The General American Politics Thread

[Tornado]

Wouldn't having comparable curriculums and learning environments across all of nation's schools be more beneficial?

If I'm reading this right, no actually. The practical effect of uniform curriculum (and it is an inherent result) is that the highest schools are brought down to the level of the worst schools rather than vice versa (or, more realistically, the best schools are brought down to the level of mediocre schools and the worst schools are ignored when they continue to underachieve); and schools with drastically different backgrounds and setups are all poorly mashed into a one-size-fits-all situation. You can't make a small rural school in Georgia have the same learning environment as an inner city school in Los Angeles, and you can't fix problems with the former by implementing ideas from the latter. You just can't.

And because the learning environment will be so different, you either have to allow the curriculum to be changed in order to fit the needs of students in an area better; or you need to arbitrarily choose a standard by which to judge all of them. The former allows graduates to at least be able to pursue work in their regions if they do not pursue higher education, but the latter of which causes a whole casserole of problems.

That isn't to say that Romney's plan will fix things, because it really won't do much than fracture an already broken system.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Tornado

[Autosaver]

So apparently many sources are saying that Romney either lied or flip-flopped on his view points when Obama brought them up during the debate. This made Obama look misinformed while Romney on top. I've got to say, that is completely unfair if he actually did lie in front of the American people. I was even skeptical while watching when I saw Romney say Obama was wrong on a couple of facts. We've seen Romney state these own facts before so what gives? Also, several of the issues Romney had principles on did not have any clear goals or explanations. All we can go on is by word of mouth. So when Romney says that taxes won't be lowered, how do we know this? He hasn't specifically stated how. Why is it a secret anyways?

[turbojet]

So apparently many sources are saying that Romney either lied or flip-flopped on his view points when Obama brought them up during the debate. This made Obama look misinformed while Romney on top. I've got to say, that is completely unfair if he actually did lie in front of the American people. I was even skeptical while watching when I saw Romney say Obama was wrong on a couple of facts. We've seen Romney state these own facts before so what gives? Also, several of the issues Romney had principles on did not have any clear goals or explanations. All we can go on is by word of mouth. So when Romney says that taxes won't be lowered, how do we know this? He hasn't specifically stated how. Why is it a secret anyways?

Are you kidding?

When taxation was mentioned Romney stated clear as day that he wanted to cut taxes and lower the budget. Obama then criticized him about this stating that cutting taxes increases the deficit unless the middle class carries the burden. Romney then flat out denied that he said that he did not want a tax cut. My roommate and I were baffled.

[Conando]

Didn't watch it because, I already made up my mind and I'd rather not stress over this shit anymore. For the record, I still support Obama. I don't know HOW Romney can say he lead Massachusetts well because, he certainly didn't. As for working together with Democrats, he was one Republican in a sea of democrats. The hell was he going to do? The state senate would have eaten him alive if he tried to hold them up.

Edit: Also, I figured I there are some people that wonder how the hell Mitt Romney even got elected in a state like Massachusetts. He was a clever bastard, he ran against Jane Swift. The former Lt. Governer who turned Governer, one of the most incompetent politicans I have ever known. A chimpanzee in a suit and tie could have beaten Jane Swift in an election. Though I could be misremebering some details, I was 13 at the time and not all that engaged in politics. i believe he defeated Swift in the primary, then Shannon O'Brien in the actual race. I can't even remember a damn thing about Shannon O'Brien, so that should tell you something. The guy waited for the perfect chance.

Edited October 4, 2012 by King Of Awesome

[Cobalt_Bolt]

I didn't watch the debate as I already made up my mind for who I'll vote for in the election. FYI I still support the current president even though he was hamstrung by the people in D.C. he did what he could under those circumstances. I will still keep my eyes and ears open on the latest developments and make sure that I sort out the lies from the cold hard truth. One way or another this country will change for better or worse come Election Day.

[Carbo]

Watching this presidential debate I felt like I missed a click and wounded up in a Skype group chat.

Also The Onion still provides.

[Phos]

ABC's talking heads are all in agreement that this debate was great for Romney; that he performed much better than expected, that he was better stylistically, had better zingers etc. One of the pundits said that Obama tonight was much more like his flat, deflated, uninspiring 2007 self than his shining beacon of hope '08 self. I didn't see much of him in '07 so I can't say if that's true or not, but it is worrying that the comparison has come up.

One of the other pundits also compared the debate to the 2004 presidential debates, when the incumbent came in looking for a draw and the challenger came in looking for a win, and the challenger won. I'd say that's probably accurate; Obama played it far too safe and needed to be more aggressive. Hopefully he'll really be able to up his game in 2 and 3 weeks' time when the next two presidential debates occur (the VPs duke it out next week).

Romney didn't do himself any favors by bullying the moderator, and the moderator himself was just too weak in my opinion. They needed someone who could really yell at the candidates to shut them up once their allotted time slots expired. Of course, it didn't help that, in a debate of facts and figures (or in Mitt's case, etc-a-sketchery), where points and counterpoints were always going to be complex and long-winded, the candidates only had two minutes to make opening speeches to each segment.

It wouldn't. The UK did something similar a few years ago; league tables for schools, and it didn't help one jot.

Grading schools will only serve to further demoralize teachers and students at poor schools, overwhelm better ones with way more applications than they can take, and it won't help any kids' education.

This is AWESOME by the way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a6FK9Yod2M

Eh, the guy playing Romney couldn't really do the dance.

And so Romney had this add about Obama didn't do anything about China getting all our jerbs, which I can't help but laugh at because is that honestly supposed to imply that he plans to do anything about it? Yeah, he's not doing that.

[The Kid]

The major problem with the debate is that they just kept reiterating their plans to the point that they ran out of time. Even the mediator eventually had to say "Would you both just agree the American people have a clear choice about which candidate's plan they want to choose?" just so they could continue. One candidate spoke long past when they were supposed to, then the other responded with an even longer rebuttal. Both candidates not only interrupted the mediator but also criticized their opponent on the basis that "You're not understanding my plan, I'm not for this! That just isn't true!"

The whole debate was basically "No, you aren't understanding what I'm saying!" with a few quotable comments sprinkled in here and there like "I think we should grade schools!"

Also, watching the election with Politi-fact's twitter feed open is awesome.

[Phos]

Ok, you want to cut defense spending? Well, you should have done it years ago, by killing the F35 and selling F-22 (the plane international buyers actually wanted) to all the cosigners. Oh what, are you afraid that Japan or Australia is going to misuse them?

Ok, what's so bad about the F-35? To put it simply, it isn't really a fighter unless you drink the stealth kool aid that makes it invincible even though it isn't really that stealthy. Basically what you have is an attacker based on the idea of the opposition not having modern air defense missiles or a modern Air Force, and guess what, the planes we already have do that just fine. But what makes it worthless? The role of light attacker already belongs to drones, which are an order of magnitude cheaper... And the F-22 is better at that anyway! At some point it was supposed to replace the A-10 but the USAF realized it was horribly ill suited to the task and decided against it.

[Autosaver]

Are you kidding?

When taxation was mentioned Romney stated clear as day that he wanted to cut taxes and lower the budget. Obama then criticized him about this stating that cutting taxes increases the deficit unless the middle class carries the burden. Romney then flat out denied that he said that he did not want a tax cut. My roommate and I were baffled.

I missed some of the speech and my video buffered here and there, and I don't remember seeing what you're talking about. But yeah, that sounds hilarious if that indeed happened.

[Patticus]

Are you kidding?

When taxation was mentioned Romney stated clear as day that he wanted to cut taxes and lower the budget. Obama then criticized him about this stating that cutting taxes increases the deficit unless the middle class carries the burden. Romney then flat out denied that he said that he did not want a tax cut. My roommate and I were baffled.

Well, going just by what you said in the first sentence, he didn't say he didn't want a tax cut. What's there to be baffled about, unless of course you worded that sentence badly?

[turbojet]

Well, going just by what you said in the first sentence, he didn't say he didn't want a tax cut. What's there to be baffled about, unless of course you worded that sentence badly?

The bold is what I am talking about.

Source

Dubious Denver Debate Declarations

Obama and Romney swap exaggerations and false claims in their first meeting.

Posted on October 4, 2012

Summary

We found exaggerations and false claims flying thick and fast during the first debate between President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.

Obama accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. Not true. Romney proposes to offset his rate cuts and promises he won’t add to the deficit.

Romney again promised to “not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans” and also to “lower taxes on middle-income families,” but didn’t say how he could possibly accomplish that without also increasing the deficit.

Obama oversold his health care law, claiming that health care premiums have “gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.” That’s true of health care spending, but not premiums. And the health care law had little to do with the slowdown in overall spending.

Romney claimed a new board established by the Affordable Care Act is “going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.” Not true. The board only recommends cost-saving measures for Medicare, and is legally forbidden to ration care or reduce benefits.

Obama said 5 million private-sector jobs had been created in the past 30 months. Perhaps so, but that counts jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t add to the official monthly tallies until next year. For now, the official tally is a bit over 4.6 million.

Romney accused Obama of doubling the federal deficit. Not true. The annual deficit was already running at $1.2 trillion when Obama took office.

Obama again said he’d raise taxes on upper-income persons only to the “rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president.” Actually, many high-income persons would pay more than they did then, because of new taxes in Obama’s health care law.

Romney claimed that middle-income Americans have “seen their income come down by $4,300.” That’s too high. Census figures show the decline in median household income during Obama’s first three years was $2,492, even after adjusting for inflation.

Obama again touted his “$4 trillion” deficit reduction plan, which includes $1 trillion from winding down wars that are coming to an end in any event.

Romney sometimes came off as a serial exaggerator. He said “up to” 20 million might lose health insurance under the new law, citing a Congressional Budget Office study that actually put the likely number who would lose employer-sponsored coverage at between 3 million and 5 million. He said 23 million Americans are “out of work” when the actual number of jobless is much lower. He claimed half of all college grads this year can’t find work, when, in fact, an AP story said half either were jobless or underemployed. And he again said Obama “cut” $716 billion from Medicare, a figure that actually reflects a 10-year target for slowing Medicare spending, which will continue to grow.

Analysis

The debate was held Oct. 3 inside a huge sports center at the University of Denver. It was the first of three scheduled debates between President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. It was carried live on national TV networks and radio.

$5 Trillion Tax Cut

The president said Romney was proposing a $5 trillion tax cut and Romney said he wasn’t. The president is off base here — Romney says his rate cuts and tax eliminations would be offset and the deficit wouldn’t increase.

Obama: Governor Romney’s central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut — on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

Romney: First of all, I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don’t have a tax cut of a scale that you’re talking about.

To be clear, Romney has proposed cutting personal federal income tax rates across the board by 20 percent, in addition to extending the tax cuts enacted early in the Bush administration. He also proposes to eliminate the estate tax permanently, repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, and eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains and dividends for taxpayers making under $200,000 a year in adjusted gross income.

By themselves, those cuts would, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, lower federal tax liability by “about $480 billion in calendar year 2015” compared with current tax policy, with Bush cuts left in place. The Obama campaign has extrapolated that figure out over 10 years, coming up with a $5 trillion figure over a decade.

However, Romney always has said he planned to offset that massive cut with equally massive reductions in tax preferences to broaden the tax base, thus losing no revenue and not increasing the deficit. So to that extent, the president is incorrect: Romney is not proposing a $5 trillion reduction in taxes.

The Impossible Plan

However, Romney continued to struggle to explain how he could possibly offset such a large loss of revenue without shifting the burden away from upper-income taxpayers, who benefit disproportionately from across-the-board rate cuts and especially from elimination of the estate tax (which falls only on estates exceeding $5.1 million left by any who die this year). The Tax Policy Center concluded earlier this year that it wasn’t mathematically possible for a plan such as Romney’s to cut rates as he promised without either favoring the wealthy or increasing the federal deficit.

Except for saying that his plan would bring in the same amount of money “when you account for growth,” Romney offered no new explanation for how he might accomplish all he’s promised. He just repeated those promises in some of the strongest terms yet.

Romney: My number one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. … I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans. … I will lower taxes on middle-income families.

But he didn’t say how he’d pull off all those things at once.

‘Six Other Studies’

When the president referred to the Tax Policy Center’s criticisms, Romney claimed it was contradicted by several others.

Romney: There are six other studies that looked at the study you describe and say it’s completely wrong.

That’s not quite true, as we previously reported when the count was at five. We found that two of those “studies” were blog items by Romney backers, and none was nonpartisan.

The only one of those “studies” by someone not advising Romney was done by Harvey Rosen, a Princeton economics professor who once served as chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Rosen concluded that Romney could pull off his tax plan without losing revenue assuming an extra 3 percent “growth effect” to the economy resulting from Romney’s rate cuts. That’s an extremely aggressive assumption, and in conflict with recent experience. Despite Bush’s large tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, for example, real GDP grew by 3 percent or more for only two of his eight years in office. The average of the year-to-year changes was just over 2 percent.

Furthermore, Bush’s cuts reduced the total tax burden on the economy because they were not offset by base-broadening measures. In theory, at least, Romney’s revenue-neutral rate cuts would have even less of a stimulative effect than Bush’s cuts did.

Overselling the Health Care Law

Obama wrongly said that over the last two years, health care premiums have “gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.” That’s true of health care spending, not premiums. But even if Obama had worded the claim correctly, he still would have been off in suggesting the Affordable Care Act had caused the slower growth in spending.

Obama: And the fact of the matter is that, when Obamacare is fully implemented, we’re going to be in a position to show that costs are going down. And over the last two years, health care premiums have gone up — it’s true — but they’ve gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years. So we’re already beginning to see progress.

The growth in employer-sponsored family premiums has fluctuated in recent years. It went up just 4 percent from 2011 to 2012, according to an annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, but it increased 9 percent the year before, a big jump from the mere 3 percent increase between 2009 and 2010. Clearly the growth rate over the last two years isn’t a 50-year low — it was sitting around 5 percent from 2007 to 2009. However, the growth of health care costs is at a 50-year low for the past two years.

President Bill Clinton used this statistic, correctly, in his speech at the Democratic National Convention, also implying that the federal health care law deserved credit. But as we said then, most of the law hasn’t even been implemented yet. And experts say it’s the sluggish economy that’s mainly responsible for the slower rate of spending. As the Washington Post reported, experts with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that many lost employer-sponsored insurance when they lost their jobs, and other individuals chose to “forgo health-care services they could not afford.”

The New York Times quoted experts saying that consumers’ and medical professionals’ behavior could be changing in anticipation of the law, but it was still the economy that was the leading factor.

As for that increase in health care premiums, experts told us the federal health care law has had a limited impact on those, too, but the impact was to increase costs. They said the law was responsible for a 1 percent to 3 percent increase last year because of more generous coverage requirements.

Treatment Denied?

Romney repeatedly claimed that a new government board was “going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.” Not true. It could make some binding recommendations about such things as what drugs or medical devices would be paid for by Medicare, but it has no legal power to dictate treatment or ration care.

The board is a 15-member panel that’s tasked with finding ways to slow the growth of Medicare spending. So, its work concerns Medicare, not everyone seeking health care. And, according to the law, the board can’t touch treatments or otherwise “ration” care, or restrict benefits.

What’s officially called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, made up of appointed health care experts, medical professionals, and consumer representatives, would make binding recommendations to reduce the growth of spending. Congress could override them with a three-fifths majority in each house.

An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation determined that the IPAB was limited to finding savings from “Medicare Advantage, the Part D prescription drug program, skilled nursing facility, home health, dialysis, ambulance and ambulatory surgical center services, and durable medical equipment.”

5 million jobs?

Obama claimed that “over the last 30 months, we’ve seen 5 million jobs in the private sector created.”

Obama’s figure is nearly half a million jobs short, according to current Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. But he’s including in his count a preliminary revision of jobs figures that BLS will not finalize until next year.

The current BLS numbers are based on monthly surveys of businesses and government entities and count how many workers are on the payroll. Those figures show that the number of private-sector jobs grew by 4.63 million between February 2010 and August of this year.

But BLS often revises those figures. Each year, the agency looks over companies’ tax records in an effort to get a more accurate number, a process that takes several months. In late September, BLS released a preliminary estimate for its revised numbers, adding 453,000 private-sector jobs to its count for the time period between April 2011 and March 2012. BLS will release its final numbers in February.

The addition of the preliminary estimate brings the number of private-sectors jobs to more than 5 million.

Obama ‘Doubled’ Deficit?

Romney: The president said he’d cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it. Trillion-dollar deficits for the last four years.

It’s not true that Obama “doubled” the deficit. He inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit and deficits have remained at or above that level, as Romney said, every year since then. Romney is right, however, that Obama has not kept his promise to cut the deficit in half.

Here’s the budget history in brief: The 2009 fiscal year began Oct. 1, 2008, when George W. Bush was president, and ended Sept. 30, 2009 with Obama as president. By the time Obama took office in January 2009, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had already estimated that the federal government would end fiscal 2009 with a $1.2 trillion deficit because of higher spending and lower revenues.

Obama added to the 2009 deficit, but not by much. We found that Obama was responsible at most for an additional $203 billion. The government ended $1.4 trillion in the red that year. The deficits were about $1.3 trillion each year for the next two years, and this fiscal year just ended with a shortfall of nearly $1.2 trillion.

So, Obama didn’t double the deficits. But the president did pledge to cut them in half by the end of his first term during his State of the Union address on Feb. 24, 2009. A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the president’s latest budget plan doesn’t show the deficit being cut in half until 2014.

Same Rates as Under Clinton?

Obama repeated a favorite talking point, saying that his tax plan would return rates for the wealthy back to where they were during economically prosperous times under President Bill Clinton. But those making over $250,000 a year would actually pay more than they did under Clinton due to new taxes imposed on upper-income people to pay for the health care law.

Obama: But I have said that for incomes over $250,000 a year, that we should go back to the rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president, when we created 23 million new jobs, went from deficit to surplus, and created a whole lot of millionaires to boot.

Obama is referring to his plan to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for higher-income taxpayers. The top federal income-tax rate would be allowed to rise from the current 35 percent to 39.6 percent, which was the rate that prevailed after Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, and before Bush’s tax cuts. The next-highest rate would go back to the Clinton-era 36 percent, starting with family income over $250,000 (or $200,000 for singles), up from the Bush rate of 33 percent.

But Obama did not account for the new taxes on those same upper-income taxpayers included in his Affordable Care Act. Starting next year, there will be a new 3.8 percent tax on “unearned” net investment income — such as capital gains from the sale of stocks or real estate, dividends, interest income, annuities, rents and royalties. Also starting Jan. 1 is a new 0.9 percent Medicare surcharge on top of the current Medicare payroll tax. Both taxes apply to taxable compensation that exceeds $200,000 for singles, or $250,000 for couples filing jointly. Those two taxes combined are projected to bring in nearly $210 billion over the next seven years, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

Income Loss

As he has done a number of times recently, Romney inflated the loss of income for middle-income Americans under Obama.

Romney: Middle-income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a — this is a tax in and of itself. I’ll call it the economy tax. It’s been crushing.

Romney didn’t clarify whether he was talking about household or family income, but either way, the number is inflated.

The latest figures from the Census Bureau for 2011 show that real household income (inflation-adjusted) fell by $2,492 during Obama’s first three years in office. Real family income (again, inflation-adjusted) fell by $3,290.

There’s also some reason to think the income decline bottomed out a year ago. Sentier Research, which Romney has in the past cited as his source, says in its latest report — issued Sept. 10, that household income rose in the year since September 2011, when Sentier’s Seasonally Adjusted Household Income Index hit its lowest point. (See Figure 1, Page 10.)

As part of the same riff on the hardships facing middle-income Americans, Romney also noted that “gasoline prices have doubled under the president.” That’s true, but as we have noted before, the price of gasoline was unusually low when Obama took office due to the recession and financial crisis.

The average price for regular gasoline was $3.80 last week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a bit more than double the $1.84 average the week Obama took office. But the average exceeded $4 a gallon for seven weeks during the summer of 2008, and it has never reached $4 under Obama.

Obama’s $4 Trillion Reduction Plan

Obama: I’ve put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan. It’s on a website. You can look at all the numbers, what cuts we make and what revenue we raise.

Nonpartisan and bipartisan budget analysts have been critical of the methodology Obama employed to get to the $4 trillion in cuts outlined in “The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction.” Specifically, the plan’s inclusion of “more than $1 trillion in savings over the next 10 years from our drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq,” was criticized by Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, as a “gimmick.”

“Drawing down spending on wars that were already set to wind down and that were deficit financed in the first place should not be considered savings,” MacGuineas said. “When you finish college, you don’t suddenly have thousands of dollars a year to spend elsewhere – in fact, you have to find a way to pay back your loans.”

And as we have noted, even if you accept Obama’s $4 trillion claim, the president’s own Office of Management and Budget projected annual federal deficits would never be lower than $476 billion. That’s higher than any year of the Bush administration except for the $1.4 trillion shortfall for fiscal 2009, for which Obama himself bears some responsibility. And under Obama’s plan, deficits would again rise during the last three years of the 10-year period, reaching $565 billion in 2021 (see table S-1).

20 Million ‘Lose Their Insurance’?

Romney said “the CBO says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year.” The Congressional Budget Office said that may happen under a very pessimistic scenario. But the agency said it is more likely that about 3 million to 5 million fewer people, on net, would obtain health insurance from their employer under the law. The CBO also said that it was possible that more people would be covered by employers, not fewer, under a more optimistic scenario.

What’s more, these individuals wouldn’t necessarily “lose … insurance” entirely. Many would qualify for federal subsidies to buy policies offered through the new state exchanges established by the law, or qualify for Medicaid.

23 Million ‘Out of Work’?

Romney overstated the number of unemployed Americans when he said that there were “23 million people out of work.” There were 12.5 million unemployed Americans in August, the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Romney meant to refer to the unemployed, plus those working part-time who want full-time work (8 million) and those who are considered “marginally attached” to the labor force because they have not looked for work in the past four weeks (2.6 million). All of that adds up to 23.1 million. Romney got his talking point closer to the truth when he said, “We’ve got 23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work in this country.” But he still left out the 8 million who are working part-time for economic reasons.

Jobless Grads

Romney said that “50 percent of college graduates this year can’t find work.” That’s not correct. Romney is likely referring to an analysis of government data conducted for the Associated Press that found that — in 2011 — 53.6 percent of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 were unemployed or underemployed that year. But it’s not correct to say that a person who is underemployed — meaning that they have a part-time job, or a job for which they were overqualified — can’t find work. It’s also a figure that applies to last year, not “this year” as Romney said.

Romney continued to repeat his misleading claim that Obama’s Affordable Care Act “cut Medicare $716 billion for current recipients.” That’s a reduction in the future growth of Medicare spending over 10 years, not a $716 billion slashing of the current budget.

$716 Billion, Again

Romney went on to say, “I want to take that $716 billion you’ve cut and put it back into Medicare.” But the fact is, the money isn’t being taken away from Medicare. Instead, Medicare would spend it, but over a longer period of time than was expected before the health care law. The law extends the solvency of the Medicare Part A trust fund.

As we’ve explained before, most of this reduction in spending comes in Medicare Part A, or hospital coverage, through a reduction in the growth of payments to hospitals. Medicare payroll taxes, which fund Part A, are either immediately spent by Medicare as they come in, or they’re put in a trust fund. Medicare gets a bond for that tax money from Treasury. And any time Medicare wants to cash in that bond, it can. Treasury has to pay it — even if Treasury already spent the original money on something else.

Cutting the growth of Medicare spending is a good thing — without these $716 billion cuts, Part A’s trust fund is expected to be depleted in 2016. But with them, that date is pushed back to 2024. At that point, Medicare’s payroll tax revenue would only be enough to cover 87 percent of benefits.

That’s if the reductions in spending growth are actually instituted as the law envisions. Medicare’s actuaries are skeptical. They have said that many experts believe the “price constraints would become unworkable and that Congress would likely override them.”

Romney said: “Some 15 percent of hospitals and nursing homes say they won’t take any more Medicare patients under that scenario.” That’s close to what Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, said in congressional testimony in January 2011. Foster said that his office’s economic simulations “suggest that roughly 15 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection period as a result of the productivity adjustments.” He added: “Although this policy could be monitored over time to avoid such an outcome, changes would likely result in smaller actual savings than described here for these provisions.”

– by Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, D’Angelo Gore and Ben Finley

I meant that what Romney was saying is theoretically impossible. Obama called him out on it, and then he goes on to say that the tax cuts won't burden the middle class or benefit the just the upper class.They do. It is simple economics.

Edited October 4, 2012 by turbojet

[Patticus]

I'm not seeing any bolded text there, Turbo. Maybe my eyes need fixing...

[turbojet]

I'm not seeing any bolded text there, Turbo. Maybe my eyes need fixing...

I bolded it in the edit.

[Patticus]

I bolded it in the edit.

Ah yes, I remember that part. Baffling indeed!

What I found more confounding was the way Romney pretty much admitted that Medicare would become a voucher system for anyone born after 1957; only future retirees will be screwed over, not current ones. That makes it okay then, does it Mitt? Fuck off does it.

Hopefully Obama will call out Romney on his deceitful claims in the Town Hall debate 12 days from now.

In the meantime, we have the Veep debate next week. Can we expect any "game changers" from that event?

[turbojet]

In the meantime, we have the Veep debate next week. Can we expect any "game changers" from that event?

What you will see is hilarious rants about nothing from Biden and absurd declarations about Obama's foreign policy from Ryan.

[Patticus]

What you will see is hilarious rants about nothing from Biden and absurd declarations about Obama's foreign policy from Ryan.

So it's a comical interlude, really. Thanks.

Biden seemed to get really actually angry a couple of days ago at a campaign rally. Should we expect more of the same from the Veep debate? Actually, should we expect him to call Ryan out on his stupid claims?

[Tornado]

Ok, you want to cut defense spending? Well, you should have done it years ago, by killing the F35 and selling F-22 (the plane international buyers actually wanted) to all the cosigners. Oh what, are you afraid that Japan or Australia is going to misuse them?

Ok, what's so bad about the F-35? To put it simply, it isn't really a fighter unless you drink the stealth kool aid that makes it invincible even though it isn't really that stealthy. Basically what you have is an attacker based on the idea of the opposition not having modern air defense missiles or a modern Air Force, and guess what, the planes we already have do that just fine. But what makes it worthless? The role of light attacker already belongs to drones, which are an order of magnitude cheaper... And the F-22 is better at that anyway! At some point it was supposed to replace the A-10 but the USAF realized it was horribly ill suited to the task and decided against it.

You learn something new every day.

Not that the F-35 is a piece of garbage, or any of the other stuff in that post .I knew all that. But that other SSMB members knew that.

[Patticus]

Okay, so Obama had a pretty disappointing first debate. Some are claiming that this debate was just a "recon mission" for the Obama campaign, that he'll be able to better bring the pain to the Romney campaign now that he knows exactly how the other debates are going to be played. Could be that that's just Democrats desperately fumbling around looking for excuses, it certainly felt that way this morning. But hey, maybe it wasn't all staged, but it was nevertheless just the kick in the ass that Obama needed to get his game on? Who knows.

Whether or not it was all planned is irrelevant now though, because it seems the man has taken to heart the criticism of his laid back approach last night and is reinvigorated with a new energy we all would've loved to have seen come out 23 hours earlier:

DENVER -- A fired-up President Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of more than 12,000 at a Denver campaign event Thursday and seemed to exude the energy and aggressiveness that many of his supporters felt was missing at last night's presidential debate.

Trying to rebound from what many called a listless performance last night, Obama argued today that the Mitt Romney who appeared at the debate was not the “real Mitt Romney.”

“When I got on stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney,” he said. “But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the year, promising $5 billion dollars in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night didn’t seem to know anything about that.”

The president dedicated the first part of his speech to retroactively rebutting Romney’s debate talking points.

ast night, Romney said his plans to trim the deficit wouldn’t mean teacher cuts: “I reject the idea that I don’t believe in great teachers or more teachers. Every school district, every state should make that decision on their own.”

Romney had the final word on the matter last night, but today Obama told his supporters: “The real Mitt Romney said we don’t need anymore teachers in our classrooms ... But the fellow on stage last night, he loves teachers, can’t get enough of them.”

Last night, Obama also missed an opportunity to highlight his opponent’s personal tax records after Gov. Romney said, “I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant ... but the idea that you get a break for shipping jobs overseas is simply not the case."

Today, Mr. Obama fired off this retort: “We know for sure it was not the real Mitt Romney because he seems to be doing just fine with his current accountant.”

And while Romney drew a lot of public criticism for suggesting his deficit reductions would include stripping federal funding for PBS -- and by extension “Big Bird” -- Obama did not challenge him on the point until today: “He said he’d eliminate funding for public television... I mean thank goodness someone is finally getting tough on ‘Big Bird.’ ”

The crowd responded to the president’s jabs with loud cheers, but for many the disappointment from the president’s debate performance had already set in.

Bruce Shaffer of Boulder told NBC News, “I wanted him to be more of a president and sound strong, sound confident and be more of the leader we need.”

http://firstread.nbc...ays-debate?lite

A video of the speech is available through the link.

I quite liked that speech; it had more of the humor and ardor and that sense of a man in charge that was lacking from last night's performance. I hope that he can keep that up through to November 6th at least, because that's the guy so many of you Americans voted for four years ago, and I believe I speak for the rest of the world when I say that's the man you need to lead you through the next four years.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Not that the F-35 is a piece of garbage, or any of the other stuff in that post .I knew all that. But that other SSMB members knew that.

Honestly, I actually thought that the F-35 was a lame attempt to make a cheaper plane than the F-22, and and excuse to keep other countries from having the F-22. I've been reading up on Popular Mechanics (or was it Science?) about the radar cross-section it had by comparison along with its comparison to the F-22.

Frankly, I'm disappoint.

[Patticus]

Lawl.

Those job numbers from September which had many a Democrat quaking in their boots following Obama's debate flop-fest are in...

Jobs Report: Unemployment Falls To 7.8%, 114,000 New Jobs Added

After a disappointing August jobs report in which only 96,000 initial jobs were created and the unemployment rate dropped from 8.3 to 8.1 percent primarily due to people leaving the workforce, the labor force has grown slightly in September. The economy added 114,000 new jobs in September and the unemployment rate has fallen to 7.8 percent. This is the first time the unemployment rate has fallen below 8 percent in 43 months and it is the lowest official unemployment rate in nearly four years.

RELATED: 96,000 New Jobs In August, Unemployment Drops From 8.3% To 8.1%

While the unemployment rate has dropped .3 percent in one month, the broader U-6 rate remained unchanged at 14.7 percent in September.

In other positive economic news, August’s 96,000 jobs number was revised sharply upwards to 142,000 new jobs. July’s jobs report was also revised upwards from 141,000 to 181,000.

Despite the start of QE3, analysts expected job creation to remain weak in September. Analysts expected between 80,000 and 130,000 new jobs were created this month, approximately enough to keep up with population growth but not impact the number of unemployed workers. Analysts also expected the unemployment rate to tick slightly upwards to 8.2 percent.

The September jobs and unemployment report is one of the last major economic indicators to come out before the November 6 election. The October jobs and unemployment will take on added significance in light of the upcoming election.

http://www.mediaite....new-jobs-added/

Mitt's been yammering on about the whole "over 8% unemployment" thing for a long time now, making it up to be this huge deal, which it seems to be, so to see that number fall below the magical 8% threshold before the election might be as big a deal too. 8% is a not insignificant psychological barrier, more so (perhaps significantly more) thanks to Mitt playing up that figure so often and imprinting it on peoples' minds, so I'm hoping that it'll put a good sized dent in Romney's post-debate poll bounce as people will look at the number (or hear it in passing) and look more positively on Obama's record on the economy.

Of course, that probably won't stop Myth Romney pursuing this line of now erroneous criticism, given how he continues to spout repeatedly debunked lies and misinformation in other areas, e.g. about healthcare, about the national deficit and so on. Obama had better lay the smackdown on those lies come the Town Hall debate in 11 days' time, the Democratic campaign needs a big public win for their man.

[Nepenthe]

Hasn't Mitt Romney already said that- actually taking into account people who have left the workforce altogether- then unemployment would be over 11% anyway?

[Tornado]

This is a game that is Obama's to lose. The ball is in his court on this completely, and he needs to start hammering on this long before the next debate. If Obama does not do so, than it will fall out of the public eye and Romney will be able to pursue something else to rake him over the coals with.

[Patticus]

The numbers just posted seem to have spawned a new "Job Truthers" movement.

Ain't that just wonderful?

In other, once again debate-related news, body language experts have examined the footage of the two presidential candidates. Below are a couple of the several highlights...

9:15 p.m. “Romney shows a smirky, strained, sardonic smile as Obama speaks. This is practiced and intentional.”

[...]

9:19 p.m. “Obama uses authoritative PALM-DOWN gesture, and John F. Kennedy’s thumb-over-fist cue. Authoritative.”

Read the full article here.

Going from a purely body language perspective, Obama was as cool a cucumber as ever, while Mitt, despite winning in the court of public opinion and clearly relieved and much more confident the following day, seems during the event to be nervous and agitated throughout, even at one point outright fearful. This is likely to be first debate jitters, but I'd like to think that Obama will give him every reason to be afraid come the 16th of this month, even with his cool, authoritative and much less agitated demeanor.

Edit: I hate to make a long post even longer, but I've come across a rather interesting article on another possible reason for Obama's performance on Wednesday night, something called the "Backfire Effect." I don't know how much is real and how much is bullshit, whether it could be classed as a legitimate reason or whether it's a pie-in-the-sky fantasy, so if one of you guys could call it out one way or 'tother I'd be grateful:

The Backfire Effect: why Obama didn't call out Romney.

Last edited Thu Oct 4, 2012, 12:45 PM USA/ET -

"But why would people so woefully lacking in the basic facts of an issue think they were the best informed? Social scientists call the effect, 'pseudo-certainty.' I call it, 'being a fucking moron.'" --Al Franken

The use of cognitive bias against the public can probably be traced back to the United States' foundation. Consider, for example, the rapier-like tact Americans used in the Declaration of Independence, directing all of their ire against Great Britain's slowly maddening King instead of the Parliament that they knew had wronged them. I think it is a classic example of misdirection, in the same family of dishonesty as mentioning Osama bin Laden in the same paragraph every time one mentions Saddam Hussein.

Last night, Mitt Romney made the most of a particular cognitive bias which we all need to know about. It is called the Backfire Effect. Here is a link to the paper.

People have a bad habit of clinging to disinformation, particularly if they are fed the disinformation first. If the disinformation is refuted, many of us simply give up trying to figure the problem out and default to the first thing we learned, and if the first thing we learned is crap, we believe the crap.

We are all vulnerable to some degree to the Backfire Effect, but there is a critical difference in the way the Backfire Effect works between conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans.

The shortest version I can give is this: when a conservative lies and a liberal refutes the lie, conservative observers become more likely to believe the lie. This effect does not work in reverse--because liberals have better thinking skills, I say, but I'm biased. This is part of the reason why an alarming number of American doofuses are still shambling about thinking that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, and why the vast majority of them are Republicans.

Up to now, Mitt Romney's biggest problem has been that he hasn't won over the right-wing authoritarians who make up the most important voting bloc in the Republican Party, and maybe in all of American politics. They are diligent voters and can be easily programmed with lies, fear, and racism, of which they are fed a steady diet by Fox News and AM radio. Almost one in four Americans fits the profile of a right-wing authoritarian.

Despite every effort, right down to nominating arch-conservative darling Paul Ryan, Romney just hasn't been able to convince them that he's their guy.

And why should they think so, when Romney gamed the nomination process, knocked off the conservative authorities they trust one by one, and silenced all dissent at the convention? He had to steal it from them before he can steal it from us, and they haven't easily forgotten.

Last night was Romney's last big chance. He's got the press and the pollsters pulling for him to make it a closer race, because it is to their personal, professional, and financial advantage. He has finally assembled the captive audience of right-wing authoritarians he needs to win over. All he needed to do was to finally, permanently, establish himself as a conservative authority, someone the conservatives can trust.

He needed President Obama to help him, by doing what every Democrat, including myself, wanted him to do: call Mitt a liar.

So Mitt Romney went out and did what he's best at. He lied his ass off. He changed a central plank of his platform at the debate in an attempt to draw out President Obama, to encourage the President to raise his voice and express outrage at such malicious dishonesty.

But President Obama wouldn't bite.

Instead, the President stuck to his own policy, his own platform, and pointed out only the most basic and agreed-upon flaws in whatever Romney's so-called plan is today (or rather, last night, because I'm sure he's walking back half of what he said right now). He tried not to show flashes of anger or disgust, as Al Gore so tragically did in 2000.

It was probably disappointing to all of us here to see the President steer away from direct confrontation, but it probably also sealed the election for him.

Consider what would have happened had the debate swung a different way.

Gov. Romney: "I'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. That's not my plan...."

President Obama: "That's bullshit. You've run on that all year."

Millions of Democrats would have stood up and cheered at that moment, to be sure, but it wouldn't have done a damned thing to change the political landscape because we're all already going to go out and vote for President Obama, and every other Democrat on the ballot. We're all registered now, right?

Just as certainly, a giant mob of tea-partiers would have been on their feet and whooping. That would have been the signal they needed, the sign from baby Jesus that Mitt Romney was the anointed one. They would have dusted off their IDs and registrations, and they would have come out and voted--at a higher frequency, unfortunately, than we do. Millions of our votes would have been canceled out.

We need to realize that right now an unusually high number of right-wing voters are far closer to reality than they usually are. They don't trust Mitt Romney, and they shouldn't, and it is to their credit that they do not in spite of the enormous psyops being run on them.

But we also need to acknowledge that these voters unfortunately tend strongly toward racism, and are highly motivated to vote against President Obama simply because he is a person of color. President Obama will never win their vote--but he might win their non-vote.

So that is why President Obama didn't "win" last night's debate. Because this debate wasn't about us. But do you know who is going to refute Mitt Romney's bullshit? We are. In the voting booth.

http://www.democrati...com/10021469106

Is there any truth to that article at all? It's pretty interesting and I kinda hope it's true, but if it is, does it mean that we can't expect the other two presidential debates to be anything more than a re-run of Wednesday night??

[Patticus]

For your viewing pleasure, I present to thee...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A051B-uPopM

Also in the news...

Republican congressman hits out at evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory as 'lies straight from the pit of hell'

A Republican congressman said in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell” meant to convince people that they do not need a saviour.

Georgia Representative Paul Broun made those comments during a speech September 27 at a sportsman's banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell.

Mr Broun, a medical doctor, is running for re-election in November unopposed by Democrats.

"God's word is true," Mr Broun said, according to a video posted on the church's website.

"I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a saviour."

Mr Broun also said that he believes the Earth is about 9,000 years old and that it was made in six days. Those beliefs are held by fundamentalist Christians who believe the creation accounts in the Bible are literally true.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/republican-congressman-hits-out-at-evolution-as-lies-straight-from-the-pit-of-hell-8200885.html

A medical doctor that doesn't believe in embryology... it's like a biologist not believing in evolution.