quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Either he's terrible at math, or he's assuming we are.
The cynic in me is leaning towards the latter.
quote:Mr. Romney promised to “cut out any regulation that would “unduly burden the economy or job creation.”
How perfect: who could possibly object to regulations that unduly burden the economy? And yet he doesn't give us any way to tell the difference between a due burden and an undue one.
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Lyrhawn: I'm mostly interested in The Economist, but we'll have to wait until next week. -----
quote:He also promised to make permanent the tax cuts on individuals enacted under President George W. Bush and to eliminate taxes on dividends, interest and capital gains for anyone making less than $200,000 a year.
At first I was like this , then I was like this .
On the one hand I think the Bush tax cuts are terrible, but eliminating taxes on dividends, interest, and capital gains on those making less $200,000 is a new one, I don't have an immediate response.
quote:Consolidating federal training programs and giving states authority to design and carry out training programs for unemployed workers.
I think it's things like this that Romney *would* be most successful at. Cutting waste is something he was good at at Bane Capital. He will need good advisors though in helping him comprehend the difference between the US economy and a business' bottom line.
I don't think he will be as anti-tax increase as he seems to be now. He's too business oriented for that, he'll see all the projections after cutting all the spending and realize that taxes have to go up. He's smart enough to eventually realize that I think.
I'm not impressed with his pledge to repeal Obamacare, not that he could get that done anyway, he'd need support from Congress, and the numbers aren't there.
At least he has put concrete stuff up there, and those things can be debated and discussed.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Either he's terrible at math, or he's assuming we are.
The cynic in me is leaning towards the latter.
quote:Mr. Romney promised to “cut out any regulation that would “unduly burden the economy or job creation.”
How perfect: who could possibly object to regulations that unduly burden the economy? And yet he doesn't give us any way to tell the difference between a due burden and an undue one.
I already made the argument that the health savings are a net economic gain, but Paul Krugman takes it a step further by saying regulations actually create jobs and stimulate the economy as well.
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Even in the most Keynesian of worlds, regulations would only have a positive effect in that way for a small percentage of the time. Krugman knows that, too, so I don't know why he's spewing BS about that being much of a reason to support regulations.
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Maybe just because it's a specific situation? And because of all the cash companies are sitting on? I'm just spitballing here, I don't really know.
Personally, when it comes to environmental regulations, especially when it's an issue of health more so than a "save the spotted owl" argument, I always side with what saves lives and saves money in health care costs. You can't put a price on human life, but saving thousands for a couple billion seems like a steal at twice the price.
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Low thousands or high thousands? And what do we mean by saving? Because we could extend most people's lives by a few days to a few months if we were willing to spend half a million to a million dollars on it. The thing is, there isn't that much money.
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Well, if you deal in abstractions, sure I guess. That's still a pretty vague argument. The sort of rule we're talking regards air pollution that causes premature deaths, due to either lung disease or heart failure. It also tends to exacerbate problems in those who already have lung problems, especially asthma sufferers. So it's not a matter of prolonging lives for a little bit. For most of these people, it's a matter of years, and they're not being affected by poor choice or random acts of nature, it's created by us, with them as collateral damage. If you want to talk about vague abstractions, picking the low-hanging fruit who could be saved for the lowest amount of money, then you probably could save more for less, but that's not exactly repeatable.
Even so, it's not just a philosophical discussion. Saving these lives isn't just a payout. It SAVES us billions as well from medical costs often incurred in the course of treating these ailments.
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Burns and Haberman at Politico have a nice rundown of last night's debate. Lots of sparring between Romney and Perry over jobs and Social Security. Huntsman sniping at Romney over the China portion of his jobs plan. Bachmann evidently unable to hold anyone's attention now that Perry is in the room.
quote:Perry’s bet is on a conservative, confrontational and mad-as-hell Republican Party. Romney’s is that GOP activists want, above all, to win and will come to recognize that nominating the Texas governor would be an act of political suicide.
The divide between the two men reflects an ongoing debate that’s splitting the Republican Party both on the campaign trail and beyond it. Some of its leaders, looking back at the 2010 midterm elections, believe that the party – and the nation – are ready to gorge on red meat as never before. The American people, goes this line of thinking, recognize that entitlements must be addressed and that old-style demagoguery over the issue has become less effective.
Others believe deeply that the laws of political gravity still apply - that Social Security and Medicare reform must be handled with great care, if at all, and that 2012 will hinge on jobs-focused swing voters who are in no mood to revisit the still-popular New Deal-era program during a time of economic uncertainty. The divide is both strategic and ideological, and as Romney and Perry emerge clearly as the party’s two presidential poles on the issue, it will take on an even higher profile than it did during the punishing debate over Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.
FWIW, I think the "Romney" bet is much the better. 2012 isn't 2010; demagoging over socialist healthcare has lost its motivating power (just as demagoging over the failures of the Bush presidency lost its potency after the 2008 election). People right now care about jobs and the economy, not entitlement reform and socialist creep. In fact, I'd say that's what they cared about in 2010 as well; the Tea Party town halls merely provided a channel for the people to express their rage over the stagnant economy and lack of jobs. But I think that the Perry position (as depicted by Smith and Martin) confuses the channel with the source.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: People right now care about jobs and the economy, not entitlement reform and socialist creep.
The problem is that a lot of people have been gulled into thinking that problems with the economy are a direct result of entitlements and socialist creep.
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I kinda like the term socialist creep. It makes me think of the Zerg in Starcraft, and it seems like a very useful term.
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That's interesting. The thing is, with the direction of the Republican party, it seems more likely to me that two things will happen: 1. Extremists will control the agenda, which favors Perry. 2. People will embrace simple rather than complex arguments, which favors Perry.
Also, if I'm a Democrat in an open primary and I don't have to vote for Obama, I'm voting for the wackiest Republican possible to help Obama win. A lot of those same dems and center-left independents are going to for for Huntsman (he's banking his entire run on just that happening), but some will vote for people like Palin, Perry and Bachmann just to screw with the process.
Romney is their strongest candidate, but the guy is also full of flaws. Actually, HUNTSMAN is their strongest general election candidate. But he'll NEVER survive the primary.
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quote:Romney is their strongest candidate, but the guy is also full of flaws. Actually, HUNTSMAN is their strongest general election candidate. But he'll NEVER survive the primary.
This is sort of correct? I haven't yet come across much data on Huntsman having better electoral chances vs. Obama than Romney.
But outside of Romney, the rest of the choices are, as mentioned, political suicide. Perry seems the go-to guy for democrats who want to take a page out of the GOP playbook and game the election by getting the less viable pick through the republican primary.
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quote:Bachmann delivers rebuttal to Obama jobs speech: "I listened to it on the radio coming in and then I caught the tail end of it in my office." Derides Obama for "not listening".
quote:Romney is their strongest candidate, but the guy is also full of flaws. Actually, HUNTSMAN is their strongest general election candidate. But he'll NEVER survive the primary.
This is sort of correct? I haven't yet come across much data on Huntsman having better electoral chances vs. Obama than Romney.
But outside of Romney, the rest of the choices are, as mentioned, political suicide. Perry seems the go-to guy for democrats who want to take a page out of the GOP playbook and game the election by getting the less viable pick through the republican primary.
Huntsman is a guy who most Republicans, at the end of the day, will either vote for in the general, or they'll stay home, but most will vote for him because he has a great record from a super Red State.
His biggest strength is that he's a moderate. He's a moderate but without Romney's flamethrower language. He'll woo a LOT of independents who won't like Romney because of he's tacking to the right. He'll bleed off enough centrists and center-left Democrats to beat an Obama that will also be fighting a lack of enthusiasm in his own party.
The numbers are pretty even from what I've seen, but that's also because most people don't know him. He has bad name recognition. But once he gained a national audience, I think he'd win.
I'm a rabid liberal, and I'd even consider voting for him.
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Absolutely an interesting perspective, but like I said, not a lot of data showing that he's their strongest potential general election candidate. Of course, this mostly because there is a dearth of polls that factor in a level of presented or prerequisite knowledge about him.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I'm a rabid liberal, and I'd even consider voting for him.
How much do you know about his actual voting record? He's certainly presented as a moderate, but is he, actually? I don't know enough about him to really say. I like that he recognizes that global climate change is actually happening, and that evolution is a real phenomenon, but those two things, combined with less willingness to pander to the Tea Party end of the Republican spectrum, doesn't a moderate make.
Note that I'm not saying that he isn't moderate; I just don't know enough about him to say.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I'm a rabid liberal, and I'd even consider voting for him.
How much do you know about his actual voting record? He's certainly presented as a moderate, but is he, actually? I don't know enough about him to really say. I like that he recognizes that global climate change is actually happening, and that evolution is a real phenomenon, but those two things, combined with less willingness to pander to the Tea Party end of the Republican spectrum, doesn't a moderate make.
Note that I'm not saying that he isn't moderate; I just don't know enough about him to say.
I lived in Utah during the '08 election. I had the unique pleasure of being able to vote for both President Obama and Governor Huntsman. If it was a contest between the two of them on the ballot, I too would have to think seriously about my vote. And like Lyrhawn, I'm also a pretty adamant liberal. I've been staff on democratic campaigns and held local party offices.
To clarify how Huntsman is a moderate. He believes in more stringent enforcement of current immigration policy but also wants discussions of streamlining the process of immigration. When watching the GOP debate, all the other candidates were adamant about how they would not discuss reform until the border was secure. As governor of Utah he pushed forward civil union laws. Again, as governor of Utah he was able to get civil union laws for same sex couples on the books. He also does believe that science and empiric fact should be taken account of when drafting policy.
That said, he does have a conservative ideology. I disagreed with him on school vouchers while he was Governor (but appreciated the method he was trying to use to implement them) and he does come from a smaller-government-is-better mentality. But what's more to the point is he's an established pragmatist wherein he doesn't let ideology get in the way of getting stuff done. That's a healthy attitude for anyone to take. And while I disagree with where he comes from ideologically, I think he's the type of person who could deliver on the promises Obama made in '08. Obama is not a spitfire liberal, he's a pragmatist. But the opposition of the Republican party is so strong, that anything he does is instantly met with complete obstruction and refusal.
I think Obama is the better leader, thinker, and choice where it comes to policy. But I think Huntsman makes a strong case for being better for the country right now because I don't think the Republicans would let up on their opposition to Obama if he were to win re-election. And frankly, I think Huntsman is a good example for what the Republican party could and should be. If electing Huntsman president would bring sanity back into the Republican caucus, then I would seriously consider voting for him over Obama.
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quote:Romney is their strongest candidate, but the guy is also full of flaws. Actually, HUNTSMAN is their strongest general election candidate. But he'll NEVER survive the primary.
This is sort of correct? I haven't yet come across much data on Huntsman having better electoral chances vs. Obama than Romney.
But outside of Romney, the rest of the choices are, as mentioned, political suicide. Perry seems the go-to guy for democrats who want to take a page out of the GOP playbook and game the election by getting the less viable pick through the republican primary.
Huntsman is a guy who most Republicans, at the end of the day, will either vote for in the general, or they'll stay home, but most will vote for him because he has a great record from a super Red State.
His biggest strength is that he's a moderate. He's a moderate but without Romney's flamethrower language. He'll woo a LOT of independents who won't like Romney because of he's tacking to the right. He'll bleed off enough centrists and center-left Democrats to beat an Obama that will also be fighting a lack of enthusiasm in his own party.
The numbers are pretty even from what I've seen, but that's also because most people don't know him. He has bad name recognition. But once he gained a national audience, I think he'd win.
I'm a rabid liberal, and I'd even consider voting for him.
The only flaw in your reasoning is that he won't be nominated. He *might* win at a brokered convention. Maybe. That I see as his only chance.
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Vadon, thanks for that; it definitely gives me more information than I've had about him thus far.
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quote:I think Obama is the better leader, thinker, and choice where it comes to policy. But I think Huntsman makes a strong case for being better for the country right now because I don't think the Republicans would let up on their opposition to Obama if he were to win re-election.
Thats pretty amazingly true, too. He could literally say "I'm the better choice for the country, because if obama wins, my party will continue to do their best to obstruct and ruin everything!"
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I know. That's what I said a couple posts up. What makes him a general election heavyweight is what makes him virtually a non-combatant in the primary.
Noemon -
I'd have to explore more, which is something I'd do after he hypothetically wins the primary. I won't waste my time, because I think we've virtually seen the last of him, or we will have after New Hampshire (aka, his only hope), but he's certainly saying almost all the right things now, which takes balls. He KNOWS he's saying all the things you DON'T say to win a GOP primary. I think part of that is strategy; he's clearly going for centrist, Democratic votes in open primaries, and center-right Republicans. The other part I think is that it's genuinely how he feels.
Samp -
Sad as that sounds, that's also part of why I think he'd be so effective. I think he could win, but not with as strong a coat tail effect, because too many Dems and independents would split tickets, with Dems in Congress and him in the White House. GOP would still pick up seats, but now it will be Democrats in the Senate filibustering everything. All deals would come down to what the Republicans can get out of Senate Democrats, if they're smart enough to wield the filibuster as much as Republicans did.
I think with the GOP in charge of almost all the government, especially if they have 51 in the Senate, they'll feel compelled to make deals just so they don't fall prey to the same obsctrutionism they're attacking Obama with right now. Huntsman strikes me as a deal maker. Romney actually does too, a bit, but none of the others do.
I'm so jaded after these last couple years that I think that's just the only way we're every going to pass legislation so long as the GOP exists.
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I don't understand Pawlenty's strategy here. Maybe he felt that, given time he'd drop even further out of the nation's consciousness, so now was the best time to make his endorsement and keep his name in the headlines. He denies that he's angling for a VP slot, but who wouldn't (deny it that is).
From an ideology standpoint, I think the endorsement makes a lot of sense. When Pawlenty was trying to be the guy who wasn't Romney in the race, it was difficult for him because he was so much like Romney. He was a modest, uptight white guy running on a good governance platform who tended to be a little cerebral, even wonky, and lacked the fire in the belly that Rick Perry has brought to the primary.
It seems to me that the endorsement pushes the going narrative: Romney is the favored candidate of the establishment, Perry is the favored candidate of the Tea Party, and the nomination will largely be decided by which of those elements of the GOP gets their voters to the primaries.
One other interesting side point: post debate shares on InTrade show Romney up about 7 pts at 38 and Perry down 3 at 35. I think Perry's glibness on the SS issue, and his letting himself get distracted from his game plan (which has to be jobs, jobs, jobs), probably impacted perceptions of electability among people paying attention. The most recent polls don't reflect a big change, but these things often start among high information political junkies (like InTrade users) and then filter down to the less attentive general public.
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Hah. Pawlenty endorsed someone? Considering how low his name recognition is, and how poor his fundraising was, what's the point? An endorsement from him is virtually worthless, it was just a chance to grab headlines.
I suppose it does lend some small weight to the "establishment" narrative though, as you say Senoj.
Tonight's debate (what, another one already?) will be interesting. What sorts of questions will be asked that makes it any different from the one they just had like five days ago?
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Given the venue (Tampa, FL), I'll be interested to see if SS/Medicare comes up, and if so whether Perry tries to mollify seniors by tweaking his answer. It's also billed as a Tea Party debate, so I wouldn't be surprised if the themes tend toward healthcare reform and other Tea Party hot button issues.
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Perry has clarified his statement in recent days to mean that while SS is a ponzi scheme that will screw over younger workers, he thinks it should be protected for everyone who has it or who will soon be using it.
I don't know if he has any replacement plan for the rest of us though.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: ... he thinks it should be protected for everyone who has it or who will soon be using it.
Heh. "It's a Ponzi scheme, but don't expect me to do anything but screw over the people who are being screwed even more"
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Watching the debate tonight has been amusing. No concrete answers on anything, just a lot of catch phrases, misdirections and in some cases, outright lies.
Crowd is eating it up, but then, it's a self-selecting group.
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Also, apparently, it's Obama's fault that Bush and the GOP Congress in 2001 and 2003 cut taxes and blew up the deficit. That time traveling bastard!
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What I got from the first hour of the debate:
We're going to repeal the health care act but we don't know how to replace it.
We're going to protect social security for seniors, but we're going to do something totally new for younger people that seniors probably wouldn't like, but young people will love!
We're going to lower taxes and "reduce waste," which will somehow magically get rid of the trillion and a half dollar deficit, but we won't touch entitlements and defense. Apparently they found a magic wand somewhere to make that happen.
We need to entrust the entire country to corporations, who have our best interests at heart, and will create millions of jobs so long as we stop asking them to do things like pay taxes and not pollute the air.
Can't wait for the second half!!
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Santorum's answer on vaccinations was a little bizarre, I have no idea what he meant.
He sort of explained that he support vaccines, and then argued against them unless parents want them? I don't know.
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The debate on defense was actually really interesting. Rick Santorum parroted the classic line about Muslim radicals. They hate us because we're free. When Ron Paul tried to explain the PR system behind extremism, he was booed for it. I think that's extremely telling. Extremely telling.
It speaks to a certain lack of acknowledgment of the complexity of the situation. It'd be nice if it was as simple as all that. We're fighting an implacable foe that hates all things free. But that ignores the very PR machine that people like Osama used for decades to recruit people. Ron Paul is right, it was about troops on Arab soil, support for Israel, and other concrete complaints, not some vague notion of hating freedom. Isn't the Arab Spring proof of, at the very least, a desire for a kind of freedom of choice? You can disagree with the reasons, but disagreeing that they even have reasons makes this an impossible debate, and it makes it impossible for people like Rick Santorum to solve the problem.
He never misses a chance to go after Ron Paul. This is the first time I've ever heard Ron Paul booed for it, but he also got cheers at the end too.
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I caught some line on the TV last night while I was at the gym, on some NBC talk show- apparently the reason we are in DEBT is because RADICAL ISLAM attacked AMERICA, and so we SPENT ALOT OF MONEY, to make ourselves FREE.
This was to do with personal debt, btw. We bought houses because of 9/11.
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Well didn't Bush tell us that the most patriotic thing we could do after 9/11 was go out and spend money to help the economy?
Really though, what you're talking about is something Ron Paul mentioned, but from a different angle. He said that in the response to 9/11, we've spent ourselves into a pit and reduced our freedoms, basically arguing that our response to the attacks did more damage than the attacks themselves. Lots of people cheered, lots booed.
I don't know if that was their intention or not, but it was certainly the effect.
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Some people would find it impressive that he can go from Truth to Crazy in three seconds flat. He's the Ferrari of the Right.
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So, I didn't get to listen to the debate last night, but I did hear a few excerpts this morning that I thought were funny.
First, I thought it was hilarious that Bachman wouldn't let go of the "personal choice" part of the vaccine issue. That executive order had SO MUCH about it you could pick apart from so many different angles including corruption, fiscal responsibility, and respect of legislative process. Instead, she focuses on "injecting little girls against their parent's wishes", which is just so completely untrue. It takes, literally, about 3 minutes to exempt your child from any vaccine in the state of Texas. Schools are required to be upfront about this, and during the whole scandal you couldn't read a single article on the subject or listen to a single TV story on the subject without being told exactly how simple it was to not get your daughter the shot. It's just so incredibly obvious that she doesn't care a fig about the truth and is only looking for good rhetoric. But I guess we already knew that!
Of course, Perry's response was also pretty telling. He was offended that she thought he could be bought for $5,000. His tone as much as said that there IS a number he could be bought for (and probably was bought for) but not a measly 5 grand! In the end, this is what scares me most about Perry. Perry isn't in this for anyone but himself, and he never has been... Perry is for Perry, period!
What I was really shocked about were the reactions to the border fence thing. First off, I was surprised to hear Perry so vehemently opposed to it, since he hasn't always been. Secondly, I was shocked to hear Huntsman call him a traitor for that view! Huntsman has seemed like the most reasonable one up until now, and it seems a little strange to go up to traitor for not wanting a fence - since there are very good arguments against the border fence.
Of course, it was just as shocking to hear Perry defending the in state tuition for illegal immigrants (or just their US citizen children, I wasn't clear on this point from the snips I heard) by calling it "The American Way". This is definitely a new tack for him. He must be scrambling to be able to put some sort of defined ideology to his record.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Some people would find it impressive that he can go from Truth to Crazy in three seconds flat. He's the Ferrari of the Right.
Hah... I like that.
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It wasn't a very good joke. But then, it wasn't nearly as bad as his terrible Nirvana reference.
quote:Of course, Perry's response was also pretty telling. He was offended that she thought he could be bought for $5,000. His tone as much as said that there IS a number he could be bought for (and probably was bought for) but not a measly 5 grand! In the end, this is what scares me most about Perry. Perry isn't in this for anyone but himself, and he never has been... Perry is for Perry, period!
Lots of commentators have noted that Bachmann could have really landed a blow if she'd asked "Well then what is your price Governor?" after he said that.
From what I can tell, all Perry really said there was "I'm not a prostitute, I'm an escort!"
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It wasn't a very good joke. But then, it wasn't nearly as bad as his terrible Nirvana reference.
quote:Of course, Perry's response was also pretty telling. He was offended that she thought he could be bought for $5,000. His tone as much as said that there IS a number he could be bought for (and probably was bought for) but not a measly 5 grand! In the end, this is what scares me most about Perry. Perry isn't in this for anyone but himself, and he never has been... Perry is for Perry, period!
Lots of commentators have noted that Bachmann could have really landed a blow if she'd asked "Well then what is your price Governor?" after he said that.
From what I can tell, all Perry really said there was "I'm not a prostitute, I'm an escort!"
I don't think that's fair. I saw Perry as saying more "Really? You're saying that a major reason I did this was so I could get 5000 measly dollars?" It wasn't disgust at the amount, but rather that resting an accusation of him taking bribes for such a paltry amount was ridiculous. To clarify, imagine if he got say $5 dollars out of it and people accused him of making his decision largely on that $5.
I think Gov Perry is a self-serving intellectual lightweight who would be extremely bad for this country, but that particular criticism seems really weak and biased to me.
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I think that is what people are saying. That Gov. Perry's response indicated that the amount of the bribe was paltry not that any bribe would be unacceptable.
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quote:Secondly, I was shocked to hear Huntsman call him a traitor for that view!
Huntsman was joking. It was a riff off of Perry calling Bernanke a traitor.
Joke or not, I find it very disturbing how common it has become for conservative to call those who disagree with them "traitors". Labeling those who disagree "traitors" and "enemies of the state", is one of the classic characteristics of authoritarian regimes. It seems that conservatives have rejected the idea of the "loyal opposition".
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I think that is what people are saying. That Gov. Perry's response indicated that the amount of the bribe was paltry not that any bribe would be unacceptable.
Look I dislike Perry a lot, and would never vote for him. But every single candidate will be sent money either by poor Americans who send a few dollars, or by the rich who cut cheques in the thousands. Perry's point was he is given millions of dollars by donors, and to suggest that $5,000 of that was the lynchpin that made up his mind, is ludicrous.
If five people all give me $5, and urge me to vote for A, B, C, D, and E. A 6th hands me $1, and you I later vote for F, an initiative the 6th donor feels strongly about, it makes no sense to then conclude I was swayed by the 6th donor.
With all the criticisms one can make about Perry, including the apt example that he is a career politician buried in the concept of "pay for play" politics, that $5,000 from Merck is not going to be the route you should take.
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quote:Secondly, I was shocked to hear Huntsman call him a traitor for that view!
Huntsman was joking. It was a riff off of Perry calling Bernanke a traitor.
Joke or not, I find it very disturbing how common it has become for conservative to call those who disagree with them "traitors". Labeling those who disagree "traitors" and "enemies of the state", is one of the classic characteristics of authoritarian regimes. It seems that conservatives have rejected the idea of the "loyal opposition".
Ambassador Huntsman agrees with you. That was kind of the point of his joke. He made it about Governor Perry, who used it seriously, about Gov. Perry's deviation from the mainstream Republican platform of strong anti-illegal immigration measures.
He was using it to satirize calling people traitors when they disagree with you.
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I agree that's what Huntsman was doing. I wonder, though, if it wasn't too subtle for most people to pick up on. Huntsman tried to be clever a couple times and I think it either fell flat or went over people's heads.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It wasn't a very good joke. But then, it wasn't nearly as bad as his terrible Nirvana reference.
quote:Of course, Perry's response was also pretty telling. He was offended that she thought he could be bought for $5,000. His tone as much as said that there IS a number he could be bought for (and probably was bought for) but not a measly 5 grand! In the end, this is what scares me most about Perry. Perry isn't in this for anyone but himself, and he never has been... Perry is for Perry, period!
Lots of commentators have noted that Bachmann could have really landed a blow if she'd asked "Well then what is your price Governor?" after he said that.
From what I can tell, all Perry really said there was "I'm not a prostitute, I'm an escort!"
I don't think that's fair. I saw Perry as saying more "Really? You're saying that a major reason I did this was so I could get 5000 measly dollars?" It wasn't disgust at the amount, but rather that resting an accusation of him taking bribes for such a paltry amount was ridiculous. To clarify, imagine if he got say $5 dollars out of it and people accused him of making his decision largely on that $5.
I think Gov Perry is a self-serving intellectual lightweight who would be extremely bad for this country, but that particular criticism seems really weak and biased to me.
I agree with kate. He worded his response VERY poorly. Don't get me wrong, I agree with his underlying message, that obviously he didn't make a decision based on such a ridiculously small sum, but that's not really the point. He worded it in such a way as to suggest that it's ridiculous to assume he made the choice based on that small amount, but had the amount been higher, he wouldn't have been insulted by the accusation, meaning what, he'd go for it? It was a bizarre sort of response. He should have just taken umbrage at the suggestion of bribery and dismissed it.
I was mostly having fun with his wording. I think a lot of people interpreted it the same way I did.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I think that is what people are saying. That Gov. Perry's response indicated that the amount of the bribe was paltry not that any bribe would be unacceptable.
Look I dislike Perry a lot, and would never vote for him. But every single candidate will be sent money either by poor Americans who send a few dollars, or by the rich who cut cheques in the thousands. Perry's point was he is given millions of dollars by donors, and to suggest that $5,000 of that was the lynchpin that made up his mind, is ludicrous.
If five people all give me $5, and urge me to vote for A, B, C, D, and E. A 6th hands me $1, and you I later vote for F, an initiative the 6th donor feels strongly about, it makes no sense to then conclude I was swayed by the 6th donor.
With all the criticisms one can make about Perry, including the apt example that he is a career politician buried in the concept of "pay for play" politics, that $5,000 from Merck is not going to be the route you should take.
I don't know that he is more or less influenced by donations than most other politicians.* He just worded it poorly.
*I think that almost all politicians are far too influenced by their big donors and that this is a big chunk of what is wrong with our political system and the US as a whole.
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posted
It was the tone in Perry's voice, and his word choice, that made it sound like he was saying he would take a larger bribe. I merely BELIEVE he's more prone to being influenced by monetary pressure because of some of the somewhat erratic things he seems to have done as governor. He doesn't always stay consistent on stances and will come out from left field with something that is, very suddenly, an extreme priority. Of course, I believe that most politician's are pretty shady, just that Perry is towards the worse end of the spectrum.
I'm glad to hear that Huntsman's comment was a joke. I didn't hear that comment as a soundbite, only from the reporter, so I couldn't hear tone. It didn't really seem to jive with other things I'd heard about him, so I was a little confused.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Oh. I also find it funny that the Texas Comptrollers office just published a website that details all the economic impacts of Federal Regulation on Texas. This was something that was desperately needed "for the Texan public" to understand what federal regulations were doing to us, and has "nothing to do" with the Governors campaign.
When asked why it only detailed out the expenses of Federal Regulation and didn't even attempt to capture any offsetting savings (like decreased public healthcare dollars) she said that those things were not the responsibility of her office, only the costs were.
I'm not always for regulations. Honestly, charging people a ton of money just to keep some sort of rare salamander alive doesn't always seem like a good deal to me. However, I have a hard time believing that this "Keeping Texas First" project just happened to need to come to the spotlight right now!
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I'm not against a national sales tax, or VAT, as a debt-reduction method to start hacking away at the ballooning debt. I think we should have a 1% sales tax and every year the money MUST go to pay down the debt, and we should have it for ten years.
Something that might be interesting
quote:This is a frustrating state of affairs for an economist who would like to see governments do more to reduce poverty and inequality. Outside Canada, it is generally accepted that high VAT rates are an essential component of social policy: see the accompanying graph. Of the 21 OECD countries that spend more on social programs than does Canada, 19 have higher VAT rates. There are no rich countries that have pulled off the trick of sustaining high levels of social spending with low VAT rates.
Concerns about the regressive nature of the GST/HST can be addressed by improving the system of credits that compensate low-income households. Indeed, research suggests that the most effective way of reducing poverty and inequality is – surprisingly enough – to provide low-income households with more money. (See, for example, here, here, here and here.)
One of the more convenient features of the GST/HST is that it has already set up the infrastructure for transferring income to low-income households. The GST/HST tax credit can be used as a basis for an even more ambitious system of transfers at almost no additional administrative cost. All that is required is the political will to use it.
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