“Let the game show begin! Oh, wait… This isn’t Let’s Make A Deal?”
In New Hampshire the existing field of seven Republicans had different missions going into the 120-minute rhetorical tussle. There was a bothersome hectic air about the show. Being TV, host John King was constantly stressing time, time, time, as if there weren’t 14 months until the convention and 512 days until the 2012 election.
[…]
For Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann, it was a chance to introduce themselves to a national TV audience, or at least those Americans choosing to watch a low-rated cable news channel on a summer evening when they’ll have interminable opportunities to watch/read/listen more later, when others like Jon Huntsman may join in.Bachmann took the opportunity to basically announce her candidacy. […] Pawlenty, who’s new to this league, looked sincere but less comfortable than he will down the road. Ron Paul was, well, Ron Paul. […] Fact is, the entire Republican field has moved in his direction in some areas like the overpowering size of the federal government now.
Newt Gingrich, trying to relaunch his stumbling campaign, was sharp, pointed and surprisingly brief for a former speaker; it served him well. […] Romney’s ridden this circuit before and looked the most poised and presidential, even plopped in center stage.
[…]
One striking sense from this initial encounter is how distinctly more conservative is the tone this time over 2007-08, especially in matters fiscal.Although a new Gallup Poll reveals that Republicans are more interested this time in picking a winner than in finding an ideal ideological soulmate.
Here’s an article fact-checking the debaters’ statements.
A: Whichever one the media told us who won!
“Thinking for yourself could be dangerous. Don’t do it!!”
Trust the Guardian to figure it out.
This is a completely non-partisan appreciation: Obama won the debate last night.
The penquins on display were nothing but stooges for the Uber Rich via to steal the election thru group tested lies, equivications, and spin.
There was just ABSOLUTELY NO NEW IDEAS PRESENTED. Just the worn out failures that drove us into the ditch. Lies, lies, more lies==from all of them.
Kabuki theater: “Everyone here would make a better president than Obama.” Really? And even those not there like Palin—Really? Ha, ha. Yes, the primary is a shocking thing to see, worse than sausage.
Lower to NO taxes, no regulations, trust the free market? How much shit will the public swallow?====and election after election we show that it is quite a lot. Its like watching a documentary on blood letting as the most current thinking on cancer cures?
My goodness. Anti-Gay, Anti-Poor, Anti-Choice. Back to the barricades my friends the walking dead are making a frontal attack.
How do I get off this planet?
Some of you actually watched that crap? Sheesh.
#3 Bobbo asked: “How do I get off this planet?”
Based on his extreme lib posts for more and more taxes, I thought he has been posting from Mars already.
JB–can you confirm? Didn’t Obama LOWER your taxes, like he did for everyone else? And doesn’t every announced proposal he has hinted at leave your taxes alone?
How does the over $250K crowd, or over $500K/1Mill crowd taxes going up by 3-5 % affect you or anyone else here?
Or is it your estate tax you are worried about? What the first .5 Million exemption is not enough? Little Paris Hilton needs more or your freedom is impacted?
Get real.
For 50 points. Who did Paul Revere warn?
1. The British
2. The Indians
3. The gays
4. The Muslims
5. Other
How’s that Obama mega-campaign-machine running lately?
Yesterday’s Headline: Obama Fundraiser Underwhelms
The top level of the 2,200-seat concert hall was entirely empty, as were the seats in other sections.
“The expectation was 900,” a Democratic official said.
Tickets for the event were only $44, the official said.
Obama spent more on Air Force One fuel than he took in at the fund-raiser. (oops, sorry. The American taxpayer spent more on Obama’s fuel than he took in at the fund raiser)
The GOP primaries are starting like a bad reality show… These people all suck.
If my 2012 ballot said “Ron Paul/Herman Cain” on, that’s where my vote is.
jbenson2, a little misleading but that’s OK. Four fundraisers on one night between the two Obamas (3 in Florida) with a total raise of ~2.5 million. I’m not exactly thrilled with Obama’s time as president but you’re misquoting a politico blog that ripped off and misquoted an msnbc blog. So one of the four fundraisers was a wash.
Maybe you’re only misquoting once, but you’re still cherry picking. As for bobbo’s arguments, unfortunately I stopped reading a while time ago but I imagine there just a wee hint of hyperbole too.
Seriously, you can do better. If you want to defeat Obama (fair enough) don’t think he’s an easy kill. If you do, then the election is already over.
#5 jbenson2
That’s an extreme misrepresentation. No one is advocating “more and more” or 100% taxes.
We just want *enough* taxes to cover the needs/responsibilities/ obligations of government.
If the hawks want a big military, we need to pay for it.
SociSec and Medicare/caid need to be paid for.
Crumbling infrastructure repairs
Education
Lets stop pretending we can diet on chocolate cake.
#12 – Come on – Education? Let’s all sing it together. It’s for the children! Fine, let the states handle it and shut down the Federal education overlords.
Regarding more taxes: Of course, Obama is advocating more and more taxes. If he can’t get it via Congress, he is using the backdoor and letting his regulators put the increases in place.
Obama’s record on tax controls so far have been pitiful.
According to the New York Times, the 2009 “Making Work Pay” program involving a $13/week tax return ($400 total) was so small it had no impact on the recovery, expired in 2010 and a lot of people didn’t even notice it.
Lower taxes? Hardly. Obama raised taxes on cigarettes and indoor tanning, and the mother of all tax increases: the health care law which includes a tax penalty on the uninsured. The health care law also includes new taxes, increasing the rates consumers pay on Medicare hospital taxes.
Fortunately, Obama had to agree with the Senate Republicans and compromise on tax legislation at the end of 2010, which continued the tax cuts implemented by President George W. Bush.
And even though individual income tax payments were up 28 percent to $701.8 billion, and corporate tax receipts increased 5 percent so far this year, the deficit will blast past $1 trillion for the 3rd year in a row.
It is not a tax problem.
It is a spending problem.
JB–yes, never defend you position just keep making the same idiotic attack over and over and over again. Only those easily hypnotized by repetitive Jedi Tricks will be affected: sadly, 30-55% of the voters.
Imagine “paying” for what you do? Like when you start a war of choice you actually increase taxes to pay for it rather than add it on to the debt?
Only a complete fucking asshole takes a complicated problem and boils it down to either or choices and then throws away one of the choices.
Only a complete fucking asshole takes a society with the lowest tax structure of comparable societies and concludes we have a spending problem, not a taxing problem.
We all know who those complete fucking assholes are — pukes.
Stop shilling for the Uber Rich. Start dealing with reality.
You are on welfare I presume?
Ha, ha.
I posted too quickly. I should not have said “complete fucking assholes.”
“self destructive person with shit for brains” would have been more accurate and less personal.
My apologies.
#14 Bobbo’s words of wisdom: “Only a complete fucking asshole takes a society with the lowest tax structure of comparable societies and concludes we have a spending problem, not a taxing problem.”
Been to Greece lately?
How much longer before the EU collapses?
#13 jbenson2
Yes, because the states have been doing so well themselves. Plenty of revenue without Fed funding! pfft. There’s enough trouble getting effective funding between communities, much less between states.
So “Making work pay” *was* a tax decrease, but it just doesn’t count? Convenient.
Oh no, not cigarette taxes! Those poor poor smokers, what will they do? I bet the tax doesn’t even dent healthcare costs for smoking related illnesses.
Yes, there is a tax penalty for not having insurance. I don’t like the mandate either. Single payer is far more sensible and effective. But without the mandate there will be people not paying into the system that they will one day need in one way or the other. The mandate was a republican idea (Nixon, Romney, et al) – we scrapped a real healthcare reform for one that the Republicans should have been able to swallow. And nothing but whining since.
If you really believe its a spending problem, get your people in office. Convince the American people to kill some programs. “Starve the beast” doesn’t work, especially when the people implementing it are too cowardly to actually to it. But in the mean time lets pay our bills. Trimming pennies off the budget is *theater* and you’re clapping in the front row.
#17 tcc3 said: “Yes, because the states have been doing so well themselves. Plenty of revenue without Fed funding! pfft. There’s enough trouble getting effective funding between communities, much less between states.”
So you want the rest of the USA to bail out that house of cards formerly known as California, along with their public sector union jobs? Just their union pensions are underfunded by over a half a trillion dollars!
The only people that buy that sort of idiotic argument are the remaining Californians who are not leaving the state in droves.
I made it through nearly 5 minutes of this before switching it off. Wow, was that ever painful! None of these pretenders is going to step on Roger Ailes toes any time soon.
#15, Bobbo,
Yes, I understand. An easy error; when is one a “complete fucking idiot” compared to a “self destructive person with shit for brains”. It is quite possible to be both simultaneously.
An example would be someone taking the position “he raised the taxes on my partaking in self destructive, cancer causing activities such as smoking and UV roasting. Another example would be the making up of their own facts which are easily proved wrong, such as claiming “taxing people who don’t get health insurance”.
In my own estimation, both would apply to someone who lives off of the state and complains taxes are too high. Arguing that lower taxes stimulate the economy when history has shown the opposite long term effect.
I wouldn’t worry too much about choosing which applies. If one doesn’t exactly fit that specific circumstance, the offender will soon give reason to make it fit.
The mental picture of Santorum and Bachmann isn’t pretty. Yet, somehow the two pictures go together so well.
(picture Bachmann with santorum dripping from her chin, …, just taking care of business)
#17–tcc3==”Trimming pennies off the budget is *theater* and you’re clapping in the front row.” //// Well crafted. Thanks.
#23–JB==cherry picking only half the facts. What a shill. Do you have shit for brains? Seriously.
Now–chart the declining performance of the USA in measures of satisfaction/security/comfort/education/entrepreneurial factors/etc compared to these societies.
Pawlenty said he wanted to removed the rocks that were placed on the backs of business so that they could compete internationally. Whats about the BIGGEST ROCK in that bag: employer provided healthcare. Everyone on that list has it provided at half the cost by the government and not by business making them that much more competitive against whatever it is that America sells these days.
Can’t think your way out of an open bag.
Pukes. All about the wealth shift to the Uber Rich. Wake up America. Just LOOK!!!!
If you continue to raise the taxes, corporations will continue to leave the US in droves (I don’t care who you are, you know it is going to happen. Curse them all you want but you can’t stop them.) and people will find they have less and less money to spend on the things they need (Food has increased in price 238% since 2000. Salaries have not increased to keep up.)
The government can only spend what it takes in (unless they raise the debt ceiling again in which case the hidden tax rate goes up again because the dollar is worth less due to the additional borrowing). If corporations leave and salaries go down (or disappear), there is no money for handouts like healthcare.
The government has spent itself into a hole. When the government overspends, that is NOT an obligation. That is a fuck-up. Both parties are responsible — they just argue about what to spend the money on. One thinks it should be spend on this and the other thinks it should be spent on that.
They’ve had their shot. It didn’t work. Time to do something else.
#18 jbenson2
No, i want to make sure that a kid in a poor state has the same (or at least similar) opportunities to grow up and contribute to society as one in a wealthy state.
#23 jbenson: More reductio ad absurdum. We aren’t talking about Europe or their policies. our tax rates are not even close.
Whether Americans do or don’t want European style programs is an issue left to future elections. If they did, it may or may not cost that much. What is relevant now is that we aren’t paying for what we already have. Pay the bills. if you think reducing the size of the bill is the way to go, then argue the point, convince America.
Besides, maybe you’re right and increased tax policy will be bad. Americans will get tired of paying more taxes and will come over you your smaller government way of thinking.
Right now pay the bill.
#16–jb==I don’t know much about Greece. Saw a show said a big part of their problem was not enforcing what tax structure they do have–ie, millionaires simply not paying and the government doesn’t even “try” to collect it. That does seem to be only one of the many destructive roads we are going down.
Is that what you meant?
Yes, every dollar spent on IRS enforcement brings back 10—so the Pukes are hell bent to cut funding for that aspect of “Government that has gotten too large.”
Now, I’m torn again. I see Fusion is right again: both an asshole and shit for brains. A two fer.
And yes, I am already thinking of the trifected I’m sure you will post shortly.
They all are cardboard politico cut outs minus Ron Paul. None of them said hardly anything worth significance. Vague BS answers that drift off into whatever point they are trying to make, regardless if it’s answering the question posed to them. If they weren’t presidential candidates I would have assumed it was footage from try outs for a high school debate team. What’s to discuss? Unless Ron Paul or Gary Johnson wins we’re fucked, same as we have been. End of story. The rest will do whatever big money tells them.
….and that certainly applies to the Pauls. Too Dogmatic to rule. Private businesses SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DISCRIMINATE because it was government enforced rules that allowed discrimination to start to begin with?
Give me a break.
We need more liberalism and libertarianism in our political thought and actions, but it becomes destructive all too quickly when it becomes dogma such as the Pauls advocate.
Again, get real.
#27 Bobbo’s only response it to fall back to 3rd grade cursing.
What I base our future on is the Index of Economic Freedom.
The USA is #9 and falling.
Why? Deteriorating business freedom, trade freedom, government spending, and monetary freedom.
The government’s recent spending spree has led to fragile business confidence and crushing public debt.
Drastic legislative changes in health care and financial regulations have retarded job creation and injected substantial uncertainty into business investment planning.
Regulatory changes, with fading confidence in the direction of government policies, discourage entrepreneurship and dynamic investment within the private sector. Leadership and credibility in trade have been also undercut by protectionist policy stances.
#33–JB==nothing but curses? Ha, ha. Proof positive the blinkers are in place.
Answer this one: If the budget were in balance, and the President decided to take us to war, should be then submit next years budget with a tax increase, a tax cut, or leave it the same?
Please tell us what is orthodoxy in your world?
You “should have” NO CREDIBILITY if you can’t answer this question==even if just for yourself.
Hint—its the start of the path to self awareness. Get the shit cart out and find a good stiff broom.
#27 bobbo
Another comparison for him to consider:
Lets assume the figures are accurate and each European nation is as weighted by social programs as he says (not sure that’s the whole picture – some are doing better than others – notice he conveniently left Germany off the list?). lets take the above as given for now
Both the US and Europe are in financial trouble. One has a high tax rate, large social safety net/government programs. The other has a very low tax rate, has a minimal safety net, and the worlds largest and most expensive military by several times, embroiled in conflict almost constantly during the 20th century.
Who’s people got a better deal?
Even if you stipulate that the Europeans go too far, there should be some middle ground. A reasonable sized government with a reasonable sized tax rate.