A largely overlooked fact is that Democratic funding is much wider based and a lot of it comes from middle class individuals and small donor events while republican fund raising comes from large corporate houses (which send in much smaller donations to the Democrats - just in case, you know) and rich individuals and religious organisations. Which automatically force the republicans toward pork-barrel economics.
Part 2
Links to subsequent parts
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Thompson: "Well, in a dynamic economy, there are jobs lost and there are jobs gained. And so far, there have been more jobs gained. To put up barriers and say that so-and-so cannot lose a job would be the wrong thing to do in a free-market economy that's been so well for us. It's made us the most prosperous nation in the history of the world."...
"...The manufacturing industry is, in large part, an international industry nowadays, which means prices are set internationally. Manufacturers cannot do much about that but they get hit with cost domestically. We can do a lot about their cost, in terms of taxes and regulation..."
i.e. he will not intervene to help Americans keep jobs but he will intervene to help big business keep competing by artificially helping them keep afloat against fair trade
This is pretty symptomatic of the thinking of most republicans. Isn't the point of governance people?
They're not worried about 700 billion dollars in military spending - a neat 1/4th of a 3 point something trillion dollar budget but all of them keep repeating the litany "We're going to have to fix health care. We're going to have to fix Social Security." McCain differed though with "we got to tell them that we will not spend $2 billion on an aircraft tanker, which I was able to stop and save the taxpayers $2 billion, because of this incredible extravagant waste in defense spending today, which is the biggest part of our budget."
You can also see the republicans struggle with illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants make eminent economic sense. They might use public works.. but you're already spending on it you dumbfucks. They pay taxes on consumption, bring prices down, do jobs that Americans don't, and live in filth and fear to provide rich idiots with sun-kissed oranges and whiter than white linen in your around-the-corner Four Seasons. What do they get for that? Starring roles in american pornography. But Republicans are also torn between economic sense and their inherent xenophobia and racism. Sorry... forget the "torn" part.. they simply choose to be xenophobic because economic conservatism is just an excuse for them to cover up their pork-barell economics.
Romney claims eminence among all presidential hopefuls in business sense. "if we agree to sit down with China, I understand that if we don't get real careful and protect patents and designs and technology, that what we tend to sell the most of, those kinds of things, intellectual property, is going to get stolen by the Chinese or by others, that we have to recognize agreements have to be in our benefit, not just in their benefit." Is that an idiot exhibiting plain naiveté or cynical misleading of the public in how trade is conducted?
In fact to a trained economic ear Guiliani made the best economic sense during the whole debate
Rep. Hunter came across as the worst of them when it comes to economics. His take on "Good Business deals" sounds good superficially but makes for funny reading for anyone with the least amount of intelligence and idea of trade and economics.
Now who is Sen. Paul. He impressed me with his idea of domestic and foreign policy. His view of personal liberty seemed very anti-republican, he actually supports personal liberty!
I'm also surprised that most of them know their Sunnis from their Shias!! :D.. Dubya certainly didn't nor did Cheney or Rumsfeld before they blundered on with their divide and conquer idea so catastrophically backfired on them. I mean I was 23 years old and knew even before the war started what the dumbfucks were going to do and how it was going to end for them!!
Idiots that they are when it comes to policy making, they all come into their own when they talk about their toys. Centrifuges, preemptive, narrow-window, hot pursuit, strategic attack on weaponry are all terms and words that roll easily off the tongue. Except for sen. Paul. Sen. Paul (of Texas!!) comes across as deeply insightful and intelligent. So how come he attends the Republican debate? :D
Work in Progress :D
Showing posts with label republican debate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label republican debate. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
The Republican Debate - Surprised by Sin!!
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The transcript of the Republican debate at nytimes.com
I expected to be bored. I expected to be disgusted with conservative views on abortion, immigration, the church and other stuff but the first few minutes of the Republican debate were certainly a huge surprise. Irrespective of the fact that most of the republican hopefuls might in themselves be idiots of the first order (with the exception of maybe McCain, Guiliani and Romney), their advisors and speech writers are certainly first-class. That is to be expected from mostly millionaire conservatives but the way each of their opinions were tailored to appeal to middle class americans could blow a huge hole in Democrats' campaigns. Some of the republicans were actually talking protectionism, indirect sales tax as opposed to income tax... The approval ratings say that people look to democrats to managing the economy properly. The republicans have moved from being right-wing both socially and economics-wise to being simply social right-wingers. The current campaigns seem to be directed to get lost ground back.
The republican's problem is not that they are careful about spending, that's just peachy. Its not that they support lower taxation, fills my heart with joy. The point is that they don't mind cutting spending for health insurance for poor children ( the SCHIP expansion veto) and cutting spending on public works for the average American which lead to incidents like the minneapolis bridge crash, the Katrina bungling etc. but don't think twice about spending on ramping up their testosterone in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in relatively peaceful central asia just to spite Russia or expanding patrolling in the malacca straits (for goodness sake!! what the hell does the US want to do there??)
Their lower taxation is first enjoyed by people with incomes >200000$ per annum and later by those with lower incomes. The higher your income the more you benefit i.e. the lesser you earn the lesser you benefit. And no, not in absolute terms; in percentage terms. Middle class americans pay an average of 30% of his/her income as tax while the hedge fund manager probably pays about 2 to 5% of his close-to-billion$ income, the average CEO pays about 15%. The more you earn the less you pay.
Call me cynical but I think Republicans came up with the idea of indirect consumer taxation, which sounds like a leftist dream, because its easier to screw around with this supposed "fair tax" than with income tax. You can tax bread at 2% and Humvees at 20%. Sounds fair enough. But at the end of the day, everyone eats the same amount of bread (oh! organic bread will be taxed lower of course... guess who consumes organic, whole wheat bread fortified with omega oils?) but the middle class doesn't buy humvees. So a larger percentage of middle class income goes to buy the basics which are taxed at the same rate for everyone while the rich have more money to buy playthings with. In a republican regime, the consumption tax WILL be screwed around with to leave the likes of billionaire ranchers with more money in their hands.
Even supposedly level-headed Guiliani goes "You can't possibly cut every tax, as I think Congressman Tancredo pointed out. You need money for police. You need money for military. But I cut, I think, as many taxes as you possibly could in that period of time.".. oh! he will cut every other tax.. cut every other spending but he wouldn't dream of cutting spending for the actual phallic tools of state control.
The transcript of the Republican debate at nytimes.com
I expected to be bored. I expected to be disgusted with conservative views on abortion, immigration, the church and other stuff but the first few minutes of the Republican debate were certainly a huge surprise. Irrespective of the fact that most of the republican hopefuls might in themselves be idiots of the first order (with the exception of maybe McCain, Guiliani and Romney), their advisors and speech writers are certainly first-class. That is to be expected from mostly millionaire conservatives but the way each of their opinions were tailored to appeal to middle class americans could blow a huge hole in Democrats' campaigns. Some of the republicans were actually talking protectionism, indirect sales tax as opposed to income tax... The approval ratings say that people look to democrats to managing the economy properly. The republicans have moved from being right-wing both socially and economics-wise to being simply social right-wingers. The current campaigns seem to be directed to get lost ground back.
The republican's problem is not that they are careful about spending, that's just peachy. Its not that they support lower taxation, fills my heart with joy. The point is that they don't mind cutting spending for health insurance for poor children ( the SCHIP expansion veto) and cutting spending on public works for the average American which lead to incidents like the minneapolis bridge crash, the Katrina bungling etc. but don't think twice about spending on ramping up their testosterone in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in relatively peaceful central asia just to spite Russia or expanding patrolling in the malacca straits (for goodness sake!! what the hell does the US want to do there??)
Their lower taxation is first enjoyed by people with incomes >200000$ per annum and later by those with lower incomes. The higher your income the more you benefit i.e. the lesser you earn the lesser you benefit. And no, not in absolute terms; in percentage terms. Middle class americans pay an average of 30% of his/her income as tax while the hedge fund manager probably pays about 2 to 5% of his close-to-billion$ income, the average CEO pays about 15%. The more you earn the less you pay.
Call me cynical but I think Republicans came up with the idea of indirect consumer taxation, which sounds like a leftist dream, because its easier to screw around with this supposed "fair tax" than with income tax. You can tax bread at 2% and Humvees at 20%. Sounds fair enough. But at the end of the day, everyone eats the same amount of bread (oh! organic bread will be taxed lower of course... guess who consumes organic, whole wheat bread fortified with omega oils?) but the middle class doesn't buy humvees. So a larger percentage of middle class income goes to buy the basics which are taxed at the same rate for everyone while the rich have more money to buy playthings with. In a republican regime, the consumption tax WILL be screwed around with to leave the likes of billionaire ranchers with more money in their hands.
Even supposedly level-headed Guiliani goes "You can't possibly cut every tax, as I think Congressman Tancredo pointed out. You need money for police. You need money for military. But I cut, I think, as many taxes as you possibly could in that period of time.".. oh! he will cut every other tax.. cut every other spending but he wouldn't dream of cutting spending for the actual phallic tools of state control.
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