Wednesday night's GOP debate was perhaps the dullest affair of the political season thus far, lacking the fireworks expected as Senator Rick Santorum and former Governor Mitt Romney both vie for the top spot. Covering no new ground and focusing on irrelevant topics like birth control and earmarks, CNN proved once again that moderated debates are best left to absolutely any other network. "The Most Trusted Name in News" spent its two-hour time block asking stupid and inane questions, leaving the candidates themselves to inject a sense of meaning and urgency into the evening. CBS found the debate so tedious they listed the audience under the "Losers" column in their analysis.
The biggest surprise of the night was Sen. Rick Santorum's complete torpedoing of himself. His lowest moment came as he blatantly admitted to voting against his own conscience to "take one for the team," an action completely at odds with his campaign message. He chuckled nervously as the audience booed on multiple occasions, loudly when he attempted to talk over Mitt Romney and defend his record from the former governor's challenges.
Romney fared much better as he presented a combative front, often giving detailed responses when confronted as opposed to his usual deference to canned answers. Some of his most clever maneuvering came during his defense of his decision to support a Wall Street bailout while rejecting a Detroit bailout. While saying nothing new or remotely groundbreaking, Romney managed to take the night by presenting a strong persona with a willingness to address his challengers in a meaningful way.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich was in typical character, attributing "infanticide" to President Obama and claiming the United States' enemies are the only ones who are "safe." His hyperbole makes for good television but is unlikely to translate to votes. While Ron Paul may lag in the polls, he's a consistent winner with the debate audiences. Easily taking the most memorable moment of the night, Paul called Santurom a "fake" conservative with a bad record.
At the end of the debate, one was left wondering when it ever really started. Every question seemed like a warm-up, hopefully leading to a discussion of substance. What resulted was a flat performance full of bickering without a single player who inspired a presidential confidence. CBS may have placed the audience in the losers column, but they had an even more damning projection for the night's winner: Barack Obama.
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Comments: 24
Fact is that Republicans have been defaming their own brand for the past 15 years, at least. The ridiculous spectacle of serial adulterer Newt Gingrich trying to bring down serial adulterer Clinton on a morals charge tarnished their credibility. The travesty of Bush III stealing the 2000 election for Bush II further damaged it. The worst presidency in the history of the nation absoutely destroyed it. The tail-wagging-the-dog saga of the Tea Party's hostile takeover buried it. The years of trying to undermine Obama at the cost of further damage to the nation's economy and credibility assured no resurrection is possible in the near future.
Credible candidates do not wear the Republican brand.
Guatanamo is still open.
He doubled down on wall street bailouts.
He's authorized 8 times as many drone attacks as Bush ever did.
This with 2 years of a democratic congress.
He's acted as judge, jury, and executioner of an American citizen. No trial, no lawyer, no problem. Signed an addendum to the NDAA so,well, that's ok now.
Stop there for a second.
Do you or anyone else out there seriously believe these Republican cretins will never win another election? These guys you, hate, mock,distrust, fear? Are they too stupid, too dishonest to win another election EVER? Sharezies on those cookies, Rory. Bush was horrible. He won twice. So when it happens, and the loathsome Republican slug in the President's chair avails himself of the powers Obama conferred upon himself, will you decide the Constitution was a good idea after all?
On the other points, I agree absolutely. America started down a corporatist path under Reagan, Bush II accelerated that process enormously, and Obama has done little to back away from it and far too much to help complete it.
And this is the lesser of evils being presented to Americans. Your system is broken.
Problem is that income tax brings in $1.141 trillion in revenue and the entire military budget is only about $700 billion. Even Paul won't cut the entire military budget. This means he needs at least another $700 billion in cuts just to keep the current deficit of between $1.1 trillion and $1.3 trillion from growing larger. And this assumes a military cut of about 57%, far more than he will get.
With total expenditures of $3.7 trillion and a shortfall of $1.3 trillion, there is no way to cut another $1.141 trillion in revenues (making a shortfall of $2.441 trillion) and still eliminate the deficit.
It would create massive unemployment (of the 1.7 million federal civil servants you would be laying off two thirds, with a massive ripple effect leading to at least half that many again losing jobs in private sectors) and massive economic chaos (you can't suddenly remove that large an actor in the economy without enormous fallout).
The fact is the, military excesses aside, the main problem with the American public deficit is undertaxation. Americans pay less in taxes than any other developed nation in the world. This failure to take responsibility for paying your bills is not only leaving the next generation with your debts but is destroying your economy and currency.
It's simple arithmetic
1st, the insistence of paying the bills racked up by criminals on wall street, by incumbent President and predecessor alike, with no stated intention or possible expectation of cessation of this ruinous policy that brought us to this pass....
...and the commitment of the military to wars and acts of War,by incumbent President and predecessor alike, with no reasonable grounds to expect anything but continuance of this idiocy by every contender save one....
....makes that one the contender to choose. 2nd, he's stated 0% as a goal,not an immediate possibility. Do you see any possibility, any at all, for the tax rate to reach the heights you desire without a President who will veto a non-balanced budget? I don't believe that's a magic bullet, but if you do, it's still Paul.
...who hasn't committed to the scorched Earth firings you suggest, rather a steady decline through attrition with the big hurt being delivered to operating budgets.
Too bad, but he's nothing if not humane. Your projection,1.8 jobs lost, doesn't strike me as massive, much less catastrophic(a) in scale to the unemployment rate. What, it would bump 2%? And remember, it's highly localized. What if Detroit lost overnight what they've lost over the decades? Detroit wouldn't like it, but it would be a Detroit problem, not America's. In this case, it would be Washington's problem, who created it. Boo hoo.(b)It's not real economy. They don't produce any goods, just services. They don't make anything but inevitably inflating currency. I'll concede some real value to the services rendered in many departments if you admit those services are just as often unnecessarily doubled or trebled at the state, county and municipal level,which makes the extraneous labor economically parasitic, which brings me to (c)50 states, 50000 municipalities. If you want to be a civil servant, if you're good at what you do, will you be out of work before the Unemployment runs dry? OK, this is extreme and nowhere near Paul's intention, but if he doubled down on the most ridiculous projections, what would that be next to the 25,30,(50?)% unemployment caused by a crashed reserve world currency? Nothing. Laughable. A needle next to a shiv.
Let the Doctor give you a needle, Rory. I promise it won't hurt for long.
I am in total agreement with you vis-a-vis the criminal Wall Street behaviour and the unwarranted government bailout of that, as well as with the unwise foreign wars and international meddling that is expensive and fruitless for America. On those scores Paul is a unique voice speaking out and this is the main reason that he, alone amongst Republican candidates, is drawing more support from independents and Democrats.
But the fact remains that those things happened and still have to be paid for, so the "what ifs" don't matter. Drawing down the military expenses will not be quick, either, and closing foreign bases etc. will take time and there will be massive transporation costs associated with it.
The problem with 0% being an eventual goal is that Ron Paul is in his mid 70s and will not not likely be President in 2018 even if he is in 2013. If he does not move precipitously to achieve that goal then he might as well take it off the table now. Since expenditure reduction is also going to be slow (not only because of the costs and natural delays associated with the military, but also the resistance his radical platform will inevitably meet in Congress) this means that any attempt to rapidly reduce taxes will only exacerbate the debt problem. And the debt problem is the number one threat to the currency.
All of that aside, there is the question of the credibility of the concept of 0% income tax rate to begin with. Every country in the world collects income taxes from its citizens. In fact, taxes are so ubiquitous to human societies through antiquity to today that they are axiomatic, as in the widely used phrase: As certain as death and taxes. There is absolutely no evidence to support the theory that a society, let alone a modern nation, can exist without taxes. How else are we to pay for the things we collectively need?
The American obsession with low taxes and, through Paul, with no taxes is, in my view, a childish wish to get something for nothing, to not have to pay your bills. It is no coincidence or surprise that this kind of thinking exists in juxtaposition with an era in which personal debt has become such a problem. Excessive credit card debt, unaffordable mortgages, and taxes that are too low to maintain necessary government functions are all signs of a populace that wants to have more things than they can afford to pay for. They have been indulged in this fantasy world by easy credit and a political race to the bottom of the world's tax rates. Both are hugely destructive for the same reason: you can't get something for nothing, you get only what you pay for, and sooner or later the bills come due.
The bills on the mortgages came due in 2008 and led to a major collapse in the economy. People lost their homes, their jobs, their retirement savings. The credit card debt bubble is still there and still growing (though overall debt has declined, more of this is due to debt write-off by the credit companies than pay down by consumers). Public debt of government is having the same effect, only on a larger scale.
Americans need to grow up and bite the bullet, pay taxes at a rate consistent with global averages while also reducing expenditures on the military, and working to eliminate waste.
Yes, there is duplication, inefficiency, and waste in government services. This is true. It is also somewhat overblown in public discussions. Everyone accepts government waste as a fact of life. Every politician also comes into office insisting they willl cut waste and eliminate the fat. However, they all fail to find the mysterious pools of fat they expect are hiding behind some department's door. Part of this is due to the simple fact that all human endeavours have waste (we are wasteful creatures) and the larger the enterprise the more waste there is. This is true whether it is public or private, as evidenced by the bloated nature of the American automakers prior to 2008. It is not possible to eliminate all waste, some is unavoidable and has be accepted. As with taxes, we need to have a realistic, adult conversation about waste that looks at eliminating the waste from poor productivity and from malfeasance and accepting the waste that is normal of any large operation.
Cutting the civil service as deeply as Ron Paul's goals would require would have very widespread impact on the country, far beyond Washington, D.C. And while it might only result in a 2% initial rise in unemployment, this is hardly a time when the economy can take that kind of hit on the unemployment rate. The ripple effect is also very likely to add to that 2% substantially.
As to the point about government workers not being part of the "real economy", because they don't produce anything other than services, the same could be said of most of the American economy today. Manufacturing (the producing of goods) has been in serious decline for decades and service sector jobs (retail, finance, IT, civil service, among the rest) are the leading sectors of the economy. Dismissing government as not part of the "real economy" is a false premise. It still involves economic activity including the flow of money in exchange for labour and services.
When I talk real economy, I'm also talking agriculture and extraction in addition to manufacturing as a progenitor of real wealth. Everything else is distribution and redistribution of money. Higher taxation on real economy elements diminishes production, so the numbers stay static. That's the Gordian knot. A national debt tax, for debt only, structured like the GST might be the best solution, but only if its administered by the only man who can pronounce fungible. Otherwise it's one more pork barrel. You still need a man who understands the consequences of insolvency. The next budget has tax breaks. Obama will sign it. Think he "gets it"?
You still, and never, have explained your preference in the face of your very own projections. I agree there's a day of reckoning. That's my point, it always has been. If no party or person acts immediately, it comes regardless. It boots nothing to have a co creator of the problem, who's currently accelerating the disease, in place when that day comes.
No, Paul won't be in office when 0% arrives. Kennedy knew he wouldn't be president on the day of the moon landing. Didn't make him wrong to aim for it.
The ripple effect IS 2% Otherwise it's 1.3%. That's based on your numbers, not mine. I've discussed this. You're calling and raising your own personal apocalypse here.
Eliminating a department eliminates all waste from that department. 0% x anything is 0%. That's why Paul is taking that route.
The troop transport thing, I'll give you a chance to rescind. It's just too foolish. Think about it. Hint: the transport structure is in place, it's called a supply chain.
His numbers are solid,Rory. And he remains the only one willing and able to discuss and address the matter among the candidates, adult or otherwise.
To be clear, I am not advocating a "debt tax", which infers a temporary tax to address the debt. My point is that one of the main causes of your debt is that, as a nation, you are undertaxed. Increasing taxes to realistic levels, consistent with other modern industrialized nations, is something that must be done if the deficit is to be eliminated and the debt paid down. It is not the only thing that needs to be done, but it is a necessary step. And those higher tax levels have to stay in place there after. Just because we don't like paying taxes is not a good reason to get away with paying less than is practically necessary.
You have a real point about Obama (or anyone else on the national stage) being seemingly oblivious to the problem the debt represents. When Republicans and Democrats argue over marginal attempts to reduce the deficit slightly it is like two people standing in a burning building yelling over whether to throw a pail of water on the fire or if they even have to stop striking matches and throwing them on the furniture. Ludicrous. Ron Paul does seem to be the only one actually pointing out that the house is on fire.
However, I don't agree that his proposed solutions will help and instead contend that he, to continue the analogy, wants to throw open the windows to give the fire more oxygen.
His recognition of the problem is laudible, his proposed solution does not, in my view, work in the real world.
Your analogy re Kennedy and the moon mission is a good one and illustrates your point well. However, I think it doesn't actually hold water for one reason: Paul's vision is not shared by any other player on the national scene. While Kennedy shocked even his own administration and those running the space program when he said "within this decade" (something they did not believe they could do at the time) his vision sparked a national enthusiasm for the space race. I cannot see that kind of enthusiasm growing behind Paul's vision, even though there is a committed and passionate group of followers in place today.
I have to disagree with you on the size of the ripple. I believe that your perspective is influenced by the predominant point of view summed up in the expression "government doesn't create jobs, business creates jobs". But, of course, government does create jobs. And if they withdraw so many of them when the economy is fragile, when investors are hesitant to drive growth, it removes a player from the job market that is simply too big to be able to replace at this point in time. I think the ripple would be far bigger than you imagine.
The closing of some 700 military bases around the world would, most definitely, have enormous costs associated with it. Yes, those costs would be somewhat offset by the fact that we would no longer be supplying those bases, but it would take decades for that saving to equal and exceed the up-front cost. We are not talking about a few supply planes and ships. Buildings will be dismantled (yes, some will be sold or left behind, but some will not), massive amounts of equipment, weapons and vehicles, files, and sundries will have to be removed. Some of these extractions will be from difficult to access locales. It is a massive undertaking that cannot simply be accomplished by attrition. The current transport structure in place would have to be ramped up by several orders of magnitude. This would not be cheap and this is hardly the time to take that expense lightly or discount it.
What no one in the US is willing to discuss, not even Paul, is the main cause of the debt and deficit: under-taxation.
I think you'd be surprised how quick a bunch of soldiers eager to quit a place can bug out. I estimate one month, taking the supply line in reverse. Demolishing buildings is sort of a specialty with those fellows. This against the 10 to 50 years of rolling treasure and cannon fodder to these outposts, with God knows how many more under any President but Paul. A tiny expense, comparatively, and keeping them there requires a greater outlay of cash even in the same timeframe.
Yes, it's not impossible for government to create jobs of merit. The Hoover Dam is a classic example. NASA, for all its flailing in identifying a mission post moonwalk, created wonders. Compare to the Solyndra debacle, add in the parlous state of the nations finances, and understand that I have no reason to believe this administration or any to come that don't have a financial cushion should look to the mega-project as a solution. An all-out infrastructure upgrade, a massive desalination/irrigation project for the southwest, hell, a billion trees planted to give this Earth a new set of lungs wouldn't have offended me in 2009. But cronyism and beauracracy building prevailed. Now it's simply too late. Yes, the government can redistribute some wealth and call it "jobs". It's not. And it isn't helpful. That's the blast of oxygen you were talking about.
Good conversation. Thanks.
All politicians give speeches in front of friendly audiences. Obama has no Democratic challengers, so his primary season campaign events will not have opposition speakers. This is normal for a sitting president. You may recall (if you are old enough) that the Bush administration were extreme in their control of who could attend any of his events.
I am guessing you are accusing Obama of being a Muslim, which kind of casts you into the same wingnut category as the birther lunatics.
"Baby killer"? Which babies are you accusing Obama of killing?
Maybe you missed your afternoon meds?