Tuesday Reads: Presidential Debate Take Two, The Sociopath Ticket, Warren-Brown, and a Sensata Update

Posted: October 16, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, corporate greed, Elizabeth Warren Campaign, Mitt Romney, morning reads, polling, Scott Brown, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 41 Comments

Good Morning!!

I have to admit that I’m a nervous wreck worrying about the debate tonight. I’ve been very anxious about it ever since I read that article by Jonathan Chait that Dakinikat linked to in the Monday morning post. Here’s the part that almost sent me into a full-blown panic attack:

Let’s first imagine that, on January 20, Romney takes the oath of office. Of the many secret post-victory plans floating around in the inner circles of the campaigns, the least secret is Romney’s intention to implement Paul Ryan’s budget. The Ryan budget has come to be almost synonymous with the Republican Party agenda, and Romney has embraced it with only slight variations. It would repeal Obamacare, cut income-tax rates, turn Medicare for people under 55 years old into subsidized private insurance, increase defense spending, and cut domestic spending, with especially large cuts for Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs targeted to the very poor.

Few voters understand just how rapidly Romney could achieve this, rewriting the American social compact in one swift stroke. Ryan’s plan has never attracted Democratic support, but it is not designed for bipartisanship. Ryan deliberately built it to circumvent a Senate filibuster, stocking the plan with budget legislation that is allowed, under Senate “budget reconciliation” procedures, to pass with a simple majority. Republicans have been planning the mechanics of the vote for many months, and Republican insiders expect Romney to use reconciliation to pass the bill. Republicans would still need to control 50 votes in the Senate (Ryan, as vice-president, would cast the tiebreaking vote), but if Romney wins the presidency, he’ll likely precipitate a partywide tail wind that would extend to the GOP’s Senate slate.

{{Shiver}} That’s scarier than a slasher movie. It could all depend on President Obama’s performance in tonight’s town hall style debate. Of course we’ll be having a live blog. The debate begins at 9PM Eastern.

There are countless journalists, bloggers, and talking heads advising President Obama what to do tonight. I’m just going to share one that I think goes pretty well with Chait’s predictions about a Romney presidency. It is offered by Jeffrey Feldman, who is somewhat of an expert on “framing.” Feldman suggests that One Word Can Win the Next Debate. The word is “restructuring,” which, according to Feldman is what Romney wants to do to the entire country.

Almost four years after it was published, his New York Times Op-Ed “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” is still the clearest statement of a sociopathic economic ideology that will be unleashed on the American public if Mitt Romney wins the election. President Obama would be wise to hold it up to the viewing audience multiple times in tomorrow’s presidential debate.

Published just after President Obama took office, Romney’s article takes the cavalier position that the U.S. government should not step in and help the auto industry that was at the time teetering on the brink of decline. As GM, Chrysler and Ford each fell to their knees clutching their chest, Romney was saying do not call the EMS unit, do not let anybody near them. Just let them fall to the floor, dead.

Why does Romney insist that GM, Chrysler, and Ford — three of the largest manufacturing firms in the history of the United States — be refused first aid at the very moment they fall to the floor clutching their chests? The answer lies in this Orwellian, bone-chilling phrase:

“Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself.”

I think Feldman has a great point. This would be a great way to frame Romney’s economic policies and explain how dangerous they are for those of us who don’t have offshore banking accounts in the Caymans, Switzerland, and Bermuda.

In contrast to Mitt Romney’s world of forced restructuring, the president bases his economic vision on what we already know about the destructive effects of standing back and letting the sectors of the economy on which a middle class depends go into a stratosphere free-fall.

To present this contrast with Mitt Romney’s sadistic world of forced restructuring, the president needs to do more than say he saved the auto industry or that he believes investing in the middle class is the key to economic recovery.

He needs to say that Mitt Romney looks at past suffering of working people and insists, “We need to repeat this right away” whereas Barack Obama looks at it and asks, “What can we do to make sure this never happens again?”

That would be very effective, I think. I hope President Obama has something like that up his sleeve! The White House must be confident, because they’ve arranged for Joe Biden to appear on all three network morning shows tomorrow.

Biden will appear on CBS This Morning, The Today Show, and Good Morning America, according to a network source.

The pre-booking stands in contrast to the last debate, when the Obama campaign was temporarily shell-shocked by the president’s performance. Aides waited more than 10 minutes to enter the “spin room” in Denver as they formulated a message. The following morning, aides, not high profile surrogates, took to TV.

I hope Biden calls Romney’s lies “a bunch of malarkey” and laughs his ass off!

And here’s a little bit of good news. As of yesterday late afternoon, Nate Silver’s predictive model has Obama’s electoral vote count back above 270, and his chances of reelection at 66%. It appears the Romney bump is really over. We should have a good idea tonight whether Obama will get a debate bump.

More good news, this time in the Massachusetts Senate race: Elizabeth Warren raises $12.1 million, Scott Brown $7.45 million, in latest Senate campaign quarter.

Elizabeth Warren, who has been the nation’s leading congressional fund-raiser this year, today announced raising $12.12 million during the most recent quarter for her bid to unseat Senator Scott Brown, who raised $7.45 million.

The period from July 1 through Sept. 30 was the most lucrative three-month for the Democrat since entered the Senate race last year. Warren’s previous best was the prior quarter, running from April through June, when she raised $8.6 million. Brown, the Republican incumbent, also had his best quarter, topping the $4.97 million he raised from April through June.

Brown’s best quarter and it’s far far less than Warren raised!

Overall, Warren, a Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate, has raised about $36.3 million for her first bid for elective office. Brown has raised about $27.45 million so far, but was also helped by $7 million left over from his January 2010 special election.

“Tens of thousands of people across Massachusetts have joined this campaign because they know that Elizabeth will fight for them in the US Senate,” said a statement from Michael Pratt, Warren’s campaign finance director. “While Scott Brown has stood with billionaires, Big Oil, and Wall Street – and supports Republican control of the Senate – Elizabeth Warren has been there for middle-class families and small businesses. This strong support will help propel the campaign to victory in November.”

At the Boston Phoenix, David Berstein has an interesting piece on women and the GOP: “G(rand) O(ld) P(ricks).”

For years, I’ve chronicled in the Phoenix the dwindling ranks of Republican women in elected office, and suggested that their absence will ultimately hurt the GOP.
The moment of reckoning may be here. We can see it unfolding in the hotly contested US Senate race between incumbent Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Elizabeth Warren. The GOP’s female deficit is likely to help Warren win this election — and prevent Republicans from taking control of the Senate.

It’s not a secret that women are the swing voters expected to decide the Brown-Warren race. Warren’s campaign has relentlessly attacked Brown on women’s issues, and Brown has used his mother, wife, and daughters — and tales of himself folding laundry — to counter the onslaught.

Bernstein points out that many of these women voters like Brown, especially those whose families have income of $100,000 or more.

But every time women get wind of the GOP’s latest misogynistic outrage — such as Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s assertion that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant — it pushes them a little further away from Brown.

That might not be the case if female voters saw plenty of prominent women speaking up from within the GOP — but all they see is a party of men.

Check it out. It’s well worth a read.

Paul Ryan pretends to wash pots

I know you’ve probably heard about this already, but I can’t resist including it because it’s so funny and so typical of the Romney campaign. Paul Ryan showed up at a soup kitchen in Youngstown, Ohio run by the St. Vincent De Paul Society, a Catholic charity. By the time Ryan got late Saturday morning, breakfast was over, and the homeless clients were gone and the dishes were washed. So Ryan faked washing some pots for a photo op.

The head of a northeast Ohio charity says that the Romney campaign last week “ramrodded their way” into the group’s Youngstown soup kitchen so that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan could get his picture taken washing dishes in the dining hall.

Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University.

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”

He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.”

How typical of the sociopath ticket.

Here’s a quick update on the Bain-Sensata story. Bainport is going to have some high profile visitors soon: Bainport to host Durbin, Sharpton.

The encampment of Sensata workers at “Bainport,” now in its 35th day, will play host to several notables this week as they continue to protest the outsourcing of their jobs to China by the end of 2012….

On Tuesday, the Democratic challenger for the Illinois 17th District Congressional seat, Cheri Bustos, and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin will visit the workers at their campsite.
“Since day one of her campaign, Cheri Bustos has been standing with workers across Illinois,” said Bustos’ campaign spokesman, Arden Manning. “Bain Capital is actually afforded tax breaks to shut down the Sensata plant. … She’ll fight to end outsourcing by giving tax breaks to companies that bring jobs home.” ….

Also visiting Freeport this week will be activist Reverend Al Sharpton. He is scheduled to appear at the Sensata camp on Saturday at 4 p.m. to speak to the employees.
The appearances this week follow an active summer of rallies that saw the arrival of Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond to Freeport.

Power to the people!

That’s all I’ve got for you this morning. Now it’s your turn. What are you reading and blogging about today?

Late Night Thang Redux

Posted: October 14, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, open thread | 7 Comments

So, I was thinking–which is always dangerous–that if I was one of those people sitting in that town hall meeting on Tuesday Night and I got to ask a few questions what exactly would I ask?

Some of the things I thought about were sort’ve off beat, like Governor Romney, boxers, briefs or magic underwear? Others were more serious like Mr. President, about that kill list, you’re a constitutional lawyer, what’s constructional about that and executing citizens without due process? I mean, really, all you have to do is label some one an ‘enemy combatant’ and anything goes? Then, I’d follow up by pointing to Mitt Romney and ask him if he’d really trust that guy with that same duty.

So, this is an open thread basically, but I’d like to hear some of the questions–serious and otherwise–that you’d like to ask in a town hall setting where anything goes.

Here’s some background music to think by:

Oh, and this deserves a popcorn recipe:

Cinnamon Raisin Popcorn

INGREDIENTS

1 flat-bottomed brown bag
1/3 cup popcorn kernels
1/3 cup raisins
1 tsp. McCormick Saigon cinnamon

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place popcorn kernels in any flat-bottomed brown bag you have. Fold over twice and tape to secure (tape is optional). Microwave on high for 2-3 minutes – this will vary depending on the microwave. Just make sure to stop when you hear only sporadic pops.

2. Open bag, transfer to a large bowl, and toss with cinnamon and raisins. Divide into four servings and enjoy.

Fuzzy Math and Beyond: Romney’s Tax Plan is Mission Impossible

Posted: October 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, Economy | Tags: , , , | 27 Comments

There’s more evidence that Romney’s promise to provide 20% across-the-board tax cuts coupled with deficit reduction just doesn’t add-up.  There’s a new JCT study that shows this and there’s confirmation from Moody’s Economist Mark Zandi.  Mark Zandi is a former McCain advisor so there’s not much room to argue that he’s got a liberal bias. He appeared on CNN and said the math did not add up.

What do you have to do to get it to add up?

Closing all the loopholes and ending all of the deductions currently given to the wealthy does not make up for the losses of giving everyone in the country, particularly the wealthy, another tax break. The only way Romney’s plan will not add to the deficit is if middle class families pay over $2,000 more in taxes annually.

Zandi wasn’t even subtle when he said the Romney Tax Plan is basically a muddle and won’t work.

ZANDI: Yeah, I think the Tax Policy Center study is the definitive study. They’re non-partisan, they’re very good. They say given the numbers that they’ve been provided by the Romney campaign, no, it will not add up. Now, the Romney campaign could adjust their plan. They could say okay I’m not going to lower tax rates as much as I’m saying right now and they could make the arithmetic work. But under the current plan, with the current numbers, no it doesn’t. I’ll say one other thing, though. I think it is important that we do focus on the so-called tax expenditures in the tax code. Those are the deductions, and credits, and loopholes in the code. We need to reduce those, because if we do we’re going to make the tax system fairer, easier to understand and ultimately lead to stronger growth. So that’s the right place to focus. But, no, the arithmetic doesn’t work as it is right now.

Here’s a good summary of the the JCT Study from Bloomberg that is the basis of Zandi’s comments. The bottom line is that repealing deductions only makes up for 4% of the across-the-board tax decrease suggested by Romney.

The analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation emphasizes the difficult choices facing lawmakers as they balance the benefits of rate cuts against the consequences of changing or ending deductions, such as for mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney proposes a 20 percent income-tax rate cut and says he would pay for it by limiting deductions, credits and exemptions.

While there are major differences between the assumptions underlying Romney’s plan and the JCT study, the findings emphasize shortcomings in Romney’s approach, said Daniel Shaviro, a tax law professor at New York University.

“There really is no serious dispute that the parameters of their plan can’t be met,” Shaviro said. “It’s like saying you’re going to drive from Boston to Los Angeles in 10 hours without speeding. There’s just no way to make the numbers add up.”

Ezra Klein published the JCT letter here and some analysis at his blog on WAPO.

The paper recounts an experiment conducted by the JCT. They supposed that all itemized deductions — things like the charitable deduction, the mortgage-interest break, etc. — were eliminated (though not non-deduction tax breaks — more on that later), along with the Alternative Minimum Tax. That mirrors Romney’s desire to cut tax breaks and eliminate the AMT. They also assumed that state and local bonds’ interest would start to be taxed, which, as AEI’s Matt Jensen has pointed out, makes it easier for the Romney plan to add up.

Finally, JCT assumed that capital gains and other investment income would be taxed at the same rate as regular income, instead of the preferential rates they currently enjoy. That’s a big difference from Romney’s plan, which proposes eliminating capital gains and other investment taxes for people making less than $200,000, but mirrors the Bowles-Simpson, Domenici-Rivlin and Wyden-Coats tax reform plans, all of which remove the capital preference.

Then JCT asked how low you could cut tax rates under this scenario without increasing the deficit, on net. The answer: not much at all. To keep revenue the same as it’ll be next year, when the Bush tax cuts expire, you could only cut rates by 4 percent. Instead of brackets of 15 percent, 28 percent, 31 percent, 36 percent and 39.6 percent, you’d have brackets of 14.4 percent, 26.88 percent, 29.76 percent, 34.56 percent and 38.02 percent. That’s not exactly revolutionary, and it’s a far cry from the 20 percent cut that Romney wants.

That said, the change is very progressive. People making $10-20,000 a year get their taxes cut by 2.4 percent of income, a 61.4 percent cut relative to their previous burden. By contrast, millionaires see taxes go up 7.1 percent, or 5.5 percent of income …

Here’s a good paragraph from David Dayen at FDL who wrote on the study earlier today. It puts both the debt and tax cuts into perspective.

For those that care about the deficit, it’s worth noting that the last major cut to taxes, the Bush-era tax cuts, accounts for the majority of the deficit problem currently, particularly in the out years. The tax cuts and the two wars will account for $9 trillion in deficits between their inauguration and 2019, under current policy. So throwing another $5 trillion tax cut that cannot be plausibly offset on the pile makes even less sense, especially in the constrained, non-MMT environment of Washington.

AEI and Republican always seem to plug a canard that’s been so debunked that it’s laughable.  They love to say that tax cuts to the rich stimulate the economy.  There have been a number of academic studies that show this is not the case.  Some of the most recent ones are even more definitive.  Still, the meme exists.

A new study, however, indicates that tax cuts for the wealthiest earners fail to generate economic growth at the same pace as tax cuts aimed at low- and middle-income earners.

The study, conducted by Owen M. Zidar, a former staff economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and a graduate student at California-Berkeley, examined economic growth in the states with the most high-income earners. Zidar reasoned that “states with a large share of high income taxpayers should grow faster following a tax cut for high income earners” if the tax cuts had the economic effect conservatives claim.

What he found, though, is that the effect of tax cuts for the rich was “insignificant statistically,” as Reuters’ David Cay Johnston reported:

“Almost all of the stimulative effect of tax cuts,” Zidar found, “results from tax cuts for the bottom 90%. A one percent of GDP tax cut for the bottom 90% results in 2.7 percentage points of GDP growth over a two-year period. The corresponding estimate for the top 10% is 0.13 percentage points and is insignificant statistically.”

Zidar’s study provides more empirical backing to what the U.S. has experienced over the last 30 years. Supply-side tax cutting policies have not led to the growth their Republican proponents promised. The Bush tax cuts, for instance, were followed by the weakest decade for economic expansion on record.

It’s really disheartening for any economist  to see these canards continually trotted out to what seems like a really economic illiterate electorate.  Why any one continues to buy anything Romney and Ryan say is beyond me.  My guess is we’ll hear more about this.  The next presidential debate will be on the town hall one and hopefully this Romney Tax Plan in Wonderland will get some airing.  It really is a ridiculous set of lies.  The most disturbing thing is that the loopholes that would be eliminated are ones that benefit middle and upper middle incomes.  A lot of the rich get their incomes from sources that are taxed differently anyway.  That’s why he’s peddling the elimination of capital gains taxes.  He still gets to shelter his income no matter what happens to normal tax deductions.

Live Blog 2: Laughing Joe and Smirking Paul Veep Show

Posted: October 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign, Live Blog | Tags: , , | 84 Comments

Well, they are really going at it.

Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin each went immediately on the attack at the opening of their debate on Thursday night, sparring over Libya, Iraq and terrorism.

Responding to a question on the fatal attack last month on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, Biden assailed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on a range of national security matters.

“Whatever mistakes were made will not be made again,” Biden said of the attack in Libya before pivoting to Romney’s support of the war in Iraq.

Biden credited President Obama for ending the Iraq war, saying Romney thought “we should have left 30,000 troops there.” He faulted Romney for objecting early on to Obama’s setting a 2014 deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and for saying he “wouldn’t move heaven and Earth” to capture Osama bin Laden.

Ryan, the Republican nominee for vice president, said he mourned the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevensand three other Americans in the Libya attack, then criticized Obama’s response to the attack.

“It took the president two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack,” the Wisconsin congressman said.

Ryan said a Romney administration would provide Marines protecting an outpost like the one in Benghazi.

“If we’re hit by terrorists, we’re going to call it for what it is — a terrorist attack,” he said.

Ryan also castigated Obama’s administration for its evolving accounts of the Libya attack. “This is becoming more troubling by the day,” he said.

WAPO says they have “different styles”.

The first 45 minutes showed two men with widely divergent styles: Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, was precise and self-contained, marshalling numbers and policy issues.

Biden was looser and more familiar, chuckling in seeming exasperation several times at Ryan’s arguments, and interrupting the Republican in mid-argument. Eventually, Ryan seemed frustrated with a debate in which the two talked over each other.

“Mr. Vice President, I know you’re under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground,” Ryan said. “But I think people would be better served if we didn’t keep interrupting each other.”

One of Ryan’s best early moments came in response to the debate’s first question, about the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three others. Ryan recounted how the White House’s account of the attack had shifted, and cast it as a signal of a broader problem.

“What we are watching on our TV screens is the unraveling of the Obama foreign policy, which is making…us less safe,” Ryan said.

For Biden, the sharpest moment may have been when he picked up on the theme that President Obama did not touch in the first presidential debate. He recalled a Romney speech that was secretly recorded, in which the Republican candidate described 47 percent of Americans as people who considered themselves primarily victims.

“I’ve had it up to here with this notion that, ‘Forty-seven percent, it’s about time they take some sort of responsibility here,’” Biden said.

What do you think about this assessment?

The Fix ‏@TheFix

For political junkies and decided voters, this is a great debate. For the rest, it’s everything they hate about politics #vpdebate

Live Blog I : VEEP PEEP Show

Posted: October 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign | Tags: , , , | 88 Comments

Here we go!

Just thought I‘d drop this CSM article on the faux right wing outrage over the debate moderator tonight in as our first topic on a live blog series tonight. She’s actually a war correspondent but you know, it’s part of the lower expectations game.

On Wednesday, the conservative Daily Caller posted a blog about Ms. Raddatz, alleging bias because of her short-lived marriage in the 1990s to an Obama administration appointee, Julius Genachowski, the head of the Federal Communications Commission.

This shot comes on the heels of an avalanche of criticism aimed at last week’s presidential debate moderator, Jim Lehrer, ranging from GOP commentatorLaura Ingraham to Democratic contributor Bill Maher.

“There have always been questions about moderators,” says Atlanta-based GOP strategist David Johnson, who consulted on Bob Dole’s 1988 presidential campaign. Targeting moderators is simply a political strategy, he says, giving “each side a way to say, the debate was stacked against them if their candidates don’t do well.”

Mounting such a strategy before the debate even starts, Mr. Johnson adds, “makes the moderators go out of their way to be evenhanded.”

In one of the GOP debates earlier this year, CNN’sJohn King took withering heat for asking Newt Gingrichabout allegations made by his second wife. A variety of sources challenged Gwen Ifill’s objectivity in 2008 because she had written a book related to Barack Obama.

Now, both ABC News and the Commission on Presidential Debates have dismissed charges of bias against Raddatz, a senior foreign affairs correspondent. As reported in Politico Wednesday, The Washington Post’s conservative Jennifer Rubin tweeted that “this whole mini flap was obnoxious, dumb.”

Here’s the link to CPSPAN. 

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