quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But I think that sounding folksy is not simply having an accent or speaking a non standard dialect. Sarah Palin doesn't have a distinctive rural accent and yet sounds folksy. Jimmy Carter doesn't sound folksy to me even though he has a thicker southern drawl than Bush.
I definitely hear a distinct accent in Palin's speech. Reminds me of Minnesota, but then, I've never been to Alaska so *shrug*.
Her accent is not *distinctive* but it is definitely present- perhaps that's what The Rabbit was pointing out. It's not *an* accent in the sense of representing a particular region, just a sort vaguely pan-northern twang.
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quote:I think there is truth to that, Rabbit, but in fairness I also think that some A or A+ students go out of their way to make people around them feel stupid. And that tendency, in my opinion, is far worse than folksiness.
Well, sure. However, you'll rarely find a Presidential candidate who likes (and acts on) a desire to make people feel stupid in his day-to-day. Politician, y'know? Not very long-term-success-strategy.
What you will find, though, is a politician who wants (and crafts a public image) to be considered 'just folks'. Which is not at all strange when you consider how someone who gets elected is elected (politics, getting people to like you) but when you consider 'doing the job', it's just an awful metric.
The President as someone you could have a beer with and enjoy spending time with is one thing. I can sign on with that. The President as like the people you bowl/videogame/watch football/jog/etc with, on the other hand. I can't think of a single person I know that I would say of them, "This is a person I would trust in terms of conscience and capability with the Presidency." Can you?
Part of the strangeness of attacking 'Ivy League (liberals)'. Parents generally would very much love if their children went to an Ivy League school, or one on the same academic level with them. Then all of a sudden one guy hints that because this other guy performed brilliantly in school, he thinks you're stupid while he is 'just folks'...
Popular kids, particularly in High School, are supposedly the most emotionally facile. They are the ones who find it easy to adapt to the expectations of others very quickly, and bury whatever feelings they have. So you can be very smart or not so smart, and still be popular (ie: you can still go into politics), as long as your emotional life is relatively shallow.
Which stands to reason, I think. People like confidence and poise, and will mistake it for intelligence or at least competence readily enough. I remember being surprised when a particular classmate of mine was accepted to Yale and Harvard in our senior year. I had assumed he wasn't that bright. He never spoke up in class, never made himself of any notice to me in academics (I was in the top 5% myself), but he was very popular and social on a level that I was not. I had assumed he was dumb. A lot of the people he hung out with were heading off to community college. Not for a long time did I realize that the thing was, he was emotionally shallow, and though he was clever, I had found him to be less than interesting for that reason.
Which experience has informed my view of the Ivy League, and really the "top shelf" colleges across the board. One thing I've really picked up on, having now met dozens of people who attended these schools, is that most of them were also quite emotionally shallow. Competent, intelligent, poised, and empty. It reminds me of my father and his colleagues from when I was growing up- all Ivy Leaguers. Or my older sister, whose emotional age probably lags 15 years behind her actual age (also an Ivy Leaguer)
Emotional depth can make people unappealing. They can be mercurial and turbulent, and seem unconfident, or unsteady and unreliable. And i think it's the rare person that combines a great deal of confidence with a deep well of an emotional life.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I have an allergy to "folksy" in presidents.
I agree. In one of the tributes to Steve Jobs it said "B students surround themselves with C students to make themselves look smart, A students surround themselves with A+ students." I want a president whose smarter than I am, but it seems that many Americans prefer a President who make them feel smart.
I know! It's so strange. When Obama was running we kept hearing the word "elitist" and the phrase "intelectual elitist". I remember finally reading an editorial where the writer said, "When did being smart and academic become a bad thing in this country?" and thinking, "I know! What on earth?"
Palin talking about real Americans and how smart people just don't know what the down to earth farmers know was a concept I'd only heard one other time. Mao's China in the 1950s.
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Palin was and is, first and foremost, a power hungry would-be demagogue. Her politics were just the sprinkles on the icing on the cake. A detail- not more.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Which experience has informed my view of the Ivy League, and really the "top shelf" colleges across the board. One thing I've really picked up on, having now met dozens of people who attended these schools, is that most of them were also quite emotionally shallow. Competent, intelligent, poised, and empty.
I suspect confirmation bias, as it does not agree with the various Ivy League grads I know.
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It doesn't agree with all of the Ivy League grads I know either, just most. And I suppose I'd have to examine what I'm actually reacting to- the superficial conversations I have had with the small number of people I have met who came from an ivy league school, in which my usual silent reaction is: "really? But you're totally uninteresting and vapid." That could be jealousy, a learned over appreciation for the charisma and intelligence of ivy-leaguers, as represented in films and books, or likely some such combination of factors. I suppose people who attend these schools are also probably practiced at superficiality in a way I may not be- and the situation might be the converse, and I have just met condescending and smug Ivy Leaguers who didn't give me the chance to get to know them.
So yes, confirmation bias is likely. Although I don't know the implication- does that mean I see people as emotionally shallow, or I only remember the emotionally shallow ones? Or that my expectations of Ivy League grads are different than for other people, and affect my interactions with them, and so leave me with this impression? Difficult to say.
I must say, I'm rather glad not to be an Ivy League graduate, given the hype. I did go to a top 10 public school, but not one that people pause and let sink in when they announce it.
I haven't seen any research on this- it would be interesting to do a study of correlation between EQ-i and university attendance. I don't know enough about the study of affect and emotion to guess what the results might be. Could be interesting.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But I think that sounding folksy is not simply having an accent or speaking a non standard dialect. Sarah Palin doesn't have a distinctive rural accent and yet sounds folksy. Jimmy Carter doesn't sound folksy to me even though he has a thicker southern drawl than Bush.
I definitely hear a distinct accent in Palin's speech. Reminds me of Minnesota, but then, I've never been to Alaska so *shrug*.
But your point is a good one, there is a different between the two. Edited for a typo
Everybody has an accent of some kind or another. Whether or not you find it distinctive is largely dependent on how much it differs from your own accent. Sarah Palin's accent is pretty typical Western North American.
Linguists consider variations in accents within the Western US and Canada to be very minor. There are differences between the way people speak in Sacramento, Seattle, Phoenix, Calgary, Denver, and Minneapolis, but those differences are a lot smaller (hence less distinctive) than the difference between people who live in Boston and those who live in Charleston. Because the Western American accent is the one most widely used in TV, radio and movies, the more distinctive regional accents in the rest of the North America are all drifting towards the Western North American accent.
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quote: Sarah Palin's accent is pretty typical Western North American.
As in Midwestern? I would disagree with that- it's atypical of anything in the Pacific Northwest at least, and the southwest as well. She's got a very discernable twang that is reminiscent of Minnesota, or Wisconsin.
Slate published an article claiming it as an actual Alaskan accent.
Whatever it is, it is not typical of the West outside of the far north, in my opinion.
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There were a couple of posts recently on The Monkey Cage about intellectual ability and Presidential success: here and here. They're riffing off a discussion on the Encyclopedia Brittanica blog about the subject, which is partly a reworking of this work by a UC-Davis Psychology professor. Upshot: academics' judgements of Presidential success correlate strongly with academics' judgements of Presidential intelligence. Whether this speaks to bias on the part of academics or true correlation isn't really addressed, although the author makes, I think, a good effort to proceed in as unbiased a manner as possible, given the underlying dataset.
Personally, I see the populist/elitist tension as being ever present in our National politics. America believes itself to be the land of opportunity, where with enough work anyone can become whatever they want. This means that "folksy" figures of modest means, like Andrew Jackson, Abe Lincoln, and Harry Truman are, to some degree, iconic examples of the American Dream. But part of the American ideal is also meritocratic, and so we admire men of genius like Jefferson, Wilson and Kennedy despite their relatively priveleged backgrounds.
Personally, I think both intelligence and "down-to-earth"-ness are valuable attributes for Presidential candidates. But more than either of those I value a strong moral sentiment and a principled belief in abstractions like virtue, honor, justice, and integrity.
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You know, I actually was recently at a large conference and we dined a couple of times with some of our legal affiliates. About half of the group was from Salt Lake City, and the other half was from the East Coast, primarily Philadelphia or Washington, DC.
I thought it was odd, but you could definitely hear a difference in the speech patterns between the two groups, but there wasn't one particular thing I could put my finger on.
Now, when you say that the Western Accent is more frequent in the media, I have to wonder if that was it....
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quote:Palin talking about real Americans and how smart people just don't know what the down to earth farmers know was a concept I'd only heard one other time. Mao's China in the 1950s.
I'm not a fan of Palin, but I feel compelled to point out that Thomas Jefferson supposedly taught that horticulture was in some way central to the morality of the democratic experiment.
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Well sure, but he also didn't want Americans directly choosing who the President would be, for starters. Other people would be chosen for that job.
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quote:Palin talking about real Americans and how smart people just don't know what the down to earth farmers know was a concept I'd only heard one other time. Mao's China in the 1950s.
I'm not a fan of Palin, but I feel compelled to point out that Thomas Jefferson supposedly taught that horticulture was in some way central to the morality of the democratic experiment.
He also thought we needed to have fairly regular revolutions so as to keep things fresh. I really think the man would have benefited from having a gun placed in his hand and then being sent to at least one major engagement.
This is a tangent, but also an accountant to manage is money. He certainly didn't know how to.
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quote:Palin talking about real Americans and how smart people just don't know what the down to earth farmers know was a concept I'd only heard one other time. Mao's China in the 1950s.
I'm not a fan of Palin, but I feel compelled to point out that Thomas Jefferson supposedly taught that horticulture was in some way central to the morality of the democratic experiment.
And he owned and took sexual advantage of slaves, while writing about the inalienable freedoms of all men. The man's words mean little without sensible interpretation, like, "this is good stuff," and "this on the other hand, is nonsense."
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quote:Palin talking about real Americans and how smart people just don't know what the down to earth farmers know was a concept I'd only heard one other time. Mao's China in the 1950s.
I'm not a fan of Palin, but I feel compelled to point out that Thomas Jefferson supposedly taught that horticulture was in some way central to the morality of the democratic experiment.
He also thought we needed to have fairly regular revolutions so as to keep things fresh. I really think the man would have benefited from having a gun placed in his hand and then being sent to at least one major engagement.
This is a tangent, but also an accountant to manage is money. He certainly didn't know how to.
You could consider Deng Xiaoping his accountant.
Ironically, I feel like the man was right about regular revolutions, just the timing was off and early. The party has become corrupt and a tool of the wealthy elites. Maybe it is time to have a revolution, balance out the wealth and maybe introduce democracy if we are feeling ambitious.
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quote:“I guess Republicans think that if the economy improves, it might help President Obama,” Reid said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “So they root for the economy to fail.”
The evidence supporting the accustion is pretty compelling and growing every day. And to erase any doubt, Tea Party Nation has now called for small business to stop hiring people as long as Obama is President. Call for Small Business Strike
The entire point of a strike is to impose an economic penalty until your demands are met. By calling a strike against the country, the Tea Party has unambiguously declared that they are trying to damage the economy in order to advance their political agenda. This is shameful behavior.
Its only bad to make this kind of accusation if it isn't true. If it is true, or if you have solid reasons to believe its true, making this kind of accusation shows moral courage. Its about time Politicians stepped up to the challenge and started calling this kind of tactic what it is: economic terrorism.
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If you want to continue this dialogue, maybe we should agree what we're talking about. The accusations made by Reid and Obama were that Congressional Republicans were blocking the Democrats' agenda not because they disagreed with it ideologically, or even for partisan reasons, but because they knew it would help the economy and preferred the economy to be harmed in order to improve their own electoral chances.
As incontrovertible proof of this hypothesis you cite a random blogger on the social networking site of a marginalized group that is loosely affiliated with the tea party movement. Someone whose opinions have essentially no impact on the actions of anyone, anywhere (other than those of us forced to discuss their views on internet fora).
If you're argument is that a few random conservatives are advocating symbolic actions that would hurt the economy in order to express dissatisfaction with Obama, well I can't argue. But it's a long way from that to the despicable assertions Obama and Reid are making.
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quote:The accusations made by Reid and Obama were that Congressional Republicans were blocking the Democrats' agenda not because they disagreed with it ideologically, or even for partisan reasons, but because they knew it would help the economy and preferred the economy to be harmed...
I wouldn't go that far. Rather, they knew that doing nothing would harm the economy, so they chose to ensure that nothing was done.
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First, the accusations made by Reid and Obama was NOT "that Congressional Republicans were blocking the Democrats' agenda not because they disagreed with it ideologically, or even for partisan reasons, but because they knew it would help the economy and preferred the economy to be harmed.." The accusation is that Republicans are blocking legislation that would help the economy because they think improvement in the economy would hurt their party in the 2012 elections. In other words, they don't want the economy to improve FOR PARTISAN REASONS. The entire point Democrats are making are willing to let the economy suffer for another year and a half in order to improve their parties chances in the 2012 election.
Second, The link I gave is not the only evidence for this or even the primary evidence. The primary evidence right now is that republicans are opposing the Jobs bill without offering any alternative. The evidence for that this is the tactic of the Republican leaders are many and they go back to 2009. Its been quite obviously the republican strategy since 2009 when the republicans started blaming Obama and the democrats for our economic problems, despite the incontrovertible fact that the collapse happened while GW Bush was president. I don't have time to search through 3 years of new articles to show you every instance.
Third, The Tea Party Nation is not some "random blogger on a social networking cite". They are an influential group within the Tea Party movement. They organized the 2010 National Tea Party Convention.
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Are you enjoying this interaction? Cause I'm not. I'll answer the points you've raised in my next post, but I'm not really interested in going forward with this conversation unless the tenor and tone changes.
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1) Your definition of "partisan reasons" is different than mine, but do we agree that Obama and Reid were specifically speaking of Congressional Republicans? And that they're inferring intent (they want the economy to be harmed) from actions (blocking bills and what not)?
2) The reason I used the term "incontrovertible proof" is because you suggested the link would "erase any doubt." However, the evidence you linked to doesn't appear to me to have any relevance to the claims about Congressional Republicans being made by Reid and Obama (for more, see point 3 below).
The other evidence you put forward seems to me to be better explainable by other mechanisms, rather than assuming Republican leaders are deliberately sabotaging the US economy. I find it surprising that the immediate conclusion when the opposing party acts oppositionally is "they want the nation to fail (at least until they get into office)." I guess it's inevitable, particularly among hard-line ideologues, but I personally find the belief that opposition necessarily implies "desire to hurt America" offensive.
3) Melissa Brookstone (whoever she is) != Tea Party Nation (which hosts several bloggers, with no immediately apparent editorial oversight, on its website) != tea party movement != Republicans != Congressional Republicans. Would you feel I was justified in inferring the intent of Congressional Democrats based on a cherry-picked rant post on the blog of one of the OWS occupiers?
And to my use of the term "marginalized" to describe Tea Party Nation, their "national convention" attracted about 600 people, was condemned by significant tea party opinion leaders (like Erik Erickson), lost its co-sponsoring group due to TPN's organizational incompetence, and had several high profile speakers back out (like Michele Bachmann and Marsha Blackburn). They're notorious as "the group that gave Sarah Palin $100,000 to show up" but, at least to my knowledge, are essentially irrelevant when it comes to setting the agenda of the more general tea party movement. Their "Ensuring Liberty" super PAC fizzled and now seems to be defunct, they haven't organized anything in over a year.
quote:I'm not really interested in going forward with this conversation unless the tenor and tone changes.
Senoj, I do not appreciate the accusation that my tenor and tone are inappropriate. This is a classic example of ad hominem. If you think my points are flawed, respond to my points -- not my style. If you don't enjoy by debating style, no one is forcing you to interact with me.
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My intent wasn't to belittle your arguments by pointing out that I didn't like your method of discussing them. It was to inform you that, if the general tenor and tone don't change I will indeed stop discussing this with you. I also clearly said I would address your points, which I did. Have a nice day.
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quote:1) Your definition of "partisan reasons" is different than mine/
Perhaps you can explain what you mean by "partisan reasons? If someones primary reason for opposing something is to promote the strength and power of their political party, I would can that a "partisan reason". What would call it?
quote:but do we agree that Obama and Reid were specifically speaking of Congressional Republicans?
Yes I agree. Do you think the comments of outspoken and influential members of the right wing are relevant to understanding the motives of Congressional Republican leaders?
quote:And that they're inferring intent (they want the economy to be harmed) from actions (blocking bills and what not)?
They are referring to intent but you are exaggerating their claims for rhetorical effect. What Harry Reid said was
quote:“I guess Republicans think that if the economy improves, it might help President Obama,” Reid said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “So they root for the economy to fail.”
That isn't equivalent to accusing Republicans of "wanting to harm the economy. It's equivalent to "unwilling to fix the economy." And it is absolutely not, as you claim, wanting to hurt the economy -- it is wanting to defeat President Obama at the expense of fixing the economy. That difference is not trivial.
You are doing exactly what some members of the left wing did when they said "Ron Paul says people who can't afford medical care should be killed." No he didn't. Recommending we should kill people or destroy the economy is not the same as recommending that we do nothing to help sick people or nothing to fix the economy. If you don't find that distinction meaningful, ask yourselves we should charge people who refuse to provide first aid with murder.
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This is not immediately connected to this particular accusation of ad hominem but, honestly, I have never really gotten why an accusation of ad hominem is always such an argument buster. Considering the source of an argument or statement is generally useful if information about the source is helpful in judging the reliability of the source. I think that we cry "ad hominem" too often in general and we should only use it when the negative information about the source is clearly irrelevant.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: This is a classic example of ad hominem.
Is it really?
Of course it is. Its a pretty clear attempt to discredit my contribution to the discussion by criticizing my tone and tenor. The implication is "I would be justified in discounting The Rabbit's points because she sounds so mean and nasty", even though that is never directly stated.
In my experience, the ad hominem attack is most frequently used as a red herring rather than a direct rebuttal to a statement. The two go hand in hand.
[ October 21, 2011, 02:00 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: My intent wasn't to belittle your arguments by pointing out that I didn't like your method of discussing them. It was to inform you that, if the general tenor and tone don't change I will indeed stop discussing this with you.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Its a pretty clear attempt to discredit my contribution to the discussion by criticizing my tone and tenor.
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An accusation that your tenor and tone are inappropriate is not an ad hominem any more so than it would be an ad hominem to tell me to stop swearing during a debate because it is rude and offensive. Senoj saying that your points are wrong or discredited because they are paired with your tenor and tone is an ad hominem. Senoj saying that your tenor and tone is creating an unwillingness to continue participating on his end is something that anyone has the right to say, without it automatically being an <insert formal fallacy name here>. There's no two ways about it; you're wrong.
This is one of the big reasons why, as time goes on, I agree the use of formal fallacy names as callouts in debates needs to be shot and left to die. They're used wrongly more often than they're actually used correctly and it's just getting to be a sophomoric holdback.
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Senoj was saying "I don't want to talk to you because I think you're being rude," not "your argument isn't legitimate because you're being rude."
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: Senoj was saying "I don't want to talk to you because I think you're being rude," not "your argument isn't legitimate because you're being rude."
Up to the point when Senoj made that accusation, I thought we were having a polite discussion. Tone can be easy to mistake in an online forum. Since I had no idea why he was offended by my post, I took it as an attempt to divert attention from the argument and put me on the defensive.
I'm sure my response was due in large part to the context of the discussion. Senoj's outrage over the Democratic claims is the same sort of thing. Whether intentional or not, its a common rhetorical technique to ask "How could you accuse honorable men of such a thing?" It skips over the question of whether the accusations have any validity and puts the blame on the accuser.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: This is one of the big reasons why, as time goes on, I agree the use of formal fallacy names as callouts in debates needs to be shot and left to die. They're used wrongly more often than they're actually used correctly and it's just getting to be a sophomoric holdback.
Thats an appeal to reducto ad nauseum via etymology of I've *ever* seen one.
And he did it cleverly. Cain is simultaneously calling people lazy and blaming them for not getting a job (a common mantra in the right, though not necessarily the most common) and also blaming Obama.
It was also a nice moment to remind people that the GOP candidates are doing a fantastic job of pretending like Wall Street's role is in the past and blameless at present.
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Washington Post factchecker gives Reid's accusations three Pinnochios. By their ratings scale, this means they find the statement displays "significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions." The article points out that several items of legislation Obama claimed were important for the economy (like trade agreements, patent reform and transportation funding) have passed in the past two months, with Republican support. It also calls bunk on the claim that Republicans previously supported portions of Obama's jobs bill which they now oppose.
The factchecker is reviewing Reid's watered down statement (made the day after the accusation I linked to earlier) that the GOP "won't do anything constructive*." The full quote:
quote:These programs have worked in the past. Republicans know they've worked in the past. But when you have a goal, your only goal is to follow your leader. And that leader, my friend Mitch McConnell, his goal is to defeat Obama. Of course they don't want to do anything that's constructive.
*Note: This accusation I don't find nearly as offensive as what he said the day before on the floor of the Senate. I see a significant difference between "rooting for the economy to fail" and "won't do anything constructive." The first is a baseless, classless slander and the second is a (depressing) recognition of the fundamental role of partisanship in politics. Neither formulation, however, is as egregious as Obama's assertion in the campaign mailer that the Republicans oppose him because <edit>their</edit> strategy is to "smother the economy."
In this thread, you've said there "can't be any question" that Republicans are trying to destroy the economy and that anyone who disagreed with you about the deck being stacked against poor people was "seriously deluded." You're frequently dismissive of others viewpoints, which I find rude. My comment about "tone and tenor" partly reflected that, partly the "crowing" (for lack of a better word) I felt you were (unjustifiedly) engaging in in the post where you linked to Melissa Brookstone's blog, but mostly to your single line "Senoj, you are wrong on all counts." If this had been a polite conversation, even a face to face conversation, I would have expected something along the lines of "I disagree with that characterization" or "that's not how I see it" or "I don't think your interpretation is fair." I know that "you're wrong" is an unofficial Hatrack welcome, but in this case (and in most cases I can think of) I feel it's dismissive and rude, a way of putting someone in their place, an attempt to bully someone around by asserting the dominance of your opinion by elevating it to the level of fact.
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So Cain's "exemptions" plan for 9-9-9 involves declaring poor areas "Opportunity Zones" where minimum wage and building codes do not apply.
Good news, though! 9-9-9 is only a temporary plan to reduce the deficit! It would eventually be replaced by a 30% sales tax with no income or corporate taxes urhdhrur rhurduhr hrur durdur wur dur
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Well I know the minimum wage jobs I worked out of high school would of course have paid very little less than minimum wage in such a zone. Goodness, the prosperity that would trickle...upward!
Another way in which Republican business-friendliness acts against other of their own interests (not that this is unusual in politics, though geeze it's not uncommon in the GOP lately): firefighters. I sure know a firefighter would love to run into a burning building-that's incidentally more likely to catch fire in the first place-that's not built to codes.
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quote:In this thread, you've said there "can't be any question" that Republicans are trying to destroy the economy and that anyone who disagreed with you about the deck being stacked against poor people was "seriously deluded." You're frequently dismissive of others viewpoints, which I find rude.
And I find it quite rude of you to take umbrage with my tone and tenor. In my world, it's normal for people to state their position with confidence.
As for the "seriously deluded" comment, both Tom and I gave a long list of established facts supporting the claim that the deck is stacked in favor of the rich. Neither you nor anyone else here has disputed those facts yet you ask for respect for an idea that is contrary to those facts. Why should politeness demand I show respect to a political view that is contrary to established facts?
As I said before, whether you are conscious of it or not, you are trying to undermine my arguments by attacking me rather than the arguments. I don't appreciate that. Its a rude and unethical way to argue.
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Rabbit, Senoj had -- in my opinion -- a very valid complaint about your tone, which is coming off (in print, anyway) as very hostile. Complaining about that tone is perfectly kosher. Why would you insist that someone carry on a conversation with someone who's verbally abusing them?
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quote:As I said before, whether you are conscious of it or not, you are trying to undermine my arguments by attacking me rather than the arguments. I don't appreciate that. Its a rude and unethical way to argue.
Senoj is conscious of what he's doing, has clarified to that extent, and is not trying to do this. There's nothing "unethical" about the way senoj is arguing. Which is a good thing, because if it were true it would render your actions unethical too.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: So Cain's "exemptions" plan for 9-9-9 involves declaring poor areas "Opportunity Zones" where minimum wage and building codes do not apply.
Good news, though! 9-9-9 is only a temporary plan to reduce the deficit! It would eventually be replaced by a 30% sales tax with no income or corporate taxes urhdhrur rhurduhr hrur durdur wur dur
None of their tax plans make any sense at all. Perry has some bizarre option 20% flat tax that still includes three of the biggest exemptions out there. Most higher income earners would take it in a heart beat because the biggest deductions are still around and it drops their rate more than 10 points. For all low income earners, it would be a tax hike.
Cain's 9-9-9 is horribly regressive, and he's either lying or wrong about how it would work out.
Romney is all over the place. No flat tax, but now that he sees people might LIKE the flat tax, he's sort of hedging his bets and signal some willingness to approach the idea, but with so many caveats as to make it useless.
None of the other candidates are even bothering because they aren't even within 10 points and don't have to.
It's a mess. Most of them are proposing drastically cutting revenue, big tax breaks for the wealthy, most of them proposing the poor pay THEIR "fair share" because "everyone needs to have skin in the game, with an extreme unlikelihood that any of this will help the economy in a way that makes up for the revenue gap. All while they pledge not to cut the military (Romney has proposed a massive, prohibitively expensive new shipbuilding program). One can only surmise then, that despite Congressional protestations, they plan to make massive cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, despite the big hullaballoo caused when Perry and Romney tussled over Social Security. We all remember how Bush's reform efforts went. In addition to that, they'll have to eliminate the entire federal government.
And that STILL won't balance the budget.
Obama has already backed tax reform that lowers rates and gets rid of most deductions, with a tiered, lower tax rate scheme. If this comes down to a debate over taxes in some way, which I think it will, Obama is going to skewer whichever GOP contender comes to the fore.
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I think most of the proposed tax plans are ones that they can spin reasonably well to their base, sound good as sound bites, can't really be evaluated without making big assumptions letting them say the assumptions are just wrong, and most importantly, are totally infeasible to implement given the current political climate.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: I think most of the proposed tax plans are ones that they can spin reasonably well to their base, sound good as sound bites, can't really be evaluated without making big assumptions letting them say the assumptions are just wrong, and most importantly, are totally infeasible to implement given the current political climate.
Except Romney's 59 point plan, which I don't anyone pretends to fully understand, but maybe that's the point as well. He can say it means whatever he wants.
The problem for them is that the simplicity makes it pretty easy to attack them too.
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Tone can be easy to mistake in an online forum. Since I had no idea why he was offended by my post, I took it as an attempt to divert attention from the argument and put me on the defensive. 
