[Vision2020] Those Old Obama Debate Blues

[Nicholas Gier]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for posting the perceptive view of the debate from Salon.com.  I was
asked by the Idaho State Journal to write up something on the debates.  It
is not as good as Salon (I had a 2 hour deadline!), but I do focus on
Romney's $5 trillion tax cut.  Here it is.

Romney won the debate tonight.  He was aggressive, fluent, never losing a
beat, but Obama was hesitant, halting and inarticulate. Obama appeared not
have much fight in him, and missed many chances to scores points against
his opponent.


It is good to remember that no candidate has lost an election because of a
debate performance since Nixon's 5 o' clock shadow.  Reagan lost debates
and so did Bush, Jr. but they both won their elections.


What's important for me is truth telling, and on this essential point of
character and trust Romney's pants are still on fire.  The current
Politifact scorecard is 304 true, mostly true, and half true statements
from the President and 116 false and mostly false with 6 pants on fire.
Romney has 102 true, mostly true, half true and 74 false and mostly false
with a record 16 pants on fire.  The percentage truth telling is
significant: 72 percent of the time for Obama vs.  48 percent for Romney.


Contrary to Romney’s charge, gas prices have not doubled during Obama’s
term.  Exactly four years ago the national average was $3.67 compared to
$3.72 today.


Obama was firm and effective about one thing about Romney’s tax plan.  If
the Bush tax cuts remain and if Romney reduces tax rates by 20 percent,
then that will indeed amount to $5 trillion in tax cuts over ten years.
This was the conclusion of an in-depth study issued by the Tax Policy
Center on August 1.  The pdf file can be found atwww.brookings.edu.


In the debate Romney said that other studies have debunked this analysis,
but Dylan Matthews of the *Washington Post* (9/27/12) has checked each of
those closely and concludes that they don’t save Romney’s plan from huge
deficits or compromise on tax reform.


Matthews gives a summary of Romney’s plan and the critique:

1.    “A 20 percent reduction in marginal personal income tax rates.

2.    Elimination of the estate tax.

3.    Elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax.

4.    Enough base-broadening, through the elimination of tax expenditures,
to fully pay for policies 1 through 3.

5.    Preservation of incentives for saving and investment.


The Tax Policy Center authors then demonstrated that you can’t do 1-5
without raising taxes on people making under $200,000 a year. None of the
responses to the study have disproven that. All either use a different
definition of the middle class, rely on inappropriate estimates of growth
caused by Romney’s plan, or else violate Romney’s promise to preserve the
savings and investment incentives.”


Conservative Harvard economist Martin Feldstein admits that Romney would
have to raise taxes on those whom Romney himself describes as “middle
class”—those making between $100-200,000!  He needs to raise the windows on
his private jet and see the real middle class!


Conservative economist Princeton economist Harvey Rosen assumes that
Romney’s election would boost growth by 3 percent, which would pay for his
tax cuts.  These predictions were made on the assumption of full
employment!  Obama promised to bring down unemployment to 7 percent and now
Romney assumes he will bring it down to 4 percent!  Another assumption of
Rosen’s plan is that the tax cuts would be neutralized early in  Romney’s
first term.   Matthews is incredulous: “Rosen assumes that the tax cuts
have been fully paid for first, and that’s part of why they do so much for
growth.”


Matt Jensen of the American Enterprise Institute argues that if Romney
eliminates tax exemptions for state and local bonds and interest insurance
savings, then the tax shift will hit the wealthy and save the middle class.


Curtis Dubay of the Heritage Foundation claims that the Tax Policy Center
authors have misunderstood the effects of Romney’s plan to eliminate the
estate tax.  This is one part of the analyses that I could not follow.


Matthews goes through each of the tax deductions and loopholes that Romney
says he will eliminate or close and finds serious problems.  Is Romney
really serious about eliminating tax deductions for charities? (For 2011
Romney would have not paid any tax at all if he had reported everything in
this category.) The disincentive would be huge and the loss to the arts,
colleges and universities, private medical work and social programs would
be devastating to these organizations.


The same Martin Feldstein who is now defending Romney’s plan criticized
Obama in 2009 for suggesting that charitable deductions be limited: “In
effect, the change would be a tax on the charities, reducing their receipts
by a dollar for every dollar of extra revenue the government collects. It
is hard to imagine a rationale for taxing schools, hospitals, medical
research budgets and arts organizations in this way.”


With regard to other major deductions Matthews has this to say:
“Eliminating the mortgage-interest deduction would upend the housing
sector, reducing demand to buy dramatically and shifting the sector toward
renting. Eliminating the employer health exemption could mark the beginning
of the end of the employer-based health system as we know it.”

Without more specifics and more honesty Romney’s tax plan as it now stands
would not reduce the deficits, will not grow the economy, and will not
create jobs.  Will a President Romney live to eat crow on his promise to
create 12 million jobs?  That would be more embarrassing than any of
Obama’s broken promises.

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Nicholas Gier <ngier006 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Tom,
>
> Thanks for posting the perceptive view of the debate from Salon.com.  I
> was asked by the Idaho State Journal to write up something on the debates.
>  It is not as good as Salon (I had a 2 hour deadline!), but I do focus on
> Romney's $5 trillion tax cut.  Here it is.
>
> Romney won the debate tonight.  He was aggressive, fluent, never losing a
> beat, but Obama was hesitant, halting and inarticulate. Obama appeared not
> have much fight in him, and missed many chances to scores points against
> his opponent.
>
>
> It is good to remember that no candidate has lost an election because of a
> debate performance since Nixon's 5 o' clock shadow.  Reagan lost debates
> and so did Bush, Jr. but they both won their elections.
>
>
> What's important for me is truth telling, and on this essential point of
> character and trust Romney's pants are still on fire.  The current
> Politifact scorecard is 304 true, mostly true, and half true statements
> from the President and 116 false and mostly false with 6 pants on fire.
> Romney has 102 true, mostly true, half true and 74 false and mostly false
> with a record 16 pants on fire.  The percentage truth telling is
> significant: 72 percent of the time for Obama vs.  48 percent for Romney.
>
>
> Contrary to Romney’s charge, gas prices have not doubled during Obama’s
> term.  Exactly four years ago the national average was $3.67 compared to
> $3.72 today.
>
>
> Obama was firm and effective about one thing about Romney’s tax plan.  If
> the Bush tax cuts remain and if Romney reduces tax rates by 20 percent,
> then that will indeed amount to $5 trillion in tax cuts over ten years.
> This was the conclusion of an in-depth study issued by the Tax Policy
> Center on August 1.  The pdf file can be found at www.brookings.edu.
>
>
> In the debate Romney said that other studies have debunked this analysis,
> but Dylan Matthews of the *Washington Post* (9/27/12) has checked each of
> those closely and concludes that they don’t save Romney’s plan from huge
> deficits or compromise on tax reform.
>
>
> Matthews gives a summary of Romney’s plan and the critique:
>
> 1.    “A 20 percent reduction in marginal personal income tax rates.
>
> 2.    Elimination of the estate tax.
>
> 3.    Elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax.
>
> 4.    Enough base-broadening, through the elimination of tax
> expenditures, to fully pay for policies 1 through 3.
>
> 5.    Preservation of incentives for saving and investment.
>
>
> The Tax Policy Center authors then demonstrated that you can’t do 1-5
> without raising taxes on people making under $200,000 a year. None of the
> responses to the study have disproven that. All either use a different
> definition of the middle class, rely on inappropriate estimates of growth
> caused by Romney’s plan, or else violate Romney’s promise to preserve the
> savings and investment incentives.”
>
>
> Conservative Harvard economist Martin Feldstein admits that Romney would
> have to raise taxes on those whom Romney himself describes as “middle
> class”—those making between $100-200,000!  He needs to raise the windows on
> his private jet and see the real middle class!
>
>
> Conservative economist Princeton economist Harvey Rosen assumes that
> Romney’s election would boost growth by 3 percent, which would pay for his
> tax cuts.  These predictions were made on the assumption of full
> employment!  Obama promised to bring down unemployment to 7 percent and now
> Romney assumes he will bring it down to 4 percent!  Another assumption of
> Rosen’s plan is that the tax cuts would be neutralized early in  Romney’s
> first term.   Matthews is incredulous: “Rosen assumes that the tax cuts
> have been fully paid for first, and that’s part of why they do so much for
> growth.”
>
>
> Matt Jensen of the American Enterprise Institute argues that if Romney
> eliminates tax exemptions for state and local bonds and interest insurance
> savings, then the tax shift will hit the wealthy and save the middle class.
>
>
> Curtis Dubay of the Heritage Foundation claims that the Tax Policy Center
> authors have misunderstood the effects of Romney’s plan to eliminate the
> estate tax.  This is one part of the analyses that I could not follow.
>
>
> Matthews goes through each of the tax deductions and loopholes that Romney
> says he will eliminate or close and finds serious problems.  Is Romney
> really serious about eliminating tax deductions for charities? (For 2011
> Romney would have not paid any tax at all if he had reported everything in
> this category.) The disincentive would be huge and the loss to the arts,
> colleges and universities, private medical work and social programs would
> be devastating to these organizations.
>
>
> The same Martin Feldstein who is now defending Romney’s plan criticized
> Obama in 2009 for suggesting that charitable deductions be limited: “In
> effect, the change would be a tax on the charities, reducing their receipts
> by a dollar for every dollar of extra revenue the government collects. It
> is hard to imagine a rationale for taxing schools, hospitals, medical
> research budgets and arts organizations in this way.”
>
>
> With regard to other major deductions Matthews has this to say:
> “Eliminating the mortgage-interest deduction would upend the housing
> sector, reducing demand to buy dramatically and shifting the sector toward
> renting. Eliminating the employer health exemption could mark the beginning
> of the end of the employer-based health system as we know it.”
>
> Without more specifics and more honesty Romney’s tax plan as it now stands
> would not reduce the deficits, will not grow the economy, and will not
> create jobs.  Will a President Romney live to eat crow on his promise to
> create 12 million jobs?  That would be more embarrassing than any of
> Obama’s broken promises.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 7:12 AM, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:
>
>> I agree.
>>
>> President Obama failed to take advantage of many easily engageable
>> targets and confront Romney's many lies and continued flip-flopping).
>>
>> In preparation for the debate, I obtained a bottle of cognac.  I was to
>> drink a shot of cognac each time the number 47 was mentioned, thinking I
>> would be falling-over drunk by 7:45.
>>
>> So much for that thought.
>>
>> Courtesy of Salon.com at:
>>
>> http://www.salon.com/2012/10/04/those_old_obama_debate_blues/
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Those old Obama debate blues<http://www.salon.com/2012/10/04/those_old_obama_debate_blues/> Harking
>> back to early 2008, the president stays professorial, while Romney gets
>> feisty – and dishonest
>>
>> [image: image.jpeg]
>>
>> A subdued, deferential, over-prepared President Obama ceded the first
>> debate to Mitt Romney on style and substance. Democrats had to look at
>> historical evidence that debates don’t change election outcomes for comfort
>> Wednesday tonight.
>>
>> Romney shook his Etch-a-Sketch and lied his way through the entire debate
>> with no challenge from moderator Jim Lehrer. He simply denied he has
>> proposed a $5 trillion tax cut. He insisted he wouldn’t cut the education
>> budget or Pell Grants, when he will. He claimed the Affordable Care Act
>> raised taxes by a trillion dollars. He essentially revived the idea of
>> death panels by saying Obamacare established “a board that will tell people
>> what kind of treatment they’re going to get.”  Yet the president didn’t
>> call him on any of it.
>>
>> In fact, Obama let Romney off the hook on a range of toxic topics, from
>> Social Security to the tax deductions he’d eliminate to make his tax-cut
>> plan “revenue neutral.” Some omissions seem like political malpractice. The
>> president had many opportunities to ask Romney exactly what loopholes he’d
>> close and which deductions he’d eliminate – child tax credit? Mortgage
>> interest deduction? Charitable deductions? – and help Romney commit
>> political suicide. But he never did; he went straight to the wonky idea
>> that there are not enough loopholes to close or deductions to balance his
>> tax cuts for the rich. He had the chance to ask Romney for his
>> deduction-elimination plans directly, even if only rhetorically, even if
>> Lehrer didn’t follow up. But Obama never did.
>>
>> He didn’t challenge him on most of his lies. Romney claimed the
>> Affordable Care Act raised taxes by a trillion dollars, and Obama didn’t
>> object; in the camera shot at that moment, he didn’t even shake his head.
>> He didn’t mention Bain Capital, the Ryan budget or Romney’s shameful 47
>> percent comments. When Romney chided Obama for not fighting for the
>> Simpson-Bowles deficit commission recommendations, Obama didn’t mention
>> that Romney’s running mate, who was on the commission, wouldn’t back them
>> either.
>>
>> Unbelievably, Obama cited Social Security as an area where he and Romney
>> agree, even though Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan was an architect of
>> Social Security privatization plans in the House, and Romney himself has
>> suggested raising the age of eligibility and cutting benefits. That’s
>> striking fear in the hearts of plenty of Democrats. The president seemed
>> about to score a big win when Romney admitted he wanted to shift Medicare
>> to a voucher program for Americans under 55 — but it was Obama who noted
>> that Romney says he would let “traditional Medicare” exist alongside
>> “vouchercare,” taking some of the political sting out of Romney’s
>> admission. As Romney attacked Dodd-Frank banking regulations, Obama allowed
>> that Wall Street shouldn’t bear all the blame for the entire 2008 banking
>> collapse, and he pointed to loan officers and individuals who borrowed
>> money they really couldn’t afford to, rather than stay on the topic of Wall
>> Street greed and recklessness. As he got deep into the weeds about
>> education and work readiness, he gave Romney credit for agreeing with his
>> popular ideas on community colleges.
>>
>> Overall Obama was off his game. He stumbled with “ums” and “uhs,” looked
>> down at the podium instead of at the camera, framed his statements as
>> hypotheticals not declarations, even apologized to Lehrer for going long
>> with his remarks when Romney just barreled over the moderator. I found
>> myself wondering if he was preoccupied by either a national security crisis
>> (Turkey and Syria are firing at one another) or family troubles; I hope
>> neither is true, but it would explain his subdued performance.
>>
>> Romney was smug and arrogant, condescending to Obama and Lehrer.
>> Unbelievably, he compared Obama to one of his sons when accusing him of
>> misrepresenting his tax plan. “Look, I’ve got five boys — I’m used to
>> people saying something that’s not always true but just keep repeating it
>> and ultimately hoping I’ll believe it. But that is not the case.” Maybe our
>> first black president can’t shoot back “I’m not one of your boys,” but I
>> wish Lehrer had noted the insult.
>>
>> Let me admit: I wasn’t sure Barack Obama won all of his debates with John
>> McCain in 2008. Some of his answers were too long and convoluted. But what
>> mattered most was McCain wandering around the stage, looking lost, or
>> calling Obama “that one.”
>>
>> It’s possible some things will matter more than they seem to tonight:
>> Romney’s arrogant smiles and smirks, or his saying to Lehrer that though “I
>> love Big Bird; I actually like you,” he’d fire them both and zero out the
>> PBS budget. Americans love Big Bird. What a loon. He smirked regularly and
>> once even giggled at his fine performance. He made it clear that he was
>> Lehrer’s boss early, and treated him disrespectfully. For a guy Americans
>> don’t find likeable, he wasn’t terribly likeable.
>>
>> In the days to come, Romney may suffer from the perception of his
>> condescension, his lying and his cruel assault on Big Bird. But for now, it
>> seems the president missed the opportunity to put his opponent away for
>> good.
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Seeya at the polls, Moscow, because . . .
>>
>> "Moscow Cares"
>> http://www.MoscowCares.com
>>
>> Tom Hansen
>> Moscow, Idaho
>>
>> "We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students.  The college
>> students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."
>>
>> - Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)
>>
>>
>> =======================================================
>>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>>                http://www.fsr.net
>>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>> =======================================================
>>
>
>
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