So… Paul Ryan, I guess?
Mitt Romney has supposedly chosen Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential nominee, though this has yet to be confirmed by Romney. Ryan, a Wisconsin representative, is best known for his enthusiasm for vague, mathematically implausible budgets and his plan to dismantle the existing Medicare system. The fact that some will consider the demonstrable facts in the previous paragraph to be partisan attacks is an indication of how divorced from empirical reality this campaign has gotten. But for whatever reason, Romney has decided to double down on the faintly-creepy rich white guy thing. Presumably Mr. Burns from The Simpsons and Mr. Potter from It’s A Wonderful Life were unavailable.
Do you think this choice will revitalize Romney’s flagging campaign, or has he just conceded the election? Let us know in comments.
About Noah Brand
You had me until you brought race into it. Leftist race baiting is just one more way to polarize us. Rich white guy? Imagine i said poor black, or smart asian etc. Ryan is a poor choice because he hasnt a clue. he graduated from some second class university and has absolutely no experience int he private sector. The fact he wants to impose a 10% Sales tax on everything so he can drop corporate tax rates to below 25% is what makes him unsuitable. race baiting is old. by the way im asian with nary a horse in this race
Hey Jack, you state Ryan has “no experience in the private sector”. Sort of reminds me of the guy living in the White House now!
Hey Bob, True. the current administration is utterly shambolic but they can get away with it! theyre diverse!!!!
Jack: What you call “Leftist race baiting” will become invalid only after rich white dudes stop running the world. Not looking for that to happen anytime soon.
Honestly, I don’t know what Romney is thinking at this point. I take solace in the fact that it looks like he’s pretty much already lost this election… because his policies utterly terrify me.
Mr. Romney wouldn’t have gotten your vote any way.
BTW “Leftist race baiting” is as rudimentary to politics as the left jab is to boxing.
When republicans stop actively trying to discriminate based on race, the left will stop making claims about race. If you want to prevent blacks and latinos from voting and you pass legislation which is designed for the sole purpose of preventing minorities to vote, you are making race an issue. Let’s call a spade a spade. The Republican party has a history of systematically trying to institutionalize racism and deprive minorities of their rights. I’m not some crazy left-wing feminist either. I am, for example, staunchly against affirmative action.
Collin,
In 2004 I was living on the South Side of Chicago. One day several vans appeared and Democrat organizers got out and began knocking on doors. Their message was simple: do you like receiving checks from the government? If so then vote for this list of people (and a list was then handed out).
There was no legitimate policy discussion, no real explanations of platforms, big picture issues, or even an explanation of why these candidates over others. I was literally watching votes being purchased. The entire message was just: Want food stamps? Then vote this way.
I will not pretend to approve of what the Republican party does, but let’s not pretend the Democrats are not every bit as patronizing to low income people of color.
There’s a difference between telling people to vote for their own interests and trying to deprive them of a constitutionally guaranteed right. Also, I imagine that your portrayal of that is not even remotely close to reality.
Collin,
I can assure you it is not only the reality, it is not unusual. I now live in San Francisco, and during the last election, low income residents of Chinstown were subjected to the same treatment. The crazy thing is that it wasn’t even Republicans complaining, it was other democrats (it is San Francisco, after all, all the candidates were democrats).
You can read about it here:
http://www.baycitizen.org/sf-mayoral-race/story/mayor-ed-lees-campaign-supporters-1/
Collin, I have always assumed you write in good faith. It would be nice if you could also assume good faith on the part of others.
The problem is that Republicans have squandered all the good faith they may have had. I live in a world of facts, and when your worldview involves the rejection of reality, you don’t deserve good faith.
Collin,
I have provided you with specific examples, complete with a link to an openly liberal newspaper. At a certain point it’s not your opponents who are “rejecting reality.”
Jack,
After 4 years of COMPLETE failure, we need to change the direction our country is going. Obama has blamed everyone but himself for his miserable record. He needs to go as well as any other person that pushes government dependency. We need a leader that will help business thrive. If businesses thrive they will hire, if they hire people wil have jobs so they can purchase homes, cars and their beer, whatever makes them happy. I am tired of Obama and the Democrats demonizing the rich, business, our military and people of faith. I want my daughter to work hard so she can have a wonderful life. I don’t want her to think the only way she can be succesful is if the government is there to support her. Every individual has the opportunity to be sucsessful in their life. It is up to them how they respond to life’s challenges. Obama is teaching people that the reason they are not doing well is because somone else has more then them and they are to blame. Obama is what is wrong with this country and he needs to go. Romney actually has a record of succsess and actually running a business. Romney also shows good morals in how he has lived his life.
Government is not a business; it’s government. The idea that government should be run like a business is 180-degrees away from correctm and the prospect of putting a ‘successful businessman’ in charge of things like law enforcement, military operations, and societal welfare should frighten anyone with a brain.
What the hell Noah? Mr. Burns & Mr Potter…?
Neither of these gentlemen are as evil as the current administration wants you to believe they are. Romney and Ryan are heads of the fiscal wing of the Republican Party. I doubt the prospects of evangelicals ever voting for a Mormon let alone an Ayn Rand Objectivist, but Mitt Romney made the responsible choice.
Ultimately this will cost him the election.
Neither of these gentlemen are as evil as the current administration wants you to believe. Romney and Ryan are heads of the fiscal wing of the Republican Party. I doubt the prospects of evangelicals ever voting for a Mormon let alone an Ayn Rand Objectivist, but Mitt Romney made the responsible choice.
Ultimately this will cost him the election.
The more conservative in my orbit are pleased with the choice, and the moderate right is spinning a happy face on the decision. I don’t have a problem with Ryan, but was hoping for Condoleeza Rice for obvious reasons (she’s African American and female). Ryan will help consolidate the Tea Partiers and staunch members of the base, but Romney probably needs more than them to win. His only hope is that enough Independents see the fiscal crisis on the horizon, and believe that the fix now will be less painful than the fix in the future, i.e. extreme austerity, because China refuses to fund our debt anymore, or Wiemar levels of inflation, because our printed dollars aren’t worth anything.
If every penny was confiscated from our wealthy, it would hardly put a dent in the debt and deficit. They are already paying almost half of all taxes, and almost half of our countrymen pay no taxes.
Your last paragraph is simply untrue. Almost half pay no federal income taxes, but that isn’t even close to the same thing as paying no taxes. Someone on the lower end of the spectrum pays more in taxes than many at the top. I pay more in taxes than Mitt Romney. Also, the reason the top pays such a large percentage of federal income tax is because inequality has become so great.
Extreme austerity doesn’t fix anything. The simple fact of that matter is that we need more revenue to support a larger government. You can either have low taxes and a government that doesn’t do anything for its citizens, or higher taxes and a government that provides services to its citizens. Personally, I believe that the government should provide services to its citizens and that the wealthy should not be allowed to accumulate all the money that exists and turn our country into a feudal state.
You are what is wrong with this country. It’s not the wealthy that is the problem, it is our out of control government and individuals that have learned to depend soley on the government rather than take responibility for themselves. Why is it that liberals blame others for their shortcomings? We need to go back to the days where when you saw your neighbor with a great home or car you aspired to be as successful as them through hard work instead of demonizing and blaming them for your lack of success. There will always be winners and losers you sound like the latter. No doubt there are those that will need help and we should help them, help the helpless not the clueless. You say you paid more in taxes than Romney, I doubt it. And don’t say you paid 35% while he paid 15% because that is a bullshit argument. He already paid 35% on his initial income and the latter was for investment. If you believe that all investment income should be taxed at the same rate than you would certainly kill any hope that us middle class hard working Americans could reach upper class. Vote the worst president of our lifetime OUT!
We already did–but to be fair, Bush’s time in office was endinig anyway.
Meanwhile, Ryan seems a well matched choice for Romney. Now we have TWO insider-trading robber barons running on the GOP ticket, with an explicit plan to favor the rich and screw everybody else, if not dismantle the welfare state entirely. Should make Obama’s re-election much easier.
I should have specified “federal income taxes.”
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/19/chart-of-the-week-nearly-half-of-all-americans-dont-pay-income-taxes/
Romney paid an average of just over 3 million a year in 2010 and 2011. The rate is around 13% because most of the income was capital gains. If people don’t like the capital gains rate, vote Obama, he’ll likely try to raise it in a second term.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/mitt-romney-tax-returns-released_n_1225247.html
Most responsible Dems have distanced themselves from Reid’s unsubstantiated claim that Romney paid no taxes for ten years.
Yeah, but you intentionally didn’t say federal income taxes just like every other republican. You leave that out because you want to make it sound like they pay nothing, when they probably pay more of their income in taxes than Romney. Nice try though.
The capital gains rate should be raised, and it would have been raised if not for republican obstruction. As for Reid’s claim about Romney’s taxes, if Romney isn’t going to release them he is very clearly hiding something and that something could be that he paid no taxes. We don’t really know what exactly he is hiding, but we know he is hiding something. And the faux outrage about Reid is pretty entertaining considering Romney is the most bald-faced lying candidate in American history.
Do you feel the same way about Obamas college transcrips? Are they sealed because he is hiding something? Who cares, consider the last 4 years and what a dismal failure Obama and his policies have been for this country. That should be enough to vote him out. The only experience Obama has throughout his entire carreer besides actually getting elected is complete failure and dishonesty.
Collin. There are two tax rates that bring in no revenue, 0% and 100%. Someplace in there is the optimum. Any way of proving we’re not at the optimum? Too high? Too low? You think that the Obama’s promoted increase will bring in more than eight days’ federal expenses?
Is there a down side to taxes?
Is there a practical limit to services the government should or can provide?
I discovered there’s an underground economy in food stamps. You can swap them for seventy cents on the dollar. First heard of it in Flint twenty years ago. Last fall, heard a grocer in GA got busted for laundering $6.4 mill at…seventy cents on the dollar. This makes food stamps the world’s most stable currency. To swap out food stamps like this means you would rather have seventy cents of something than a buck’s worth of food, which you wouldn’t do if you were, you know, actually hungry. For decades.
You think we should, maybe, get more folks on food stamps?
There’s more to this than taking money from the productive to give to Obama’s bundlers, and to buy votes.
See John Galt.
Oh, yeah. Republicans are racists. Oh, boy. Somebody else who didn’t get the memo to progressives, “Accusations that are so stupid they make the accused laugh at us.”.
Condi Rice was hot on the conservative blogs until she went to State and got all mushy. I would have loved to see her run so I could ask my prog friends why they were afraid of a strong woman (of color, no less).
But Ryan will do. He has done the math–you can’t argue with math very successfully–and he can make the case that when the money is gone…the money is gone. Throwing tantrums don’t impress math.
See California.
Actually yes there is a way of determining the optimum if we’re talking about maximizing revenue. The optimal top tax rate is around 71% if we’re talking about getting the most revenue for the treasury.
I find it hysterical that you right wingers object to raising taxes because it will only bring in a little bit but you’re all for defunding NPR and withdrawing funding for planned parenthood that would provide an hours worth of funding for the government. Capital gains should be taxed as regular income and the top income tax rate should move to mid 40′s at the lowest.
Republicans ARE racists. Rush Limbaugh, Bachmann, etc, etc, etc. When you have leaders of your party making routinely racist statements and your party pushes legislation that does NOTHING but try to deprive minorities of their constitutionally guaranteed rights, you’re a party that embraces racism. It really is that simple. Like feminists, you don’t get to claim “Oh we’re not man-hating/racist” when your leaders espouse these views and you push for action that backs those views up.
He has not done the math. He’s a big fraud. His “math” involves tons of impossible assumptions and big magic asterisks that are not specified. He claims hundreds of billions of unspecified spending cuts. Apparently, that is good enough for rubes like you, but not for someone who actually has a solid understanding of economics like myself. Do you want to see a budget that ACTUALLY balances the budget with ACTUAL numbers? Take a look at the budget put out by the progressive caucus.
The most frustrating things about right wingers is that their minds don’t function properly. Right wingers in the United States are intent on destroying both the country and the planet. Right wingers are the reason that my generation is going to get fucked.
Only Germany and Australia have higher capital gains tax rates (of first world economies Chile’s is higher too)
Only Japan has a higher corporate tax rate than the US.
Most first world economies have a value added (national sales) tax of between 7 and 25 percent.
By global standards, we should cut both capital gains and corporate tax rates and institute a VAT.
Our effective corporate tax rate is also one of the lowest. I’m all for cutting the tax rate if we get rid of all the loopholes. Cut it to 25% but slash all the loopholes so Exxon isn’t paying 3% and is instead paying 25%. Income from corporate taxes are at historic lows even though corporate profits are at record highs.
Collin.
You didn’t get the memo, apparently.
Quote me some Limbaugh making racist statements. Keep in mind that normal people don’t define racist as something which annoys Collin.
Actually, with regard to NPR and PP, the defunding is to stop them doing what they’re doing, not to save money. You’re right that it’s insigniicant. It’s so insignificant that their supporters can no doubt make up the difference voluntarily by switching from Starbucks to Folgers.
I completely agree with elimination of loopholes in every class of taxes, personal and corporate.
Earned Income, child, educational, and medical deductions only. A realistic 3 or 4 tiers of taxes and automate the whole mess with real penalties for tax evasion.
Corporate taxes are a disaster, but then again they successfully lobbied to get all the sweet deals. At least they are paying somebody, too bad its going into re-election campaigns and under the table instead of into the general coffers.
I believe both sides are equally guilty in the voter discrimination game. Republicans would love to keep minority turnout at a minimum and Democrats have absolutely no problem with illegal immigrants and felons voting (using a utility bill) for them when in reality if you function legally at any level in this society you have to have some kind of photo ID.
They terrify you why? Because you might have to work? Because your neighbors friends and family might actually be able to have a job? Maybe it’s because our economy will start growing? Maybe it’s because with more people working there will be more home owners and home prices will rise? Obama is the worst president in history including Carter. More than half of Americans pay no Fedral taxes, more people on welfare than at any time in history, more people on food stamps than any time in history. The longest time of unemployment in history over 8%. Obama said Bush was unpatriotic for giving us 4 trillion in new debt over 8 years while he has given us over 5 trillion in 4 years. Obama waster billions of our tax dollars on gimmicks like Solindra. Obama is responsible for the gun running scandal Fast and Furious. Obama said he would be the most transparent president in history when in fact he has been the most secretive. After four years of dismal failure it is time to move on to a person QUALIFIDE to be president. Vote Obama, Biden, Holder OUT!
“It’s time to move on to a person qualified to be president.”
Who do you suggest, Jason? We’ve got less than five people in the country with any experience in the job, and Romney sure isn’t one of them.
By the way: good luck selling the notion that tax cuts for the rich will grow the economy and ‘trickle down’ jobs to the rest of us. America fell for that once already, and we already know it doesn’t work that way.
Let’s start with the facts, Kennedy, Reagon, Bush Sr. And Bush all cut taxes, and in all cases unemployment went down, moneys into the treasury went up, home ownership went up and wealth went up. You suggest Romney is not one of the people with experience, would you suggest that Obama even with nearly 4 years on the job is qualified? President Obama’s success include higher debt, more people on food stamps, more people in poverty than in any time in history, more home foreclosures than any time in history, longest time of unemployment over 8%, largest drop in mortgage values, fewest people under 25 working in history, highest unemployment for minorities specifically blacks, more people dependent on the government. Obama is a failure, every country that has gone down this redistributive, hold no one accountable path has failed. Let’s celebrate success. Give our children the tools to be sucessful. Teach our children that they will be responsible for their success. Sucess doesn’t come just because you show up. If you decide to purchase a home, car, go to college or have more children than you can afford you are responsible to pay for them.mSociety should not pay for poor choices made by individuals. My daughter is 18 years old and i suggested she go and get a job fornthe Summer. She said that with unemployment so high it would probably be impossible to find a job. I told her that the only people not working are the ones who don’t want a job. My dauhter got a job the first day she went out. Too many people have decided that it’s ok not to work. There is no longer a stigma that it’s not cool to be on food stamps. I believe there are people who need help and we should help them. But we have too many people simply taking advantage of this system Obama has perpetuated and i am tired of paying for them! Obama must go! He is ruining the greatness of this country.