you should just be honest with yourself and not think about it so much. Set yourself free...come out of the closet and be proud of being gay. fyi, I just read the title
If anyone still on the fence on this one, you all need to keep doing whatever you're doing and please don't vote. Your vote is worthless!
That is about as stupid a thing as I've read during this election season. Obama wants top earners to go back to Clinton-era tax rates -- the same rates that they would be at today if Bush's tax cuts had been allowed to expire when even Bush intended them to. To say that Obama doesn't like wealthy people or doesn't want their votes is r****ded. He is one of those wealthy people and most of his friends are wealthy. He just wants everyone to be part of the necessary sacrifices all but the rich are making in these hard financial times. A lot of wealthy people agree that they ought never have been given enormous tax cuts while we ran two off-the-books wars (which Obama chose to go ahead and pay for, resulting in Romney et al to blame Obama for Bush's spending) or while others slipped into poverty. Obama doesn't dislike rich people; he dislikes injustice and unfairness. p.s. to heypartner. Seriously, dude? I mean, seriously? That you could even consider Romney blows my ****ing mind. And by the way, since you're on the dating scene still I believe, if you do vote Romney lie about it later to women. It will not be a turn-on that you voted for someone that won't endorse pay equity for women and that will do everything in his power to criminalize abortion even in cases of rape or incest. If you have any gay or Latino friends, I highly recommend you keep it to yourself that you even considered voting Romney. p.p.s. Obama is among the most intelligent people to ever hold the highest office. And he has gotten more good done than any president since LBJ.
I largely agree with HI Mana's post. Both candidates are really centrists and pragmatists. Their rhetoric is different and outlines a deep divide but governing though they weren't all that different. The question to me though about Romney is whether he will actually govern as the centrist pragmatists he was as Governor of MA or will he be more conservative as his rhetoric indicates? That I don't know and one of the main concerns I have but given his history I suspect he will be somewhat moderate and if Romney wins I suspect that next year many of our more conservative posters will be as upset with him as our more liberal posters have been with Obama. That said there are still several issues to consider that I think we can predict accurately about what will happen during a Romney Admin.. As HI Mana noted a few USSC Justices are slated for retirement. I think it is guaranteed that Romney will appoint Justices who are more judicially and socially conservative. So if you didn't like Citizens United, want to keep abortion legal, and have a greater limit on government police powers you probably wouldn't want Romney to appoint those new justices. The other big issue is repealing the ACA. This is one promise that Romney will keep as if he doesn't he will face incredible hostility in his own party. While ACA is far far from perfect you have to consider the implications of repealing it. Now that the federal government, most state governments, the insurance industry and medical industry have geared themselves up to deal with ACA repeal of it will be very costly. The other issue is you have to consider if we went back to the situation prior to ACA if that is something that you want. While people complain about health care cost rising prior to ACA they were already rising much much faster than inflation while at the same time more and more people were going uninsured. The status quo prior to ACA was unsustainable and needed to be reformed. Now while Romney has promised to keep the popular proposals of ACA, allowing children to stay on parents coverage until 26, no-discrimination for pre-existing conditions, what he hasn't answered is how the insurance companies are going to pay for that without ACA. Romney himself knows this which is why the Mass law has a mandate because there is no way it is feasible for the private insurance industry to give those benefits without greatly expanding the insurance pool. The bottom line is that prior to ACA the health insurance system was a failure at containing costs and expanding coverage and going back to that will be disastrous.
Speading Toward a Slowdown How federal spending has climbed since 2001 This is just a quick search of a couple articles.
Also, if you liked Bush, you're gonna love Romney. In every single way, Romney is far to the right of Bush and wants to double-down on the economic choices that got us in this mess in the first place. Look forward to more stupid wars and look forward to the chasm between the super-rich and everyone else to grow exponentially. Romney has nothing but contempt for 47% of the nation. This is what he says when he doesn't know he's being recorded. And Paul Ryan says 30% of the country are "takers" while 70% are "makers." The only question is does this ticket hate 47% of the country or only 30%? If you are interested in economic issues, look at the history of the two parties. The GOP has been pushing trickle-down economics since 1979. There has never been a trickle-down. Democrats have been, for the last twenty years, the fiscally responsible party. Our guys keep bailing out for the Republicans that keep trying super-tax cuts for the super-rich. And we are better on the deficit as well. Know why? We might be tax and spend (though under Obama taxes have gone down) but that is way better for the deficit than don't tax but still spend. This is where our deficit came from. Want to make it worse? Vote Romney.
As an aside, Neither of these things is even remotely applicable to what I asked you - which is this: Further, neither of them really support your claim of "Frantic claims of a massive recession in 2006 " - Krugman is complaining that real wages that fell in the last recession didn't come back by 2006. Which is true, as a matter of mathematical fact. But not a frantic claim of a recession in 2006. The second is utterly inapplicable at all to your thesis, it mentions the word "recession" twice with a quote from Bush in 2003. Why did you even post it? Do you not even understand what you wrote?
Rhetorical question aside, I believe you are missing the point. I am not arguing between Bush and Obama. So at the absolute worst of the Bush depression we had over 2 million less jobs then now? That's not saying much for the President. The unemployment rate at the beginning of the 80's was higher than the highest time under Bush. The economic policies of Reagan produced nearly 15 million jobs. As Mitt has done well he has presented a case that he is not much like Bush and his neocons but more like Reagan. Also, each month, more people join the working age population than retire or die. Consequently, the economy needs to add about 180,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. Obama has been in office for nearly 48 months. Multiply that by 180k is 8.64 mill new people that are working age in his term of office. Now subtract the number which Obama has said himself that he has created over 5 million jobs and he still has about 3 million less people working.
My second link I admit was laziness. I am at work and trying to multitask. Here is a link to where I found some of the info from my last post 3 Lies About Jobs and the Unemployment Rate
I don't know what romney is going to do. He says one thing to one set of people and something else to another. Didn't he say that he will not being lowering taxes on the rich and then in another speech says he will.
I believe you are talking about that he is going to limit exemptions, so they have more taxable income. But this combined with across the board tax cut will create more revenue will putting more money in all peoples pockets and creating more jobs
It actually is if you consider the historical record - the only modern comparable is the great depression (reagan's recession was qualitatively different, as it was not a financial crisis), from which it took a lot longer to recover. I don't need to do that math about what you think the numbers should be - I gave you the actual numbers, and they're not what you say.
Must admit that one of the reasons I started the thread was to gain a quick assessment of who is who in the D&D. It helps the reading here to know things like this. I am serious about not really following the Presidential races anymore, since 2008. So thanks for the input. I purposely didn't reveal my main issues (that I can summarize in a common business acronym), because I didn't want the discussion to be steered by that. To answer two questions: I don't think Obama is that bright, because I generally don't think any incumbent who can't win is very bright. I'm not talking IQ or education, here. But I have other reasons, too. But again, I don't want to steer the discussion by saying that. By puppet, I meant Romney is a puppet to his party. I didn't say big business or anything. I can't read the dude. Anyhow, thanks for responding and still wanting to wait to see if other people would chime in. off to a Oktoberfest barbecue with my Smoked Schweinefleisch -- Texas-style.
Rather than self preservation and 'what's in it for my income bracket?' being the deciding factors, I urge people to vote for ideas and institutions greater than themselves. I love this country and many of the things it stands for like freedom of expression, nurturing innovation (space, internet), and social mobility. Sadly, the last idea has become more and more unattainable under the corporate-state which began in the late 70s. The way you should vote depends on how much you care for the long-term strength of America's middle class. The kind of policies advocated by Reagan, Bush, (conservative-face) Romney, et al have chipped away at the middle class's power. Inequality in income, wealth, and education has risen to politically-dangerous levels for a superpower. Like India and Pakistan, there is a very different America for those in the top 1% vs. the 99%. If the OP wants the inequality trend to continue, he should vote for Romney. If he wants to slow it down, and possibly reverse, he should vote for the democrats.
You obviously don't understand anything about how unemployment numbers are taken. The government doesn't know how many people are unemployed. We don't know for certain how many people are employed because no one counts them. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the number of unemployed based on a random sampling of the population. In itself, this isn't a problem. Sampling is a well-established method of estimation when it is too time-consuming or expensive to count every single person. The problem arises when a politician pretends that the estimate is an exact measurement. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has two employment estimates. In one, the bureau asks randomly selected employers how many workers they hired or let go. In the other, it asks randomly selected people whether they found or lost jobs. According to the first survey, employers added 115,000 jobs in April. According to the second survey, 169,000 Americans lost their jobs. Which one is correct? Neither—they are both estimates. The correct statement is that April's job numbers were somewhere between 115,000 better and 169,000 worse than March's numbers. In other words, Sam, get out of here with your fuzzy math and unwillingness to consider anything other than what your party spits out at you. There are times I don't vote Republican, like last election, when I voted for Obama, who I thought might do a good job. But I have seen him in action for 4 years and I don't want him for another.
Then why did you make this claim? you're the one who brought it up: Which survey were you using? Why do you seem so certain? Is this an admission of error on your part?
