It's starting to come together.............

[swizzlee]

A post on this forum has the Obama camp making excuses for the O regarding the debate outcome - not enough practice, overworking at his "regular" job, challengers tend to win the first debate, yada yada.

David Plouffe looking like he swallowed a bug and it was tickling his throat during a tough interview with David Gregory.

Paul Ryan doing his usual bang-up job after Chris Wallace tried his damnedest to trip him up.

The word is getting out in dribs and drabs that Romney is about to turn it loose.

He's well prepared for the debate.

He'll be laying out his plan in detail.

He'll be giving a major foreign policy speech.

He's been hoarding $$ for this time in the campaign. There will be a blitzkrieg of ads.

He's got a collection of zingers. I'm so glad someone is saving them up. The O comes across with so many, I can't catch them all.

And that's just what I've been hearing/seeing in the past 3 days.

The first part of his plan has ended. Romney knows he's not a "campaigner." He got thru it all these months, letting the O have the lead, smiling when the media ragged on him. Now we're down to the last 30+ days.

And he's about to come out swinging doing what he does best - win!

It's MOMENTUM, baby! It's a PLAN! Romney's got it!

The O will be down for the count and he KNOWS it.

 

[swizzlee]

Did I score a knockout on my predictions or what??

Yee-haw!

 

[jwoodie]

Algore says it was altitude sickness. He should know. He invented it.

 

[Old Rocks]

And yet it is still;

President Obama 332 Governor Romney 206

RealClearPolitics - 2012 Election Maps - Electoral Map No Toss Ups

 

[Listening]

The only poll that matters will be taken on Nov. 6th.

 

[Jackson]

And yet it is still;

President Obama 332 Governor Romney 206

RealClearPolitics - 2012 Election Maps - Electoral Map No Toss Ups

The debate polls are not included yet... let's just wait a week...and a little longer. Maybe until November?

 

[Jackson]

The only poll that matters will be taken on Nov. 6th.

The dingy should be lilting and the flag askew, just saying...

 

[Interpol]

I'd say that Mitt Romney certainly kept the door open for himself, however, if you look at these last 3 days on the campaign trail, the Romney camp has gone right back on the defensive in terms of how he'll pay for his tax cut, increase the defense budget, make no cuts to education and sock an extra $716 billion onto Medicare.

You can't pay for all that by cutting only Sesame Street.

Meanwhile, first thing Romney's camp should have done was edit together an ad reminding us all weekend of the best shots he took at Obama. Instead, it's the President who got the first ads out, and they use Mitt Romney against himself.

I swear to God, Romney's as incompetent at running for President as John Kerry and Michael Dukakis were.

 

[Intense]

And yet it is still;

President Obama 332 Governor Romney 206

RealClearPolitics - 2012 Election Maps - Electoral Map No Toss Ups

The debate polls are not included yet... let's just wait a week...and a little longer. Maybe until November?

At least until the first Tuesday in November.

 

[swizzlee]

I'd say that Mitt Romney certainly kept the door open for himself, however, if you look at these last 3 days on the campaign trail, the Romney camp has gone right back on the defensive in terms of how he'll pay for his tax cut, increase the defense budget, make no cuts to education and sock an extra $716 billion onto Medicare.

You can't pay for all that by cutting only Sesame Street.

Meanwhile, first thing Romney's camp should have done was edit together an ad reminding us all weekend of the best shots he took at Obama. Instead, it's the President who got the first ads out, and they use Mitt Romney against himself.

I swear to God, Romney's as incompetent at running for President as John Kerry and Michael Dukakis were.

And the O's plan is????

 

[oldfart]

OK guys, I have one for you. After listening to the presidential debate, I was a little fuzzy on what Romney's tax plan actually was, so I went to his campaign website. The section on taxes and the economy is an 87-page PDF file. Here is what I found on page 24.

INDIVIDUAL TAXES
• Maintain marginal rates at current levels
• Further reduce taxes on savings and investment
• Eliminate the death tax
• Long-term goal: pursue a flatter, fairer, simpler structure
CORPORATE TAXES
• Lower the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent
• Transition to a “territorial” tax system

Nowhere is there a mention of a 20% reduction in all individual income tax rates (the basis of the $5 trillion cost estimate for his tax program). If I am reading this correctly, Romney is proposing tax rate reductions only for corporations and for investment income (capital gains & dividends) at the present time, with individual rate reductions deferred to a point in the future where he will deal with comprehensive tax reform. Obviously offsetting the cost of this proposal would be much easier than the 20% across-the-board rate reduction.
So it is quite possible that the Tax Policy Institute attack on the older proposal would not apply to the newer one because the cost has been dramatically reduced and he will not have to flesh out his old proposal with details of cuts to tax expenditures such as charitable deductions, mortgage interest, and so forth.

So am I reading this correctly that middle-class tax rate cuts have been dropped from Romney's proposal, or am I missing something?

 

[swizzlee]

OK guys, I have one for you. After listening to the presidential debate, I was a little fuzzy on what Romney's tax plan actually was, so I went to his campaign website. The section on taxes and the economy is an 87-page PDF file. Here is what I found on page 24.

INDIVIDUAL TAXES
• Maintain marginal rates at current levels
• Further reduce taxes on savings and investment
• Eliminate the death tax
• Long-term goal: pursue a flatter, fairer, simpler structure
CORPORATE TAXES
• Lower the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent
• Transition to a “territorial” tax system

Nowhere is there a mention of a 20% reduction in all individual income tax rates (the basis of the $5 trillion cost estimate for his tax program). If I am reading this correctly, Romney is proposing tax rate reductions only for corporations and for investment income (capital gains & dividends) at the present time, with individual rate reductions deferred to a point in the future where he will deal with comprehensive tax reform. Obviously offsetting the cost of this proposal would be much easier than the 20% across-the-board rate reduction.
So it is quite possible that the Tax Policy Institute attack on the older proposal would not apply to the newer one because the cost has been dramatically reduced and he will not have to flesh out his old proposal with details of cuts to tax expenditures such as charitable deductions, mortgage interest, and so forth.

So am I reading this correctly that middle-class tax rate cuts have been dropped from Romney's proposal, or am I missing something?

I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say.

Personally I believe that "20%" is an overall average and not an indication that everyone's taxes will be reduced by that flat amount.

Not knowing what came before and after your selected quote, it appears that what is listed are the points that are unique to the overall plan. Ex: "maintain marginal rates at the current level" implies to me that the current 10% rate will not be lowered any further. And the long-term goal is to lower all those above 10% by 20% while at the same time eliminating deductions [this won't happen overnite].

So I don't see how you can think that the "middle class" is getting "dropped" since I assume everyone earning taxable income making up to 250K and even higher is labeled middle class.

 

[oldfart]

I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say.

Personally I believe that "20%" is an overall average and not an indication that everyone's taxes will be reduced by that flat amount.

That is not what I recall. Romney in his basic stump speech explained his tax proposal as lowering the marginal income tax rate for the highest bracket from 35% to 28% and so forth all the way down to where the 10% bracket would become the 8% bracket.

Not knowing what came before and after your selected quote, it appears that what is listed are the points that are unique to the overall plan. Ex: "maintain marginal rates at the current level" implies to me that the current 10% rate will not be lowered any further. And the long-term goal is to lower all those above 10% by 20% while at the same time eliminating deductions [this won't happen overnite].

I cut and pasted the colored background bullet points for Romney's tax policy from page 24 of the PDF file on his website in it's entirety. I read the entire section on tax policy and everything is consistent. I would agree that the present Romney tax plan does not anticipate any rate reductions for the 10% bracket (or any others) in the immediate future. I assume the rate reductions would part of a comprehensive tax reform plan that would address credits, deductions, and exclusions ("base-broadening") and also address issues like the alternative minimum tax. It would be logical to assume that these changes would be phased in over a period of say four years as the Reagan 1986 changes were.

So I don't see how you can think that the "middle class" is getting "dropped" since I assume everyone earning taxable income making up to 250K and even higher is labeled middle class.

Making the preferential treatment of capital gains and dividends permanent obviously skews benefits toward very high income taxpayers. If this is the only immediate change (I can't conceive of Romney letting this provision expire even temporarily) and rate reductions are deferred, where is there a tax break for the middle class?

Maybe I am missing something. Go to Romney's campaign website, look up his economic and tax proposals, and let me know where I have it wrong. It seems to me that this is different from the tax proposal Romney was talking about before the first debate.

 

[Listening]

Romney up by a point in the RCP average.

 

[swizzlee]

I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say.

Personally I believe that "20%" is an overall average and not an indication that everyone's taxes will be reduced by that flat amount.

That is not what I recall. Romney in his basic stump speech explained his tax proposal as lowering the marginal income tax rate for the highest bracket from 35% to 28% and so forth all the way down to where the 10% bracket would become the 8% bracket.

Not knowing what came before and after your selected quote, it appears that what is listed are the points that are unique to the overall plan. Ex: "maintain marginal rates at the current level" implies to me that the current 10% rate will not be lowered any further. And the long-term goal is to lower all those above 10% by 20% while at the same time eliminating deductions [this won't happen overnite].

I cut and pasted the colored background bullet points for Romney's tax policy from page 24 of the PDF file on his website in it's entirety. I read the entire section on tax policy and everything is consistent. I would agree that the present Romney tax plan does not anticipate any rate reductions for the 10% bracket (or any others) in the immediate future. I assume the rate reductions would part of a comprehensive tax reform plan that would address credits, deductions, and exclusions ("base-broadening") and also address issues like the alternative minimum tax. It would be logical to assume that these changes would be phased in over a period of say four years as the Reagan 1986 changes were.

So I don't see how you can think that the "middle class" is getting "dropped" since I assume everyone earning taxable income making up to 250K and even higher is labeled middle class.

Making the preferential treatment of capital gains and dividends permanent obviously skews benefits toward very high income taxpayers. If this is the only immediate change (I can't conceive of Romney letting this provision expire even temporarily) and rate reductions are deferred, where is there a tax break for the middle class?

Maybe I am missing something. Go to Romney's campaign website, look up his economic and tax proposals, and let me know where I have it wrong. It seems to me that this is different from the tax proposal Romney was talking about before the first debate.

Somehow I think you're trying to pick nits on this, particularly when comparing something to what you "think" Mitt said earlier.

Again, I don't know why you think the middle class doesn't earn capital gains or dividends. Maybe you don't but plenty of others do. It's not possible to make everyone happy.

I realize that it is Congress and not the president who will determine most of the details regarding which deductions are eliminated. And I appreciate it that Mitt doesn't fall into the trap of naming specific deductions thus giving the opposition talking points - hey, Myrtle, they're gonna take away your MORTGAGE deduction!!!

I look at it this way - do I prefer a plan that is detailed enough to tell me it's more than a bullet point on someone's to-do list. Yes!

Unfortunately the only thing the O is offering is to raise taxes on everyone earning more than $250K.

If I worry it to death, I'm sure I could come up with lots of questions about the meaning of words but in the long run, I don't know a single person alive who doesn't yearn for a simpler, fairer tax code.

Mitt has to win this game hands down.

 

[swizzlee]

Romney up by a point in the RCP average.

Yee-haw!!

 

[oldfart]

Somehow I think you're trying to pick nits on this, particularly when comparing something to what you "think" Mitt said earlier.

You are being too cute by half. Romney made his tax plan the centerpiece of his campaign when he announced it on February 22, 2012.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney), February 22, 2012 -- In a switch to a more aggressive tax plan, Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he now favors cutting marginal tax rates for individuals by 20%.
The candidate had previously said he would "maintain current tax rates on personal income" as president before moving to a "fairer, flatter, simpler tax structure" in the future.
Now Romney appears to be accelerating that timetable, announcing a move that would reduce the current top rate paid on income from 35% to 28%, with similar reductions across all tax brackets.
For example, Americans in the lowest bracket would pay 8% instead of 10%. Americans closer to the middle would pay 20% instead of 25%.

Apparently not everyone got the memo about the recent change. On October 7, 2012 Breitbart reported

Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, and liberal think tanks have claimed Mitt Romney's plan to cut tax rates across the board by 20 percent is bad arithmetic, but a Princeton economics professor, Harvey Rosen, examined Romney's proposals in a paper and concluded Romney's plan would work. The economy would have to grow by 3 percentage points more over the term of his plan than it would have without his plan.

At least Newt this past weekend acknowledged the change.

This morning on Meet The Press, Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs confronted Newt Gingrich on a fundamental inconsistency in Romney’s description of his tax plan. During the primary debates, Romney insisted that everyone in America would get a 20% tax cut, including the 1%. But last week’s during his debate with Obama, Romney insisted that his tax cut would not reduce taxes at all for wealthy Americans.
Gingrich acknowledged the clear inconsistency, saying “I think it’s clear he changed.” He described the change as “good politics.”

This is not picking nits and your unwillingness to acknowledge what everyone following the campaign heard does not stand you well. You don't win a debate by appearing to be either stupid or disingenuous.

Again, I don't know why you think the middle class doesn't earn capital gains or dividends.

The Statistics of Income Division reports for the most recent year for which these statistics are available that (2009) that there were 140, 494,127 series 1040 returns filed, of which 3,631,921 had net long-term capital gains totaling 214.890 billion dollars which were taxed at a maximum 15% rate. Of these 78,362 returns ( constituting 0.6% of all returns) had AGI of over $1 million and accounted for $133,842 billion (62.28%) of all LTCG. Seems capital gains are a little skewed toward the millionaires to me.

Since you apparently lack the motivation to support your position with easily available facts, I would like to wish you a happy, productive, prosperous, healthy, and long life. If you ever come through Destin, let me know and I will buy you a beer.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

And yet it is still;

President Obama 332 Governor Romney 206

RealClearPolitics - 2012 Election Maps - Electoral Map No Toss Ups

Yeah, cuz people see the constant flip flopping and lies.

Fact is, we STILL don't know what RobMe and LyanRyan "stand for" except that they stand for getting elected and screwing over the middle class in order to give big bucks to the 1%.

THAT is still on RobMe's website.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

I'd say that Mitt Romney certainly kept the door open for himself, however, if you look at these last 3 days on the campaign trail, the Romney camp has gone right back on the defensive in terms of how he'll pay for his tax cut, increase the defense budget, make no cuts to education and sock an extra $716 billion onto Medicare.

You can't pay for all that by cutting only Sesame Street.

Meanwhile, first thing Romney's camp should have done was edit together an ad reminding us all weekend of the best shots he took at Obama. Instead, it's the President who got the first ads out, and they use Mitt Romney against himself.

I swear to God, Romney's as incompetent at running for President as John Kerry and Michael Dukakis were.

Its obvious for all to see that Romney is actually working, very deep cover, for the Obama campaign.

And, its working.

 

[swizzlee]

Somehow I think you're trying to pick nits on this, particularly when comparing something to what you "think" Mitt said earlier.

You are being too cute by half. Romney made his tax plan the centerpiece of his campaign when he announced it on February 22, 2012.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney), February 22, 2012 -- In a switch to a more aggressive tax plan, Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he now favors cutting marginal tax rates for individuals by 20%.
The candidate had previously said he would "maintain current tax rates on personal income" as president before moving to a "fairer, flatter, simpler tax structure" in the future.
Now Romney appears to be accelerating that timetable, announcing a move that would reduce the current top rate paid on income from 35% to 28%, with similar reductions across all tax brackets.
For example, Americans in the lowest bracket would pay 8% instead of 10%. Americans closer to the middle would pay 20% instead of 25%.

Apparently not everyone got the memo about the recent change. On October 7, 2012 Breitbart reported

At least Newt this past weekend acknowledged the change.

This morning on Meet The Press, Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs confronted Newt Gingrich on a fundamental inconsistency in Romney’s description of his tax plan. During the primary debates, Romney insisted that everyone in America would get a 20% tax cut, including the 1%. But last week’s during his debate with Obama, Romney insisted that his tax cut would not reduce taxes at all for wealthy Americans.
Gingrich acknowledged the clear inconsistency, saying “I think it’s clear he changed.” He described the change as “good politics.”

This is not picking nits and your unwillingness to acknowledge what everyone following the campaign heard does not stand you well. You don't win a debate by appearing to be either stupid or disingenuous.

Again, I don't know why you think the middle class doesn't earn capital gains or dividends.

The Statistics of Income Division reports for the most recent year for which these statistics are available that (2009) that there were 140, 494,127 series 1040 returns filed, of which 3,631,921 had net long-term capital gains totaling 214.890 billion dollars which were taxed at a maximum 15% rate. Of these 78,362 returns ( constituting 0.6% of all returns) had AGI of over $1 million and accounted for $133,842 billion (62.28%) of all LTCG. Seems capital gains are a little skewed toward the millionaires to me.

Since you apparently lack the motivation to support your position with easily available facts, I would like to wish you a happy, productive, prosperous, healthy, and long life. If you ever come through Destin, let me know and I will buy you a beer.

If you wish to accept third party opinions of what THEY THINK Mitt's plan is or isn't, be my guest.

In my opinion, you ARE picking nits.

And attempting to insult me is not going to fly either.

Have a nice day.................