2012 US Presidential Election discussion.

IronsightSniper

Junior Member
I agree with you in that both candidates, like usual, suck, and that Ron Paul would have been the best candidate had he been nominated (also, I'm angry that Rand Paul is not following in his father's footsteps, who will I wish the Republicans will nominate next ;_;). On economics though, I do realize that you are fiscally conservative, but spending was the right way to go in the midst of the recession (yes, Keynesians strike again), and so, balancing the budget was not Obama's top priority. The problem, however, is that Obama inadvertently managed to decrease spending after Bush junior's bail out and other factors increased the federal deficit by $1 trillion USD (of course, he didn't do it himself, but I'm using the old political metric of attributing statistics to the President of the time). In fact, the federal deficit has shrunk by $113 billion USD since Obama took the reigns. I should also point out that debt wise, though this amount of debt accumulating in this short of time is a record, Obama hasn't actually contributed as much to the debt as Bush junior has (Obama has increased the debt by $4.4 trillion USD, Bush junior had increased the debt by $6.1 trillion USD).

I know what some may be thinking, why am I comparing Obama to Bush when the topic at hand is Obama and Romney? The answer is the generic fiscal conservative cry for tax cuts. Bush had enacted tax cuts from 2001 to 2003. The tax revenue from individual income taxes fell by $200 billion USD in that time frame, which sounds neat, until you take account the wars we ended up participating in and other spending increases. The federal deficit went from a $128 billion USD surplus that Bush had inherited to a $377 billion USD deficit between 2001 and 2003. The national debt in that time frame went from $5.7 trillion USD to $6.7 trillion USD, a full $1 trillion USD increase.

Obviously, fighting a war has to account for a couple of those $ bills, but so does Obama's facts and figures during his presidency, the only difference is, they are much more moderate than Bush's. Obama's spending from the 2012 estimate to 2009 had only increased by $277 billion USD, that's actually a smaller increase in spending then when Ronald Reagan was in office. In comparison, Bush's 2009 budget increased by $1.65 trillion USD since his first budget in 2001. Jobs wise, between July 2012 and July 2009, 2.3 million additional people had become employed, that's compared to a growth of the work force by a mere 475,000 people in that time frame. Simply said, the ARRA worked.

In fact, an economist for Moody, Mark Zandi, talked about the economic benefits of various economic policies. The numbers are notably:

A $1.29 stimulus per $1 cut via a payroll tax holiday
A $1.26 stimulus per $1 cut via a refundable lump-sum tax rebate
A $0.29 'stimulus' per $1 cut via making the bush income tax cuts permanent
A $1.36 stimulus per $1 spent sending general aid to state governments
A $1.59 stimulus per $1 spent on infrastructure projects
A $1.73 stimulus per $1 spent on temporarily increasing food stamps

The ARRA was essentially the latter 3, and taking into account the growth of the number of employed, we can deduce that, at the very least, the ARRA had a positive impact on the American economy. Of course, the unemployment rate only fell by about 1% in comparison to the peak of the recession, and the unemployment rate is still about 3% higher than the sub 5% unemployment rates we had in 2005, but after Bush and his tax cuts and warmongering, I can't assume that Romney will be any different. Paul Ryan had the 'brilliant' idea of raising the taxes on, I think it was the corporations, but he might have said the top earners in the U.S., but I don't remember. Either one I can get behind, a Buffet law would have been great if it had been passed when the Democrats held the entire federal government save the judicial branch.

But yes, to sum this post up, Obama's economic policies are a change of pace from Bush's, and the numbers show that. After the shenanigans that Bush junior had paced our country through, I can't trust a Republican that spouts the same crap he did. At the end of the day, it's still two pretty bad candidates, and I'm relying on
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to give me the policies of both candidates, so that at the least, I'd be voting for the guy that's gonna do the least harm.


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I presented several 'facts' that I ought to cite so here's my sources:

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(expenditures, debts, and income tax receipts by year)
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(check the first four boxes and click Retrieve Data at the bottom)
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(the economic benefits of various economic policies)
 
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delft

Brigadier
But in my opinion, there really is no reason that America should be subsidizing countries like Germany and South Korea by stationing troops there, so those nations can have smaller defense budgets.
In what respect can you say America contributes to the defense of Germany? The German armed forces are very nearly as large as those of all nine neighbors together and only lacks the French CdG and nukes. Can you imaging all nine ganging up against Germany? That would be a massive failure of German diplomacy. Also all facilities used by US forces are paid for by Germany, ever since 1949. Those forces are forward deployed for use in the Middle East and Africa. Africom is also housed in Germany.
As for Korea the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, a branch of the State Department abolished by the younger Bush, wrote in its report for 1996, ( IIRC the year ), that South Korea spent 2.43 times as much on its military than North Korea. There too, as well as in Japan, the US maintain their forces at the expense of the host country.
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
I was just watching CNN coverage of the Republican National Convention. There was a panel of representatives from both parties. They managed to spin the hurricane hitting the convention center into an attack on China. First the Democrat tried to spin the Republicans' effective response to the hurricane into why can't they be that effective when it comes to environmental issues. Then the Republican responded that they'll be more cooperative than negotiating with the Chinese. Then they both agreed like they wanted to give each other a high-five.
 
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Equation

Lieutenant General
I was just watching CNN coverage of the Republican National Convention. There was a panel of representatives from both parties. They managed to spin the hurricane hitting the convention center into an attack on China. First the Democrat tried to spin the Republicans' effective response to the hurricane into why can't they be that effective when it comes to environmental issues. Then the Republican responded that they'll be more cooperative than negotiating with the Chinese. Then they both agreed like they wanted to give each other a high-five.


I thought the RNC was delayed until tomorrow on Tuesday.
 

Franklin

Captain
Apparently the criticism by the Chinese media of Mitt Romney has hit a raw nerve with a lot of Foreign Policy readers. The article is pretty mundane but look at the comment section Whaaooo !!!

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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Clint Eastwood

[video=youtube;qiHNVYRTKP8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiHNVYRTKP8[/video]
He quotes "Harry Callahan" a lot but a good speech with some great ab lib
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Clint Eastwood

[video=youtube;qiHNVYRTKP8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiHNVYRTKP8[/video]
He quotes "Harry Callahan" a lot but a good speech with some great ab lib

He is such a great director and film maker, but is it me or does he look kind of uncomfortable there at the RNC?
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
He is such a great director and film maker, but is it me or does he look kind of uncomfortable there at the RNC?

I think it's because he didn't want to be there in the first place. And of course age is catching up with him.

It seems circumstances forced him to go public. First he was attacked for being pro-Obama with the Superbowl ad for Detroit when he was just doing an ad for Detroit and US manufacturing. Eastwood is old school. I read that many of the young people at the RNC didn't know his infamous Dirty Harry line. Politics these days are very ultra black and white. Was he swayed by these little punks to come out publicly? No, he was just irked that he could be so categorized and scrutinized for something so simple that wasn't political but just America to him.

Secondly, I watched his wife's reality show just to see Eastwood in something you wouldn't expect. His wife seems to be like a hippie-type. A contrast to these traditional very made-up Republican wives of McCain, Romney, and Gingrich. Eastwood only showed up a couple of brief times. Not sure what was happening behind the scenes but his wife pushed him to clarify his position on gays which was odd because it broke out of form where reality shows try to act as if the camera isn't there hence "reality." His wife comes off as the opposite from him personality wise and not political. But in these days of ultra black and white thinking that can be easily brand him in politcs.
 
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