Tag: Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney, Mad Men, and the search for qualified women

Mitt Romney, Mad Men, and the search for qualified women

Posted on by Jack

By now you are probably tired of hearing about Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” comment. It was in answer to a question about equal pay for women, which he never answered.

The entire transcript of the second presidential debate is on the ABC news website if you want to look for the whole context. A search for ‘binders’ will find the part of the transcript with that question and related answers.

I don’t find the phrase itself that damaging. After all it is probably just that he left out a few words that would have made it sound a bit more reasonable. I’m pretty sure he meant something like ‘binders of women’s applications’ or “folders with resumes of qualified women” but that is not what came out of his mouth.

It is a rather uncomfortable image, “binders of women”. Brings me back to my school days of over 40 years ago. We had loose leaf binders, usually with metal rings for 2 or 3 hole paper. I won’t complete my thought but it does seem rather painful.

There is an interesting column in the Patch called Is Mitt Romney a Real Life Don Draper?. I don’t totally agree but the Mad Men image is a good one. I don’t think his attitude is that the workplace should be like on Mad Men but he certainly has an out of date attitude about women.

But one thing that did stick me as a throwback to the Mad Men days was that Governor Romney could not find any qualified women working for the state. Mitt Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002, not 1962. I would have thought there should have been qualified women working for the state. Of course it would make sense to reach out to expand the pool of qualified women. But his staff could find no qualified women among the state employees. Seems odd to me.

A false savings by repeal of Obamacare

A false savings by repeal of Obamacare

Posted on by Jack

I have many disagreements with Mitt Romney’s tax and budget plans and here is one that may surprise a few people who think his promises are all about saving money. On his website, he lists several savings. Among them-

Repeal Obamacare, which would save $95 billion in 2016

The House recently passed a bill that did just that. Or at least it would do so if it also passed the Senate and was not vetoed. Seems a bit unlikely now but there next year there is sure to be a different Congress and maybe a new President. But my point was that the House did pass this bill, HR 6079, which would repeal Obamacare and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) looked at the fiscal consequences.

In a “Letter to the Honorable John Boehner providing an estimate for H.R. 6079, the Repeal of Obamacare Act”, the CBO did a 10 year estimate of spending and revenue which would result if that legislation became law.

Sure enough there were big saving there but the government was forgoing even more revenue. The bottom line is a net loss to the government of 109 billion dollars. Since this is just an estimate a reasonable guess is that the average cost is about 10 or 11 billion dollars per year. This could just be added to the deficit or we could just add this to Mitt Romney’s tax plan.

I’m sure this figure does vary from year to year as different parts of Obamacare are implemented but since the average appears to actually be net loss to the government Governor Romney should explain why he thinks this action will save 95 billion dollars in 2016. And he might want to mention what he thinks will happen in all those other years.

The Etch a Sketch man with the sketchy plan

The Etch a Sketch man with the sketchy plan

Posted on by Jack

In the second debate we learned a bit more about the Romney tax plan on which he has been extremely vague. It is still very vague but a few more details were added during the debate. The plan involves a multi-trillion dollar tax cut and closing of unspecified loopholes and elimination of unspecified deductions.

The Romney plan also includes mostly unspecified spending cuts on the non-military and non-security parts of the budget and large increases in military spending. I guess that is related but strictly speaking not part of the tax plan.

In the first debate, Romney added a bit more and we learned that he will not cut education but will cut PBS and he will not add to the deficit.

And then in the second debate, he also promised that the rich will pay the same portion of the income tax that they pay now. And he also said –

I want to make sure we keep our Pell grant program growing. We’re also going to have our loan program, so that people are able to afford school.

One does wonder how he is going to do all these things.

He was asked which would be his priority if he could not do all at the same time. Governor Romney seems to not even consider that possibility. After all, he is a businessman and he would never make a mistake with money.

Below is that portion of the exchange. The entire transcript is on the ABC news website.

OBAMA:…We haven’t heard from the governor any specifics beyond Big Bird and eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood in terms of how he pays for that.

Now, Governor Romney was a very successful investor. If somebody came to you, Governor, with a plan that said, here, I want to spend $7 or $8 trillion, and then we’re going to pay for it, but we can’t tell you until maybe after the election how we’re going to do it, you wouldn’t take such a sketchy deal and neither should you, the American people, because the math doesn’t add up.

And — and what’s at stake here is one of two things, either Candy — this blows up the deficit because keep in mind, this is just to pay for the additional spending that he’s talking about, $7 trillion – $8 trillion before we even get to the deficit we already have. Or, alternatively, it’s got to be paid for, not only by closing deductions for wealthy individuals, that — that will pay for about 4 percent reduction in tax rates.

You’re going to be paying for it. You’re going to lose some deductions, and you can’t buy the sales pitch. Nobody who’s looked at it that’s serious, actually believes it adds up.

CROWLEY: Mr. President, let me get — let me get the governor in on this. And Governor, let’s — before we get into a…

ROMNEY: I — I…

CROWLEY: …vast array of who says — what study says what, if it shouldn’t add up. If somehow when you get in there, there isn’t enough tax revenue coming in. If somehow the numbers don’t add up, would you be willing to look again at a 20 percent…

ROMNEY: Well of course they add up. I — I was — I was someone who ran businesses for 25 years, and balanced the budget. I ran the Olympics and balanced the budget. I ran the — the state of Massachusetts as a governor, to the extent any governor does, and balanced the budget all four years. When we’re talking about math that doesn’t add up, how about $4 trillion of deficits over the last four years, $5 trillion? That’s math that doesn’t add up. We have — we have a president talking about someone’s plan in a way that’s completely foreign to what my real plan is.

In that last paragraph, Mitt very quickly refused to consider the possibility that he could be wrong and then changed the subject.

Since there has been talk of his Etch a Sketch campaign which he clearly demonstrated in the first debate and his sketchy deal was demonstated by Presdent Obama in the second debate (see quote above), should we call Gov. Romney the Etch a Sketch man with the sketchy plan ?

Pro-life and Anti-Choice: VP abortion debate

Pro-life and Anti-Choice: VP abortion debate

Posted on by Jack

Abortion is a issue on which Americans disagree. One side believes it should be legal. The other believes it should be illegal.

In last night’s Vice Presidential Debate, Vice President Biden and Representative Ryan pretty much expressed positions on opposite sides of this issue. The quotes below are from NPR which has the video and transcript online. Those interested in the whole exchange can find it there.

Representative Ryan:

“That’s why — those are the reasons why I’m pro-life.

Now, I understand this is a difficult issue. And I respect people who don’t agree with me on this. But the policy of a Romney administration will be to oppose abortion with the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”

Of course if you think about, it Rep. Ryan is saying that he respects people who disagree but the favors a law that would force them to comply with his belief. Or more accurately, they must comply with Gov. Romney’s belief because Rep. Ryan doesn’t believe in exceptions but does defer to the top of the ticket

Vice President Biden:

“With regard to — with regard to abortion, I accept my church’s position on abortion as a — what we call de fide (doctrine ?). Life begins at conception. That’s the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life.

But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews and — I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the congressman.”

I am with Joe Biden on this one. I don’t think I should impose my beliefs on others. I think it is a difficult decision but I would rather see individuals involved decide rather than the government.

I can understand why some people will have positions very different, even opposite, from my positions. But I think there is a lack of consistency in taking positions that highlight individual free choice for most aspects of life but take the anti-choice position in others.

Then there is a practical issue. Abortions will occur whether legal or not. Would it not be better to have them occur in plain sight where they will be safer?

Mitt Romney gets almost specific

Mitt Romney gets almost specific

Posted on by Jack

Mitt Romney has been a bit short on details when it comes to his plans. For example, he will cut taxes by 20% (that does sound specific) but he wants to keep revenue about the same and will do so by cutting deductions and loopholes (which are not specified). He has said on a few occasions that this cutting of the deductions will not cause the middle class to pay a larger portion of taxes than they pay now. At the October 3 debate he added that he will not increase the deficit or cut education.

He will lay-out a few broad principles such as the above and congress will find the answer. As I have said before trust him and trust congress. It is certainly a plan but not one in which I have much faith.

He has also said he will cut federal expenditures. He has not given many details. But a the debate, he did tell us that he would “stop the subsidy to PBS”. This despite loving Big Bird.

There is about a trillion dollar deficit. The PBS subsidy is 450 million dollars. For most of us (even Mr. Romney) this is a lot of money. But it is only a very small portion of the deficit .0005 or one twentieth of a percent).

Does Mr. Romney have any specifics on the other 99.95% of the deficit he needs to cut? One specific he has managed to come up with solves about one two-thousandth of the deficit but may result in killing Big Bird.

Slippery Mitt moves toward the middle in the debate

Slippery Mitt moves toward the middle in the debate

Posted on by Jack

It has been widely said that Mitt Romney clearly won the first presidential debate held on October 3, 2012. Here is a transcript of the first presidential debate.

How did he do it? It comes down to that President Obama was unprepared for another shake of the Etch a Sketch when Slippery Mitt was asked about the tax plan that he has been proposing for a year or so. President Obama asked how it was possible to have to have this large tax cut and greatly increase military spending without adding to the deficit. Yes, old Mitt slipped away while denying any increase in the deficit was possible under his plan. He said that he would not increase the deficit. He said it, so it can’t happen.

“My plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit.”, said Mitt Romney. This seems to be something new. Before it was a kind of article of faith that if you cut taxes the economy would boom and revenue would pour into the federal coffers. But does this mean that if the massive tax cuts look like they might cause a deficit, that the tax cuts are off the table? Are they conditional on Congress agreeing to end enough deductions to offset the lower rates. Do we have any particulars on which deductions will be lost?

Further, it is widely assumed that this severely conservative budget will be a decrease over the present budget. So if we massively increase military spending and decrease taxes rates (although that will be wholly of partly offset by decreasing unspecified deductions), it stands to reason that some pretty big cuts must come out of the other stuff. But when President Obama questioned Slippery Mitt on how he would cut education, Mitt slipped away again by saying he would not cut education. So now it seems like the cuts elsewhere would be more severe.

You may have noticed that he did not agree to any of Obama’s expansions to education (more teachers and so forth), he just said he would not cut. Exactly what that means, I do not know. But it does sound much more moderate that previous stances.

So I think most of us figured Mitt Romney would eventually slip away from some of the more conservative positions he has taken and try to move toward the middle but he surprised me and maybe the President by his quick and bold moves during the debate.

But the lack of specifics in his proposals has been maddening. Of course, for most of these changes he has to work with Congress. So it would be foolish to say “this is what will happen”. But it would be nice if he took a position and said “this is what I propose”. Instead all we get are vague statements like – I know how to create 12 million jobs or I will cut the budget.

So trust in Slippery Mitt and trust in our highly-regarded Congress. It seems like such a good plan.

Are polls biased in favor of Obama?

Are polls biased in favor of Obama?

Posted on by Jack

Several new polls show President Obama with a wide lead in many swing-states. Some say there is a bias.

Of course, the polls could be wrong. But it seems unlikely that the people who do the polls would show a deliberate bias as this would tend to destroy any credibility in the long-run.

But there could be all sorts of unintentional bias. Younger voters tend to have cell phone rather than landlines and so might not get the call. I have a landline but tend to look at my caller-ID and not pick up calls from numbers I don’t recognize and that don’t attempt to leave a message. Some who indicate they are probable voters might not actually vote.

There are probably quite a few other reasons. But the one that came to mind is voter suppression as a consequence of the Voter ID laws mainly sponsored by Republican legislatures. This seems to be a factor here in Pennsylvania.

Mitt Romney may know something we don’t know about Voter ID

Mitt Romney may know something we don’t know about Voter ID

Posted on by Jack

Most of the polls I’ve seen indicate that President Obama is widening his lead in Pennsylvania but Mitt Romney has campaigned here in an attempts to turn things around. I know of at least 2 events yesterday (Friday).

I try to remember not to answer my phone without checking my caller-ID. Today unknown caller was calling so I figured it was a political or maybe a sales call and I’d listen to the message if there was one. The message was inviting me to a victory event for the Romney campaign tomorrow.

Does Mitt Romney know something we don’t know? Maybe the pollsters (except those working for the Republicans) are not figuring on an extensive suppression of the democratic vote by the new voter ID law passed by the republicans in the state house?

Writing off the 47%

Writing off the 47%

Posted on by Jack

Yesterday, I noted that Mitt Romney is writing off the 47% who don’t pay federal income taxes as Obama supporters. I pointed out that if this is correct, it pretty much insures an Obama victory and Romney loss. But there is more to the quote than that.

Governor Romney said:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. These are people who pay no income tax.

Quite a few of these people are responsible, despite what Mitt Romney thinks. The figure would include many on Social Security and Medicare who probably saved and paid taxes for much of their lives. There are the working poor. Leonard Pitts, Jr. profiles several of these in his “True stories of the 47 percent”. Interesting one of the comments is from the wife of a soldier who paid no income taxes because he was deployed to Iraq. There are people on disability.

There are many reasons people do not pay income taxes. What most have in common is that they make too little money. And many of them do pay other taxes. Some may be irresponsible. But it is probably not many and certainly not all.

There are even rich people who somehow avoid paying income tax (but that is another discussion for another day).

The President is president of all Americans, not 53% of them.

Mitt’s Math adds up to a Romney Loss

Mitt’s Math adds up to a Romney Loss

Posted on by Jack

Mitt Romney apparently believes that 47% of the population will vote for President Obama no matter what. It he is right (which is doubtful), he needs to find all his votes from the other 53%. So if he can get 95% of that 53%, he can eke out a victory in this election. Since you don’t really need a majority to win it may not be quite that bad but it is close. And then the figures may vary a bit from state to state so maybe he has written off fewer people in swing states but still his figures pretty much predict a Romney loss.

So here is an exact quote of Mitt Romney’s remarks on the subject:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. These are people who pay no income tax.

So if Mitt Romney is anywhere close to being right about the 47%, he will clearly lose. I don’t think he is right. But then I don’t think he is the right man to be President either.

The real Mitt Romney

The real Mitt Romney

Posted on by Jack

Here is a good article I ran across looking for some information on Mitt Romney:

If the old game show “To Tell The Truth” were still on, it would be fun to have the three versions of Mitt Romney play so that after a period of questioning by a panel of celebrities, Gary Moore could then ask the real Mitt Romney to please stand up.

Read more from Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up?

Romney’s taxes as a campaign issue

Romney’s taxes as a campaign issue

Posted on by Jack

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing about Mitt Romney’s taxes or his lack of transparency on that issue. The Democrats are not satisfied and it would be nice if he was more transparent about it. But I think it should be a closed issue.

There is no reason to believe he is doing anything illegal. He says he is just taking legal steps to which he is entitled to pay no more tax than necessary. Isn’t that pretty much what we all do? He does have a much higher income than most of us so he is able to hire better tax advisers and some steps make economic sense when dealing with a potential tax liability of millions rather than the smaller amounts that most of us deal with.

Perhaps the fact that a multimillionaire pays a lower tax rate than someone who makes a middle class salary suggests to some that our tax system is a bit unfair and should be reformed but that is a different argument.

Disingenuous crap: Obama has no jobs plan

Disingenuous crap: Obama has no jobs plan

Posted on by Jack

I liked the phase “disingenuous crap” so much to describe Romney’s claim that Obama has no jobs plan that I stole it from Andrew Sullivan. This is the third in his series on the big lies of Mitt Romney. This one seemed most relevant to today’s post so I referenced it here. But all are worth reading.

But it is rather a big claim that Obama has a plan so here is a second reference from the Washington Post. It seems it would have been more accurate for Mr. Romney to claim that President Obama has no plan that Republicans support.

Obama has proposed a plan and it has been blocked by Republicans who don’t want him to succeed. But he is succeeding. It seems likely to me that the success would be much faster if the Republicans in Congress would do their job and govern.

The highest Republican party objective seems to be to deny Obama a second term. That is a rather short video with Mitch McConnell defending his now famous quote. But if you have the time you might enjoy an almost 9 minute video from Media Matters which includes several Republican quotes and a bit of context.

Despite opposition President Obama is succeeding in getting our economy to grow. Of course, growth would be faster if he had the support of Congress. Think about that when you vote.

But if you remember, we were losing about 800,000 jobs per month when President Obama took office. The job loss slowed and for the past few years we have actually been gaining jobs each month. (See Stimulus worked, more jobs needed.)

That post is about a year old, see Chart Book: The Legacy of the Great Recession which bring things up to date and adds quite a bit more on the recovery.

Trust me and trust Congress

Trust me and trust Congress

Posted on by Jack

Mitt Romney has a plan to fix the economy. It is just that he won’t tell us exactly or even approximately what it is. He will cut taxes for everyone while reducing the deficit and the economy will boom.

Unfortunately he will not tell us how he will manage to cut tax rates while reducing the deficit except to say that he will eliminate nonspecified loopholes and deductions. Paul Ryan seems to have a similar plan with unspecified details. Should they be called the “Trust Me Team”?

It seems they will work with Congress to specify some of those loopholes and deductions. So our role is to trust them and trust Congress. Congress certainly hasn’t done much lately to earn our trust.

So trust them and trust Congress. Does anyone else see a flaw in this plan ?

Romney and low tax rates

Romney and low tax rates

Posted on by Jack

As previously mentioned, Mitt Romney promises to lower tax rates but has not specified how he would make up for the loss of revenue to the federal government. He has has suggested that he would be able to do this by closing loopholes and and eliminating deductions (but has not specified which ones).

Here is a suggestion. How about eliminating the lower rate paid on dividend and capital gains (as opposed to wages)?

To quote President Ronald Reagan:

We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary, and that’s crazy. It’s time we stopped it.