A first(?) thread on 2008: McCain,Giuliani & the Republicans

The Plutocrats v.
The Theocrats

As the primaries (finally) approach, it is increasingly apparent that the real GOP battle is between the business wing and the social conservative wing of the party. Is the real showdown going to be over the future of the GOP?

Paul Waldman | December 13, 2007

After months of tedium and mindless chest-thumping, the race for the Republican presidential nomination finally got interesting over the last couple of weeks. And the way it did so highlights the fundamental rift threatening the future of the GOP: the divide between the party's corporate/anti-tax wing, which includes the people who write the checks, and its social conservative wing, which includes the people who get bodies to the polls. It's the plutocrats versus the theocrats, and at the moment it's hard to tell who's going to win.

Try to imagine the combination of pain and dread now covering the Mitt Romney campaign like a wet wool blanket. After all the work, after all the enthusiastic pandering, after outspending his opponents by millions, after the months in which he was the only candidate airing ads in Iowa, his support there turned out to be a mile wide and an inch deep. At the first opportunity, the social conservatives whose feet he had kissed with such commitment wandered away from his gleaming campaign and over to that smooth-talking preacher setting up folding chairs in his bare-bones storefront.

It now looks as if a lot of Iowa conservatives were leaning to Romney because they felt that they didn't have much choice. Sure he's a phony, they thought, but what other options do we have? The somnambulant character actor? The cross-dressing New Yorker? As someone recently said, at least Romney was pretending to believe the right things.

But once the media began lavishing attention and praise on Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and televangelist finally became a viable candidate in social conservatives' eyes, and they quickly switched allegiance. Huckabee may not know much about policy, and he may not have any foreign-policy experience, but he's one of their own.

And the plutocrats had such high hopes for Romney, who is truly one of their own: to the American aristocracy born (his father was a corporate CEO and Michigan governor) and with a successful career in business, Romney gives the sense that he plans out his breakfast with a Powerpoint presentation. ("Today's waffles will proactively impact forward-oriented goal actualization while incentivizing value-added synergisms. And there will be syrup.")
...

georgeob1 wrote:

The truth is that at some level of taxation, some tax cuts do indeed stimulate economic activity, yielding an increase in the resulting tax revenues. This, however, is not a proposition that is true for all tax cuts and at all levels of taxation.

Moreover, that level of taxation for which the theory would hold true isnt remotely like anywhere near the level of taxation the US had.

There's this oddly detached quality about the suggestion of some kind of balance and equivalence of arguments that crops up in your posts. The fact is that contrary to the ideologized contentions otherwise of the Republican presidential candidates, the overhwelming consensus among economists is that tax cuts to the level of taxation the US actually has now or had five years ago do not create increased revenues over time, and in fact are extremely costly. Now sure, in the world of alternative possible realities, some levels of taxation exist where tax cuts would have that effect - but none of those resemble current-day America. And yet reading your post one would come away with the impression of some he-said-she-said reasonable balance of opinions, each of reasonable merit in equivalent ways.

The question at hand is concrete enough. The assertion is that the tax cuts that were implemented in the US in these last years did not yield increased revenues, but will in fact be costing a great deal of money - even exceeding the costs of the more expensive government programs. Now either you accept that, or you disagree and propose a counter-argument. But instead, what you do is neither accept nor reject the argument at hand, but instead expound on how the theory of tax cuts yielding increased revenues does work at some levels of taxations - hypothetical levels perhaps, or levels as exist elsewhere. Still without having addressed the question of the effect the actual tax cuts had as they were implemented in the US, but having created the impression that it's all very nuanced and balanced, you then pivot the argument away to the topic of wasteful government spending instead. Also bad, for sure, but a red herring here as it has little relevance to the subject of the costs the tax cuts have had.

It all sounds very high-minded and wise, but its effect is purely apologetic; serving merely to obfuscate the fact-check at hand and quickly change the topic.

Well I made no attempt to delve into the details, which are more complex than even you infer. Instead I pointed out the falsehoods implicit in the bland assertions that tax cuts don't spur economic development.

With respect to the Bush tax cuts, I believe they should have been accompanied by greater restraint on public spending than occurred. In short I reject your implication that the issue is one-dimensional, involving only the current level of taxation. In fact it is multi-dimensionsl involving issues ranging from the current level of taxation to government spending, to the degree to which labor and capital markets are regulated by the generally dead hand of government and many others.

America needs a leader. I am running for President of the United States because I believe that I can lead America into a new era …with bold leadership, optimism, determination, and distinctly American solutions.

If you are looking for perfection, you are not going to find it. Not in me and not in any candidate. But if you are looking for a leader who has been tested in times of crisis. … A leader who is ready to lead right now. … A leader who has achieved results - results that some people thought were impossible - a leader who believes that there is no problem too serious for American solutions and a free, American spirit … I believe I am that leader.

Some people look at the challenges we face as a nation and they fear the future

I welcome it.

I welcome the opportunity to defeat the Islamic terrorists who are at war with us because of our freedoms.

I welcome the opportunity to restore fiscal discipline to Washington D.C. while we empower millions of people to move out of poverty and achieve the American dream

And I welcome the opportunity to win this election…leading a revitalized, 50-state Republican Party into the White House.

As I travel across our country, I've begun to hear a murmur that somehow America has lost its ability to achieve great goals

Some good people have come to believe that our country is on the wrong track. Middle Class families feel that the American Dream may be slipping away - they're worried the future might not be as bright as the past.

It does not have to be that way. We can decide America's direction. We determine America's future. That's what an election is all about.

We're at war. The American people want to see victory in Iraq and Afghanistan - not humiliation and defeat. They want their children to live free from the fear of Islamic Terrorism. They're telling us: Get it done. And we will.

Washington's culture of wasteful spending is out of control. The American people want to see real fiscal discipline. They're telling us: Get it done. And we will.

Americans have heard presidents talk about energy independence for three decades. Now they are paying more at the pump and seeing their money flow into the hands of our enemies. They're telling us: Get it done. And we will.

The American people are angry that the federal government has failed to secure our border. They want to see legal immigration reconnected with Americanization. They're telling us: Get it done. And we will.

What America needs in 2008 is a proven leader who will get things done.

I believe in the strength and wisdom of the American people.

Look at our history and you'll see why.

Because no matter when or how your ancestors came to our country, we are all the proud descendants of pioneers and patriots.

Their optimistic American spirit…the defiant determination to do what some consider impossible - that is our greatest inheritance.

Island tax havens factor into Romney's business success

Quote:

Island tax havens factor into Romney's business success

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mittoffshore17dec17,0,6296455.story?coll=la-home-center

WASHBURN: Governor Romney, I'd like you to address this first.

You'll have one minute.

Are there programs or situations that are so important that you'd be willing to run a deficit to pay for them?

ROMNEY: Well, we don't have to run a deficit to pay for the things that are most important, because we can eliminate the things that aren't critical.

On the private sector, where I spent the first 25 years of my life and most of my career, you learn how to focus on the things that are most important and you get rid of the things that aren't.

I was just reading the Republican debate transcript, this crystallized a bit something I had already been thinking re: Romney's business background:

Quote:

WASHBURN: Governor Romney, I'd like you to address this first.

You'll have one minute.

Are there programs or situations that are so important that you'd be willing to run a deficit to pay for them?

ROMNEY: Well, we don't have to run a deficit to pay for the things that are most important, because we can eliminate the things that aren't critical.

On the private sector, where I spent the first 25 years of my life and most of my career, you learn how to focus on the things that are most important and you get rid of the things that aren't.

This is business thinking. I know, I've done it. Efficiency, making things work.

But when one of my employees consistently did their job terribly, I fired them. I didn't -- couldn't -- worry too much about whether they had enough food to eat, or whether they had health care. My business was important, and I had to take a greater-good approach to things. If this one person suffered financial hardship because they were fired, that was definitely sad and I felt bad about it -- but if I kept letting them work for me when they were doing a lousy job, that directly impacted a whole bunch of other people. People whose financial situations were also precarious -- much more so, in many cases -- and who needed the help of someone who wasn't messing things up.

So I fired them, hired someone better, and kept my attention on my business.

You can't do that on the scale of an entire country. You have to worry about every last person. If you just structure the entire country for maximum efficiency, a whole lot of people are going to be left out in the cold, and that's not what we're supposed to be about.

Sozobe, so you would continue inefficient and useless programs and make the taxpayers pay for them, solely to provide jobs for the government employees doing them?

Sozobe, so you would continue inefficient and useless programs and make the taxpayers pay for them, solely to provide jobs for the government employees doing them?

So you don't believe there is any waste in government or inefficient programs?