Who will win the 2012 US Presidential Election?

[zahratustra]

Obamacare. I don't like what Bush did either, so I'm not about to claim he was any better. They each encouraged $700 billion bailouts. We just traded a fascist for a communist. They both want authoritarianism.

All what you really did was to reveal that you have no clue what "fascist" or "communist" means.

 

[Pladio]

That's on invested income, not what he was paid.

You seem to not realize that Romney released his tax returns on his income and that's what it said.

I'm doing this only once by the way, because if you can't even use Google yourself and are going to ask me to provide you with links all the time, I'm not going to speak with you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16696347

US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney expects to pay about $6.2m (£4m) in taxes on income of $42.5m in the last two years.

That makes for a tax rate of 13.9% in 2010 and an expected rate of 15.4% in 2011, his campaign said.

Mr Gingrich released his tax figures on Saturday, saying he paid nearly $1m last year, a rate of about 31%.

 

[Pladio]

Romney also gave another $7 million as charitable contribution, which qualifies for deductions. Where did you get your numbers for those averages and what exactly does that include? Federal Income tax brackets are 25% for people earning between about $33,000 and $82,000. You don't pay any taxes on the first $8,500 of your income. The amount you pay in state and local taxes can vary pretty drastically depending on where you live. Social Security and Medicare together make up nearly 15% of income. Property taxes also vary quite a bit depending on where you live. What about sales tax (again, depending on where you live)? Any long term capital gains are taxed at 15%. Any short term capital gains are included in your annual income figures and taxed at whatever income rate you are taxed at. Then of course there are deductions.

My point is that it is very complicated, and the amount you actually pay depends on a lot of things. Personally, I think income tax should be eliminated in favor of a national sales tax. People ought to pay based upon how much they consume, not how much they make (which is nobody's business in my opinion). To make it more fair to lower income people, goods like groceries and consumables, gas, and utilities could be exempt from the sales tax.

My average, is something I had read several years ago, but a quick look on Wiki confirms, I'm in the right ballpark:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Mean_income

Overall, the mean household income in the United States, according to the US Census Bureau 2004 Economic Survey, was $60,528, or $17,210 (39.73%) higher than the median household income.[63]

The tax rate I said was a rough estimate on my part of how much people paid in taxes at that level. My guesstimate went as follows:
About 20-30% basic income tax, 5-10% Social Security, 5-10% Healthcare +/- some deductions and other payable taxes -> So I just said 35% to make it simple. But yes, you are right, it's more complicated than that.

 

[rossrjensen]

All what you really did was to reveal that you have no clue what "fascist" or "communist" means.

Really? I have a master's in political science that makes me confident I know these terms.

You could focus on a rebuttal if you disagree, but blindly attacking my conceptual understanding of political terms, which are related to my major focus of studies, is not going to change my mind.

 

[Pladio]

Really? I have a master's in political science that makes me confident I know these terms.

You could focus on a rebuttal if you disagree, but blindly attacking my conceptual understanding of political terms, which are related to my major focus of studies, is not going to change my mind.

The problem is that until you said :

We just traded a fascist for a communist. They both want authoritarianism.

Then your sentences were making sense.
There's nothing to suggest either of them wanted to be authoritarian and nothing to suggest Obama is a communist, nor Bush a fascist.

So who cares if you have a BA in Politics at Yale, a Masters in PS at Harvard and doing your phd at Princeton. What you're saying doesn't make sense.

 

[zahratustra]

Really? I have a master's in political science that makes me confident I know these terms.

You could focus on a rebuttal if you disagree, but blindly attacking my conceptual understanding of political terms, which are related to my major focus of studies, is not going to change my mind.

That's makes your previous statement even more preposterous. But go on, tell me how Bush's regime was "fascist" and Obama's is "communist"?

 

[rossrjensen]

The problem is that until you said :



Then your sentences were making sense.
There's nothing to suggest either of them wanted to be authoritarian and nothing to suggest Obama is a communist, nor Bush a fascist.

So who cares if you have a BA in Politics at Yale, a Masters in PS at Harvard and doing your phd at Princeton. What you're saying doesn't make sense.

Perhaps you just don't understand. Just to claim that what I said doesn't make sense does not mean it isn't true.

I am confident in my understanding of these terms because I studied and wrote many papers about them. Some person making a baseless ad hominem attack on me is not going to make me either understand their perspective nor make me doubt my own. A baseless attack is met with an equally useless response. I'm plenty willing to discuss these subjects, but a flippant response with no backing is neither constructive nor worthwhile to the conversation. It is only slightly irritating to me. And I would hope that we can be pleasant and respectful enough to each other that your goal would not be simply to get under my skin.

Allow me to strengthen my claim. Obama is seeking to create social justice through welfare programs. While campaigning ("change") he said he would seek a "redistribution of wealth" and said that the free market had proven to be a failure. He has sought for the expansion of the credit system. He encouraged and authorized over $700 billion in bailout programs for "too big to fail" businesses (an unholy union between the private sector and government), increasing the federal budget by over $1 trillion. He sought the establishment of universal healthcare. He wants to raise taxes, with the burden falling primarily on the wealthy. By 2016, Obama will have increased government debt by a record $4.9 trillion. From Wikipedia, "communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, stateless and revolutionary socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production." Do his goals not indicate that many of this is among his aim?

George Bush also authorized over $700 billion in bailouts before leaving office. Bush also created a Medicare entitlement that cost over $800 billion. Education spending was increased by nearly 60% and he helped pass the No Child Left Behind act. He sought to expand the role of the United States in foreign affairs. He provided large tax cuts for corporate interest. He presided over an increased public debt of what was a record $2.5 trillion. He increased the role of government in U.S. citizens' daily routines by advocating for the Patriot Act, allowing government to spy on its own citizens without a warrant - in the name of increased security, at the cost of privacy (TWA at the airport does this on a more localized level as well). From Wikipedia, "Fascism supports a socially united, collective national society…Fascists advocate: a state-directed, regulated economy that is dedicated to the nation; the use and primacy of regulated private property and private enterprise contingent upon service to the nation or state; the use of state enterprise where private enterprise is failing or is inefficient". Wiki even talks about fascists advocating war to help create national identity (not quoted because this is not a focus of my comparison). Does this not sound consistent?

Both of these ideologies share one thing in common: authoritarianism. Again, from Wikipedia (the day Wiki was blacked out was a scary day for me), "Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy. In politics, an authoritarian government is one in which political authority is concentrated in a small group of politicians…Authoritarianism and democracy are not fundamentally opposed to one another, it is thus perfectly possible for democracies to possess strong authoritarian elements, for both feature a form of submission to authority." Is not facilitating a stronger central government also creating a more authoritarian state?

Just to have a communist in office does not make the U.S. a communist country. Just to have a fascist as president does not make the U.S. a fascist country. We have checks and balances to prevent that from happening (and an incrementalism policy-making process, as I mentioned in an early post). But you cannot deny that the last two president's have spent more, by a considerable margin, than any other president before them. That is a fact. They share in common a desire to consolidate central powers. We have not seen the feds exercise as much power in at least three decades, and there certainly hasn't been as rapid change in the role of government in the day to day lives of Americans since the Great Depression.

This is why I went on my political rant about the left-right spectrum. People are hesitant to even consider looking at other ideologies and seeing how they resemble things that are happening in the world. I would say Obama and Bush's history and beliefs make a stronger case to what political affiliation they have than their party tickets. There can be moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats, right? Well who's to say there can be such a thing as a moderate fascist, communist, libertarian, socialist? Does fascism even fit on the right-left spectrum? Wiki again, "there is a running dispute among scholars about where along the left/right spectrum that fascism resides." We aren't even allowed to think about it, because we all know Bush was far right, right? Well, there is a reason he was referred to as a "neo-con", and it's not because he had more extreme economic views. In fact, he was far more "moderate" than the last couple Republicans that preceded him. It had to do with his spending habits and belief in a strong central government. That's how I see it at least.

 

[Pladio]

You could say all of that if you simplify those two terms the way you did, including snipping of parts of your own source.

For example Fascism is:

Fascism supports a socially united, collective national society and opposes socially divided class-based societies (including liberal bourgeois and Marxian proletarian class-based societies) and socially-divided individualist-based society.[14] Fascists claim it is a trans-class movement, advocating resolution to domestic class conflict within a nation to secure national solidarity.[15] While fascism opposes domestic class conflict, it favours a proletarian national culture and claims that its goal of nationalizing society emancipates the nation's proletariat, and promotes the assimilation of all classes into proletarian national culture.[16] It opposes contemporary bourgeois class-based society and culture for allegedly being based on selfish and hedonistic individualism that results in plutocracy and war profiteering at the expense of the nation.[17] Fascism claims that bourgeois-proletarian conflict primarily exists in national conflict between proletarian nations versus bourgeois nations; fascism declares support for the victory of proletarian nations.[18]
Fascists advocate: a state-directed, regulated economy that is dedicated to the nation; the use and primacy of regulated private property and private enterprise contingent upon service to the nation or state; the use of state enterprise where private enterprise is failing or is inefficient; and autarky. It supports criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deems these acts as prejudicial to the national community as a whole.[19]

The bolded part is everything you seemed to have disregarded. The following is quite an interesting part to disregard:

autarky. It supports criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deems these acts as prejudicial to the national community as a whole.[19]

Neither Bush nor Obama have ever wanted the US to be an autarky. Nor did they try to criminalize strikes in my limited knowledge.

Ron Paul on the other hand does want to US to be autocratic and wants to stop Foreign Aid and so on.

So, yes, if you want to disregard half of your own source's definitions then yes, you are right.

 

[dteowner]

His point, I assume, was that you need long-term government, not short-term.

True enough. Let's get past this little "progressive" hiccup and back on a proper track and stick with it long term. Glad to see we can agree!

 

[dteowner]

I do so enjoy when we can ignore the actual issues in favor of a nice bit of pointless pedantry over textbook definitions. Who cares if we all understand the point if we can muddy the waters with academic bullshit? Carry on, perfessers!

 

[rossrjensen]

You could say all of that if you simplify those two terms the way you did, including snipping of parts of your own source.

The bolded part is everything you seemed to have disregarded. The following is quite an interesting part to disregard:

So, yes, if you want to disregard half of your own source's definitions then yes, you are right.

Yes Pladio, I could have quoted the entire thing, but I left out the parts that weren't applicable to my comments. Is there something wrong with that? It's not like I was intentionally trying to hide anything (I gave you my source for crying out loud), just avoiding inapplicable or redundant commentary. This is how citing sources works and I tend to believe in content over quantity. Do you intend to respond to what I did post?

Your quote - autarky. It supports criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deems these acts as prejudicial to the national community as a whole

Your comment - Ron Paul on the other hand does want to US to be autocratic and wants to stop Foreign Aid and so on.

Do you mean to claim that Ron Paul is a fascist or in some way more of a fascist than G.W. Bush? I think everyone knows Paul is a Libertarian. Your statement also seems to insinuate that Paul advocates "criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deems these acts as prejudicial to the national community as a whole." Do you really believe this?

(Arrowing going up is economic permissiveness and the arrow going right is social permissiveness)

Any of these ideologies can believe in autarky. You don't have to be a fascist to believe in it. This is a logical fallacy.

All fascists are autarks =/= all autarks are fascists

In fact, I would say that it is debatable that all fascists are autarks to begin with. There is a spectrum of beliefs across any ideology. What categorizes you is your stance on the issues considered most important by that ideology. This is exactly the point I was trying to get at when I said there can be moderate fascists and communists, just like there can be moderate Republicans and Democrats. You can see how that might work on the spectrum I attached.

To simplify, fascists believe government should play a highly active role in its citizens day to day lives (authoritarian!), is characterized by a strong relationship between large corporations and government, and encourages nationalism and patriotism by many different means.

 

[Drithius]

With Romney's wealth/tax stigma getting full attention now, I wouldn't be surprised if Gingrich got the GOP nomination. And if he does, Obama will likely clinch another 4 years. Forgiving his hypocrisy, Gingrich is simply too reactionary to win a national vote.

 

[rossrjensen]

With Romney's wealth/tax stigma getting full attention now, I wouldn't be surprised if Gingrich got the GOP nomination. And if he does, Obama will likely clinch another 4 years. Forgiving his hypocrisy, Gingrich is simply too reactionary to win a national vote.

I don't think Romney could beat Obama either. I saw some startling statistics that said something like 24% of the U.S. population wouldn't vote for a Mormon (as opposed to 4% that wouldn't vote for a Catholic and something like 5% that wouldn't vote for a black person). Of course anything could happen, but I think starting out with that big of a disadvantage would be very difficult to overcome. Besides that, Obama is still very popular in many circles. It's a little disheartening to hear that something like that would prevent someone from being elected.

 

[zahratustra]

Forgiving his hypocrisy, Gingrich is simply too reactionary to win a national vote.

But look at the entertainment value while it lasts! I don't think that even Gingrich knows today what he will do or say day after tomorrow! Call him what you want, but he is a maverick all right

 

[CountChocula]

By 2016, Obama will have increased government debt by a record $4.9 trillion.

Can you elaborate on this?

The Summaries table of the 2012 budget seems to show a reduction below 1 trillion by the year 2016. Of course, perhaps there is some creative accounting practice at work.

At any rate, we cannot ignore the fact that Bush's wars have cost us between $3.2 trillion to $3.4 trillion by some estimates.

 

[rossrjensen]

Can you elaborate on this?

The Summaries table of the 2012 budget seems to show a reduction below 1 trillion by the year 2016. Of course, perhaps there is some creative accounting practice at work.

At any rate, we cannot ignore the fact that Bush's wars have cost us between $3.2 trillion to $3.4 trillion by some estimates.

I think the budget you're looking at paints a similar picture (in fact are a little higher - looks like more money was spent then originally planned). Deficits: 2010 - 1.3 trillion, 2011 - 1.6 trillion, 2012 - 1.1 trillion, 2013 - 768 billion, 2014 - 645 billion, 2015 - 607 billion. Total deficit amassed from 2010 until the start of 2016 - $6 trillion.

Here is where I got graphs - http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/

The article does sound a tad biased, but it is also equally harsh on GW Bush. These are somewhat dated projections from both the White House and CBO, but some of the more updated projections (here - http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/28/the-truth-about-obamas-budget-deficits-in-pictures/) look to be pretty similar.

 

[zahratustra]

Do you mean to claim that Ron Paul is a fascist or in some way more of a fascist than G.W. Bush? I think everyone knows Paul is a Libertarian. Your statement also seems to insinuate that Paul advocates "criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deems these acts as prejudicial to the national community as a whole." Do you really believe this?

And here is your fallacy in in nutshell Ross. I don't think that Pladio is being serious. But, even if he was, would have been wrong in EXACTLY the same way as you are in labeling Bush "fascist" and Obama "communist".

"I think everyone knows Paul is a Libertarian." really? Somebody will be exactly as right to call him a fascist as you are calling Obama a communist.

"Your statement also seems to insinuate that Paul advocates "criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deems these acts as prejudicial to the national community as a whole."" well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander isn't it?

 

[CountChocula]

I think the budget you're looking at paints a similar picture (in fact are a little higher - looks like more money was spent then originally planned). Deficits: 2010 - 1.3 trillion, 2011 - 1.6 trillion, 2012 - 1.1 trillion, 2013 - 768 billion, 2014 - 645 billion, 2015 - 607 billion. Total deficit amassed from 2010 until the start of 2016 - $6 trillion.

Here is where I got graphs - http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/

The article does sound a tad biased, but it is also equally harsh on GW Bush. These are somewhat dated projections from both the White House and CBO, but some of the more updated projections (here - http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/28/the-truth-about-obamas-budget-deficits-in-pictures/) look to be pretty similar.

I understand, you were referring to the accumulated debt as opposed to the budget deficit for the year 2016.

Yes, $15 trillion by 2016 and $18 trillion by 2021 are some mind boggling and very worrying figures.

Ultimately I'm skeptical about any GOP or democratic candidate's sincere commitment or capacity to effectively reduce the national debt in the short term. It's such an abysmal mess that there is not any simple solution to get out of it while simultaneously attempting to stimulate growth in a stagnant economy.

Unfortunately to win a presidential election in this country requires hundreds of millions of dollars. Whether all that money comes from labor unions, the wealthiest 1%, pharmaceutical companies, big banks, oil money, etc., there is no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[rossrjensen]

And here is your fallacy in in nutshell Ross. I don't think that Pladio is being serious. But, even if he was, would have been wrong in EXACTLY the same way as you are in labeling Bush "fascist" and Obama "communist".

"I think everyone knows Paul is a Libertarian." really? Somebody will be exactly as right to call him a fascist as you are calling Obama a communist.

But people would not be just as right calling Paul a fascist or communist. I understand what you're getting at, but as I said in an earlier post, I believe your history and your beliefs dictate how you are categorized. Paul is a Libertarian because he has consistently stated he believes in Libertarian values - very limited decentralized government, free markets, nonintervention of government in personal lives (with the exception of his stance on abortion, but that is a different debate altogether), and a more isolationist foreign policy. Nothing about that says fascist or communist. Bush increased the role of government in personal lives (from a moral standpoint, and education standpoint, and a surveillance standpoint), he increased government spending, he increased central powers, and he increased US involvement in foreign affairs. Disregarding the foreign policy aspect, which can be debated, those first three are not the common American conservative Republican values. He had the religious vote on his side and his stance on social issues was a fairly conservative approach (except of course his increased entitlement spending and money spent on education reform), but nothing about his economic policy indicates conservative. It does indicate fascism though. What Paul has in common with Republicans is supposed to be his economic policies, but he and Bush literally see eye to eye on none of those issues. The only issue that they agree on, as far as I can tell, is that they are both pro-life. How can those two people both be categorized as Republicans if they are so apart on nearly every issue? It just doesn't make sense. I think people would benefit from have a more open perspective on political categorization.

It's not like my intent is to insult either Obama or Bush by applying them with "labels". I'm merely categorizing them in a way I see more accurately defines their political ideologies. They don't have to fit the category perfectly, people rarely do. They only need to fit the category more closely than "Democrat" or "Republican" to be recategorized. Does Obama believe in a radical proletariat revolution? Well, I don't know. But I do think he wants to set up a world with that vision. And saying Bush is a fascist is not calling him a Nazi. His viewpoints are simply not consistent with Republicans enough for me to buy such that label - I find they are much more consistent with the ideology of fascism.

"Your statement also seems to insinuate that Paul advocates "criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deems these acts as prejudicial to the national community as a whole."" well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander isn't it?

Can't say I have much of an idea what that means and I'm too lazy to bother looking it up, but I'll give a response a shot anyway. Pladio made a point to include certain things I left out. As I said, I was quoting pieces of Wiki to give me a reference, he made a point to include that line after including autarks. He said that Paul was an autark, so I could only assume that other line was included in his comparison as well. Or else why would it be there? That's why I didn't quote everything, because I didn't want people to be confused about the application of different ideas involved with the terminology to my comparison. Again, content over quantity.

 

[rossrjensen]

Ultimately I'm skeptical about any GOP or democratic candidate's sincere commitment or capacity to effectively reduce the national debt in the short term. It's such an abysmal mess that there is not any simple solution to get out of it while simultaneously attempting to stimulate growth in a stagnant economy.

I agree. I would like to see Paul take a shot at it, but I don't think he has much of a chance to win the primary. I think he would push supply-side economics, which could be a way to encourage job growth while keeping the deficit under control. I think he would have a better chance at a general election to be honest. In the primaries, since it is only Republicans voting, it seems like it has been all about catering to social conservative values.

Regardless, it's just always going to be difficult to get that much done anyway. There's still Congress. Considering that it seems like there is a general consensus that Keynesian economic policy is the best way to get out of a recession, there is little chance of reducing the deficit and paying down debt until we are clearly out of the recession.