US Presidential Election Debate #1

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mary_bobo said:
I am not overconfident and I realize this is only one debate. But how could the president refend his policies, which Romney attacked well, when they have been such a dismal failure. We are not in better shape than we were four years ago. The facts are a little hard to fight when they are staring you in the face.
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They both skewed the facts equally, according to various factcheck reports.

However, four years ago we were on the edge of a 1929 type depression.

We’re far better off than we were four years ago.

Jim
 
bellasbane said:
I don’t pretend to know what’s in Romney’s plan - because you’re right, he gives no details. However, both he and Ryan have repeatedly stated that they will lower the overall tax rate and make up for it by eliminating deductions - so which deductions?
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Then you should probably stop saying that 5 billion dollar thing. If you don’t know, then you don’t know. I have no problem asking a candidate to provide more details, but to claim there are no details and then go on to say exactly what the candidate’s program does, is disingenuous.
Charitable giving is one of the biggest tax deductions people use. What do you think will happen if that is eliminated? I don’t like the uncertainty of wondering whether or not it’s on the table. It would be devastating to charitable organizations that depend upon their 501(c)3 status to encourage donations. I wouldn’t worry as much about it if the Catholic Church, like the Mormon Church, imposed a 10% tithe on all its members. Maybe that is Ryan’s plan - to get the Church to start imposing a tithe.
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I have seen nothing which suggests they are eliminating deductions for charitable giving. I’ve read the Ryan budget, which is open source for all to see, and I don’t see that. paulryan.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pathtoprosperity2013.pdf
There are conservative Catholics in my parish who think the Church should impose a 10% tithe to weed-out those who do not contribute enough. They complain about having to foot the bill for things like religious education classes for public school kids whose parents never go to Church. I can see their point, but I fear they care more about money than about fostering the only chance we have to reach some of these kids. They don’t seem to understand that if we loose the parents - we loose the kids too.
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That’s why I don’t support the idea of a tithe and want a guarantee that charitable deductions will remain in the tax code.
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My understanding is that Jewish synagogues often impose a “joining fee” or something along those lines. I would be against that approach, but I do feel that many families could do more, including mine.

Our parish accountant at my previous parish told us on many occasions that if every family in the parish would just give up enough money for one happy meal a week, we could pay off the mortgage on the church building in 3 years, but that only about 30% of parish families donated anything at all, and then nowhere near 10%.

Bottom line, its a tough issue and would support keeping those deductions in as well. Though, part of me feels odd about taking a tax deduction to help build up the kingdom of God. One year I submitted all of that stuff for my taxes, and another year I have not. I’ve not decided what I am going to do this year. Please understand, I am not suggesting that standard for others, merely that it is something I struggle with.

At the end of the day, though I have seen nothing indicating that they are planning to go away with those deductions, some of what we are going to have to do as a country is going to be painful for many. We are 16 Trillion dollars in debt and this President has added debt twice as fast as his predecessor who added it way, way, way too fast. We are going to have to make tough choices as a nation but the road which we are on right now is going to take us right off a cliff.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
They both skewed the facts equally, according to various factcheck reports.

However, four years ago we were on the edge of a 1929 type depression.

We’re far better off than we were four years ago.

Jim
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Do you know how the Great Depression came into being? :ehh:
 
He_Man said:
“I don’t think you’ve killed anyone, but it is pretty likely.”
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The man’s 67 yrs old, and over the past few months has an extremely poor track record for being inarticulate and has also made dreadful faux pas on several issues as well as not being too fluent. My observation was based upon Romney’s performance, to date.
 
Dawnia said:
What a minute…lost me. Romeny’s new plan would be 98% of Obamacare, which is really just the fed version of Romneycare. So wouldn’t his new plan actually just be 98% Romneycare?
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That’s what I’m saying.

Romney will only get rid of about 2% of Obama Care, if he wins the presidency.

The rest of it, he couldn’t repeal without approval of Congress, which won’t happen, but it’s also parts that Romney likes anyway.

One part that Romney doesn’t like and I agree with, is the taxing of so-called Cadillac Health Insurance programs some people get through their employers.

There is no such tax in Romney Care here in MA.

Jim
 
I would like to point out that not only did Kerry win his first Presidential debate against the incumbent GWB and go on to lose the election, but the same happened with Mondale in his first debate against the incumbent Reagan. An exception is Carter, who lost handily to Reagan. So first debates are not necessarily decisive with respect to predictions about the outcome of the general election. However, it may also be true that more people tuned into the first debate than will be the case with the remaining two. Further, there is what we call in social psychology, the primacy effect, which refers to the powerful influence of first impressions which anchor succeeding impressions. OTOH, there is also the recency effect, which means that the last of a series can have the most influence if a decision is to be made very shortly afterwards.
 
kimmielittle said:
Mr. Al Gore on Obama’s failed debate performance – ‘it was the altitude, not the attitude’

Ahhhhh…Mr Gore, weren’t they both in the same building?
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Al Gore is pathetic.

I vote for Bush again over Gore, even though Bush was nothing more than a useful idiot for Cheney and company.

Jim
 
Dawnia said:
Ain’t that the truth! Each election just reinforces the point that the founders who set up the electoral college were very smart men.
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The Founders were skeptical of and disliked both the media and the dumb masses.
 
maryjk said:
Did you really just accuse Gov. Romney of being a drug user? And when questioned if that is what you really meant, you doubled down. :eek:

Time to retract your statement or provide proof. :mad:
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It was IMO, only and was based upon his past oratory performances and numerous faux pas over the past 2 months.
 
bellasbane said:
The Space Shuttle program cost over 200 billion dollars - was it worth it? I’m not so sure.

Nevertheless, it demonstrates that investing in new technologies is always extremely expensive. However, in comparison to the space program, clean energy is so much more vital to the long term health of our economy and the planet. If the technological problems associated with making it affordable & efficient were easy to figure out - it would have been done already, but the risks are too high and private investors aren’t going to touch it. That is why we need the government investments to take the lead.

It isn’t about picking winners & losers, its about setting a course with a goal for the future of this country. The GOP doesn’t have any new ideas. They have not put forth a vision for the future that is any different than what we’ve had in the past. They would leave everything to the whims and vagrancies of market forces which focus on short term profits. They have left behind the idea of moving ahead cautiously and have adopted a nostalgia for a time that never existed and policies that failed in the past.

Newt’s “moon colony” idea was a bit corny - but at least it was a vision for the future.
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The space program was a government endever. The Clean Energy investments were private corporations that were on the ropes with no hope of recovery, because China was already subsidizing Solar technology.

Being from MA like myself, you should recall what happen to the solar company Evergreen, who were located at Fr Devens. They took stimulus money, along with the 53 year lease for the land from the state at $53, and ended up going to China right after they got the stimulus funds.

I agree that we need clean technology, but it will be driven by market demand and private enterprise.

Jim
 
pepipop said:
The man’s 67 yrs old, and over the past few months has an extremely poor track record for being inarticulate and has also made dreadful faux pas on several issues as well as not being too fluent. My observation was based upon Romney’s performance, to date.
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How’s that killer low birth rate and Muslim immigration workin out for ya over there?
 
pepipop said:
I noted all that too. I’d say Romney due to his articulateness (for once), fluidity of speech and instant recollection of facts and figures that he was ‘chemically’ helped, possibly with an amphetamine or whatever, as is used by some college kids to get through their exams with flying colours due to cognative enhancement. Obama has 16 years on him, but looked much older and slower, his feet were like concrete blocks when he walked across at the end to shake hands with Romney.
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Reagan was older and one of our best presidents, I’m told Ron Paul is up there in years and yet people love Ron Paul. What you are saying is more like something totally unfounded and in fact, sounds very negative against old people as if we should say general statements on people due to their skin colour, creed, age, disability, gender, etc. These are protected rights in the United States. Sounds like you just have sour grapes and what you said is really offensive to elderly people. Imagine if one made stereotypical statements based on our protected rights about other candidates. You really have NO backup.
 
pepipop said:
The man’s 67 yrs old, and over the past few months has an extremely poor track record for being inarticulate and has also made dreadful faux pas on several issues as well as not being too fluent. My observation was based upon Romney’s performance, to date.
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Maybe Romney drank a cup of coffee and Obama took a Xanax because he was so nervous.
:rolleyes:
 
pepipop said:
The man’s 67 yrs old, and over the past few months has an extremely poor track record for being inarticulate and has also made dreadful faux pas on several issues as well as not being too fluent. My observation was based upon Romney’s performance, to date.
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57 States? Corpseman? People in Austria speaking “Austrian”? Yes, those are faux pas, oh wait, Obama said this.
 
qui_est_ce said:
Maybe Romney drank a cup of coffee and Obama took a Xanax because he was so nervous.
:rolleyes:
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For the record, in the past, Mormons were known for drinking “Postum”…and not drinking Coffee though I heard it’s not a total prohibition.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
However, four years ago we were on the edge of a 1929 type depression.

We’re far better off than we were four years ago.

Jim
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In the Depression, they didn’t have unemployment insurance, food stamps, SSD or welfare. If not for those things, you would be seeing soup lines on the street just like in 1933, hoboes in the boxcars and people going from door to door asking for handouts.

The percentage of the able population that’s unemployed is actually greater now than it was then. So, the stock market is up from its low? That happened in the Depression too.

My grandfather, who lived through the Depression always said “…yes, 20% of people were unemployed, but you have to remember that meant 80% were employed, and a lot of them were better off than they were before the depression, because things cost less.”

And GM didn’t go bust in the Depression the way it did this time. It just laid people off and made cars for those who could afford to buy them. It didn’t have massive “legacy costs” that the government felt it had to come in and make good.

For approximately 75-80% of the population, the Depression was not a desperate time. Personally, I think we’re in a depression right now. We have just adopted criteria that say we’re not.
 
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