At the first 2012 presidential debate, Mitt Romney stunned President Obama and the viewing audience with a solid performance and a few whoopers to boot.
The candidates spent a good deal of time arguing over the cost of Mitt Romney tax plan. "I'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. That's not my plan,” said Romney in one factually-challenged moment, backing away from his proposal. "My plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit."
The non-partisan Tax Policy Center determined Romney's plan would cost $4.8 trillion over the next 10 years.
The former Massachusetts governor proposed keeping the Bush-era tax cuts and slashing all rates across the board by 20 percent. Romney said closing loopholes in the tax code and getting rid of certain tax deductions would cover the costs. Which ones those are remain as much of a mystery as his unreleased tax returns.
President Obama called him out over his lack of clarity and shoddy math skills:
"For 18 months, he's been running on this tax plan, and now, five weeks before the election, he's saying that his big bold idea is never mind? And the fact that if you are lowering the rates the way you describe Governor then it is not possible to come up with enough deductions and loopholes that only affect high income individuals to avoid either raising the deficit or burdening the middle class. It's math. It's arithmetic."
Before Obama and Romney were even born, President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned about those who gloss over the facts. Speaking to the Democratic convention during his 1936 reelection campaign, FDR cautioned voters to be wary of smooth talkers and their deals that are just too good to true:
"Let me warn you and let me warn the nation against the smooth evasion which says, 'Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.'"
FDR put the smack down on the false notion of gambling social programs and it won’t cost anyone a dime. Like President Obama now, FDR faced similar challenges leading the country out of a major economic crisis.
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Here's the take from one of Mitt Romney's fellow BYU alums...
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/55027875-82/bagley-cartoon-facebook-lake.html.csp
Whether you believe it or not History always has a way of repeating itself and leave you wondering where did you see that before...
Mitt's explanation looks good. You guys twist things around - but ... you know that ... it's deliberate. By the way, Mitt sure kicked BIG BIRD'S BUTT last night !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jane Doe The Tooth Seeker: Mitt has a $5 Trillion dollar tax cut and his only offset was 2.4 million dollars from PBS? You do understand math right? Ha Ha Ha! Obviously not. Thats $4,999,998,600,000 in offsets to go. Ha Ha Ha!
Mitt explained the whole net even revenue thing in interviews all day. Obama cheer squad pressed him for details of the offsets. Mitt explained that he is not laying out legislation at this point but will work with law-makers. Mitt has experience doing that Obama does not. Chances for the government to work together seem greater with Mitt than Obama in my opinion.
L. O'D sure is good at twisting the meaning of words and statements !!!!!!!!!! EVIL !!!
Yeah Jane Doe the Tooth Seeker. It seems like someone is twisting words when you don't understand basic English.
Now, brush your tooth and go to bed.
The Last Word = The Last JOKE !!!
If "John Doe" were really a “truthteller” instead of the low brow rightwing crap talk radio troll he really is, then “John Doe” would not be ashamed to use his real name !!!
You appear to have confused 1932 with 1936, O'Donnell. In 1936 FDR was running for reelection, so he couldn't be making a critical message about "the present Administration" as you quoted.
One thing history knows for sure, that the FDR error of raising taxes while the nation was still trying for recovery from the Economic Depression of 1929-1933, wound up deepening the Depression, reversing the fledgling recovery that was underway, and extending the Depression until the World War II years build up reversed our economic fortunes and the result of the War which left us as the one power in the world with our industrial base intact provided for the long growth cycle which continued thru the 1950s, marred with slight business cycle recessions. But it remained until the 1961 taking office and promotion of income tax cuts by Jack Kennedy those high tax rates put in place by FDR were reversed. Seems to me there is a lot we can learn from that example, hmmm?
As always you're completely wrong Keith. But thanks for playing.
To some extent Lawrence O'Donnell and Ezra Klein missed the point of what Romney in the debate and Ryan on Fox on Sunday were advocating. A revenue neutral tax cut is really no cut at all. If you achieve a revenue neutral tax rate reduction by off setting it with a corresponding reduction in deductions, exemptions and credits, the government get the same revenue and each taxpayer pays the same taxes and has the same net after tax income. There is no extra money for the small business man to hire new workers. If you keep the tax rate cut revenue neutral and decide to lower taxes on any particular group, like small business owners, you must raise some other group's taxes. Obviously, Romney will not raise taxes on his big donors, thus he will have to raise taxes on the poor, working poor and the middle class.
And yet Romney said his tax reform removal and scaling down of tax deductions and tax credits would be heavier for the higher income tax payers, you see, Walt, and there is the fly in your ointment.
Ezra Klein notes Romney is able to hide in a thicket regarding the 5 trillion dollar tax issue. This is only because neither he nor O'Donnell reduced it to simplicity. There are two separate concepts are being conflated:
The two statements appear identical but are not, and the "thicket" is no more complex that this simple distinction. Klein kept talking about the cost of the tax cut amd O'Donnell kept talking about the amount of the cut in taxes itself. The writer has a few options he can diagram out as he is considering his response:
Yet even Alter's plan would not have worked last night because Romney denied everything.
So it's not a 20% across the board tax cut. Hayes' reaction on debate night was: It's like nailing jello to a wall. Whatever assertion you make about Romney's plans, his stock answer is "No no no, you misunderstand my plan. It is too complicated to go into here, but suffice it to say that it doesn't do that." Hayes' suggestion was that you could nail him on actual legislation that Romney said he would have signed. That is, Romney said he would have signed the Ryan budget.
Unfortunately, Hayes' line of attack is obvious (link Romney to the Ryan budget) for which there can be a prepared rehearsed response. In the least condescending voice possible, Romney instructs the President how to get legislation through even if the legislators do not share your opinions. He points to his legislative record in deep blue Massechusetts. He says that yes, if both sides in Congress had agreed that all those horrible cuts to Medicare were acceptable to the duly elected representatives of the people, then for the good of the country he could not oppose them. But that would not have been his preference, and his proposal is quite different than the Ryan proposal.
So the armchair quarterbacks suggest some courses the president could have taken but it is not clear that any of them would have had a net positive political impact on viewers.
The writer in the literature of politics will understand the linguistic tricks such as the semantic similarity of taxes and costs but direct explanation of the mechanics of language, legislation or logical distinctions in argumentation are ineffective in the world outside of post graduate lecture halls. If this was the rigor being applied in the evaluation of the debate, then Romney failed to make a coherent factual argument, and the President did.
Instead the President was looking down, diagramming and weighing his options.
So I will make my armchair criticism of the President. Do as Reagan did. Use metaphor.
Dems are saying we need the power of the federal government to fix things. So pick an image of power. Don't compare the tax situation to something like fuel efficient cars, because it will be painted as unmanly or a Carter-esque retreat from greatness.
Take the space narrative for example. This resonates with national pride. For example, say the president had a quiver of new explanatory metaphors prepared in advance of the debate and he chose this one:
And so on and so forth.
Other metaphors are possible and I didn't present this in the President's voice, but this is the kind of engagement of the imagination of the listener that Reagan and Kennedy were so good at. Metaphors are certainly no substitute for rational analysis and thought, but as an explanatory mechanism they are far more effective that the argumentative tacks I summarized from Klein, O'Donnell, Alter, or Hayes.
Well, if Joe Biden were characterzing Mitt's performance, he would've described it as a "noun, a verb, and 'Massachusetts governor."
Which he was for a single term, and what are poll numbers in the Bay State? Sixty-five thirty-five in the President's favor last I looked.
Seeing that the good state of Massachusetts was the only state in the Union to vote for George McGovern for president, those poll numbers of 35% for Romney ain't bad, Cab Driver! LOL! You obviously are not aware of just how liberal and Democrat Party supporting this state is!
"You obviously are not aware of just how liberal and Democrat Party supporting this state is!"
well, we have been rounding-up the republans and exporting them, sorry, most are saving us the trouble and self-deporting to new hampshire. it's a shame vermont won't take any 'cause new hampshire is catching on and wants to stop the flow.
by the way, i am so proud that this commonwealth went for mcgovern. we seem to get it right every now and then. didn't go for nixon, didn't go for regan, didn't go for bush, didn't go for bush, again.
the democratic voters occasionally elect republican governors here just to tick off the legislature when they're getting a little too self-satisfied. they just went a little overboard with romney, but then he did represent himself as a democrat when campaigning. you know, women's health issues (pro-choice then), and the famous romneycare.
of course there was that little "citizenship" thing. having to amend all those tax returns to show he was living in his kid's basement not utah. but that's ok we have a sense of humor here too and didn't really make much of a fuss. any gazillionaire who wants the job bad enough to say he was living in his kid's unfinished basement should get a pass on that just for the entertainment value.
JohnMesserly's comment is very good and well thought out, but like a lot of commentators, he is dealing with what Romney said before the debate not at it. He proclaimed revenue neutrality by lowering deductions, exemptions, etc. not spending.
Cuts in spending for social programs do not affect changes in tax revenues, as that spending goes to the 47% that don't currently pay taxes. Cut's in Defense spending would affect jobs in the Defense Industries and profits, and therefore would negqtively affect tax revenues, Walt! You and the commentator are talking nonsense.
hey! you're fun!
go ahead, "cut social programs," you say. "i've got mine so screw you, granny" you say. "hey, you knew the risks when you signed up, soldier, so quit whining about that lost leg/eye/arm/brain-function and just get a job." you say. "you don't want to go to college bad enough to ask your parents for the money and we're not in the financial aid business," you say. "if you can't afford preschool that's too bad why don't you just sell dope like all the rest of 'your' kind", you say.
you, sir, are an a$$. you have no redeeming value, empathy or conscience and should turn in any membership papers you have that claim that you are a member of the human race (your long-form birth certificate, perhaps).
finally, cuts in defense spending would not materially affect the ability of our military to defend this country. it might reduce us to only spending as much as the next five or six largest defense spenders. this, of course, might threaten to keep us from going to war every time some tin-pot dictator, or democratically elected leader, of some country (with oil) threatens to snub us.
the money would be better spent on r&d and infrastructure at home as the return on each dollar spent is greater than any dollar spent on defense (they circulate more). the tax return is better too.
AND LEAVE BIG BIRD ALONE!
47% pay no taxes? Ha, ha – good one. Even of those who pay no Federal Income tax, about 61% pay payroll taxes, the elderly (about 22%), and the remaining 17% (students, people with disabilities etc) pay state and local taxes. (The bottom 20% of the population still pays about 12% of their income on state and local taxes. A higher % of their income that the remaining 80%)
Depends on the Defense contractor – cutting defense spending to GE, Navistar, Boeing and Honeywell International might have no effect on revenue from corporate taxes - they have managed to pay no taxes in past years. True some jobs would be lost – but hiring people to produce equipment that the military does not want and does not need – is in effect a “ corporate social welfare program” itself. Still, corporate taxes account for only about 10% of the total federal tax revenue.
An interesting question though – what is the “multiplier effect” of a dollar spent on social programs compared to a dollar spent on corporate welfare programs - or a dollar spent on infrastructure, health care or education?
Tthe discussion is about federal income taxes, not payroll taxes, that are for the Social Security and Medicare Trust funds, Adam, no about state and local taxes.
And if you don't believe that the addtional $600 billion on top of the past $500 billion cut in Defense spending is crippling for our military preperadness, then you weren't listening to Secretary Leon Pennetta, of former Sectretary Bill Gates. Also, why stop the notices of pending layoffs due by law to go out before the election from Defense contractors to employees if that additional $600 Billion in Defense cuts is doable and desired? Apparently the White House wants their "peace dividend" for more social program spending, but not the political blowback that will come from it. The very reason Obama insised back last year in November that any deal on tax and spending cuts or the sequestration option had to be good until after the election, right?