let me debunk it once again:
Only 194 billion of the cost savings in Medicare will go to offsetting the cost of Obamacare, not 716 billion contrary to Ryan's and bad anonymous's lie. The rest of the costs of Obamacare are covered by increased efficiencies, taxes, fees on insurance providers and so on. Once again, no money is taken out of the medicare fund, these are cost savings, reductions in the cost of providing services The congressional budget office projects that Obamacare will decrease the deficit and destroying it as the Republicans plan will increase the deficit: And obviously a cost savings in Medicare delivery cannot result in higher medicare premiums or its bankruptcy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/105327/cbo-obamacare-deficit-medicaid-expansion-cost-revenue-exchange
In fact bad anonymous is also lying when he says Ryan won't use that 716 billion in medicare cost savings for something else. Romney has promised 5 trillion in unpaid for tax cuts. Obviously this is going to eat up the entire 716 billion medicare cost savings and a whole lot more.
Bad anonymous has lied so many times he can't keep his lies straight. He alternates between claiming Ryan doesn't make the same 716 billion in medicare cost cuts as Obama and admitting he does.
18 outta 30
it's a cry for help
it's amazing how many personalities can squeeze into one head
OK, so now we have all acknowledged that unemployment was lower when Obama took office than now
and that household income has declined more since the recovery began than during the depression
and it's because of some policies of Bush's that didn't take effect until 7 years and nine months into his Presidency
and the economy won't recover for ten years, long after Obama's gone
sounds like Obama is a classic non-verifiable hypothesis
and, regardless of the question, the answer is raise taxes on the wealthy
because they are a minority
and, finally, regardless of spin and intepretation, the fact is:
most are worse off now than forty years ago
"most are worse off now than forty years ago"
You got that right.
It all started when conservatives like Ronald Reagan thought it best to lead us BACKWARD to the days of the Roaring Twenties just before the crash: more income inequality, more deregulation of rules to protect consumers, union busting instead of protecting workers, etc.
Unlike most conservatives, most Americans are repulsed by Ayn Rand's "morality of greed."
United we stand, greedily divided we will fall.
Fortunately, in the 4 years since Obama took over, we did not careen off the cliff that was the inevitable result of the policies Reagan popularized that were carried through to their only conclusion by Bush, near total collapse of our economy.
Coming two months before Election Day, the employment report for August is a problem for President Obama. The economy added 96,000 jobs last month, a slow pace that lowered the monthly average this year to 139,000, versus 153,000 in 2011. Even the decline in the jobless rate, to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July, was a disappointment, because it indicated a shrinking labor force as people gave up looking for work.
But properly understood, the report should not encourage voters to support Mitt Romney. That’s because boosting tepid job growth requires stimulative fiscal policy — including spending to rehire teachers and to rebuild schools, roads and other infrastructure, as well as loan modifications for underwater homeowners. Mr. Obama has proposed all of that, while Republicans have blocked such measures and the Republican agenda rejects them.
Republicans are even increasingly adamant that the Federal Reserve should do nothing to try to help the economy, with Representative Paul Ryan saying on Friday that monetary easing by the Fed would be a “bailout of bad fiscal policy.” Really? The Fed, if it acts, would be trying to compensate for the dearth of fiscal solutions, the result of Republican obstructionism. The Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, has been explicit in asserting correctly that the ailing housing market and contractionary fiscal policy are the biggest threats to the economy. He has indicated that Congressional action to address those issues would be preferable to more Fed easing. Yet the Republican response is to tell the Fed to back off.
Worse, the Republican agenda misdiagnoses the cause of slow job growth, blaming taxes and regulation, while championing more tax cuts for the rich and deregulation of the banks and other businesses as a cure. Those policies, however, are precisely the ones that were in place as the bubble economy of the Bush years inflated, and then crashed, with disastrous consequences. They are the problem, yet they are all that Mr. Romney and his party have to offer.
In the meantime, the pain of unemployed and underemployed Americans is all too real. Good jobs, like teaching, are being lost, while others, like manufacturing, are getting harder to come by as the global economy slows. In their place are jobs in bars and restaurants and other low-wage activities. Even the college educated are in trouble. In the past year, unemployment among college graduates under age 25 has averaged 8.1 percent, no better than the general population. The situation is worse for high school graduates under age 25, whose jobless rates in the past year have averaged nearly 21 percent.
Tax cuts and deregulation will not help them. Federal spending to create jobs, loan modifications to ease debt burdens and further Fed action would.
The Hill.com reports:
Poll: Obama opens up four-point lead on Romney nationally
By Erik Wasson - 09/08/12 01:40 PM ET
President Obama's post-convention bounce has grown to four points according to two new polls released Saturday.
Gallup's daily tracking poll has Obama at 49 percent support among registered voters to GOP candidate Mitt Romney's 45 percent.
The new figures show a 1-point increase for Obama from Friday's results and reflects voter sentiment after the final day of the Democratic National Convention.
Friday's polling put Obama's job approval rating at 52 percent. Gallup said by the middle of next week it will be clear if the bounce is lasting.
Romney received no lasting bounce from the GOP's Tampa convention which concluded Aug. 30, according to Gallup. Forty-six percent of registered voters supported Romney in the tracking poll in the four days following the convention. In the four days preceding the convention, Romney was backed by 46 percent.
A Reuters/Ipsos daily-tracking poll released Saturday also gave Obama a 4-point lead. Obama leads Romney 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters. On Friday, Obama overtook Romney in the same poll and held a 46 to 44 percent edge.
“The bump is actually happening,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark. "How big it'll be and how long it will last remains to be seen," she added.
Conservative polling outlet Rasmussen showed a smaller bounce for the president in its daily poll, with Obama up 46 percent to Romney's 44 percent on Saturday. ...
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As we can see, when we exclude the first year of Obama's term because the Bush recession was continuing to worsen and allow time for Obama to replace the effects of Bush's policies with his own the disastrous economic effects of the Bush presidency unemployment is down from a 10% peak to 8% it and all other economic indicators show slow but steady improvement. And in looking at the same time period of Bush's first term we see Obama has outperformed Bush in private sector job creation and if it weren't for Republicans obstructing every effort of Obama to create jobs to wage a war on women the picture would be even better than it is.
As has happened for a dozen days in a row Priya has handed bad anonymous his ass yet again.
Its unfair, isn't it bad anonymous: Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
must be some other reality
is it the universe of MSNBC?
Obama was the first liberal elected since Jimmy Carter and will be the first re-elected since FDR
Rasmussen: Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
"Monday, September 10, 2012
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows President Obama attracting support from 50% of voters nationwide, while Mitt Romney earns 45% of the vote. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and three percent (3%) are undecided.
This is the president’s biggest lead over Romney among Likely Voters since March 17. See daily tracking history. Obama’s convention bounce has been more significant than Romney’s. As with all bounces, it remains to be seen how long it will last...."
The Bounce Matters
..."In contests involving an incumbent president, the candidate with a higher share of the vote following his convention in Gallup polling has won every election since 1964. We can go further: no modern candidate has won the presidency without taking a lead after his own convention. And there is a strong relationship between the incumbent's share of the vote and their eventual finish in November.* To take a recent example, Bush peaked at 50.4 percent in the RealClearPolitics average after the RNC, and eventually won 50.7 percent of the vote. And it's worth noting the largest errors involved races with incumbents who took the presidency due to assassination or impeachment (Ford, Johnson), and a year in which the polls systematically advantaged the incumbent (1996).
If Obama leads after two weeks, we'll be able to add an additional clue to the list: the candidate leading two or three weeks following the final convention has gone on to win every modern presidential election. But even right now, the other three empirical findings suggest Romney's chances are in jeopardy. Although the race is close by historical standards, it has been remarkably stable and remarkably clear: Romney has never led in the RealClearPolitics average and, no, a candidate has not won the presidency without holding a lead in the polls by early September. If Obama approaches fifty percent of the vote, as Gallup and Rasmussen suggest, that would clearly repudiate the view that a majority of voters are unwilling to reelect the president, which is the entire basis for Romney's case for a come-from-behind, Reagan-esque sweep of undecided voters..."
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Using data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and other government agencies along with parameters from published academic research studies, this study analyzes the impact of the Romney-Ryan plan on current and future seniors and shows that the increase in health care costs under the Romney-Ryan plan would be financially debilitating for all seniors. We detail these findings in the pages that follow, but briefly here are the findings.
Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan claim that no one over 55 will be affected by their health care plan. This claim is false. Their plan would harm all seniors. The Romney-Ryan plan would hurt current seniors in two important ways:
■Increased drug costs and higher Medicare premiums. By repealing the Affordable Care Act, the Romney-Ryan plan would raise health care costs in retirement by $11,000 for the average person who is 65 years old today.
■Increased long-term care costs, including increased costs for nursing home care, because of cuts to Medicaid. A substantial share of Medicaid spending pays for health care costs for Medicare beneficiaries. The Romney-Ryan Medicaid cuts mean a loss of over $2,500 annually for seniors currently on Medicare who also rely on Medicaid. Unlike the Medicare voucher system that would begin in 2023 the cuts to Medicaid would begin almost immediately.
For seniors who will become eligible for Medicare after 2022, the financial harm would be even worse.
■Increasingly unaffordable costs for all seniors who qualify for Medicare after 2022. For seniors turning 65 in 2023, Medicare costs during retirement would increase by $59,500 in 2012 dollars under the Romney-Ryan plan. Because under the Romney-Ryan plan the amount of seniors’ vouchers will not keep pace with rising health care costs, these numbers are even worse for future generations. In today’s dollars seniors who qualify for Medicare in 2030 would see an increase of $124,600 in Medicare costs over their retirement. Seniors who qualify for Medicare in 2040 will see an increase of $216,600. And by 2050 newly eligible seniors will pay $331,200 more in Medicare costs over their retirement.
■Additional costs from private plans cherry picking healthier patients. Three-fourths of all Medicare beneficiaries are currently in traditional Medicare. The Romney-Ryan plan would include traditional Medicare as an option in the proposed program, but the costs for seniors who choose to remain in the traditional Medicare program would likely increase even more sharply than for seniors who chose a private plan. Most analysts expect the traditional Medicare plan to attract Medicare beneficiaries with the greatest health needs. In that case, Medicare would no longer enjoy a balanced risk pool and seniors choosing traditional Medicare could wind up paying an extra $29,000 on average over their retirement lifetime above and beyond the costs described above.
These estimates are conservative because we modeled the plan that Rep. Ryan released—and that Gov. Romney endorsed—earlier this year. As the Congressional Budget Office has estimated, Rep. Ryan’s original 2011 plan would result in increased costs that are several orders of magnitude greater than those modeled here.
Let’s examine each of these troubling consequences in turn...
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/healthcare/report/2012/08/24/33915/increased-costs-during-retirement-under-the-romney-ryan-medicare-plan/
Good anonymous said "This is the president’s biggest lead over Romney among Likely Voters since March 17..."In contests involving an incumbent president, the candidate with a higher share of the vote following his convention in Gallup polling has won every election since 1964.".
I didn't realize that when a campaign is in "freefall" it has a 5 point lead over the other guy but that's what bad anonymous said and he's always right - we all remember how early in 2008 he accurately told us what "president Huckabee" would do in 2009.
yes, Priya, the polls do seem to have taken a despicable turn
hope Americans wise up
barring some big story, looks like the debates will be the next possible game-changers
if Obama wins, America will likely be permanently damaged
high taxes, further dwindling of household income, more people giving up on a livelihood,
cataclysmic debt, death panels, government control of business,unrestrained abortion...
hope you've read Bob Woodward's new book
from his account of the debt crisis, it's clear Obama's lack of experience in negotiating is responsible for the loss of the credit rating
Director Nick Cassavetes ("The Notebook," "Alpha Dog") debuted his new movie this weekend, but his comments may well out-shine the project itself.
"Yellow" bowed at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie revolves around Mary, the main character played by Cassavetes' ex-wife Heather Wahlquist. Mary visits her brother in prison, and the two are engaged in a "love affair."
Here are Cassavetes' thoughts on the plotline:
“This whole movie is about judgment, and lack of it, and doing what you want.
Who gives a shit if people judge you? I’m not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you’re not having kids – who gives a damn? Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage – love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.”
just like gay marriage
Thank goodness for fiction, huh Anon?
You obviously can't stomach the truth.
Two more TRUTHS for Republicans to worry about
If you’re a hand-wringer and you want a couple of things to worry about along with the current polling that suggests President Obama has experienced a bounce from the Democratic convention, here are two underreported, fresh items for you to fret over.
First, remember Virgil Goode’s green light to be on the presidential ballot in Virginia. Virgil is a misguided soul who has stumbled into Mitt Romney’s path. The former congressman from Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District isn’t particularly well-known for anything except being a fist-shaker and habitual party-switcher. Anyway, whatever votes he gets will come right out of Romney’s coalition. And if Virgil Goode secures between 3 and 4 percent in his old congressional district, he could get more than 1 percent of the vote statewide, enough to make the difference in this election.
Somebody called him “Romney’s Ralph Nader,” and that could be the case. If you’re an ultraconservative Virginia voter, and you can’t vote for Obama or a Mormon, then you might vote for Goode.
Second, while we’re worrying, know that the Obama auto bailout is probably more popular in Ohio than it is in Michigan. A lot of voters in Ohio believe that the bailout saved some of the state’s auto parts suppliers. That gives Obama a small lift among voters employed by the private sector in Ohio. He has problems with this group everywhere, but perhaps this makes his margin less terrible in this one state.
Look for Obama, Biden, and every Democratic surrogate who travels to Ohio to repeatedly remind voters of the benefits they believe were part of the automotive bailout.
I'm not worried about Virginia but, you're right, Ohio is a concern
I'm surprised Obama is getting away with his lie-fest on the auto bailout
Obama said in his convention speech that GM is No.1 again
not quite
GM is still the disaster it has been since the 70s
their stock has been dropping and is currently worth ten of billions less than we paid for it
rather than have the government buy it, we'd have been better to arrange a sale to Ford, who has a decent management team
anyway, while the stats above about elections are true, there are others that indicate Romney will win, like the unemployment rate
some way or another, there will be some indicators smashed
but there are seven weeks to go
three debates and two more months of economic indictors dripping out
we'll see how interesting this gets
at this date last time around, McCain was ahead in the RCP average
Here's what Standard & Poors gave as the reason for lowering the U.S. triple A credit rating:
"Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. Key macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3% and consumer price inflation near 2% annually over the decade."
S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating because of a revised expectation that the Bush tax cuts would remain in place. They assumed this because of Republicans' unwillingness to enact any measures raising revenue, and they completely slammed House Republicans — including Paul Ryan — for doing so.
Not surprisingly bad anonymous has tried to continue pushing this lie and said "this was Obama's fault the Republicans offered him a deal to raise revenue along with cuts Obama agreed and then, at the last moment, doubled down and held out for a lot more".
Here's the true story:
http://news.yahoo.com/bob-woodward-book-debt-deal-collapse-led-pure-151043612.html
Obama and Boehner had worked out a tentative agreement on raising the debt ceiling that included increasing revenues. Obama then raised the possibility of adding further revenue to the deal. Boehner ran off in a huff and refused to return Obama's phone calls and eventually returned and said that not only would he not go for adding further revenue, the tentative deal they had was now off the table. Boehner had been pragmatic but he didn't have the backing of his party to raise revenues and he got cold feet because he knew the Republicans would never passed the original deal. He needed an excuse to get out of it and used Obama's raising the possibility of more revenues as that excuse.
Virtually every elected Republican and those running for office has signed Grover Norquist's pledge to never raise taxes under any circumstances. Boehner was initially prepared to lose his job over that but he knew the other Republicans wouldn't be. Norquist in essence controls the tax policy of the Republican party and if any Republican breaks his pledge he mounts a well financed campaign against them to get them out of office and its worked virtually every time. Republicans are in essence locked into a policy of never raising taxes no matter how bad the deficit gets and that's why Standard & Poors blamed the Republicans when it lowered the U.S.'s AAA credit rating
Priya you are reading what you want to hear
Woodward book shows Pelosi, Reid, Boehner and McConnell telling the President they had a deal well in advance of the deadline but that Obama refused to go along because it would have to be renewed before the election and he was more worried about being re-elected
all four pleaded with Obama to stay out of the negotiations, basically kicking him out of a meeting room at the White House
David Krone, Harry Reid’s chief of staff, lectured Obama on not having a backup plan after the Boehner talks failed
“It is really disheartening that you, that this White House did not have a Plan B,” Krone said, according to Woodward
Jay Carney, Obama's spokesman, admits:
“There is no question the president had to be the responsible party and ensure that however they ended, they prevented default,” he said.
Obama was clearly not up to the task of politics in Washington
story abound about Congressmen, in key committees, that Obama never touches base or tries to develop any relationship with them
he was inexperienced and incompetent
as for Standard & Poor's, there is no discernible reason why you can't say the fault lies with those who refuse to cut spending rather than those that refuse to raise taxes
the effect on the bottom line is the same and the decision about which way to go is political
S & P, btw, may make statements like this because it is still sensitive about its own failure with overrating securities which contributed to the 2008 meltdown
Bad anonymous said "Priya you are reading what you want to hear".
LOL, that's hilarious coming from you! You're the guy that with no hint of irony declared the Obama campaign "in freefall" when it was up by 5 points in the polls. I've never encountered anyone who fabricates their own reality to remotely the degree you do.
Keep pumping out those lies bad anonymous, they're not working on the American public but they're probably helping you to maintain the delusion.
Sheldon Adelson Stands To Get $2 Billion Tax Cut If Mitt Romney Is Elected: Report
"Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's backing of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney may not just make political sense for the billionaire -- it may also be in his best interest financially.
Adelson has vowed to spend as much as $100 million to help sway the 2012 election. According to a new report by Seth Hanlon, the director of fiscal reform at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Adelson could turn that investment into a $2 billion tax cut if Romney is elected.
From Hanlon's report on how Romney's tax plan could benefit Adelson:
• Cut top tax rates, saving Adelson approximately $1.5 million on his annual compensation as chief executive of his casino company.
• Maintain the special low rates on dividends, potentially saving Adelson nearly $120 million on a single year’s worth of dividends, more than enough to recoup his politi- cal donations.
• Maintain the special low rates on capital gains, allowing Adelson to make back his political donations in capital gains tax cuts just by selling a fraction of his stock.
• Provide a tax windfall of an estimated $1.2 billion to Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands Corp., on untaxed profits from its Asian casinos, as well as a tax exemption forfuture overseas profits. Adelson’s casinos already enjoy a special foreign tax exemp- tion from the Chinese administrative region of Macau, and Gov. Romney would make those foreign profits exempt from U.S. taxes as well.
• Eliminate the estate tax, potentially providing a staggering $8.9 billion windfall to Adelson’s heirs."
"LOL, that's hilarious coming from you! You're the guy that with no hint of irony declared the Obama campaign "in freefall" when it was up by 5 points in the polls. I've never encountered anyone who fabricates their own reality to remotely the degree you do."
nice diversion from the fact that you took the Woodward book out of context
the story doesn't make Obama look good
the Washington Post has now switched from registered to LIKELY voters in their polls and today has the race tied again
America is in free fall under Obama and things will get much worse if he's elected
"Keep pumping out those lies bad anonymous, they're not working on the American public but they're probably helping you to maintain the delusion."
the American public couldn't give a flying frig about any alleged "lies"
they long ago decided all politicians lie
the biggest misgiving some have about Romney is that he'll be too much like Obama
the base was heartened by the Ryan pick but Mitt seems to be watering Ryan down
"Bush tax cuts for the rich will be on steroids if Romney gets in"
different people have different stories
Romney is not proposing a general tax cut for the rich
Obama's tax commercials are lies
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