Syphon
Rookie
- Feb 22, 2012
- 1,449
- 84
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- Banned
- #101
Thanks for your post.if the economy is truly the issue, which economy are you referring to then. the actual numbers put forth in terms of GDP or how people perceive the economy to be performing.Thanks for your opinion. I disagree.
When push comes to shove, voters will choose Romney over Obama. It will come down to the one issue that always decides elections - the economy.
econominc growth was near -3% a yeah when he took office. growth is currently close to 3% annually. not a great number but a 6% improvement is huge considering where the economy was going when he came into office.
on the other hand, unemployment has not been significantly lowered. this leads people to have the perception that things are not getting better. with unemployment still around 8% this is a problem for Obama.
the major problem i see with the GOP is that offer no real new solutions to solve the major problems of the country. Newt says he can guarantee $2.50 gas simply by drilling. Romney's, Santorum's and Newts budgets all add to the deficit and debt in large numbers. Paul is the only one who cuts the deficit immediately, but he does so by closing a large amount of US bases abroad and cutting the size of the military in the process. this will lead to a spike in unemployment as all these soldiers transition into the workforce that is already struggling to create jobs.
they produce the same idea of less regulation and lower taxes. the regulations they claim are killing jobs are Dodd Frank, which was a direct result of the financial collapse and put regulations in place to help prevent that, and the Health Care law, which still hasnt even gone into full effect and wont for 2 more years. the most hilarious thing about the ACA is how the GOP wants to replace it. they want to replace it with part of the actual health care law. making high risk pools, allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. they only thing they are against is the Mandate, but when Hillary was trying to pass universal HC in the 90's they were for the mandate. so its a bit hard to take them seriously when they want something, and when they get it, they are now against it. on the issue of taxes, taxes are at the lowest rates since the 50's. how much lower would the GOP like to see taxes go? all the way to 0?
if the GOP has real world solutions the current problems facing the country, such as the education gap between the US and the world. getting rid of our dependance on fossil fuels and moving towards cheap renewable energies, stopping the US from being the world police, the people in the middle would start to listen again. but when the GOP starts to drive out good people like Olympia Snowe, they have much larger problems on their hands.
Personally, I believe Obama will sink or swim based upon the REAL economy. The one where 1 in 4 people are out of work. The one where your neighbors are struggling. The one where Obama is "helping" the working man by cutting the payroll tax, yet allowing gasoline prices to double under his watch....dah!
We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. We have one of the most progressive taxation system in existence. We have too many people not paying anything and too many people collecting money for doing nada.... Reality has to set in at some point.
Republicans need to do four things to win:
1) Repeal Obamacare- we can't afford this clusterfuck
2) Cut Corporate tax rate- we have the highest rate in the world
3) Cut spending
4) Pass a balanced budget amendment
Romney says he is going to do all of those things...
if in fact the GOP does do the 3 of 4 things you listed, things will definitely not improve. if the ACA get repealed, we will within the net 10 years see a huge increase in the amount of people who can not afford access to health care. this in turn will drive up the costs of those who do have health insurance even higher, to cover the costs those who can not afford to pay. soon this will lead to the elimination of insurance, and have all health care services provided on a cash only basis. leaving the wealthy as the only one who will be able to get any real services.
on the corporate tax rate, i think this may be a good thing, but only when it is combined with the elimination of tax breaks to so that corporations such as GE actually pay something on their huge profits.
cutting spending is good in theory, but when one realized that 85% of the budget is consumed by SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense and interest on the debt, cutting spending is not that easy. you would need to cut all the social programs by drastic amounts (which would outrage much of the GOP, since they dont believe that SS and Medicaid are actually government programs) causing many of the people who rely upon those services as their only means to live to be push into the arms of family members or simply put on the street. you will need to increase tax revenues by a large amount in get to the level where we have a balanced budget.
having a balanced budget amendment is good in theory, but not in practice. lets say we had a balanced budget amendment when we invaded iraq and went to war in afghanistan. in order to fund those wars, we would have needed to increase taxes by roughly 10% in order to pay for those wars. since we wouldnt be able to borrow any money to fund those wars, we would have either had to raise taxes significantly or no do them. lets use a natural disaster (such as the tornado in Joplin last year) as another example, had the government not had the ability to borrow money to pay for FEMA to go down there and provide emergency services the people would have had to reply upon private sector donations. or the government would have had to raise funds through higher taxes.
things are not as simple as they seem.
heres a staggering number. if somehow start running a $250B a year surplus, assuming no new interest is incurred on the debt, it would take over 56 years to pay off the current debt. this is not a problem that can be solved overnight, or even within the terms of a single presidency (whether that is 4 or 8 years). this will take the better part of a century to figure out, and with the current political gridlock in washington, we are probably looking even longer