2012 Republican Nominee Poll IV

[kochman]

Does he intend to save it from the greed of corporations and the super rich? Well, no. They are the ones bankrolling him, and they will expect a payback.

Fact... who received more money from big oil and wall street than any other candidate in history in 2008? Who then went on to give bank bailouts? Was it McCain? Or Obama?
You really can't use this against the Repubs when the Dems are just as guilty.

Dos he intend to save it from abuse of the Constitution? Well, no. He intends to make torture the country's official policy.

Torture, like those techniques that led to us finding OBL? I guess Obama didn't mind using that information, as long as he could point the finger at Bush.

And, are you really talking about Mitt violating the Constitution when Obama just pissed on the Bill of Rights, specifically the 6th Amendment, when he signed into law the ability for his branch to indefinitely detain citizens without trial?!
Is that abuse?
And, uh, what about Gitmo? That's still rolling...

Does he intend to save it from out of control private companies and special interests? Well, no. He intends to deregulate.

Regulation by itself isn't right. Smart, meaningful regulation is... sometimes deregulation is good, sometimes more regulation is needed... to just say deregulation as though it is a curse word is pedagoguery.

Dos he intend to save it from fiscal ruin? Well, no. He intends to cut taxes and destroy health care reform.

Because Obama's record deficit and debt accumulation is so awesome...

Dos he intend to save it from the decline of the American Dream? Well, no. He intends to make labor desperate and poor so that they have no choice but to take any job, no matter how much worse off it leaves them in the long run.

I hope this is not the case... you really have no evidence to support it, based on his governance of MA... do you?

I really don't want to be "saved" the way Romney intends to "save" me.

You prefer more "Hope & Change"? Because that's been so stellar?
It's time for a change... Romney isn't perfect, but Obama is disastrous.

 

[NickyJ]

Gotta love American Samoa. Romney got 100% of the six votes. He got nine delegates from there.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

Gotta love American Samoa. Romney got 100% of the six votes. He got nine delegates from there.

Only six votes,

 

[useless]

Because Obama's record deficit and debt accumulation is so awesome...

Just wanted to point out that Obama mostly inherited the debt from Bush's previous stint in office, but let's ignore that because it's inconveniant.

 

[kochman]

Just wanted to point out that Obama mostly inherited the debt from Bush's previous stint in office, but let's ignore that because it's inconveniant.

Obama accumulated more debt in 2 years than Bush did in 8 I believe... or something close to that. Not exact numbers.

Granted, it wasn't all his fault, but he could have taken steps (such as he campaigned on) to cut the deficit better... instead, he ramped up Afghanistan (which cost more than Iraq to operate in due to being land locked), ignored his deficit commission, passed the ACA (which the CBO just said won't cost the originally estimated $900M over 10 years, but $1.76T... Only about $900M off the $900M guestimate), etc, etc...
Do I think some of his actions forestalled a bigger crash? Yes.
Do I think he could have done better? Absolutely...

 

[useless]

Obama accumulated more debt in 2 years than Bush did in 8 I believe... or something close to that. Not exact numbers.

[Citation needed]

Granted, it wasn't all his fault, but he could have taken steps (such as he campaigned on) to cut the deficit better... instead, he ramped up Afghanistan (which cost more than Iraq to operate in due to being land locked), ignored his deficit commission, passed the ACA (which the CBO just said won't cost the originally estimated $900M over 10 years, but $1.76T... Only about $900M off the $900M guestimate), etc, etc...
Do I think some of his actions forestalled a bigger crash? Yes.

Fair enough.

 

[Cutlass]

Obama accumulated more debt in 2 years than Bush did in 8 I believe... or something close to that. Not exact numbers.

Granted, it wasn't all his fault, but he could have taken steps (such as he campaigned on) to cut the deficit better... instead, he ramped up Afghanistan (which cost more than Iraq to operate in due to being land locked), ignored his deficit commission, passed the ACA (which the CBO just said won't cost the originally estimated $900M over 10 years, but $1.76T... Only about $900M off the $900M guestimate), etc, etc...
Do I think some of his actions forestalled a bigger crash? Yes.
Do I think he could have done better? Absolutely...

And yet you still refuse to accept who's responsibility that is. Here's a thought, try holding people responsible for their own actions.

Bush destroyed Obama's tax receipts and put 10 million people on unemployment that Obama had to deal with that Bush did now.

 

[kochman]

And yet you still refuse to accept who's responsibility that is. Here's a thought, try holding people responsible for their own actions.

Bush destroyed Obama's tax receipts and put 10 million people on unemployment that Obama had to deal with that Bush did now.

How many years into an administration need to pass before Obama is responsible for anything, in your opinion? 8?

 

[BSmith1068]

How many years into an administration need to pass before Obama is responsible for everything, in your opinion? 8?

Fixed that for you.

 

[luiz]

Fact... who received more money from big oil and wall street than any other candidate in history in 2008? Who then went on to give bank bailouts? Was it McCain? Or Obama?
You really can't use this against the Repubs when the Dems are just as guilty.

This is an interesting (and correct) fact, hidden by the American left with tenacity. Obama was Wall Street's preferred candidate in 2008; he received far more donations than McCain. In fact he received more Wall Street donations than any candidate in history.

And Democrats are more reliant on the donations of millionaires and billionaires than Republicans. True story.

But now, because Wall Street prefers Romney, he is "on their pockets".

 

[Cutlass]

This is an interesting (and correct) fact, hidden by the American left with tenacity. Obama was Wall Street's preferred candidate in 2008; he received far more donations than McCain. In fact he received more Wall Street donations than any candidate in history.

And Democrats are more reliant on the donations of millionaires and billionaires than Republicans. True story.

But now, because Wall Street prefers Romney, he is "on their pockets".

This is an interesting (and correct) fact, hidden by the American right with tenacity. When someone is expected to win, special interests which would not prefer that person to win hedge their bets and try to buy access by supporting them.

How many years into an administration need to pass before Obama is responsible for anything, in your opinion? 8?

Considering that Obama could not get Congress to end the deficits of the Bush tax cuts, nor could he get Congress to do any real stimulus to end the effects of the Bush recession, what could he have done differently?

If you want to hold someone responsible for something, you have to have some action on their part that they could have done differently.

What could Obama have done differently that would have had a significant impact on the deficit? Bush had no reason to run a deficit. Obama has no ability to not run one.

 

[kochman]

Wow... could you find any more lopsided charts?

So, Obama is still not responsible for us being in Afghanistan even?

So, the answer is, he is not ever responsible for continuation of the status quo, or even ramping up the previous status quo...

He is only responsible for things that are 100% new.

What about that $1.76T for ACA, btw?

 

[luiz]

This is an interesting (and correct) fact, hidden by the American right with tenacity. When someone is expected to win, special interests which would not prefer that person to win hedge their bets and try to buy access by supporting them.

Hum, that's at best part of the explanation. You can't read into Wall Street's minds. Obama attracted generous donations from big money even during the primaries, when his victory was far from certain. Even during the brief moment when McCain was ahead in the polls, Obama was getting more big money donations.

Also, what you wrote does not change the fact that over the last elections, even the ones the democrats lost, they were more reliant on big money donations than the Republicans.

Note that this isn't an accusation; it's not necessarily a bad thing. But you really need to think about that before accusing Romney of stuff.

 

[Antilogic]

Wow... could you find any more lopsided charts?

So, Obama is still not responsible for us being in Afghanistan even?

So, the answer is, he is not ever responsible for continuation of the status quo, or even ramping up the previous status quo...

He is only responsible for things that are 100% new.

What about that $1.76T for ACA, btw?

The truth is pretty lopsided, my good fellow. I'll let Cutlass respond to the other points, I don't care enough about Afghanistan to post.

The ACA is presumably under the health reform and entitlement changes part of the graph, which lumps all of social security and medical care in one section. Also, your figure on the ACA is off; the CBO, on March 15th, projects a cost of $1.2 billion over an 11-year period ending in 2022, while this graph only dates out to 2017. It's at the bottom of page 3.

 

[kochman]

The truth is pretty lopsided, my good fellow. I'll let Cutlass respond to the other points, I don't care enough about Afghanistan to post.

The ACA is presumably under the health reform and entitlement changes part of the graph, which lumps all of social security and medical care in one section. Also, your figure on the ACA is off; the CBO, on March 15th, projects a cost of $1.2 billion over an 11-year period ending in 2022, while this graph only dates out to 2017. It's at the bottom of page 3.

I saw $1.76T... http://news.investors.com/article/604400/201203141851/cbo-obamacare-cost-double-obama-vow.htm

Anyhow, the chart is silly... not "truth". To saddle the entire Afghan war debt on Bush, who left office 3 years ago, during which we've ramped up costs tremendously, is disingenous.

All of defense is under Bush?

I'm not here to defend Bush, but let's keep it honest.

 

[Antilogic]

First, I'll note that my above post had a typo, it should read $1.2 trillion, not billion.

I saw $1.76T... http://news.investors.com/article/604400/201203141851/cbo-obamacare-cost-double-obama-vow.htm

Anyhow, the chart is silly... not "truth". To saddle the entire Afghan war debt on Bush, who left office 3 years ago, during which we've ramped up costs tremendously, is disingenous.

All of defense is under Bush?

I'm not here to defend Bush, but let's keep it honest.

I'll trust an actual CBO report from their website over what some random guy on another site says without citation. Your mileage may vary.

Without knowing the source of the above chart, I don't know exactly how these figures were arrived at (Cutlass would have to post on this, it's his argument after all). My guess is that these are changes relative to a baseline defined at the starting year. That's why Obama is positive on defense (look at the top, it's on the chart)--he reduced military expenses relative to what Bush was running, i.e. the ramp-up in Afghanistan costs less than the savings obtained by the draw-down in Iraq.

We can talk more about it after Cutlass posts explanations, disclaimers, etc. However, I note that it does illustrate the insane amount of damage caused by the Bush tax cuts to the federal government's fiscal situation--the wars mid-term expenses over a decade and ultimately temporary, the stimulus bills are single shots, but the tax cuts wreak havoc every single year and there is no political will to repeal them. That's what I mean by the truth being lopsided.

 

[Cutlass]

Wow... could you find any more lopsided charts?

So, Obama is still not responsible for us being in Afghanistan even?

So, the answer is, he is not ever responsible for continuation of the status quo, or even ramping up the previous status quo...

He is only responsible for things that are 100% new.

What about that $1.76T for ACA, btw?

All of Obama's spending increases combined barely adds up to the cost of Bush's tax cuts.


Again, why will you not hold people responsible for their actual actions?

 

[kochman]

I'll trust an actual CBO report from their website over what some random guy on another site says without citation. Your mileage may vary.

Yeah, the $1.2T is more accurate...
Of course, it is an estimate... It'll be wrong. They were still off by a full 1/3, pretty bad.

Anyhow, Cutlass, how do you possibly blame Bush for more deficit than Obama...
http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/federal_deficit_chart.html
Obama Deficits
FY 2012: $1,327 billion
FY 2011: $1,300 billion
FY 2010: $1,293 billion
Bush Deficits (I'll be fair and agree that 2009 should go mainly to Bush, this has it go 100% to Bush)
FY 2009: $1,413 billion
FY 2008: $459 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion

And, Bush actually had some surplus years until he decided to squander that...

Anyhow, these attempts to put everything on Bush fail to acknowledge that, 3 years later... Obama hasn't really lowered the deficit... rather, he stabilized it near Bush's worst (when the recession was full blown).
I absolutely hold Bush responsible for blowing it... can you say the same about Obama not fixing it?
Fail.

 

[Antilogic]

The problem is you are taking deficits to directly equate to [over-]spending. Unemployment has the side effect of reducing tax revenues as well as people drawing off unemployment programs, so it doubly-hits the bottom line.

 

[RebelYeller]

Anyone notice a pattern with the southern candidates. This can't be right.