Tag: politics

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 I don’t think his attitude is that the workplace should be like on Mad Men but he certainly has an out of date attitude about women.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 ?

Lesser of two evils and the evil of two parties

Lesser of two evils and the evil of two parties

Posted on by Jack

Quite often our choices in elections come down to picking the candidate we believe to be the lesser of two evils. We just don’t like our choices. Pick 1 of 2 but you dislike both.

So who do you dislike least ? Who do you vote against ?

The choices we make in each election seem fairly important. And this election could be very important.


But in the long-run a perhaps it is just as important or maybe even more important that we find a better election system. I have written in this blog about this. I cite one post here but click on the tag “partisanship” to see a long list.

Mickey Edwards has written a fine book about it, The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans which I read and reviewed several months back. This book really started me thinking that we have given up too much control to the 2 major political parties.

You might be interested in Mickey Edwards’ Atlantic article which explored this before he had expanded the argument to book length.

I ran across this series of articles which also explored this problem. The link is to one article in the series but you can easy find the others on the website.

The first step is to think about it. And if you think it is a problem, lend your support to those who would like to do something about it.

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.

Political parties and government dysfunction

Political parties and government dysfunction

Posted on by Jack

I have previously written much about the “cancer at the heart of our democracy”, often citing Mickey Edwards book The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.

Mr Edwards has another piece on The Unraveling of Government due to the excessive power of political parties. This appeared online last week on the New York Times website and a version appeared in the Sunday NY Times.

I have cited other examples of party ridiculousness and I’m sure almost any reader can think of others.

Ronald Reagan got it partly right, the problem is not government per se but how we run our government. The political system, and in particular the power we give to political parties, is making our democracy dysfunctional.

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.

Deficits matter only if the other party did it

Deficits matter only if the other party did it

Posted on by Jack

About 10 years ago, Vice President Cheney supposedly declared that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter” as the administration moved us from the surplus at the end of the Clinton administration to the deficits of the Bush administration. Then a few days ago Mr. Cheney realized deficits do matter .

At first I was a bit confused. But then I realized, the difference. When a Republican run a big deficit, it doesn’t matter. But if a Democrat does it, it is terrible. This is true even if the Democrat inherited much of the deficit from his Republican predecessor.

We should all be grateful that this is cleared up at last and that we have a two party system to guide us through this difficult time.

Podcast alert: cancer at the heart of our democracy

Podcast alert: cancer at the heart of our democracy

Posted on by Jack

Yesterday I heard a great radio interview. Terry Gross of Fresh Air  interviewed Mickey Edwards whose new book The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans is about our hyper-partisan political system.

In the interview, he calls political parties “cancer at the heart of our democracy”. Strong words but well deserved.

I have previously written about this excessive power of party and am glad Mickey Edwards‘ views are getting wider coverage. I enjoy listening to podcasts when I go for a walk. If you enjoy podcasts, be sure to get this interview by Terry Gross.

Although the citizens (or we the people) are theoretically in charge, the people we elect to represent us and govern are too busy posturing and refuse to compromise and so are unable to govern and solve our country’s problems. We have given too much power to the 2 major political parties.

The parties control our elections and limit our choices, determine what laws are come up for a vote and how our representatives will vote. The votes will be in the interests of the party leaders, rather than the people.

The NPR website has highlights of the interviews as well as comments on the interview and the roles of parties in our dysfunctional system.

Is this anyway to run a democracy?

Just the facts

Just the facts

Posted on by Jack

Since this is shaping up to be a very negative campaign, you might want to check out some of the very questionable facts in the political ads. Two of my favorites sites for this are Politifact and FactCheck.org.

I especially like Politifact’s “Pants-on-Fire” section which explores some of the biggest whoppers.

Parties or People

Parties or People

Posted on by Jack

We the people are theoretically in charge yet the people we elect are busy posturing and refuse to compromise and so are unable to govern and solve our country’s problems.  The obvious conclusion is that there is just too much partisanship.

Nearly everyone would agree with that but very few have any ideas about fixing the problem

Mickey Edwards expressed these ideas and suggested a few solutions in the  Atlantic .

Then he expanded these ideas into a book, The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.  Mickey Edwards had been a congressman and then a professor of government so he knows what he is talking about. 

The overriding theme is that we have given up too much of our control to the 2 major political parties.   This is done on several levels. 

Parties limit our choices to a few candidates.  This is particularly true in states where ballot access is limited and/or primaries are open only to members of a political party.

Once one of these candidates is “in”, he or she is then beholden to the party for both current power in office (example committee assignments in Congress) and the chance to be re-elected.

Pennsylvania parties and independents

Pennsylvania parties and independents

Posted on by Jack

Apparently the concept of the independent voters or candidates hasn’t quite made it to Pennsylvania. The parties do have lock on things political here and it is a bit difficult for those of us who choose not to be either Republican or Democrat.

A short article by Anthony R. Wood in the Philadelphia Inquirer of August 7 begins this way –

When Jim Foster showed up with his 125-page petition to run for Congress against Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), state elections officials rejected his signatures on the ground that another member of his party already had a candidate.

Since Foster doesn’t belong to a party, he was flabbergasted. He was filing as an “independent.”

There was already an “Independent” who had qualified the day before and the state would not allow 2 people from the same or similarly named parties to run in the same race lest the voters be confused. Apparently the Department of State of Pennsylvania cannot fathom that “independent” and “Independent” are not 2 parties with similar names but rather individuals who are not part of a party.

There is more to the story than I will discuss here so if you have an interest in Pennsylvania politics you might find it worth reading.

But for this story, the main point is that it went to court. And a follow-up story, gave us a bit more on this.

Most people would think it fairly obvious that “independent” and “Independent” are not 2 parties with similar names but the law seems to lack a certain degree of common sense at times. Unfortunately, this is one of those times.

The court did find that Mr. Foster could run but could not be an independent. He would have to identify with a made up party such as the “Philadelphia Party”. But if the first filer for the “Independent” slot was disqualified, Mr. Foster could be the “Independent” candidate. A mixed and rather absurd result in my opinion but then I can think about it logically rather than in terms of Pennsylvania law.

Presidential Politics – a moderate Republican view and new blog

Presidential Politics – a moderate Republican view and new blog

Posted on by Jack

I just ran across an interesting blog post called Why I am an Obama Republican . This seems to be a relatively new Blog and may be worth a look if you are interested in a moderate republican view of presidential politics.

Political ads

Political ads

Posted on by Jack

I’m not sure if it is the Philadelphia market or that I’ve just been lucky because I haven’t watched that much TV lately. I was watching more in the spring and I did see a large number of ads on TV and most were negative. During the Republican primary season, they seemed to be mostly negative ads either for against Mitt Romney. Ane then they were about the Presdential race but either Romney against Obama or Obama against Romney and largely negative.

But last night there was an Obama ad on while I was watching the Olympics and it seemed very positive as compared to what I had been seeing. The President seemed to be drawing a sharp contrast between Mitt Romney’s economic ideas and his, and telling the voters they had an important choice to make. Of course, in 1 minute (or maybe it was less), you cannot go into too much depth. And you can’t really expect either side to be very positive about the opposition ideas. But still, it may be the start of a reasonable discussion.

Can we look forward to a serious discussion of the issues ?