Saturday, August 25, 2012 8:59:06 AM
Fox News To Ryan: Your Budget Will Be An Issue In This Campaign
more at foxnews.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPSXkmadapU
--
Breaking Down Paul Ryan's Fox News Interview With Brit Hume
Was Congressman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's 2012 Vice Presidential running mate, prepared for his Fox News interview with Brit Hume? How did he answer questions about Medicare, Social Security, and the federal budget deficit? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-brit-hume-praised-on-msnbc-for-exposing-paul-ryans-medicare-lie/
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/15/we-havent-run-the-numbers-a-startling-ryan-admi/189369
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQohUKieSEE
--
Paul Ryan Pretends Ayn Rand Not His Idol
"Paul Ryan, the budget plan-toting and P90Xing representative from Wisconsin, was recently chosen by Mitt Romney as his running mate on the Republican ticket, yet a hatred for big government and love of washboard abs aren't the only things he feels strongly about. Ryan has had a life-long fascination and appreciation of Ayn Rand, author of philosophical novels like "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." Recently, as Ryan has risen in national prominence, he's taken to distancing himself from the libertarian hero; despite that, his current position is in fierce contradiction with fairly recent statements of praise for the Russian-born author...".* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here from Kate Sullivan: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/08/veep-nominee-paul-ryan-renounces-former-fascination-with-ayn-rand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMdTD7rqT9Y
--
Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand ." That's freshly minted GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan talking -- statements he would eventually recant -- at a party celebrating what would have been the prolific author's 100th birthday...".* Did Rand, a libertarian darling, idolize serial killer Walter Edward Hickman? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here from Jan Frel in Alternet.org: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/paul-ryans-biggest-influence-10-things-you-should-know-about-lunatic-ayn-rand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fojrlX6rmmM
--
Paul Ryan Rejects Ayn Rand In Face Of Catholic Criticism
Via Talking Points Memo: "Under fire from the powerful U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for writing a budget that cuts deeply into programs that help the needy, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) defended his vision in a Thursday speech at Georgetown University...In a sign that the criticism bruised Ryan, he proceeded to label his well-documented affinity for Rand an "urban legend" in an interview with National Review published Thursday, saying he rejects her "atheist philosophy." He did not, however, comment on Rand's anti-government views that more closely reflect his political philosophy...".* Ben Mankiewicz and Michael Shure (host of TwenTYTwelve) discuss on The Young Turks.
*Read more from Sahil Kapur: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/paul-ryan-catholic-bishops-ayn-rand.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvvIEXQlQhc
--
Paul Ryan on balancing the budget
Paul Ryan answers "Why does your budget take so long to balance?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ8HlHT_Lxk
--
Rep. Paul Ryan Unveils Budget Plan With $6.2 Trillion in Cuts
House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan unveiled a budget plan that will cut $6.2 trillion in spending. Ryan says the nation's "fiscal trajectory is simply not sustainable" and that President Obama's budget proposal accelerates the fall of the United States into a debt crisis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAxIDqkebzk
--
Paul Ryan Called Stimulus Wasteful, Then Sought Funds
08/15/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/paul-ryan-stimulus_n_1779003.html [with comments] [this AP piece just one of many pieces out there providing documented detail on this point]
--
Paul Ryan Defended Stimulus -- When George W. Bush Wanted It In 2002 (VIDEO)
08/19/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/19/paul-ryan-bush-stimulus_n_1803761.html [with a couple embedded videos including the promised one, and comments]
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78638491 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78667153 and following
===
Beware a Beautiful Calm
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 18, 2012
WASHINGTON
WHAT happens when you realize you are the machine you’re raging against?
Tom Morello, the Grammy-winning, Harvard-educated guitarist for the metal rap band Rage Against the Machine, punctured Paul Ryan’s pretensions to cool in a Rolling Stone essay rejecting R&R (Romney ’n’ Ryan) as R&R (rock ’n’ roll).
“He is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades,” Morello writes, adding: “I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta ‘rage’ in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically, the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.”
In my experience, when a presidential candidate needs some outside force to animate him — Michael Dukakis needed Kitty, Bob Dole needed C-Span, Willard needs Paul — it spells doom.
The fresh Gen X vice-presidential contender — like Sarah Palin, he favors the exclamation “awesome” — has had mixed reviews in his debutante cotillion.
Howard Fineman wrote in The Huffington Post that “Ryan turns out, upon closer inspection, not to be a purifying ideologue, but rather a young, power-hungry, ladder-climbing trimmer.” The self-styled deficit cutter backed W.’s deficit-exploding agenda, and the tut-tutting critic of the Obama stimulus grabbed for the president’s stimulus money.
Neocons and Tea Partyers, however, continued to rhapsodize. Grover Norquist told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Ryan would be the Dick Cheney of economic and tax policy. And that’s a compliment.
The comparison is apt. Ryan looks like a bonus Romney son, as Dan Quayle did with Bush senior. Republicans find the tableau of two rich white guys — same shirts, different generations — comforting. With W. and Cheney, the usual order switched and the vice-presidential candidate played the role of surrogate dad.
Where Ryan is like Cheney is in tone: at first blush, the Wisconsin congressman emanates a thoughtful, reassuring reasonableness, talking to reporters and sometimes Democratic lawmakers. Cheney’s deep voice, like the headmaster of a boys’ prep school, seemed moderate and measured, too, at first. But it is deceptive. Both men are way, way out there.
It is, to use a phrase coined by French doctors, la belle indifférence, or “the beautiful calm” of hysterical people. But the closer you look, the uglier it gets.
Just as Cheney, hunter of small birds and old friends, once defended cop-killer bullets and plastic guns that could slip through airport metal detectors, so Ryan, deer hunter, championed concealed guns and curtailing the background check waiting period from three days to one.
Just as Cheney was always willing to cough up money to guerrillas in Nicaragua and Angola but not to poor women whose lives were endangered by their pregnancies, so Ryan helped pay for W.’s endless wars while pushing endless anti-abortion bills, like one undercutting an exemption from the ban on using federal money for abortions in cases of rape or incest, and narrowing the definition of rape to “forcible rape.”
What on earth is nonforcible rape? It’s like saying nonlethal murder. Why redefine acts of aggression against women as non-acts of aggression?
Even Catholic bishops, who had to be dragged toward compassion in the pedophilia scandal, were dismayed at how uncompassionate Ryan’s budget was.
Mitt Romney expects his running mate to help deliver the Catholic vote and smooth over any discomfort among Catholics about Mormonism. (This is the first major-party ticket to go Protestant-less.) Yet after Ryan claimed his budget was shaped by his faith, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops deemed it immoral.
“A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons,” the bishops wrote in a letter to Congress.
The Jesuits were even more tart, with one group writing to Ryan that “Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The nuns-on-the-bus also rapped the knuckles of the former altar boy who now takes his three kids to Mass. As Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the Catholic social justice group Network, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, it’s sad that a Catholic doesn’t understand that “we need to have each other’s backs. Only wealthy people can ever begin to pretend that they can live in a gated community all by themselves.”
Even Ryan’s former parish priest in Janesville weighed in. Father Stephen Umhoefer told the Center for Media and Democracy, “You can’t tell somebody that in 10 years your economic situation is going to be just wonderful because meanwhile your kids may starve to death.”
Beyond the even-keeled Ryan mien lurks full-tilt virulence. A moderate demeanor is not a sign of a moderate view of the world.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/dowd-beware-a-beautiful-calm.html
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78665785 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78695949 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78791291 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78791298 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78872379 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78696026 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78671795 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78745448 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78741374 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78897941 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78908144 (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78911755 and following
===
"Embarrassed" Romney Adviser Doesn't Know When Romney's Budget Balances
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/17/708191/analysis-paul-ryan-votes-deficit/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9xpIqI2d5w
--
Top Romney Adviser Ed Gillespie: Romney 'Would Have Signed' Ryan's Budget
As Mitt Romney's campaign was trying to distance itself from his running mate's proposed budget on Sunday, senior adviser Ed Gillespie admitted that the candidate "would have signed" Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) controversial plan.
After the Republican presidential hopeful on Saturday announced that he had selected Ryan as the vice presidential nominee, CNN obtained a campaign memo that sought to distinguish Romney's policies from Ryan's budget proposal.
"Gov. Romney applauds Paul Ryan for going in the right direction with his budget, and as president he will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance," the memo said.
In a briefing to reporters on Sunday, campaign spokesman Kevin Madden tried to prevent the race from turning into a referendum on Ryan.
"Gov. Romney is at the top of the ticket," Madden insisted. "And Governor Romney's vision for the country is something that Congressman Ryan supports."
But in a Sunday morning appearance on CNN, Gillespie was forced to admit that Romney supported Ryan's budget and would have signed it into law.
"Well, as Governor Romney has made clear, if the Romney -- sorry, if the Ryan budget had come to his desk as president, he would have signed it, of course," Gillespie told CNN's Candy Crowley. "And one of the reasons that he chose Congressman Ryan is his willingness to put forward innovative solutions in the budget."
Meanwhile, Democrats like Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod were calling the Ryan budget a "prescription for economic catastrophe" because it would turn Medicare into a voucher system while giving tax breaks to wealthy Americans.
"This was a guy who rubber stamped every aspect of the Bush economic policy, including not paying for two wars, a Medicare prescription plan, two big tax cuts," Axelrod told ABC's David Gregory on Sunday. "And now he wants trillions of dollars of more budget-busting tax cuts skewed to the wealthy."
"He's the guy who's the architect of a plan to end Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program and ship thousands of dollars of costs onto senior citizens," the senior Obama adviser added on ABC's This Week. "He's someone who was the architect of a Social Security privatization scheme that was so out there that even George Bush called it irresponsible, and he believes that we should ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOTM4oqZmtQ
--
(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78628097 and following
===
Does Paul Ryan Know What’s in His Budget?
By Dean Baker
Fri, Aug 17, 2012 2:56 PM EDT
If the news media had to work for a living, this is what they would all be asking right now. The reason is simple. The projections the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) made for Representative Ryan's budget imply that he literally wants to shut down the federal government.
His budget implies that after three decades the federal government will have no money to spend on health research, education, highways, airports, and other infrastructure, the Food and Drug Administration and most other activities that we associate with the federal government. His budget has money for Social Security, Medicare and other health programs and the Defense Department. That's it.
Numbers Don't Lie
This is not a vicious anti-Ryan attack coming from hyper-partisan Democrats. This is what the analysis [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-20-Ryan_Specified_Paths_2.pdf ] of his budget by the non-partisan CBO shows. It's right there in the fifth row of Table 2.
The table shows that in 2040, Representative Ryan would allot an amount equal to 4.75 percent of GDP to all these other areas of government including defense spending. By 2050, Ryan's allocation for these areas, including defense, falls to 3.75 percent of GDP.
The defense budget is currently a bit over 4.0 percent of GDP. Ryan has indicated that he would like to maintain or even increase this level of spending. The arithmetic is then straightforward. In 2040, Ryan would leave less than 0.75 percent of GDP for areas of spending that currently require more than five times this amount. In 2050, all these areas of spending would literally have to be zeroed out as defense spending will take up every cent and more that Ryan has left in his budget.
In CBO We Trust
It is important to understand that CBO tried to accurately present the implications of the budget that Representative Ryan gave them. CBO works for Congress. These are career civil servants. They cannot be easily fired, but if CBO's staff deliberately misrepresented a budget proposal from a powerful member of Congress like Paul Ryan, that is the sort of thing that could get them put out on the street.
The way CBO would typically analyze a proposal is that they would sit down with Representative Ryan and his staff and determine as closely as possible the outlines of the budget he is proposing. They would then produce projections which would be shown to Ryan and his staff to ensure that they had accurately represented his proposed budget. CBO would only publish a document with these projections after Representative Ryan and his staff had a chance to review them and agreed that they had accurately represented his proposal.
This means that there can be no accident here. CBO did not blindside Representative Ryan with a half-baked analysis they did in the middle of the night. We can safely assume that the projections from CBO do in fact represent the budget proposal as presented to them by Representative Ryan and his staff.
Is He Serious?
This leaves the obvious question. Is he serious? Does Representative Ryan really think it is a good idea to end the federal government's role in building and maintaining infrastructure, in financing education, in funding basic research in health care and other areas, in maintaining our national parks, federal courts, the FBI? His budget says that this is what he thinks, since these services will not be provided for free (FBI agents expect to get paid), but it is difficult to believe that a politician running for national office would really want to eliminate most of the government.
Anyhow, this is the most basic question that reporters should be asking Representative Ryan now that Governor Romney has selected him as his vice presidential candidate. We know that they all have to run stories about his high school friends and his college courses, but the public has a right to know where he stands on the policy issues that he has put at the center of his political agenda.
If reporters do their job, they have a simple question to put to Mr. Ryan. "Your budget would put an end to everything the government does, except for Social Security, health care and defense. Is this really what you want to do?"
Dean Baker is an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research [ http://www.cepr.net/ ]. He has written extensively on a wide range of topics, including the housing bubble. His most recent book is The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive (free download available here [ http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism ]).
*
For more from Dean Baker, check out his recent appearance on The Daily Ticker [video embedded].
*
Copyright © 2012 Yahoo! Inc.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/baker-does-paul-ryan-know-budget-185617687.html [with comments]
===
Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand's Ideas: In The Hot Seat Again
by The Atlas Society
Apr 30, 2012
Last Thursday and Friday a flurry of news stories [ http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&btnmeta_news_search=1&q=paul+ryan+ayn+rand&oq=paul+ryan+ayn+rand&aq=f&aqi=d2&aql=&gs_nf=1 ] appeared addressing—again—the link between Rep. Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand’s ideas. The new stories and blog posts were in response to a National Review article (“Ryan Shrugged [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/297023/ryan-shrugged-robert-costa ]”) which seemed to characterize as “urban legend” not only the idea that Paul Ryan is an Objectivist (he’s never indicated that he is), that he embraces an Objectivist epistemology (he’s never said that he does), but also that he is a devotee of Ayn Rand, and that he requires that his staff read Atlas Shrugged. (See National Review's "Ryan Isn't a Randian [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/295806/ryan-isn-t-randian-brian-bolduc ]" for more along these lines.)
In their responses to the National Review article, Elspeth Reeve at The Atlantic Wire [ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/04/how-tell-paul-ryan-wants-be-veep-hes-rejected-his-former-idol-ayn-rand/51605/ ] and Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution [ http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2012/04/27/paul-ryan-erases-ayn-rand-from-the-picture/ ] were among those who quoted a sentence or two (circulating for some time on the Internet) spoken by Ryan in a speech he made at a 2005 Atlas Society event. We’re now releasing the full audio of Ryan’s speech, made at our “Celebration of Ayn Rand” event (photo above).
Scroll to bottom for audio file. [audio of Ryan's complete speech embedded at the end of the piece]
(Rep. Ryan is introduced by The Atlas Society's Ed Hudgins, director of advocacy.)
Some exerpts from the audio (with minute and second markers):
(1:45) I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand [ http://www.atlassociety.org/ayn_rand ] and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people..you know everybody does their soul-searching, and trying to find out who they are and what they believe, and you learn about yourself.
(2:01) I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged [ http://www.atlassociety.org/atlas-shrugged ]. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead [ http://www.atlassociety.org/ayn_rand_fountainhead ] then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.
(2:23) But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.
(2:38) In almost every fight we are involved in here, on Capitol Hill, whether it’s an amendment vote that I’ll take later on this afternoon, or a big piece of policy we’re putting through our Ways and Means Committee, it is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict: individualism vs. collectivism.
(2:54) And so when you take a look at where we are today, ah, some would say we’re on offense, some would say we’re on defense, I’d say it’s a little bit of both. And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.
(3: 21) It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are. I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech (at Bill Taggart’s wedding) on money when I think about monetary policy. And then I go to the 64-page John Galt speech, you know, on the radio at the end, and go back to a lot of other things that she did, to try and make sure that I can check my premises so that I know that what I’m believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism…
(6:53) Is this an easy fight? Absolutely not…But if we’re going to actually win this we need to make sure that we’re solid on premises, that our principles are well-defended, and if we want to go and articulately defend these principles and what they mean to our society, what they mean for the trends that we set internationally, we have to go back to Ayn Rand. Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.
[audio of Ryan's complete 2005 Atlas Society speech embedded]
©2012 The Atlas Society
http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan Doesn't Follow Ayn Rand on Civil Liberties
Ben Adler on August 15, 2012 - 6:11 PM ET
Throughout his career Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proudly touted the influence of philosopher Ayn Rand on his political beliefs. Rand’s most devoted followers are returning the favor. “I think the announcement is great news,” Aaron Day, the CEO of the Atlas Society, an organization dedicated to promoting Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, told POLITICO [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79612.html ] in an email. “The influence of Rand on Ryan as it relates to the role and nature of government is a huge step forward for the liberty movement. Ryan highlighted the principles of liberty, freedom, free enterprise, and self-determination (all consistent with Ayn Rand’s philosophy).”
This, alas, is false. It is true that Ryan, like his mentor Jack Kemp, subscribes to Rand’s heartless belief in refusing to aid the less fortunate. But Ryan does not share any of Rand’s commitments to freedom, other than the freedom to be selfish.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a report [ http://www.aclulibertywatch.org/files/vp-report-card.pdf ] on the Republican vice-presidential contenders. Ryan’s record is just as bad as the others’, and his running mate’s. Writing in the Huffington Post, ACLU president Anthony Romero observed [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/protect-life-act-passes-house-of-representatives_n_1009876.html ], “There’s no constitutional daylight between Ryan’s civil liberties positions and Romney’s and that means a pall of darkness over our Constitution and the rights it guarantees.”
Here are some examples:
-§ Immigration: Libertarians believe in open borders, but Paul Ryan doesn’t. Ryan opposes the DREAM Act and he voted in favor of building a fence along the US border with Mexico.
-§ Gay rights: Ryan has voted in favor of amending the US Constitution to ban gay marriage. He supported banning gay marriage in Wisconsin and opposed letting gay soldiers serve openly in the military. It is impossible to support individual freedom and limited government while trying to amend the Constitution to take away the rights of consenting adults to marry the person they love, and to take away the rights of more civilized states to recognize such unions.
-§ Reproductive rights: Ryan has all the usual right-wing positions on abortion. He has voted to ban federal funding of abortions and even for training healthcare providers in abortion care. He also opposes requiring insurers to provide coverage for contraception. One could justify that on libertarian grounds by arguing that granting the freedom to get an abortion or obtain contraception is not the same as requiring companies or taxpayers to pay for it. But some of his positions are indefensible. For example, Ryan has voted to ban abortion in Washington, DC. The notion that Wisconsites in Congress should tell the more progressive citizens of DC how to live their private lives is the epitome of heavy-handed federal authoritarianism. Ryan also co-sponsored the “Protect Life Act” which would trample on states’ rights and individual economic liberty by preventing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/protect-life-act-passes-house-of-representatives_n_1009876.html ] women from using their own money to buy an insurance plan that covers abortion on state exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.
-§ Voting Rights: Ryan supports [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsCdw7pXJYU ] laws that require voters to show photo identification. This imposition on the constitutional right of every citizen to cast a ballot could disenfranchise millions of low-income Americans, amounting a modern-day poll tax.
Reporters and pundits are raising [ http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/08/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rand.html ] Ryan’s long history of praising Rand and requiring his staffers to read her books. They also note that Ryan has more recently repudiated her, especially her atheism, in an effort to appeal to religious social conservatives. Unfortunately, Ryan has actually never supported many central tenets of libertarianism. Unless it is an excuse to support a policy benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the poor, Ryan has no interest in individual liberty.
Copyright © 2012 The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169412/paul-ryan-doesnt-follow-ayn-rand-civil-liberties [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan-Sponsored Bahrain Trade Agreement Under Scrutiny Amid Crackdowns
Paul Ryan, who championed the U.S. trade agreement with Bahrain.
By Joshua Hersh and Zach Carter
Posted: 08/20/2012 7:46 pm Updated: 08/21/2012 11:28 am
WASHINGTON -- A spate of anti-democratic actions in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain have turned an unflattering spotlight on a six-year-old U.S. free trade agreement sponsored and promoted by Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice president.
Ryan was the House GOP point man for the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement [ http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/archives/2004/march/zoellick-joins-launching-us-bahrain-fta-con ], which Congress passed by a wide margin in 2005. By finalizing the deal, Bahrain landed the biggest prize in global economics: unfettered access to American consumers, the largest market in the world.
In return, the oil-rich kingdom agreed to reform labor practices and improve conditions for workers. Ryan and foreign policy leaders said they hoped an economic relationship would help stabilize the Middle East by spurring democratic reforms and improving the region's human rights record. The 9/11 Commission also said trade deals may improve counter-terrorism [ http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch12.pdf ] operations in Bahrain.
"It's the carrot approach," Ryan said in 2009, explaining a positive way to encourage a change in behavior, rather than relying exclusively on punitive or military measures. "This is a way to help expand democratic capitalism, because through each of these trade agreements we require things like the rule of law and forcible contracts, women's rights, advancements towards openness, transparency and democracy."
But the hoped-for reforms never materialized. And rather than help change Bahrain for the better, the trade pact is making it difficult for the U.S. to discourage recent misbehavior.
In recent years, Bahrain has repeatedly resorted to brutal tactics to put down a democratic uprising in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring. Numerous accounts said the regime imprisoned and tortured doctors [ http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/2011/08/201184144547798162.html/ ] who had treated protesters.
Last week, Nabeel Rajab, one of Bahrain's leading political opposition figures, was sentenced to three years in prison [ http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/bahrain-sentences-activist-to-3-years-in-prison-for-inciting-protests/ ] for supposedly "inciting" protest by using Twitter.
The trade pact with Bahrain not only took a powerful economic carrot off the foreign policy table, it also eliminated a critical economic stick. Any economic sanctions that the U.S. might seek to impose on Bahrain would violate the terms of the trade deal.
"We know that free trade agreements lead to offshoring and job loss to the detriment of middle-class American families," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) "What may be less known by the American public is that these agreements, supported by the Romney-Ryan ticket, allow global institutions to impede our ability to exert economic leverage over nations with whom we sign FTAs when they do not play by the rules, or act against U.S. interest. In the case of Bahrain, rather than any move toward democracy, we are witnessing gross human rights abuses, including against workers' rights, with little leverage to change the regime’s behavior."
Ryan declined to comment.
Breaking the deal and imposing economic sanctions for Bahrain, ironically, could subject the U.S. to retaliatory trade sanctions.
"A lot of times people just say, 'Free trade breeds democracy, we don't have to worry about it beyond that.' And our view is, Where is the evidence for that?" said Celeste Drake, an international trade specialist at the AFL-CIO, which fought the Bahrain deal -- as it does most free-trade agreements -- and still opposes it. "Often all you've done is limited the scope of the how you can try to persuade a country to change its ways."
Organized labor has been particularly aggrieved with the Bahrain free-trade agreement. A labor dispute filed last year by the AFL-CIO and others accused the kingdom of violating the labor protections of the Bahrain free-trade deal.
In a recent hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on Bahrain, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was among those concerned that the trade deal may grant too much support to a regime that has not lived up to its human rights obligations. Wyden's criticism is notable in light of his close relationship with Ryan. The two have co-authored a Medicare reform proposal, and are well known in Washington for their mutual affinity.
"I have always felt that expanded trade can be a great force for progress as one of the tools for real social progress and improving the quality of life of people," Wyden said. "But free trade cannot mean trade free from honoring commitments, and I am concerned that Bahrain's labor commitments pursuant to the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement have not been fully implemented."
The Obama administration has been reluctant to use any foreign policy tools -- trade or otherwise -- against Bahrain. Labor and human rights activists said they believe the U.S. Department of Labor has completed a months-long investigation in the claims against the trade agreement, and sent a letter [ http://pomed.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FTA-Letter-Bahrain.pdf ] last week to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis urging her to release the report -- and to nullify the free-trade deal.
"Serious and escalating violence and violations of human and labor rights continue in Bahrain," the letter to Solis concluded. "We believe this lack of progress risks sending a signal to both Bahraini civil society and to the Bahraini government that the U.S. government is not serious about the promotion of human and labor rights in Bahrain."
The Labor Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Huffington Post. When she was a member of Congress, Solis voted against the Bahrain agreement, as did current Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.
Some congressional Democrats are now voicing concerns about the deal. "One of the reasons I and many of my Democratic colleagues opposed the U.S.-Bahrain FTA was our fear that Bahrain would not live up to its commitments to protect workers enshrined in that agreement," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). "Unfortunately, these concerns were clearly warranted in light of the multi-year campaign of violence against trade unionists and the repression of peaceful protests. In my view, Bahrain has clearly violated the labor rights provision of the trade agreement."
The flaws with the Bahrain deal were evident to organized labor and other groups when the agreement was inked. When nations trade with an unstable or abusive regime, they sometimes include specific terms in trade agreements nullifying provisions in the event of a coup or a human rights crackdown.
But as the AFL-CIO's Drake pointed out, the labor provisions in the Bahrain deal were weak, with generalizations and unenforceable pledges that both countries would "strive to ensure" certain working standards.
Not all pro-democracy advocates see the Bahrain free-trade agreement in itself as an obstacle to democracy. The irony that a Labor Department investigation would never have happened without the deal is not lost on them. But they said the agreement's value is largely dependent on whether these provisions are actually enforced.
"The sentiment we're hearing from the activists isn't that FTA is bad, actually quite the opposite," said Cole Bockenfeld, the director of advocacy on the Project on Middle East Democracy, where he has worked extensively with Bahraini rights groups. "They realize how important it is to get the economy independent from the hard-liners in the government, and that is helped by FTA. But the problem people have with it is that it's leverage the U.S. has that they aren't using."
"There’s no point in having the leverage of the FTA unless it’s being used," added Brian Dooley, a Bahrain advocate at Human Rights First. "If we see the FTA as a point of engagement for the U.S. government to press the Bahrain regime on reform, then it has to use it. Progress has been glacial or non-existent."
Members of Congress are traditionally far more concerned with the domestic economic effects of trade deals than the foreign policy implications. The Bahrain pact came up for a vote at a time when Congress was also considering the much larger Central American Free Trade Agreement, which had more serious implications for U.S. jobs, especially in the textile industry. Many members of Congress who voted against CAFTA voted in favor of the Bahrain deal in order to appease the trade-friendly U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which backed both agreements. Only 95 members of the House voted against the Bahrain deal, including 13 Republicans.
The pact passed the Senate by unanimous consent, when both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were senators.
"I vote against most trade deals because they negatively impact textiles, and I'm from North Carolina," said Rep. Howard Cobell (R-N.C.), who opposed both deals. When asked whether human rights issues had come up at the time, Cobell replied, "That could have been part of it, but I don't remember."
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who was a congressman in 2005 and opposed the trade agreement, said the U.S. "must press Bahrain to abide by core human and labor rights" because it is required by the deal and "because it is the right thing to do."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/paul-ryan-bahrain-trade-agreement_n_1813975.html [with comments]
--
Atlas Spurned
August 14, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/ayn-rand-wouldnt-approve-of-paul-ryan.html [with comments]
--
What did Ayn Rand teach Paul Ryan about monetary policy?
(Adam Jennings — Associated Press)
Posted by Brad Plumer on August 13, 2012 at 11:53 am
In 2005, Paul Ryan explained that he often looks to Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” as inspiration for his views on monetary policy. “I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech, at Bill Taggart’s wedding, on money when I think about monetary policy,” he said [ http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again (above, two items up)] in a speech to the Atlas Society. So what are Ryan’s views on this front? And what do they have to do with Ayn Rand?
Over the past few years, economists and policymakers have been debating whether the Federal Reserve should do more to bolster the economy and bring down the still-high U.S. unemployment rate. True, the central bank has already cut interest rates — its traditional tool for stimulus — as far as possible. But the Fed has shifted to a number of novel tactics, such as quantitative easing, to try to bring down real rates even further and inject more money into the economy.
Paul Ryan has been heavily involved in these debates from his perch in the House. But he comes at monetary policy from a somewhat non-mainstream perspective. Like many other Republicans, he has repeatedly criticized [ http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/usa-campaign-romney-fed-idINL2E8JC57520120813 ] Ben Bernanke’s efforts to stimulate the economy. But he has also gone further, arguing that the Federal Reserve shouldn’t be focused on reducing unemployment, period. And he has argued repeatedly for a “sound money” policy that has left some economists scratching their heads.
Perhaps Ryan’s most unconventional opinion on monetary policy came in the summer of 2010, when he told [ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/what_would_republicans_do_for.html ] Ezra Klein that the Federal Reserve should actually raise interest rates even as the U.S. economy was still struggling: “[T]here’s a lot of capital parked out there, and we need to coax it out into the markets,” he said. “I think literally that if we raised the federal funds rate by a point, it would help push money into the economy, as right now, the safest play is to stay with the federal money and federal paper.”
This is not a common view. Most economists tend to think that raising interest rates will slow the economy down. Here [ http://www.american.com/archive/2007/september-october-magazine-contents/how-the-fed-works/ ], for instance, is Mitt Romney’s economic adviser Kevin Hassett explaining the basics of monetary policy back in 2007: ”When inflation fears are aroused, the Fed increases the fed funds rate (called a ‘tightening’) in order to slow activity in sectors of the economy, such as housing and automobiles, that are particularly sensitive to interest rates.”
As Hassett explains, raising rates is something the Fed does when the economy is overheating and inflation is at elevated levels. Yet, at the moment, inflation doesn’t appear to be the main problem facing the U.S. economy. High unemployment is:
Ryan, however, has been consistent in his view that the Fed should do whatever it takes to fight inflation — and stop trying to fret over the unemployment rate. In 2008, Ryan sponsored a bill [ http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.6053: ] that would repeal the Federal Reserve’s “dual mandate” to tackle both inflation and high unemployment. Instead, under his bill, the Fed would focus only on “price stability.”
To that end, Ryan has roundly criticized Bernanke’s efforts to stimulate the U.S. economy by buying up assets and injecting money into the economy. For instance, one way the Fed’s efforts are thought to work is by reducing the value of the dollar, helping U.S. exports. But Ryan has countered that there is “nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens than debase its currency.” (See this report [ http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/usa-campaign-romney-fed-idINL2E8JC57520120813 ] by Reuters’s Mark Felsenthal for a round-up of Ryan’s criticisms of Bernanke over the years.)
As an alternative approach, Ryan has suggested [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123595257066605147.html ] that the United States should return to “sound money” by anchoring the value of the dollar to, say, the price of a basket of commodities. This isn’t quite a return to the long-abandoned gold standard, but it’s a roughly similar concept. It would prevent the Federal Reserve from boosting the money supply in times of crisis, as the Fed did in 2008. And Ryan’s approach could have other downsides as well. As economist David Beckworth explained here [ http://www.frumforum.com/how-sound-is-ryans-sound-money-plan/ ], if the dollar was pegged to commodities like metals or soybeans, it would be greatly affected by outside forces, such as swings in Chinese demand. “For better or for worse,” he told FrumForum’s Noah Kristula-Green, “the political process can’t allow big swings in the monetary policy by outside forces.”
So what does any of this have to do with Ayn Rand? Over at Slate, Dave Weigel has a longer explanation [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/13/what_paul_ryan_s_ayn_rand_fandom_means_for_monetary_policy.html ] of the parallels between Ryan’s monetary policy and “Atlas Shrugged.” In the passages that Ryan has highlighted, Rand’s characters lament that statists have destroyed all “objective standards” for currency by abandoning the gold standard and boosting the supply of paper money in order to assist the “looters and moochers.” (Franklin Roosevelt abolished the gold standard [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act ] in 1934 in order to fight [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Depression#Gold_standard ] the Great Depression — economists such as Milton Friedman and Bernanke have argued that the gold standard had been making monetary policy unduly contractionary.)
“Now, take all of that and apply it to our current debates about the Federal Reserve,” writes [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/13/what_paul_ryan_s_ayn_rand_fandom_means_for_monetary_policy.html ] Weigel. “I hope it doesn’t surprise you that Ryan, since at least 2008, has wanted the Fed to abandon the employment mandate. He doesn’t say this in a stupid way, like Rick Perry. He says it by citing Ayn Rand.”
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/13/what-did-ayn-rand-teach-paul-ryan-about-monetary-policy/ [with comments]
--
Why Paul Ryan Is A Crank On Monetary Policy
By Jeff Spross on Aug 14, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Following the rise of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to the vice-presidential slot on the Republican ticket, most of the discussion has focused on the content and consequences of the budgets he engineered for the House GOP. But Ryan has also been a vociferous critique of the Federal Reserve and its Chairman Ben Bernanke. Given the Fed’s considerable power [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/17/528891/fed-six-ways-boost-economy/ ] to effect the health of the economy and the level of employment — and its ongoing reticence [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/01/623391/fed-statement-0801/ ] to sufficiently act on that power — it’s worth calling more attention to Ryan’s views on monetary policy, which are every bit as radical as his views on government taxation and spending.
Ryan has repeatedly (and wrongly) predicted inflation. Throughout the recession Ryan reacted to monetary stimulus by repeatedly [ http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-14/romney-ryan-see-fed-qe-as-inflation-risk-amid-low-prices ] warning [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/business/economy/10fed.html ] that inflation is just around the corner [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/01/622641/video-deflating-the-gops-inflation-fear-mongering/ ]. That inflation remains [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/13/516299/chart-fed-fails/ ] at near-historic lows while unemployment has hit near-historic highs has apparently left the vice-presidential nominee undeterred. Ryan even called on the Fed [ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/what_would_republicans_do_for.html ] to raise interest rates to combat this predicted inflation, even though increased rates would add one more drag on the already struggling economy.
Ryan wants to end the dual mandate. In 1978, Congress passed the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which directed the Fed to concern itself equally with keeping prices stable and unemployment low. Ryan sponsored a bill [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/11/paul-ryans-non-budget-policy-record-in-one-post/ ] to repeal Humphrey-Hawkins and direct the Fed to concern itself solely with inflation. This reinforces the point that Ryan wants to put a thumb on the scales in favor of price stability and ignoring the need to lower unemployment. But Ryan’s argument is also based on bad history: As The Atlantic’s Matthew O’Brien notes [ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/forget-paul-ryans-budget-his-scariest-idea-is-about-the-federal-reserve/261066/ ], the period since the passage of Humphrey-Hawkins has been one of both unusually low inflation and unusually low fluctuations in the level of inflation.
Ryan is a hard-money crank. In 2009, Ryan called [ http://www.gop.gov/press-release/09/02/27/rep-paul-ryans-speech ] for the U.S. dollar to be benchmarked to a commodity standard. This is essentially a gold standard, except the gold is replaced by an alternative basket of commodities. It would also carry all of the same problems. It would shackle [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/03/20/448357/bernanke-gold-standard/ ] the Fed’s ability to assist the economy in a recession or depression. It would also drive [ http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/23/302277/the-trouble-with-gold/ ] interest rates up or down depending on how prices of those benchmarked commodities behave, regardless of whether such rate changes make sense in the context of the overall economy.
Ryan’s monetary policy hails from Ayn Rand. ThinkProgress has already reported [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/04/18/159391/truth-about-ayn-rand/ ] on Ryan’s professed infatuation with the radical right-wing novelist, and how her stances have influenced his budget policy — an infatuation he has since tried to disavow [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/04/26/471730/paul-ryan-ayn-rand/ ]. Yesterday, Slate’s Dave Weigel caught a linkage [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/13/what_paul_ryan_s_ayn_rand_fandom_means_for_monetary_policy.html ] between Rand’s writings and Ryan’s monetary views as well. In 2005, Ryan told [ http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again (above, three items up)] the Atlas Society, “I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech, at Bill Taggart’s wedding, on money when I think about monetary policy.” That speech is from Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, and features one of her protagonists praising gold as “objective value,” and condemning paper money as the destruction of value and the tool of “looters.”
As economist Mark Thoma wrote, “I don’t understand why someone with such a clownish views [ http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/08/paul-ryans-nutty-views-on-monetary-policy.html ] is lauded as a policy wonk.” But the Republicans’ presidential candidiate, Mitt Romney, has also shown a good deal of sympathy [ http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-14/romney-ryan-see-fed-qe-as-inflation-risk-amid-low-prices ] with Ryan’s views — views which, as O’Brien dryly notes [ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/forget-paul-ryans-budget-his-scariest-idea-is-about-the-federal-reserve/261066/ ], basically boil down to worrying that “the Federal Reserve will try to bring unemployment down.”
© 2012 Center for American Progress Action Fund
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/14/687301/paul-ryan-monetary-crank/ [with comments]
--
Bernanke Letter Defends Fed Actions
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
Associated Press
By JON HILSENRATH
Updated August 24, 2012, 5:18 p.m. ET
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a letter responding to questions posed by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House oversight committee, defended actions the Fed has taken to support the economy and said there is room for the Fed to do more.
"There is scope for further action by the Federal Reserve to ease financial conditions and strengthen the recovery," Mr. Bernanke wrote in a letter dated Aug. 22, a copy of which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
The Fed's "Operation Twist" program—buying long-term Treasury bonds and selling short-term securities—is still "working its way through the economic system," Mr. Bernanke said. The program was first launched in September 2011 and in June 2012 was extended through the end of this year.
Asked by Mr. Issa if it were premature to consider additional monetary moves, Mr. Bernanke said that "because monetary policy actions operate with a lag," the Fed must make policy "in light of a forecast of the future performance of the economy."
The Fed chairman also said that the Fed's bond-buying of recent years has "helped to promote a stronger recovery than otherwise would have occurred, and to forestall the possibility of a slide into deflation…by putting downward pressure on longer-term interest rates and contributing to broader easing in financial conditions."
The written comments echo remarks that Mr. Bernanke has made to lawmakers and the media. They are notable, in part, because Mr. Bernanke is to deliver a highly anticipated speech on Aug. 31 at a Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in which he could send clearer signals about what new steps the Fed might take.
Minutes of the Fed's July 31-Aug. 1 meeting, released this week, showed the Fed leaning strongly toward actions that could include a new round of bond buying, guidance that interest rates will stay low for even longer than previously thought, or other measures. The Fed next meets Sept. 12 and 13.
In an Aug. 1 letter to the Fed chairman, Mr. Issa raised several issues.
"Of particular concern to me is the persistent drumbeat of highly reputed academics, former government executives, and market participants, who express grave concern with regard to the actions of the Federal Reserve, its apparent use of monetary policy to generate short term solutions, and the resulting risky balance sheet that weakens the Federal Reserve's ability to withstand the next financial crisis."
In reply, Mr. Bernanke sought to allay concerns about potentially damaging consequences of the steps it has taken to date. The Fed, he said, is "keenly attuned to the risks of inflation." He also sought to play down worries that long-term interest rates, now very low, will shoot higher down the road when the Fed does one day start to reduce the size of its bond holdings. The Fed, he said, "will normalize the size of its balance sheet through gradual pre-announced sales in order to ensure that markets have an appropriate amount of time to make adjustments."
The Fed has held off on new action, in part, because officials wanted to see how markets and the economy responded to Operation Twist. One of several options on the table for the Fed's September meeting is for the central bank to replace Operation Twist with an outright bond-buying program.
Copyright ©2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358404577609231770784446.html [with the letter from Bernanke and the letter from Isaa embedded, embedded video, and comments]
--
Romney Wouldn’t Appoint Bernanke to New Fed Term
Aug 23, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-23/romney-says-he-hasn-t-considered-single-person-to-head-fed.html [with comments]
--
Consider keeping Bernanke, top Romney adviser says
Aug 22, 2012
(Reuters) - Ben Bernanke received an unlikely defense of his work at the U.S. Federal Reserve by a top Mitt Romney adviser, who said on Tuesday that he should be considered for a third term as chairman.
Glenn Hubbard, economic adviser to the Republican presidential candidate, said he would advise a possible President Romney that Bernanke should "get every consideration" to stay on beyond January 2014, when the chairman's current term expires.
The comments may come as a surprise given Romney has said he would not reappoint Bernanke beyond 2014. Further, many top Republicans have blasted the Fed's aggressive policies since the Great Recession as overreaching and reckless.
"Ben is a model technocrat. He gets paid nothing for getting kicked around all the time. I think they ought to pat him on the back," Hubbard said in an interview, adding he has known Bernanke since they were "practically kids" and regularly speaks to him.
"I may or may not agree with him, but that's very different from saying I question his motives. I wish politicians would stop doing that," Hubbard told Reuters TV. (Reuters TV interview: http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/08/21/reuters-tv-top-romney-economist-gives-bernanke-high?videoId=237201108&videoChannel=117853 )
The comments from Hubbard - who himself was considered for the Fed chairmanship under former President George W. Bush, who ultimately picked Bernanke - suggests there is at least some support for the head of the U.S. central bank within the Romney camp as it battles to unseat President Barack Obama.
[...]
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-usa-campaign-hubbard-fed-idINBRE87L00P20120822 [no comments yet]
--
Romney Takes His Political Inspiration From Europe's Worst Mistakes
By William K. Black
Posted: 08/15/2012 8:42 am
One of Governor Romney's criticisms of President Obama is that he "takes his political inspiration from Europe...."
Romney never gives specifics on this criticism. The irony is that Romney (and Representative Ryan) "takes his political inspiration from Europe" and that the European policies they embrace have already proven disastrous in Europe. Here are five examples:
1. Austerity. European austerity has promptly forced the Eurozone back into recession. Romney, channeling Germany's Prime Minister Merkel, claims that deficits are "immoral" and must be ended. Austerity is pro-cyclical policy that makes recessions far more severe. It has pushed several European nations into Great Depression levels of unemployment, which has reduced income and tax revenues and increased budget deficits. The EU's Stability and Growth Pact (an oxymoron designed by regular morons) produces instability and negative growth by banning EU nations from using effective counter-cyclical fiscal policies that have proven successful for decades in reducing the severity and length of recessions.
2. Slashing working class wages. Ryan is an implacable opponent of unions and wants to end the minimum wage. Merkel is demanding the repeal of European laws protecting workers and is coercing the periphery to reduce working class wages. Unemployment rates are roughly 25% in Spain and Greece and the unemployment rate for the young is nearly 50%. The old sick joke is true again in Ireland - its leading export is the Irish. Real wages in Europe has fallen and unemployment has increased sharply.
3. Ryan wants to remove the Federal Reserve's statutory mandate to seek full employment consistent with price stability and have it subject to a solitary mandate to maintain price stability. That mimics the disastrous single mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB lacks the legal authority to help the nations of Europe respond to the worst economic catastrophe since the devastation caused by World War II. It is an insane policy. The ECB's crippled mandate meant that our Federal Reserve had to intervene in Europe to save several European Central Banks from collapse, which could have led to a global depression. Ryan wants to adopt a European policy that has proven grotesquely self-destructive.
4. Romney wants to end any vigorous financial regulation. He is inspired by the now infamous European "lite touch" regulation. The United Kingdom (UK) epitomized lite touch regulation. The failure of most of the UK's largest banks, the Libor, HSBC, and Standard Chartered scandals and the allegedly rogue operation of JPMorgan's Chief Investment Office in the City of London constitute a record of failure and scandal without equal. Romney and Ryan oppose any serious regulation of banking and call for the immediate repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act in its entirety and the re-adoption of European-style "lite touch" regulation.
5. Romney's lead economic advisor, N. Gregory Mankiw, continues to champion the regulatory "competition in laxity" that produced the "race to the bottom" that simultaneously destroyed effective financial regulation throughout the developed world. This perverse dynamic has created the criminogenic environments that drive our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. Mankiw is pushing the "need" for the U.S. to win that race to the bottom against the City of London. The only way to "win" a race to the bottom is to refuse to race, but Mankiw takes his policy inspiration from Europe and the City of London. Mankiw's advice has caused Romney to ignore the recurrent disasters and the warnings of effective regulators, economists, and white-collar criminologists that his European-inspired anti-regulatory policies are criminogenic.
The truth is that Europe has some excellent and some terrible economic policies. Romney and Ryan have shown an unerring talent for embracing Europe's worst financial policies and denigrating its best policies. What is amazing is that no matter how badly the European policies fail, Romney and Ryan ignore the failures and promise to drag us down the path to inevitable failure. Romney and Ryan complain about unemployment in the U.S. while pushing Europe's austerity policies that would massively increase unemployment, debt, and deficits in the United States.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. |
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/romney-economic-policy_b_1778271.html [with comments]
--
America’s Aversion to Taxes
Italy’s health care is part of a more generous social safety net than that of the United States.
Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg News
Fewer Government Resources
Industrialized countries have offered more public services over time, largely financed by tax revenue. But the United States collects the same amount of taxes as it did 45 years ago, leaving less money for services.
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
[ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/15/business/fewer-government-resources.html ]
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: August 14, 2012
There is something to be said for universal health care systems.
When my son developed a rash on an Italian vacation in Liguria last month, the pharmacist showed me to the doctor downstairs, who diagnosed the problem at no charge and sent me off with a handshake and a joke about a daughter in med school at the University of California, San Diego.
Italy may be in a funk, with a shrinking economy and a high unemployment rate, but the United States can learn a lot from it, and not just about the benefits of public health care. Italians live longer. Their poverty rate is much lower than ours. If they lose their jobs or suffer some other misfortune, they can turn to a more generous social safety net.
Every developed country aspires to provide a better life for its people. The United States, among the richest of all, fails in important ways. It has the highest poverty [ http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932381893 ] and the highest infant mortality [ http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/infant-mortality_20758480-table9 ] among developed nations. We provide among the least generous unemployment benefits [ http://www.oecd.org/els/benefitsandwagesstatistics.htm ] in the industrial world. Not long ago one of the most educated countries in the world, the United States is slipping [ http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/tertiary-education-graduation-rates_20755120-table1 ] behind [ http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932506457 ].
The reason is not difficult to figure out: rich though we are, we can’t afford the policies needed to improve our record. The politicians in Washington all know that we face a long-term fiscal crisis. By 2020, 70 million Americans are expected to be on Social Security [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/social_security_us/index.html ], up from 45 million in 2000. The ranks on Medicare [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html ] will swell to 64 million, up from 40 million in 2000. Virtually every economist [ http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_5hFa4fmjPDXbnww ] knows that just maintaining Medicare and Medicaid [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicaid/index.html ] benefits will require raising taxes on the middle class.
But though the nation’s fiscal challenge has taken center stage in the presidential election campaign, raising more taxes from American families remains stubbornly off the table.
President Obama [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html ] is willing to accept higher taxes on families earning over $250,000 a year. But he is going nowhere near higher taxes on the middle class. And Mitt Romney [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/mitt-romney ] and his vice-presidential pick, Paul Ryan, are moving decidedly in the opposite direction. Not only do they want to extend indefinitely the tax cuts passed by President George W. Bush, but they are also calling for a piñata of additional ones, and would cut social spending in return.
Citizens of most industrial countries have demanded more public services as they have become richer. And they have been by and large willing to pay more taxes to finance them. Since 1965, tax revenue raised by governments in the developed world have risen to 34 percent of their gross domestic product from 25 percent, on average.
The big exception has been the United States. In 1965, taxes collected by federal, state and municipal governments amounted to 24.7 percent of the nation’s output. In 2010, they amounted to 24.8 percent. Excluding Chile and Mexico, the United States raises less tax revenue, as a share of the economy, than every other industrial country.
No wonder we can’t afford to keep more children alive. In 2007, the most recent year for which figures are available, the United States government spent about 16 percent of its output on social programs [ http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/government-social-spending_20743904-table1 ] — things like public health, food and housing for the poor. In Italy, that figure was 25 percent.
American policy makers justify our choice for low taxes with the claim that they foster economic growth. But the evidence is, at best, mixed. Since 1980, income per person has grown roughly the same across developed nations, about 300 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. It has grown a little faster in the United States than in the European Union and Canada, but slower than in higher tax countries like Japan, Norway and Sweden.
To a large extent, this is because we have chosen a tax system that raises relatively little revenue and inflicts maximum economic harm. Every other industrial country has a national consumption tax, which can be used to raise a lot of money without distorting people’s economic incentives. The United States, by contrast, relies mostly on taxes on labor and capital that damp people’s drive to work and invest, putting a drag on economic growth. And the tax code is riddled with preferences and loopholes that further distort people’s economic behavior.
It is tempting to blame the administration of George W. Bush for the tax shortfall. At the end of the administration of President Bill Clinton, tax revenue reached almost 30 percent of the nation’s economic output. The federal government ran a budget surplus. The Bush tax cuts [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/taxation/bush_tax_cuts/index.html ] sharply reduced the federal tax collection. Then the Great Recession further eroded tax revenue. And, of course, nobody wants to raise taxes in the middle of an economic downturn.
Yet Americans’ aversion to taxes runs deeper. We’ve been collecting less in taxes than other rich countries at least since the early 1970s, relative to size of the economy. But according to Gallup [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/1714/Taxes.aspx ], only three times since the 1950s have more Americans said their taxes were “about right” than said they were “too high.” Scholars have resorted to cultural traits to explain our reluctance to pay for our government.
Alberto Alesina, an Italian-born economist at Harvard, contrasts American individualism rooted in the belief that effort brings success with Europeans’ belief in state redistribution — born of Europe’s long history of inherited wealth. Americans who think they have a fair shot at striking it rich vote against high taxes on their expected future wealth. Europeans who believe wealth is mostly a matter of luck and connections are less resistant to paying taxes for collective welfare.
Support for taxes also depends on how the money is spent. In Italy and throughout Western Europe, every time a voter goes to the doctor, he or she sees taxes at work.
By contrast, the ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the United States can sap support for government redistribution. Ten years ago, the sociologist William Julius Wilson wrote that American whites rebelled against welfare because they saw it as using their hard-earned taxes to give blacks “medical and legal services that many of them could not afford for their own families.” In more homogeneous European countries, taxpayers may be more willing to pay for social programs because recipients are similar to themselves.
Where does this leave American society? Many conservatives in the Tea Party movement [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_party_movement/index.html ] believe the government is already too big. Mr. Romney and most Republicans in Congress have even signed a formal pledge not to raise income taxes. Will no administration ever again dare raise taxes on the middle class?
It may not be impossible for the American political system to accept the case for a bigger government, with higher taxes and better public services. Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Mr. Clinton passed tax increases to address budget deficits.
Bruce Bartlett, a tax expert who worked in the administrations of Mr. Reagan and the elder Mr. Bush, says he believes that the deteriorating budget outlook will ultimately persuade the political class. “We need a few more years in which conservatives try to deal with the problem solely through spending,” he said. “We need to travel down this road a few more years and then people will recognize it is futile.”
There are tentative signs that Americans may become more willing to give money to Uncle Sam. Two of the three times that more Americans said their taxes were “about right” than “too high” have occurred since 2009. And the economic crisis might even increase support for government action.
The economists Paola Giuliano of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Antonio Spilimbergo of the International Monetary Fund found [ http://ftp.iza.org/dp4365.pdf ] that Americans who experienced economic shocks tended to become more supportive of government redistribution, especially when the shock came in their late teens or early 20s.
When elections are decided by today’s 18- to 25-year-olds, perhaps the American debate over taxes will come to resemble that in the rest of the world.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/business/economy/slipping-behind-because-of-an-aversion-to-taxes.html [with comments]
--
Zombies
We need to get serious about what is at stake with pledge politics. Our next Governor needs to be independent, not blindly beholden to the no-tax pledge. Find out more at http://www.pledgezombies.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTZMTTcvTm8 [via/more at "Jackie Cilley, New Hampshire Governor Candidate, Releases Tax Pledge Zombie Ad", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/jackie-cilley-tax-zombie_n_1796999.html (with comments)]
--
Worshipping at the Altar of Ayn Rand's Undeserving Elite (Ryan Is No Kemp)
By Frank Schaeffer
Posted: 08/15/2012 12:15 pm
I have something in common with Republican vice presidential nominee Congressman Paul Ryan: We were both friends with the late Congressman Jack Kemp [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kemp ]. Today, some Republicans are comparing Paul Ryan to Kemp. That is a slur on Kemp.
As a recent, extensive portrait [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/us/politics/family-faith-and-politics-describe-life-of-paul-ryan.html?pagewanted=all ] of Ryan in the New York Times notes, such comparisons are far from accurate:
Over the years, Mr. Ryan's emphasis shifted. Mr. Kemp was not nearly as concerned with cutting government programs as Mr. Ryan is today. They agreed on [low] taxes, but their views on spending and the role of government were different.
Kemp was Ryan's mentor when Ryan was in his 20s, and they remained close. But in the substantial differences between Kemp and Ryan one can read another story: the slide of the Republican Party into extremism.
Jack will be remembered as a compassionate mainstream Republican. Ryan has become a living caricature of the Tea Party. Jack became an evangelical Christian who had been raised in the Christian Science Church. And that church was hardly devoted to selfishness. Mary Baker Eddy taught that a life of service should include work benefiting the community and an overarching plan for the betterment of all humanity. Ryan was raised a Roman Catholic but today worships at the altar of the goddess of the undeserving self-loving elite -- Ayn Rand -- and calls her his "single most influential thinker [ http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Jamie-Stiehm/2012/08/14/paul-ryans-dangerous-obsession-with-ayn-rand ]."
From the 1970s to the early 1990s, I was a regular visitor to the Kemps' home, as were my parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer ]. This had a lot to do with the "Schaeffer Group" that met in their house to study my parents' evangelical books. I also used to meet Jack on the road when he dropped by events at which Dad or I were speaking and vice versa.
We fell out of touch after I fled the Republican Party [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/us/20beliefs.html ] but my memories of Jack are fond. And Jack was the sort of man who kept me on his family's Christmas card list no matter that the likes of Rush Limbaugh were calling me a traitor.
My last phone conversation with Jack was in 2000, ironically when Jack argued (loudly) with me over my support for John McCain in his presidential primary bid battle with George W. Bush. Jack called McCain a "war monger" and called Bush a "peacemaker." Jack was rebuking me because I'd done a number of radio interviews at McCain's campaign manager Mark Salter's request, supporting McCain and blasting Bush. I was rooting for McCain because in his pre-Palin/Tea Party sellout McCain was correctly calling people like Falwell "agents of intolerance."
By then (though he worked with the religious right closely earlier) Jack agreed with McCain on his harsh assessment of the religious right. There was no love lost between Jack and likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson et al though they did all use each other handily. Back in the early 1990s when I had just started writing about why I'd left the religious right, Jack called to commend me and said "the religious right will destroy the Republican Party."
I never got the chance to ask Jack what he thought about his "peacemaker" taking us to war in Iraq for no reason. But it's instructive that the last time I talked to Jack he was to my "left" (so to speak) over the issues of war and peace. Given that I then had a son in the Marine Corps I was pretty "hawkish" in those days. (I'll bet Jack would have some choice words today for Romney more or less promising to go to war with Iran on Day One of his presidency.)
Jack and I were once close enough that in 1984 he helped me edit a book of pro-capitalist essays aimed at the evangelical public called Is Capitalism Christian? [ http://www.amazon.com/Is-Capitalism-Christian-Perspective-Economics/dp/0891073620 ] (Crossway Books, 1985). The 20 or so contributors included Emmett Tyrell (editor of the American Spectator), Warren Brookes (columnist for the Boston Herald), Michael Novak (author of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism) and Paul Johnson (author of Modern Times).
Jack not only provided many personal introductions to these neoconservative leaders but he also provided this jacket copy endorsement: "I can think of only one thing better than reading Frank Schaeffer on Christianity and capitalism -- that's Frank Schaeffer bringing together most of the greatest thinkers of our time on the subject. Is Capitalism Christian? is an outstanding expression of the Judeo-Christian approach to economics."
Jack shared Ryan's disdain for taxes. But Jack's "supply side" economic ideas were all about cutting taxes in a way that he sincerely believed would bring in more revenue to the Treasury (according to the low tax "Chicago school" theories) and thus help everyone -- including the poor -- by helping the federal government remain strong. Jack was not trying to make the super-rich even richer at the expense of the poor.
Jack was no right wing ideologue. He had a complex, sometimes contradictory, set of ideas. He was a champion for more immigration, the center of the American experience as he described it. So Jack argued for citizenship for immigrants here illegally. And he never would have allowed the good faith and credit of the US to languish worldwide to score points against a Democratic president. Ryan did this very thing by being the Tea Party's front man behind the Republicans' battles with President Obama, including last year's congressional budget fiasco. That Ryan-driven fiasco brought the nation to the brink of default. And Ryan was also the politician who killed the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction proposal for purely political reasons.
While it was an honor to know Jack, I'm no longer proud of the book I worked on with him or my other gung-ho efforts to introduce evangelicals to neoconservative ideology. I've watched all of Jack's pet economic theories (which I imbibed from Jack and others) tested and trounced by a reality far too intricate for any one ideology to correctly describe let alone "fix."
But even back when I was spreading the "gospel" of Jack's supply side ideas I was Christian first and a neoconservative/Religious Right ideologue second. So, there was one line I wouldn't cross: endorsing Ayn Rand.
Ayn Rand said [ http://freedomkeys.com/faithandforce.htm ]: "If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject." Contrast that with the words of Jesus: "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."
Jack was a fan of Rand in his younger days. But over the years and with some help from my father, he struggled to balance his one-time youthful fondness for Rand's writings with his growing commitment to an evangelical Christian worldview. I recall Dad challenging Jack about his residual fondness for Rand. Dad -- hardly a lefty and called one of the "fathers of the Religious Right" -- described Rand as an "atheist extremist who hated the poor and despised Jesus."
Nevertheless, Rand's anti-tax ideas remained part of Jack's DNA. Jack convinced the Reagan administration to lower income taxes drastically as a magical Randian "solution" to all that ailed America. The long term results speak for themselves: Our degraded infrastructure, the near bankruptcy of countless municipal governments and the super-rich getting richer as the middle class slides to lower middle class status. This is not the outcome for which Jack worked.
Even so, Jack's tax-cutting ideas were mild compared to Ryan's pro-billionaire "budget." And Kemp never launched a slash and burn project that provided tax cuts for the rich while heaping tax burdens onto middle class families. Nor did he advocate eliminating the programs that keep the poor just this side of abject despair.
Mitt Romney has called [ http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/12/3758327/romneys-choice-of-paul-ryan-for.html ] Ryan's plan "an excellent piece of work." Who bears the burden of "excellent" plan? Jesus called them "the least of these."
Ryan's quotes about his passionate love of Rand's ideas run throughout his entire career... until April 2012, that is. With his political star rising nationally via his Religious Right/Tea Party following, he has tried to reinvent himself for a national religious audience, by hastily delinking himself from Rand. "I reject her philosophy," Ryan said [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/297023/ryan-shrugged-robert-costa ] when repeatedly pressed. "It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my [Roman Catholic] worldview."
Ryan was trying to answer several leading evangelical critics -- including the late Chuck Colson not to mention his own bishops, who blasted his budget as un-Christian. Colson even made a video attacking Ayn Rand, warning that her "patently anti-Christian ideas seem to be gaining steam."
Colson believed Rand's "followers" (i.e., Ryan et al) were undermining the Gospel and said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhbE8NDTY0c ]: "It shouldn't surprise you to learn that her worldview, called Objectivism, which rejects love of God, has even less regard for love of neighbor. Jennifer Rubin, who wrote the definitive biography of Rand, says that 'whereas traditional conservatism emphasized duties, responsibilities, and social interconnectedness, at the core' of Rand's ideology 'was a rejection of moral obligations to others.'"
Ryan knows that believing Christians can't vote for him in good conscience unless he distances himself from Rand. Colson called those like Ryan following Rand to account [id.] for "undermining the gospel." But actions speak louder than words. Ryan's budget would create a reality worthy of Rand's most selfish libertarian fantasies. The poor will literally be ground under the heels of the rich like some Old Testament prophecy denouncing the wealthy come to life.
As for Romney, nothing could be farther from Rand's ideas than the teachings [ http://mormon.org/commandments ] of the Mormon Church on love of neighbor. The fact Romney nominated a committed Randian ideologue [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/05/new-right-ayn-rand-marx ] is as shocking as it was that McCain nominated Sarah Palin. Both men sold out to the "agents of intolerance." In McCain's case the sellout was to the Religious Right, in Romney's case he sold out to both the Religious Right and to the Rand-following Tea Party.
The depth of the Romney sellout of his Mormon heritage is illustrated by any visit to Salt Lake City. There the visitor will find everything from church-financed food banks to employment offices extending an altruistic hand to the needy. Yet Romney has elevated Ryan, one who has proved with his budget that -- recent, expedient disclaimers aside -- he slavishly still follow his teacher who said [ http://www.angelfire.com/ex2/atheism/objectivism.html ], "suffering is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence -- man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone's altar nor for anyone's cause" (The Objectivist, Sept. 1969, 13).
"Suffering is not a claim check"... on our obligation to love others? Tell that to the Good Samaritan or rather to Jesus who said that alleviating suffering is not only a claim check but the only ticket to redemption.
With Romney nominating the author of the most extreme Randian attack on the poor ever introduced in Congress, the Republican Party has just defined itself as the utilitarian party of greed and individualism run amok. The once proud party of Jack Kemp now stands for creating a libertarian country where no one is their brother's keeper-unless you count the solicitous care the Koch brothers show for one another's ever-expanding financial wellbeing [ http://www.forbes.com/profile/david-koch/ ].
In the context of a moralistic campaign wherein the Republicans have made such a point of their "Christian" values -- and even accused President Obama of being "anti-religion" -- maybe it's fair to ask voters a question cast in the exclusionary terminology of today's religious right: Can you be a real Christian or even a good American, if you vote for leaders whose plan for the poor is based on a blatant denial of Jesus's teaching?
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back [ http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-God-Helped-Religious-Almost/dp/0306817500 ] and his forthcoming novel "Baptism By Sand."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/worshipping-at-the-altar-_b_1776332.html [with comments]
--
Which presidential candidate is truly pro-life?
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney shakes hands with supporters at his Super Tuesday primary election night rally March 6 in Boston.
(CNS/Reuters/Brian Snyder)
By Nicholas P. Cafardi
Aug. 10, 2012
COMMENTARY
A few weeks ago, I publicly defended [ http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=5168 ] Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York against onslaughts from the left that accused him of paying off pedophile priests to leave the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee. As I explained then, the archbishop was simply recognizing the rights to sustenance that a priest, good or bad, child abuser or not, has from the diocese according to the Code of Canon Law. We might not like it, but sustenance is the law of the church, and then-Archbishop Dolan was following the law.
Now I find it necessary to defend Cardinal Dolan, whose openness and personal character I truly admire, from onslaughts from the far-right, those folks who have created their own parallel magisterium in which the Catholic church sings one note: Making abortions illegal is the highest, truest (maybe only) teaching of our church.
Dolan is taking flak [ http://ncronline.org/node/31625 ] from the parallel magisterium for inviting the president of the United States, Barack Obama, to the traditional Al Smith Dinner this year, along with the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. According to the parallel magisterium, it is also a doctrine of the faith that Obama is pro-abortion and Romney is pro-life, and the church and its bishops and cardinals can associate only with the latter and not the former.
Let me say a few things about that comparison. First of all, I don't know anyone who is pro-abortion. Think about what that word means. It means you favor women becoming pregnant so you can help them abort their child and maybe profit from it. It is an ugly word, and it is used to emotionalize the debate when what we are really talking about is people who do not favor criminalizing abortion because they believe criminal statutes are ineffective ways to solve social evils. This makes them pro-choice, not pro-abortion.
There is no doubt Obama is pro-choice. He has said so many times. There is also no doubt Romney is running on what he calls a pro-life platform. But any honest analysis of the facts shows the situation is much more complicated than that.
For example, Obama's Affordable Care Act does not pay for abortions. In Massachusetts, Romney's health care law does. Obama favors, and included in the Affordable Care Act, $250 million of support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion. This support will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic. Romney, on the other hand, has endorsed Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan's budget, which will cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of the federal plans that support poor women. The undoubted effect: The number of abortions in the United States will increase. On these facts, Obama is much more pro-life than Romney.
But let's not stop there. Obama does not financially profit from the abortion industry. Romney does. Bain Capital, in the time Romney was listed as its legal head and even when he was attending Bain board meetings, was an owner of Stericycle, a major disposer of the dead bodies of aborted children in the United States. (See: Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/romney-bain-abortion-stericycle-sec ].) Bain owned a share of Stericycle until 2004, selling its interest for a profit in the tens of millions of dollars. We can parse what Romney's 1999 "retroactive retirement" from Bain means, but he still gets an annual payout from the firm. To the extent those dollars are part of Bain's Stericycle profits, a strong argument exists that Romney is an abortion profiteer. How pro-life is that?
And it has long been known that millions of Bain Capital's original outside funding, solicited by Romney himself, came from wealthy El Salvadorian clans, some of whom, while they were funding Bain, were "linked to right wing death squads." (Salt Lake Tribune, 1999; See also: Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/mitt-romney-death-squads-bain_n_1710133.html ].) Death squads killed tens of thousands of mostly poor people in El Salvador. They also killed priests, nuns and Archbishop Oscar Romero. How pro-life is that? How pro-life is taking the money of these people and doubling or tripling it for them? And did any of their Bain profits fund more death squads? Before we endorse Romney's "pro-life" claims, isn't it important for us to know that?
So speaking as a temporary, part-time member of the parallel magisterium, I think that if anyone should be disinvited from the Al Smith Dinner, it is Mitt Romney. Based on the above record, he, and not Obama, is the anti-life, "pro-abortion" candidate.
The fact is, the personable Dolan did right to invite them both. The Al Smith Dinner is not a religious event. It is a political dinner at a ritzy hotel where folks who look gawky in tuxes make jokes and raise money for a good Catholic cause. No one should think that, by inviting the "pro-abortion" Mitt Romney to the dinner, Dolan is endorsing him and all of his "pro-abortion" anti-life positions.
[Nicholas P. Cafardi is a civil and canon lawyer and a professor and former dean at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh. After publication of this piece, Cafardi was named [ http://ncronline.org/node/31734 ] a co-chair for the "Catholics for Obama [ http://www.barackobama.com/catholics ]" campaign.]
Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company
http://ncronline.org/news/politics/which-presidential-candidate-truly-pro-life [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan, Joe Biden: A Tale Of Two Catholics
By Daniel Burke
Posted: 08/15/2012 9:54 pm Updated: 08/15/2012 9:54 pm
(RNS) The 2012 presidential campaign could bear a new subtitle: A Tale of Two Catholics.
For the first time in U.S. history, both sides of the ballot include Roman Catholics: Democrats' Vice President Joe Biden, and Republicans' newly named vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
Ryan, 42, still belongs to the Catholic parish, St. John Vianney in Janesville, Wis., where he was an altar boy. Biden, 69, the first Catholic vice president in U.S. history, attends Mass at St. Patrick's Parish and St. Joseph on the Brandywine Church, both in Wilmington, De.
Biden and Ryan both cite their faith as a formative influence, but neither is known as a standard-bearer for the Catholic hierarchy's chief political causes: abortion and gay marriage. In fact, the two candidates are -- politically at least -- nearly polar opposites.
Biden agrees with the church on social justice issues like poverty, but runs afoul on gay marriage and abortion rights. Ryan, meanwhile, agrees with Catholic doctrine on abortion and gay marriage, but clashes with church leaders on social justice issues.
With Catholics comprising nearly a quarter of the U.S. electorate -- and nearly a third in Midwestern swing states -- the "Who's the Better Catholic?" debate may become far more than an intrachurch squabble.
"It has the potential to have a huge impact on this election," said Maria Mazzenga, a historian at Catholic University in Washington.
Neither the Democratic nor Republican party platforms perfectly align with the wide body of Catholic social doctrine, which encompasses views on everything from war to economics to the unborn.
"The official teachings of the church can't really be put into one camp or the other," said Mazzenga.
So Catholic politicians must often choose between church and party orthodoxy, said R. Scott Appleby, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.
"In our current system, is it possible to have a politician who, along with papal teaching, says no to abortion, no to nuclear proliferation, no to poverty? The answer is no," Appleby said.
Biden has said that "as a Roman Catholic, I am willing to accept the teachings of my church" on abortion. But, he continued in a 2008 "Meet the Press" interview, "for me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society."
Biden, who had already been barred from speaking at Catholic schools in Wilmington because of his stance on abortion, was blasted by bishops.
Archbishop Charles Chaput, a leading voice in the church who now heads the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, called Biden's argument "morally exhausted."
"It's certainly true that we need to acknowledge the views of other people and compromise whenever possible," Chaput said at the time, "but not at the expense of a developing child's right to life."
Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League, said the hierarchy has made it clear that outlawing abortion and defending traditional marriage are the church's top political priorities.
"This puts Biden at a decisive disadvantage in making the case that he better represents Catholic teachings," Donohue said.
But conservative Catholic activist Deal Hudson argues that Ryan, too, has a "Catholic problem."
The Wisconsin congressman chairs the House Budget Committee and is credited with writing the 2012 and 2013 House Republican budget plans, which call for steep cuts to programs that care for the poor, such as food stamps and Medicaid, while giving tax breaks to the wealthy.
For the last two years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has written a series of letters to House lawmakers, including Ryan, arguing that the "central moral measure" of any budget is how it affects "poor and vulnerable people."
Ryan's 2013 budget plan, which passed in the House, but has died in the Senate, "fails to meet these moral criteria," wrote Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.
Catholic nuns, scholars and Franciscans have been even more critical.
Nuns protested Ryan's budget on a nine-state bus tour this summer, rallying outside his district office. The Franciscan Action Network accused the congressman of "balancing the budget on the backs of the poor." Nearly ninety scholars at Georgetown University, the nation's oldest Catholic college, said that Ryan's budget owes more to Ayn Rand, whom he has cited as a major influence, than to the Gospel.
Ryan has vigorously defended his budget and fidelity to Catholic social teaching.
"The overarching threat to our whole society today is the exploding federal debt," Ryan said at Georgetown University in April. "The Holy Father, Pope Benedict, has charged that governments, communities, and individuals running up high debt levels are 'living at the expense of future generations' and 'living in untruth,'" he said.
Ryan has also cited the Catholic principle of "subsidiarity" to argue that government programs should not crowd out civic life, including local charities and churches.
In a Daily Beast article, Hudson suggested that Ryan has more convincing to do.
"The bottom line is this: the Romney-Ryan campaign must acknowledge the Catholic concerns about the budget as a major obstacle to winning the election," Hudson wrote on Monday.
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/paul-ryan-joe-biden-a-tal_n_1785421.html [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan: God Says That I Can Carry a Gun?
By Norman Lear
Posted: 08/16/2012 4:14 pm
Religious Right leaders are excited that Rep. Paul Ryan, in accepting Mitt Romney's invitation to be his running mate, said that our rights come from nature and God, not from government.
I can be moved to tears by the ideals included in our founding documents. My wife and I sent an original printing of the Declaration of Independence on a 10-year road trip around the country to let Americans have the thrill of reading these words in our nation's birth certificate, and in their own home towns: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights...."
Now, am I crazy to suspect that his "God not government" usage is less an homage to Thomas Jefferson or John Locke than it is a rhetorical boost for the right-wing project to claim a divine mandate for the Tea Party's radically restricted view of the role of government?
This wasn't the first time that our new Republican candidate for vice president used that formulation; several weeks ago he cited nature and God as the rationale for repealing health care reform too, criticizing the law's supporters for believing that health care was a government-granted right.
Other politicians and Religious Right leaders use the notion that our rights come from God to justify their opposition to legal equality for those who they believe displease God, particularly LGBT Americans -- the way some once argued that it was God's will or the natural order for certain people to be enslaved, or for women to subordinate their legal rights to their husbands. Or the way some people believe that wealth and success are signs of divine blessing (or simply of natural superiority à la Ayn Rand) so that we as a society shouldn't be too worried about those born into positions of want and restricted opportunity.
Some even argue that the Constitution was meant to create a government of, by and for Christians. They are demonstrably wrong. The authors of the Constitution explicitly considered and rejected proposals to insert Christianity into the Constitution, and they chose not to. The framers chose the more radical path of separating church and state and creating a country in which one's religious beliefs or lack thereof were no bar to citizenship or public office. Of course, on this as on many other issues, the reality is that in life and in law, at the nation's founding our society was far from the ideal. We struggled for the progress we have made and that struggle continues. So let's do celebrate the legacies from our founders, and at the same time maintain a healthy skepticism toward those who use the rhetoric of nature and God to deny the government's role in promoting the general welfare or securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-lear/paul-ryan-god-says-that-i_b_1791789.html [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan's Faux Populism
By Robert Reich
Posted: 08/17/2012 4:25 pm
On Friday, Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee, made the most populist speech of this campaign season.
"It's the people who are politically connected, it's the people who have access to Washington that get the breaks," he told an enthusiastic crowd of over 2,000 at a high school gym in Virginia.
"Well, no more. We don't want to pick winners and losers in Washington... . Hardworking taxpayers should be treated fairly and it should be based on whether they're good, whether they work hard and not who they know in Washington. That's entrepreneurialism. That's free enterprise."
Sounds good, but earlier this week -- three days after being picked as Romney's running-mate -- Ryan went to Las Vegas to pay homage to Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire who is the poster boy for using money to become "politically connected" in Washington, and getting the "breaks" that come with it. Adelson has promised to donate up to $100 million to make sure Romney and Ryan are in the White House next year.
Much of Adelson's fortune comes from his casino in Macau, in China, via his money-greased access to Washington.
When China's pitch for the 2008 Olympics was endangered by a House resolution opposing the bid because of China's "abominable human rights record," Adelson phoned Tom DeLay, then House majority whip and recipient of Adelson's political generosity -- urging him to block the resolution, which DeLay promptly did. The next day, according to the New York Times [see next item below], a Chinese vice premier promised Mr. Adelson an endless line of gamblers to the Macau casino.
The money Adelson has committed to putting Romney and Ryan into the White House is a business investment. Adelson has a lot riding on the 2012 election.
Last year, his Las Vegas Sands Corporation came under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- bribing Chinese officials to help expand its casino in Macau.
The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, meanwhile, is investigating whether the Sands Corporation violated federal money-laundering laws by accepting more than $100 million from high-rolling gamblers accused of drug trafficking and embezzlement, rather than reporting the suspicious funds to the government.
Ryan has also been a major recipient of contributions from billionaire energy moguls Charles and David Koch. Koch Industries PAC has donated more than $100,000 to Ryan's campaigns and his leadership PAC -- more than any other corporate PAC, according to a NY Times analysis of campaign records.
You see, Koch industries spans a variety of oil and gas investments -- whose value would be compromised if Congress and the White House got serious about climate change.
Small wonder Paul Ryan has emerged as one of Congress's most outspoken skeptics of climate change. He has also repeatedly voted against energy efficiency standards, including a House vote to prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
Several months ago, when I debated Paul Ryan on ABC-TV's This Week, he said we need to shrink the size of government because big corporations and wealthy individuals otherwise use government to their advantage.
"If the power and money are going to be here in Washington, that's where the influence is going to go ... that's where the powerful are going to go to influence it," he said.
It's an odd argument coming from Ryan because his proposed budget doesn't shrink government by cutting benefits and payments to big business and the rich. He increases military payments to defense contractors, for example, slashes Wall Street regulations, and gives giant tax benefits to the rich.
His budget shrinks government mainly by cutting benefits and payments to the poor and lower-income Americans. Over 60 percent of his spending cuts target programs for Americans in the bottom third of the income ladder.
Ryan is correct when he says "it's the people who are politically connected, it's the people who have access to Washington that get the breaks."
But his faux populism obscures the main point. A much smaller government still dominated by money would continue to do the bidding of billionaires like casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, energy moguls like the Koch bothers, military contractors, and other high rollers now actively trying to put Ryan and Romney into the White House.
It just wouldn't do anything for the rest of us.
ROBERT B. REICH [ http://robertreich.org/ ], Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/paul-ryan-budget_b_1799023.html [with comments]
--
In Thrall to Sheldon Adelson
Editorial
Published: August 16, 2012
Three days after Paul Ryan became the presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate, he made a pilgrimage on Tuesday [ ] to the Las Vegas gambling palace of Sheldon Adelson, the casino tycoon who is spending more than any other donor to try to send Mr. Ryan and Mitt Romney to the White House. No reporters were allowed, perhaps because the campaign didn’t want them asking uncomfortable questions about the multiple federal investigations into the company behind Mr. Adelson’s wealth.
Those questions, though, aren’t going away, and neither are the ones about the judgment of Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan in drawing ever closer to a man whose business background should lead them to back away — fast. By not repudiating Mr. Adelson’s vow to spend as much as $100 million on their behalf, the two candidates seem more eager to keep the “super PAC” dollars flowing than to preserve the integrity of their campaign.
The issues swirling about Mr. Adelson’s business practices are not new and can hardly come as a surprise to the Romney campaign. Last year, his company, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, announced that it was under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — specifically, that it bribed Chinese officials for help in expanding its casino empire in Macau. Later, the F.B.I. became involved, and even Chinese regulators looked askance at the company’s conduct, fining it $1.6 million for violating foreign exchange rules, The Times reported on Monday [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/politics/sheldon-adelsons-dealings-in-china-are-under-investigation.html?pagewanted=all ].
Then there’s an unrelated investigation by the United States attorney’s office in Los Angeles into whether the Sands Corporation violated federal money-laundering laws by accepting millions from high-rolling gamblers accused of drug trafficking and embezzlement. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444320704577566803521121134.html ] that federal authorities are examining whether the casino should have reported the suspicious funds to the government. Instead, the company accepted $100 million from one of the gamblers and gave him free hotel rooms, plane rides and large lines of credit.
The company has denied all allegations of improper behavior. But, since Mr. Adelson’s financial future is riding on the outcome of these federal investigations, it is legitimate to ask whether he has motivation for supporting the Republican ticket so lavishly, beyond his sharp disagreement with the Obama administration’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Mr. Adelson has certainly not hesitated to throw around his weight and wealth with Republicans before.
In 2001, when China was making a pitch to hold the Olympics, it was worried about a resolution pending in the House that would oppose the bid because of its “abominable human rights record.” To curry favor with China, Mr. Adelson called Tom DeLay, then the House majority whip — and another recipient of Mr. Adelson’s campaign generosity — and urged him to block the resolution, according to a court deposition [ http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all ] by William Weidner, then the president of Sands. Mr. DeLay quickly promised the bill would never see the light of day, and he was true to his word.
The next day, a Chinese vice premier promised Mr. Adelson an endless line of gamblers [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/politics/sheldon-adelsons-dealings-in-china-are-under-investigation.html?pagewanted=all ] to the Macau casino.
A careful presidential campaign would put distance between itself and a businessman like Mr. Adelson. Instead, this one is cultivating him. Mr. Romney recently met with him in Israel, and Mr. Ryan this week paid homage to him and other big donors in a private casino for high-rollers on the 36th floor of Mr. Adelson’s Venetian hotel. By allowing Mr. Adelson to have such an outsize role in their race, the candidates themselves are placing a very risky bet.
*
Related
At Ryan-Adelson Gathering, Budget Talk Trumps Israel (August 15, 2012)
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/ryan-meets-with-adelson-and-they-talk-budget/
Scrutiny for Casino Mogul’s Frontman in China (August 14, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/politics/sheldon-adelsons-dealings-in-china-are-under-investigation.html
Times Topic: Sheldon Adelson
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/sheldon_g_adelson/index.html
Related in Opinion
Campaign Stops: Embracing Sheldon Adelson (August 6, 2012)
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/embracing-sheldon-adelson/
Times Topic: United States Elections
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/united-states-politics/index.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/opinion/in-thrall-to-sheldon-adelson.html [with comments]
--
Jamie Dimon's Great New Slogan for Romney-Ryan
By Mike Lux
Posted: 08/14/2012 6:50 pm
Who knew that in addition to his prodigious talents as a Too Big To Fail banker, Jamie Dimon also had such great skills as a political PR guy? The Republicans have been struggling to come up with just the right slogan for the Romney-Ryan ticket. They had been strongly leaning toward "To the victor goes the spoils", since that phrase is such a great summary of both the Bain Capital philosophy and the Ryan budget, but had been afraid it didn't have quite enough edge to it. But now Dimon has nailed it for them. In an interview [ http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/encounter/jamie-dimon-2012-8/ ] with New York Magazine that came out yesterday, Dimon unveiled the new slogan: "It's a free. F*cking. Country." The fact that he was saying this in reaction to the idea of new regulations on Wall Street bankers fits perfectly with Romney and Ryan's vision for America, since they are violently opposed to any regulations on Wall Street bankers or other big corporate interests.
Right before he unveiled the perfect new slogan for Romney-Ryan, Dimon was comparing having regulations in the banking industry to Soviet Communism, and was crying a river for all those poor small bankers out there who might be affected by them. There's a certain irony to all this given that Dimon's JPMorgan Chase bank, along with five other TBTF banks, overwhelmingly dominate the financial marketplace, controlling over two-thirds of the country's financial assets, and have received major market advantages over smaller independent banks and credit unions because they are too big to fail, but Dimon doesn't seem to get irony too well. Given how little regulation the big banks have received over the years, the massive bailouts the industry scored when they got themselves into trouble in 2008-9, and how easy policy-makers have been on them in spite of the damage done to the economy, the arrogance and hubris of talking about Soviet style government is pretty amazing. But then that fits quite well with Romney and Ryan, too.
The new "It's a free. F*cking. Country." slogan, especially coming from such a quintessential figure like Dimon delivering it, fits the Romney-Ryan values and worldview like a hand in a glove. They believe wealthy, powerful, and well-connected people like themselves should be free to do whatever they want to do, no matter the cost to the rest of society. Wreck the economy, destroy jobs, pump up financial bubbles and then make money off them collapsing, cheat clients, pollute and overheat the planet, cheat sick people out of their insurance, fraudulently foreclose on homes, use overseas slave labor: it's all okay, do what you will, because it is a free. F*cking. Country. And if you don't get rich in that kind of country, it is your own fault anyway -- you must not be smart enough or hard working enough or feral enough to make it. After all, to the victor goes the spoils.
This debate we are having in the 2012 election is about both economics and values. The economics don't work for the vast majority of the country, because in the kind of economic system we have developed over the last 3 decades there are only a few winners while the great majority are squeezed. With the kind of massively big companies that dominate industry after industry, small and medium sized businesses are going broke in record numbers and there is less successful entrepreneurship possible. Top executive salaries and bonuses squeeze the wages and benefits (if workers are lucky enough to still get any) of everyone else in these companies. Workers with low wages can't afford to buy anything, so the economy keeps slowing down. In this kind of system, a tiny percentage of people win big through financial speculation, inventing an important new technology, running one of the all-powerful incumbent corporations, being an incredibly successful athlete or artist, or winning the lottery. A few more do well because they work important jobs for the winners or sell them high end luxuries. And just about everyone else in this system gets the short end of the shaft. Yes, it is a Free. F*cking. Country. But the richer you are, the free-er you get.
As bad as the economics of the Dimon-Romney-Ryan worlview are are, the values are even worse. I grew up being taught that this country was built on the idea that we are all created equal, and the USA's system was built to be of, by, and for the people. I was taught to believe in the Golden Rule, and that kindness and generosity and looking out and helping others mattered more than how wealthy I got. I was raised in the spirit of what my religious parents called the beloved community, which meant that the sick and the elderly got visited and assisted when they were in need, that the little kids in the neighborhood got looked after by everyone in the neighborhood, that the small businesspeople in the neighborhood were generous when their neighbors hit hard times. Are those the kinds of values we would be better off having as our society's cornerstones than the values of letting the victors take the spoils and let the devil take the hindmost? Especially when the hindmost encompasses 98 or 99 percent of us, as it seems to in the world of Romney and Ryan and Jamie Dimon.
Thanks to Jamie Dimon, the Republicans now have their perfect slogan. For the rest of us, I hope we will remember our older values, the values that built a great democracy and the broadest, most prosperous middle class in all of history.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/jamie-dimon-free-country_b_1776888.html [with comments]
--
Wall Street Lobbying Efforts Reach $4.2 Billion Since 2006, Or $1,331 A Minute, Report States
By Nick Wing
Posted: 08/17/2012 10:27 am
On Capitol Hill, it pays to pay. Wall Street certainly pays, and a new report unveils just how much, as well as what it gets in return.
Since 2006, the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, has poured around $4.2 billion into efforts to maintain influence in the halls of Congress, according to a new report [ http://www.nationofchange.org/washington-s-wall-street-sugar-daddies-1345124114 ] by Elect Democracy, a nonpartisan effort by human rights organization Global Exchange. That comes out to $1,331 a minute.
Of that total, $879 million has gone to the campaigns of lawmakers. Like most influence peddlers in Washington, the FIRE industry takes positions on legislation that affects the way it operates. Donations can't guarantee that a lawmaker votes a certain way on a bill, of course, but the intrinsic goal of lobbying is to encourage them to support the cause, in part by padding their campaign coffers.
How well does FIRE's operation work?
Thanks to Elect Democracy's new legislative scorecard, which tracks FIRE sector donations to members of Congress and rates their Wall Street voting loyalty, we now have a better idea.
Below, the findings from Elect Democracy [ http://www.globalexchange.org/sites/default/files/ED_LegislativeScorecard.pdf ]. How do your congressional representatives stack up?
Elect Democracy On FIRE
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/126917283/Elect-Democracy-On-FIRE [embedded]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/wall-street-lobbying_n_1796443.html [with comments]
--
Romney, Busy Fundraising, Wishes He Was on the Stump
By Emily Friedman
Aug 18, 2012 1:49pm
Pausing to forage for snacks aboard a charter flight between fundraisers today, Mitt Romney said today he wished he was out campaigning, and blamed President Obama for having to spend so much time seeking cash.
“That’s a challenge with a president who blew through the federal spending limits,” Romney said when asked by a reporter about having to spend so much time fundraising.
“It means that campaigns now have to spend a disproportionate amount of time fundraising,” Romney said. “You appreciate all the help you get, but you wish you could spend more time on the campaign trail.”
Romney hasn’t held a public campaign event since Tuesday, and his next one will be on Monday, meaning that Romney has focused nearly entirely on fundraising for five days.
Meanwhile, his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan has been busy on the stump, today holding a rally at the massive Florida retirement community The Villages.
Romney will spend today hopscotching between Martha’s Vineyard, Hyannis and Nantucket to attend three separate fundraisers, all of which include multiple tiers, offering photo lines and receptions to supporters willing to pay the price.
Copyright © 2012 ABC News Internet Ventures. Yahoo! - ABC News Network
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/romney-busy-fundraising-wishes-he-was-on-the-stump/ [with comments]
--
PAC Track
What and Where are the Super PACs Spending?
Aug. 24, 2012
http://projects.propublica.org/pactrack/#committee=all
*
Flood of Secret Campaign Cash: It’s Not All Citizens United
Aug. 23, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/flood-of-secret-campaign-cash-its-not-all-citizens-united [with comments]
*
No Tax Returns for You, Dark Money Groups Say
Aug. 22, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/no-tax-returns-for-you-dark-money-groups-say [with comments]
*
Who are the Super PACs’ Biggest Donors?
August 21, 2012
http://projects.propublica.org/pactrack/contributions/tree
*
How Some Nonprofit Groups Funnel Dark Money Into Campaigns
August 21, 2012
http://projects.propublica.org/dark-money/
*
From Citizens United to Super PACs: A Campaign Finance Reading Guide
Aug. 20, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/from-citizens-united-to-super-pacs-a-campaign-finance-reading-guide [with comments]
*
How Nonprofits Spend Millions on Elections and Call it Public Welfare
Billionaire David Koch, chairman of the board of the conservative Americans for Prosperity (AFP) advocacy group, attends a 'Cut Spending Now' rally at AFP's 'Defending the American Dream Summit' in Washington on November 5, 2011.
Aug. 19, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare [with comments]
*
A Tangled Web: Who’s Making Money From All This Campaign Spending?
March 21, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/special/a-tangled-web
*
Free the Files
http://www.propublica.org/series/free-the-files
--
The Bain Files: Inside Mitt Romney’s Tax-Dodging Cayman Schemes
[Image by Jim Cooke; photo via Getty]
John Cook
Aug 23, 2012 12:00 PM
Mitt Romney's $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures [ http://romneyfacts.com/cjtk.php ] he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns [ http://www.mittromney.com/learn/mitt/tax-return/main ] (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade.
Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested—at minimum—more than $10 million as of 2011 (that number is based on the low end of ranges he has disclosed—the true number is almost certainly significantly higher). Almost all of them are affiliated with Bain Capital, the secretive private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984 and ran until his departure in 1999 (or 2002, depending on whom you ask [ http://gawker.com/5926134/mitt-romney-retired-retroactively-from-bain-capital-whatever-the-hell-that-means ]). Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands. Together, they reveal the mind-numbing, maze-like, and deeply opaque complexity with which Romney has handled his wealth, the exotic tax-avoidance schemes available only to the preposterously wealthy that benefit him, the unlikely (for a right-wing religious Mormon) places that his money has ended up, and the deeply hypocritical distance between his own criticisms of Obama's fiscal approach and his money managers' embrace of those same policies. They also show that some of the investments that Romney has always described as part of his retirement package at Bain weren't made until years after he left the company.
Bain isn't a company so much as an intricate suite of steadily proliferating inter-related holding companies and limited partnerships, some based in Delaware and others in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and elsewhere, designed to collectively house roughly $66 billion in wealth in its many crevices and chambers. When Romney left in 1999, he and his wife retained significant investments in many of those Bain vehicles—he claims they are "passive investments" and that they are managed in a blind trust (though the trustee isn't blind enough [ http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mitt-romneys-blind-trust-blind/story?id=15188063 ] to meet federal standards of independence). But aside from disparate snippets of information contained in his federal and Massachusetts financial disclosure forms, his 2010 tax returns, and SEC filings, the nature of those investments has been obfuscated by design.
When he disclosed his finances to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in 2007 [ http://romneyfacts.com/assets/Personal%20Financial%20Forms/Personal%20finances/PFD/Romney%20PFD%202007.pdf ], Romney took care to publish the underlying holdings of many funds he invested with—after disclosing his $1 million-plus stake in "GS 2002 Exchange Place Fund LP," for instance, he listed six pages of individual equities the fund held, from Panera Bread Co. to Tribune Co. But when it came to the Bain investments, he simply listed the value of his investments in odd-sounding entities like "Sankaty High Yield Partners II LP" with no indication of what was inside. In an accompanying note, he claimed that he had tried and failed to get the information: "The filer has requested information about the underlying holdings of these funds and values and income amounts for these underlying holdings. However, the fund managers have informed the filer in writing that this information is confidential and proprietary, and has declined to provide such information."
That information—for Sankaty and 20 other funds—is now available here [ http://gawker.com/5933641 ], in the form of 48 documents totaling more than 950 pages. They consist predominantly of confidential internal audited financial statements from 2008, 2009, and 2010, as well as investor letters from the same period, for Bain entities that Romney has previously disclosed owning an interest it. Owing to the timeframe—during and after the catastrophic economic meltdown of 2008—some of the investments show substantial losses. One limited partnership had even entered into liquidation as of October 2008 after failing to meet certain payments owed to partners. Others show astronomical gains.
The documents are exceedingly complicated. We don't pretend to be qualified to decode them in full, which is why we are posting them here for readers to help evaluate—please leave your thoughts in the discussion below. We asked an attorney who specializes in complex offshore corporate transactions, including ones involving Cayman Island entities, to review them and help us understand them. (We also asked the Romney campaign. It hasn't responded yet.) The full set can be read here [id.].
Here's what we've found so far:
Equity Swaps, AIVs, and Mitt Romney's Other Tax-Dodging Tricks
http://gawker.com/5936864
Mitt Romney's Endless ‘Retirement' Package
http://gawker.com/5936873
How Mitt Romney Puts His Money Where Obama's Mouth Is
http://gawker.com/5936878
Derivatives, Short Sales, and Mitt Romney's Other Exotic Financial Instruments
http://gawker.com/5936876
Mitt Romney Is the National Enquirer's Banker
http://gawker.com/5936868
Copyright 2012 Gawker
http://gawker.com/5936394/ [with comments]
--
Documents Show Details on Romney Family Trusts
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, FLOYD NORRIS and JULIE CRESWELL
Published: August 23, 2012
Hundreds of pages of confidential internal documents from the private equity firm Bain Capital published online [ http://gawker.com/5936394/ (just above)] Thursday provided new details on investments held by the Romney family’s trusts, as well as aggressive strategies that Bain appears to have used to minimize its investors’ and partners’ tax liabilities.
The documents include annual financial statements and investor letters circulated to limited partners in more than 20 Bain and related funds where Mitt Romney [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/mitt-romney ]’s financial advisers have at times invested large parts of his personal fortune, estimated at more than $250 million.
As part of his retirement agreement with Bain, Mr. Romney has remained a passive investor in the company’s ventures and continues to receive a share of the firm’s investment profits on some deals undertaken after his departure.
The documents, obtained and published by Gawker.com, do not specify the stakes held in the funds by the Romney family trusts or by other investors. But they highlight the range and complexity of Mr. Romney’s investments at a time when those very qualities have been the subject of the Obama campaign’s main attacks against him, including demands that Mr. Romney release his tax returns to clear up any suggestion that he might be benefiting financially from legal loopholes or tax shelters.
Many documents disclose information that, while routinely provided to Bain’s investors, is not typically disclosed to the public: the dollar value of Bain investments in specific companies, fees charged by Bain and other investment managers, and the value of different Bain funds in some years.
The documents also reveal that Bain held stakes in highly complex Wall Street financial instruments, including equity swaps, credit default swaps [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_default_swaps/index.html ] and collateralized loan obligations.
“The unauthorized disclosure of a number of confidential fund financial statements is unfortunate,” said Alex Stanton, a Bain spokesman. “Our fund financials are routinely prepared by auditors and demonstrate a commitment to transparency with our investors and regulators, and compliance with all laws.”
Mr. Romney said last week that he had paid an effective federal tax rate of at least 13 percent over the past decade, but he declined — as he has over months of speculation and attacks — to release returns before 2010.
“My view is I’ve paid all the taxes required by law,” Mr. Romney said.
Bain private equity funds in which the Romney family’s trusts are invested appear to have used an aggressive tax approach, which some tax lawyers believe is not legal, to save Bain partners more than $200 million in income taxes and more than $20 million in Medicare [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html ] taxes.
Annual reports for four Bain Capital funds indicate that the funds converted $1.05 billion in accumulated fees that otherwise would have been ordinary income for Bain partners into capital gains, which are taxed at a much lower rate.
Although some tax experts have criticized the approach, the Internal Revenue Service is not known to have challenged any such arrangements.
In a blog post Thursday, Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said that there was some disagreement among lawyers, but that he believed: “If challenged in court, Bain would lose. The Bain partners, in my opinion, misreported their income if they reported these converted fees as capital gain instead of ordinary income.”
A typical private equity or hedge fund pays its managers in part with a management fee based on the size of the fund, and in part with a share of the profits earned by the fund. Those profits are considered “carried interest” and taxed at capital gains rates, which in recent years have been 15 percent, assuming that the underlying investment profits qualified for that treatment.
The tax strategy Bain appears to have used is intended to convert the remaining management fee — the part not based on investment profits — into capital gains. Mr. Romney appears to benefit from the carried interest structure in these funds, but it is not clear from the documents made public whether he also benefits from the fee waiver. The Romney campaign declined to comment.
In an article that appeared in the journal Tax Notes in 2009, Gregg D. Polsky, a tax law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, called the tax strategy “extremely aggressive” and said it was “subject to serious challenge by the I.R.S.”
Details in the documents suggest that Bain funds in which Mr. Romney’s fortune is invested also used a variety of legal mechanisms to help some investors avoid significant taxes.
A 2009 document concerning Bain Capital Asia, one of the firm’s overseas private equity funds, for example, refers to three “blocker” corporations used to invest in D&M Holdings, a Japanese electronics company.
Blocker corporations, typically set up in tax havens like the Cayman Islands, can help investors avoid a levy known as the unrelated business income tax, which was created to prevent nonprofit groups from undertaking profit-making ventures that compete with taxpaying companies.
The documents also showed that some of the funds owned equity swaps, which have been used to avoid taxes that would otherwise be owed on dividends paid by American companies to foreign-based investors, like funds based in the Caymans.
The major purpose of such “swaps,” a Senate committee report stated in 2008, “is to enable non-U.S. persons to dodge payment of U.S. taxes on U.S. stock dividends.” Congress later adopted a provision intended to prevent that tactic. Parts of that provision took effect in 2010 and other parts this year. It is not clear how effective the provision will be, and final I.R.S. regulations have yet to be released.
Before enactment of that provision, if a Cayman Islands hedge fund owned an American stock that paid dividends, a tax would normally be withheld when the dividend was paid. Under the swap arrangement, the shares were “owned” by an American company, typically a bank or brokerage firm, which was exempt from withholding taxes.
The hedge fund entered into a “total return swap,” in which the bank agreed to transfer all the financial benefits of owning the stock to the hedge fund, including the dividend payment. The hedge fund pays an interest rate that, in effect, pays the bank for the tax benefit of avoiding the withholding tax.
The 2009 financial statements of Absolute Return Capital Partners LP, a fund that maintains Cayman Island subsidiaries, reported $17.7 million in realized and unrealized profits from “equity contracts.” It was not clear if all of those profits related to total return swaps, but it is likely that at least some of them did.
That tactic is also used to avoid taxes in some other countries and to avoid restrictions on share ownership by noncitizens of some countries. In its 2010 annual report, released by Gawker, Viking Global Strategies, a hedge fund, reported using such swaps in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Romney family trusts have indirect stakes in that fund through a Goldman Sachs fund.
Like many other private equity and hedge funds, Bain and its affiliates operate several offshore funds that are domiciled in the Caymans for a variety of tax and regulatory reasons. For the most part, these Cayman-based funds are completely routine and legal, tax experts say.
*
Related
News Analysis: Giving Reins to the States Over Drilling (August 24, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/romney-would-give-reins-to-states-on-drilling-on-federal-lands.html
Romney Steadfast in the Face of Growing Calls to Release More Tax Returns (July 19, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/us/politics/romney-steadfast-against-release-of-more-tax-returns.html
Times Topic: Bain Capital
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/bain_capital/index.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/politics/documents-show-details-on-romney-family-trusts.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/politics/documents-show-details-on-romney-family-trusts.html?pagewanted=all ]
--
Bain Closes U.S. Plant, Forces Workers to Train Chinese Replacements
08/17/12
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/08/17/romney-bain-closes-us-plant-workers-train-chinese-replacements/ [with comments]
--
What I Learned at Bain Capital
Bloomberg
My business experience taught me how to help companies grow—and what to do when trouble arises. When you see a problem, run toward it before the problem gets worse.
By MITT ROMNEY
Updated August 23, 2012, 9:09 p.m. ET
The back-to-school season is here, and as parents take their children to shop for school supplies, I suspect that many of them will be visiting a Staples store. I'm very familiar with those stores because Staples is one of many businesses we helped create and expand at Bain Capital, a firm that my colleagues and I built. The firm succeeded by growing and fixing companies.
The lessons I learned over my 15 years at Bain Capital were valuable in helping me turn around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. They also helped me as governor of Massachusetts to turn a budget deficit into a surplus and reduce our unemployment rate to 4.7%. The lessons from that time would help me as president to fix our economy, create jobs and get things done in Washington.
A broad message emerges from my Bain Capital days: A good idea is not enough for a business to succeed. It requires a talented team, a good business plan and capital to execute it. That was true of companies we helped start, like Staples and the Bright Horizons child-care provider, and several of the struggling companies we helped turn around, like the Brookstone retailer and the contact-lens maker Wesley Jessen.
My presidency would make it easier for entrepreneurs and small businesses to get the investment dollars they need to grow, by reducing and simplifying taxes; replacing Obamacare with real health-care reform that contains costs and improves care; and by stemming the flood of new regulations that are tying small businesses in knots.
My business experience confirmed my belief in empowering people. For example, at Bain Capital we bought Accuride, a company that made truck rims and wheels, because we saw untapped potential there. We instituted performance bonuses for the management team, which had a dramatic impact. The managers made the plants more productive, and the company started growing, adding 300 jobs while Bain was involved. My faith in people, not government, is at the foundation of my plan to strengthen America's middle class.
I also saw firsthand through these investments how energy costs impact the ability of a business to grow. Today, energy costs are weighing on job creators across America because President Obama has limited energy exploration and restricted development in ways that sap economic performance, curtail growth, and kill jobs. I will take a sensible approach to tapping our energy resources, which will both create jobs and make energy more affordable for every sector of our economy.
In the 1990s, when the "old-technology" steel industry in the U.S. was failing, Bain Capital helped build a new steel company, Steel Dynamics, which has grown into one of the largest steel producers in America today, holding its own against Chinese producers. The key to its success? State-of-the-art new technology.
Here are two lessons from the Steel Dynamics story: First, innovation is essential to the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing. We are the most innovative, entrepreneurial nation in the world. To maintain that lead, we must give people the skills to succeed. My plan for a stronger middle class includes policies to give every family access to great schools and quality teachers, to improve access to higher education, and to attract and retain the best talent from around the world.
The second lesson is that we must have a level playing field in international trade. As president, I will challenge unfair trade practices that are harming American workers.
Running a business also brings lessons in tackling challenges. I was on the board of a medical diagnostic-laboratory company, Damon, when a competitor announced that it had settled with the government over a charge of fraudulent Medicare billing. I and fellow Damon outside board members joined together and immediately hired an independent law firm to examine Damon's own practices.
The investigation revealed a need to make some changes, which we did. The company, along with several other clinical-laboratory companies, ended up being fined for billing practices. And a Damon manager who was responsible for the fraud went to jail. The experience taught me that when you see a problem, run toward it or it will only get worse.
That will be my approach to our federal budget problem. I am committed to capping federal spending below 20% of GDP and reducing nondefense discretionary spending by 5%. This will surely result in much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington. But a failure of leadership has created our debt crisis, and ducking responsibility will only cripple the economy and smother opportunity for our children and grandchildren.
I'm not sure Bain Capital could have grown or turned around some of the companies we invested in had we faced today's anti-business environment. Andy Puzder, the chief executive of CKE Restaurants Inc., which employs about 21,000 people at Carl's Jr. and Hardee's restaurants, has said that the "current unfriendly economic environment perhaps best explains why American companies are sitting on over $2 trillion which they could invest."
President Obama has piled on excessive regulations, proposed massive tax increases, added more than $5 trillion in federal debt, and failed to address the coming fiscal cliff—all of which is miring our nation in sluggish growth and high unemployment.
I know what it takes to turn around difficult situations. And I will put that experience to work, to get our economy back on track, create jobs, strengthen the middle class and lay the groundwork for America's increased competitiveness in the world.
Mr. Romney is the Republican Party candidate for president.
Copyright ©2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444270404577605140607907860.html [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444270404577605140607907860.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ] [with comments]
--
Actually, Massachusetts voters weren’t happy they hired Romney
The Rachel Maddow Show
August 24, 2012
Rachel Maddow points out that contrary to Mitt Romney's contention that the people who have hired him, including Massachusetts voters, are pleased that they did, in fact Massachusetts voters so unhappy with him he dropped to a 36?pproval rating and broke a many-administrations-long Republican winning streak for the governor's office when he left.
© 2012 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/48786116#48786116 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/24/13465773-links-for-the-824-trms ]
--
Romney Prepares for His Hard Sell
Mitt Romney is revealing a bit more of his personal side.
Associated Press
Ann Romney
AFP/Getty Images
Mitt Romney with his five sons.
Romney Family
Video [embedded]
Mitt Romney is betting that a substance-over-style approach will pay off in November. But as WSJ's Monica Langley tells Alan Murray, Romney's low poll numbers on likability and trustworthiness suggest many Americans still don't know who he is.
By MONICA LANGLEY and SARA MURRAY
Updated August 24, 2012, 8:35 a.m. ET
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney strides into a hotel suite in Columbus, Ohio, where a couch awaits. He waves at it and quips: "People would like me to lie down and let it all out."
As he soon makes clear, Mr. Romney sees no reason to do that in the campaign's final stretch, which begins with his party's nominating convention next week.
To the contrary, the former businessman and governor, who gets more respect than adoration from voters, vows in an interview that he won't be part of the celebrity-style culture often favored by politicians. Despite pressure to be more revealing, he says he won't use his campaign as "a way to personalize me like I'm a piece of meat."
The approach carries risk. But it sheds light on Mr. Romney's attitude about winning—as well as his theory that 2012 marks a different kind of electoral climate. Voters, he wagers, are most interested in hiring a fix-it specialist for an ailing economy.
When appearing before crowds at campaign stops, Mr. Romney says, he doesn't think, "What can I do here to portray myself in a way that would be appealing to the public?"
"I think they're looking for someone who can make things better in America. They're not looking for someone to run another version of 'This is Your Life,' " he says.
Mr. Romney refused to appear in Web videos to re-introduce himself to voters after he sewed up the Republican nomination—though his staff urged him to do so. His wife, Ann, who is more comfortable in the role of family narrator, starred in the videos.
"People who've hired me in the past have been pleased that they did," Mr. Romney said, referring to his roles as chief executive of Bain Capital, governor of Massachusetts and head of the 2002 Winter Olympics. "And so, I'll describe my views and issues and concerns, but I don't have a plan to take everybody to my childhood home and say, 'Here's where I rode my bicycle'."
Mr. Romney's buttoned-up presentation may be a turn off for some voters, which is why in recent months he has participated in television and magazine interviews with more on the way. Polls show that voters give the GOP candidate higher scores than the president on ideas to improve the economy, but haven't warmed to him personally.
In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, just 38% said they had positive views of Mr. Romney personally, compared with 44% who viewed him negatively.
By contrast, President Barack Obama is viewed positively by 48% of voters, even as many register doubts about his handling of the economy, while 43% view him negatively. They also indicated the president was more likable and easygoing than Mr. Romney by more than a two-to-one margin.
The issue Mr. Romney faces "isn't a matter of talk show popularity," says Andrew Kohut, head of polling at the Pew Research Center. "It's a matter of general personal acceptability." Mr. Kohut attributes some of Mr. Romney's low poll scores on personal image to the drubbing he took in the Republican primary season from others in his own party, but adds that at the convention in Tampa next week, Mr. Romney "has the opportunity to make the case for himself both as a candidate and as a person."
Though the campaign will try to personalize Mr. Romney more at the convention, the prevailing view is that Mitt will be Mitt.
"People today look for celebrity, but Dad is being his authentic self," says his oldest son, Tagg. "If this is an 'American Idol' election of who can ham it up with the judges the best, it's an election Dad's not going to win. But if voters want someone who won't just feel their pain but do something about it, Dad should be their president."
After losing his bid to become the Republican nominee in 2008, Mr. Romney wanted to write a book. Tagg Romney encouraged his father to write about his "experiences on the trail, a tell-all that would sell more books and get him better known," he recalls. Instead, Mr. Romney sought to swing the spotlight away from himself. He penned "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness." The book, which outlines some of the nation's biggest problems and Mr. Romney's policy solutions for them, briefly topped the best-seller list upon release.
While running private-equity firm Bain Capital, colleagues say, Mr. Romney rejected investments in companies led by chief executives long on charisma but short on execution. "Mitt would viscerally pull back from self-promoters," says Steve Pagliuca, a Bain Capital managing director who worked with Mr. Romney for years.
Mr. Romney's longtime aversion to divulging personal details stems partly from his life as something of an outsider—as a Mormon and child of privilege, and then as a consultant and investor who came into existing companies.
His late father, George, the former head of American Motors and three-time governor of Michigan, was a major figure in his upbringing. Mr. Romney says he was raised to be unassuming: "No one likes someone who brags."
His father's influence pervades the campaign. Mr. Romney carries with him old campaign buttons from his father's presidential bid in 1968. "I would have spent my life in business and never imagined leaving the wonderful world of business and doing something in politics, but he did it," he says.
Despite his father's poor start as part of a new Mormon colony in Mexico, and his lack of a college degree, he was successful, "driven entirely by a passion for the things he believed, not at all a person of ego or guile," he says. Mr. Romney's critics have accused him of being driven more by political expediency, pointing to his changing policy stances on abortion, gun control and energy policy.
The Romney campaign is betting on another number to transcend the likability gap: the six-point lead their candidate has when voters are asked who can best handle the economy. In the August Journal/NBC News poll, 44% said Mr. Romney had good ideas to improve the economy while 38% said the president did.
Of course, the challenge for Mr. Romney is to also show empathy, say some voters who have seen him on the trail.
A voter like Marty Begin, a 49-year-old Pahrump, Nev., resident, should be a Romney supporter. He is a self-described conservative who is concerned about the nation's fiscal path and thinks it is time for people to swallow tough cuts to get entitlements like Social Security and Medicare in order. Yet Mr. Begin, a Republican, plans to cast his ballot for Mr. Obama.
"He's out of touch with the general American people," Mr. Begin says. "I don't know that there is a different side of Mitt Romney."
When a man wearing a New York Yankees shirt recently asked Mr. Romney a question at a New Hampshire town hall event, the candidate told a story that wrapped with a tone-deaf punch line: "It proves one thing," said Mr. Romney. "We all hate Yankees."
His newly announced running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), immediately swooped in with a save: "But not you, sir, we love you," he interjected.
Another person at the New Hampshire event, Patricia Loder, a 58-year-old private-school teacher in Massachusetts, acknowledges that Mr. Romney seems guarded—but she doesn't much care. She says she likes Mr. Romney's professional look and notes he seems more relaxed on the trail these days. "It's his business savvy and his policies," says Ms. Loder, who is supporting the Romney-Ryan ticket. "I'm certainly not voting for him based on popularity."
On the campaign trail, Mr. Romney regularly shows his preference for factual over personal details. When he rode with Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam between two events in the Nashville area earlier this summer, Mr. Romney peppered the up-and-coming Republican politician with number-specific questions about the state's budget and how Tennessee was controlling Medicaid costs. "When you have a short time to talk, you migrate to those topics you care most about," Gov. Haslam says.
When Mr. Romney held an impromptu news conference outside of a South Carolina airport this month, he requested one prop: A white dry-erase board to hastily map out the differences between his Medicare plan and the president's.
Dressed in a shirt and tie, he used a black marker to draw a grid and chart how his plan and Mr. Obama's would impact seniors and the next generation, as reporters looked on. Under Mr. Romney, the next generation box declared "solvent"; under Mr. Obama, "bankrupt."
"People want him to be someone he's not," one of the campaign's advisers said. "That was classic him."
On Thursday, Mr. Romney introduced his energy policy by whipping out a bar chart.
On a recent campaign swing in Virginia, Mr. Romney was engrossed in hashing out details on the federal budget with Mr. Ryan. "Mitt was a pig in slop," Mrs. Romney recalls, noting his zeal in crunching numbers. Her husband wouldn't be interrupted to better tuck in his shirt or see the crowd outside the bus window. Suddenly the campaign bus doors opened to blaring band music. Mr. Romney jumped up—just in time for his campaign aide to straighten the flag pin on his lapel. "Mitt just doesn't care about all the fluff," Mrs. Romney says.
His focus on details includes economizing on the stump. Last week, when the campaign stayed at a Marriott Renaissance, he lamented that a cheaper Marriott Courtyard was nearby. He washes his own Brooks Brothers no-iron shirts in hotel rooms. On one recent day, as he dashed to an awaiting car, he grabbed leftover boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and saved a bowl of fruit—not leaving anything for waste.
The appearance before coal miners last week was a typical dive into Mr. Romney's wonky side. Before the event, the candidate spent hours going back and forth with advisers on energy policy, studied data on his iPad and reviewed PowerPoint presentations prepared by his team.
He wanted, he says, to study how "regulations are affecting coal mining, how it's impacting employment in the coal sector and how it's also impacting energy prices." He also decided to research whether North America could reach "energy independence" in eight years, which "will bring a lot of manufacturing jobs back to the United States." (He concluded that it is possible.)
"Romney really got my attention by talking the facts and figures of our industry," says Leon Lieser, 65, an underground supervisor at American Energy Corp.'s Century coal mine in Beallsville, Ohio. "I knew he'd done some homework to visit our mine, and it made me think what he could do for all working people and the middle class."
Even as members of Mr. Romney's inner circle publicly disavow celebrity-style politics, the candidate's lack of intimacy with voters is a topic of regular, if private, discussion in Boston headquarters.
A recent polling briefing from the Romney campaign lays out his challenges: Voters give him lower marks than the president on likability, honesty and trustworthiness and whether he is able to understand the problems average Americans face.
To bat back, Mr. Romney has at times tried to open up in the most public of forums. He recently appeared with Mr. Ryan in a People Magazine spread, sat for an interview with Oprah Winfrey and, earlier, chatted about his childhood chores with Parade Magazine. The campaign has more TV interviews in the works to highlight the candidate's biography.
The convention will also offer a high-profile medium to recast the Republican hopeful to the broader electorate. While much of the agenda is expected to highlight Mr. Romney's business acumen, his relationship with his wife of more than four decades will also be on prominent display.
"People will get to know who I am by virtue of the life I've lived and the people around me," Mr. Romney says.
The campaign has also shifted to a fuller embrace of Mr. Romney's religious background—a particularly prickly issue because his Mormon faith has turned off some voters. For much of the race Mr. Romney rarely mentioned his church, and campaign aides bristled at questions about his religion.
In private, he engages with his spiritual and private life in an increasingly popular way: digitally. In addition to PowerPoint presentations, he reads the Bible and the Book of Mormon on his iPad. He also has several books stored—currently he is reading "How Green Was My Valley," set in Wales, his wife's ancestral home.
Recently, the campaign began allowing a small contingent of reporters to attend church with Mr. Romney on Sundays, and the convention program will highlight the work he has done with the Mormon church. Both give Mr. Romney an avenue to talk about how he counseled struggling families as a former pastor and his encounter with poverty-stricken families as a Mormon missionary. Much of his philanthropy has been tied to the church as well.
"It's just not something that he does ordinarily or easily, but he's given up more [access]," says Tom Rath, an adviser to the Romney campaign.
Mr. Romney has typically been guarded about some of the issues that hit closest to home for him. Encounters with strangers who have a family member with Down syndrome often resonate with Mr. Romney because his nephew has the condition.
Mr. Romney was long loath to talk about such personal matters on the stump. But at a recent fundraiser in Greenville, S.C., Mr. Romney began to peel back that layer as he spoke about the power one person has to change lives. He told the story of his 75-year-old sister and her 43-year-old son, who lives with her.
"My sister has eight children, the last of which was a Down syndrome child, and her compassion, her character, her love, her sense of family and her faith in God—all those things change the lives of all of her children, set them on a course which has provided them happy and blessed lives," he told an audience of donors.
Even as Mr. Romney plays down the likability quotient, he isn't ceding the issue to Mr. Obama.
"My course for the country is very different than the president's," he says in the interview. "But I'm also a different person than he is, but you know, he's a likable person, I'm sure." Mr. Romney shifts his weight on the couch, and adds: "I think the fact that I've got a family of five sons and five daughters-in-law, 18 grandkids and a wife that still puts up with me and more than a handful of friends that have been friends for decades is a pretty good indication that at least a few people like me as well."
Copyright ©2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444812704577605241155859860.html [with slide show, career timeline, interactive graphics, and comments]
--
Mitt has always plummeted in the polls
Uh oh. Gov. Mitt Romney was already falling in Dec 2004
(Credit: AP/Winslow Townson)
As governor, he excelled in alienating; how he spoiled a holiday party
By Edward Mason and Tom Mashberg
Friday, Dec 9, 2011 12:09 PM CST
When it comes to deep erosion of support, Mitt Romney is no political newbie. His collapsing poll numbers as governor of Massachusetts (from 2003 to 2007) are an ominous preview of the steady disenchantment he is experiencing now.
“His favorability was basically a straight line down from his honeymoon,” said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center and a longtime Massachusetts pollster. “Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt.”
Now a University of Massachusetts-Lowell/Boston Herald poll conducted last week shows that 48 percent of registered voters in Massachusetts have an unfavorable opinion of the former Republican governor, compared with just 40 percent favorable. In September, 45 percent of voters thought favorably of Romney, while 43 percent looked unfavorably on him. This 10-point swing in his favorability rating is mirrored nationally and in polls in early-voting states. For Romney, rapid descent is a familiar feeling.
Let’s go to the videotape.
Romney entered the Massachusetts State House in January 2003 with a flashy favorability rating of 61 percent. After demanding cuts to fix a $650 million budget hole, voters rewarded him in March 2003 with a 61 percent job approval rating as well, according to a University of Massachusetts-Lowell poll.
That was Romney’s zenith. By November 2004, voters were souring, and a Suffolk poll found his favorable rating had dropped to 47 percent.
A year later, that rating sank another 14 points. Just 33 percent of Bay State voters had a favorable opinion of Romney in 2005, according to Suffolk, while 49 percent were unfavorable.
Things did not improve in 2006, when Suffolk found that his unfavorable rating had risen to 55 percent while his favorable remained stagnant.
By November 2006, as he closed out his increasingly absentee term, his overall job approval rating had cratered to 36 percent. He’d also begun ducking reporters, notably dodging questions after a menorah-lighting ceremony outside his office.
“To know Mitt Romney is to dislike him,” said Thomas Whalen, a Boston University political science professor. “That is the moral of the story.”
The Hanukah episode came after Romney spent nearly a month away from the Bay State – and the local media — stoking his 2008 presidential ambitions. After cheerfully delivering remarks to a Jewish audience about a neighbor whose name wasn’t Semitic-sounding, Romney dashed down the hall to his office as reporters gave chase. It was not endearing.
Romney was hurt by a slow economic recovery — while the jobless rate fell, the state was 47thin the nation in job creation, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies. He also raised $375 million of business taxes, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Being a Republican in Massachusetts during the Bush administration hardly helped.
But Romney’s laser focus on his presidential aspirations led to a political blunder that cost him dearly. He wagered his future on running a slate of 100 Republicans against a Democratic state Legislature in 2004 in a very blue state – and they all lost. Romney, Whalen said, spent the rest of his term using his post as a springboard for his next gig – the presidency.
“It was so blatantly obvious he was planning to leave town,” Whalen said. “People saw it as a cynical ploy.”
[...]
Edward Mason, former Statehouse bureau chief for the Eagle-Tribune (North Andover) during the Romney administration, can be reached at edward.mason04@gmail.com.
Tom Mashberg, a veteran investigative editor and reporter for the Boston Herald and Boston Globe, can be reached at mashberg@rcn.com.
Copyright © 2011 Salon Media Group, Inc.
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/09/mitt_has_always_plummeted_in_the_polls/ [with comments]
--
Broken Promises: Romney's Massachusetts Record
Learn more: http://OFA.BO/ZaCuUs
Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, decreased debt, and smaller government.
Here's what Massachusetts got instead:
Jobs: 47th out of 50 states in job creation
Taxes and fees: Increased more than $750 million per year
Long-term debt: Increased more than $2.6 billion
Fact is, Romney economics didn't work then, and won't work now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlnaYOv0DZY
--
Political Page Turners
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: August 17, 2012
Let’s see if we can clear up a few things.
First of all, Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are not the same person. They aren’t even related! Stop spreading rumors! Although they do sort of look alike and enjoy spending time together. Perhaps Mitt regards Paul as the sixth son he never had.
Ryan is the one who lives on the same block where he grew up. Romney is the one who lives above the car elevator.
Ryan is the one who spent his youth cooking hamburgers at McDonald’s. Romney is the one who used to enjoy dressing up as a police officer and playing fun pranks on his prep school friends. Neither one of them worked as a Wienermobile driver. Really, I don’t know where you get this stuff.
Ryan is the one who likes to catch catfish by sticking his fist into their burrows and dragging them out by the throat. Romney is the one who drove to Canada with his dog strapped to the car roof.
When it comes to the issues, both men are on the same page. Although the page does keep turning and you have to wonder how average voters can cope with all of the confusion.
Fortunately, polls suggest average voters have already decided who they’re going to support and, therefore, have no need whatsoever to try to figure out which page the Romney-Ryan campaign is on.
Practically the only person in America who claims to have no idea who he’s going to vote for is Senator Joseph Lieberman, who recently declared himself absolutely and totally undecided. People, do you think it’s possible that the entire presidential campaign is now being waged just for the benefit of Joseph Lieberman? On the one hand, that’s a real waste of about $1 billion. On the other, it’s exactly what Joseph Lieberman has been waiting for all his life.
Anyhow, about the issues:
Ryan is the one who requested stimulus money for his district, but he is sorry. The stimulus was a terrible thing, and Ryan had no intention of trying to glom onto a chunk of it. He thought he was just forwarding a constituent request for some ... constituent thing. Or four.
Romney is the one who hired undocumented workers to mow his lawn. Totally by mistake.
Ryan is the one who voted for a massive prescription drug Medicare entitlement, the Bush tax cuts and two wars without paying for any of them. He is even sorrier about this than he is about the stimulus.
Romney is the one who passed Obamacare before Obama. But it wasn’t the same thing at all because it happened in a state.
Both men want to make more big tax cuts that will be paid for with the closing of tax loopholes. They are in total, complete concurrence that the identity of these loopholes is not an appropriate topic for a presidential campaign.
Ryan is supposed to be the Tea Party hero and Romney is the one they hated so much they were actually willing to contemplate a Newt Gingrich presidency to avoid him.
But I’m not entirely sure we can trust the hard right to know what it wants anymore. This week in Florida, a Republican primary uprising knocked out Cliff Stearns, a superconservative veteran congressman who had campaigned on his efforts to kill off federal funds for Planned Parenthood and embarrass the Obama administration with an investigation into the Solyndra loans. That sort of bragging enraged the faithful by reminding them that Stearns was a Washington insider, and he lost to a newcomer named Ted Yoho.
Maybe Tea Party voters now only want to send people to Washington who will lack the capacity to get anything done. Personally, I’m kind of O.K. with that. Also, I like the idea of having a congressman named Ted Yoho, as well as the fact that Yoho describes himself as a “large animal veterinarian.” We don’t have many veterinarians in Congress, and you never can tell when a visiting heifer will come down with a medical problem.
All right, a little more about the issues.
Romney has a plan to make Medicare solvent forever. We know this because he wrote “Solvent” on the board at a press conference the other day.
Ryan used to have a plan to make Medicare solvent forever by taking it away from everybody under age 55 and giving them health insurance vouchers instead. But that was so 2011.
Now, Ryan and Romney are on the same page when it comes to Medicare, which is that it must be saved from the $716 billion in cuts President Obama wants to make over the next 10 years. Although that same $716 billion was in the budget plan that Ryan got the House to pass this year. But it’s not like he expected it to happen. “We would never have done it,” he told campaign reporters, desperate wretches condemned to roam the earth with calculators, endlessly searching for the Ryan-Romney page.
© 2012 The New York Times Company (emphasis in original)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/opinion/collins-political-page-turners.html [with comments]
--
An Unserious Man
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 19, 2012
Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate led to a wave of pundit accolades. Now, declared writer after writer, we’re going to have a real debate about the nation’s fiscal future. This was predictable: never mind the Tea Party, Mr. Ryan’s true constituency is the commentariat, which years ago decided that he was the Honest, Serious Conservative, whose proposals deserve respect even if you don’t like him.
But he isn’t and they don’t. Ryanomics is and always has been a con game, although to be fair, it has become even more of a con since Mr. Ryan joined the ticket.
Let’s talk about what’s actually in the Ryan plan, and let’s distinguish in particular between actual, specific policy proposals and unsupported assertions. To focus things a bit more, let’s talk — as most budget discussions do — about what’s supposed to happen over the next 10 years.
On the tax side, Mr. Ryan proposes big cuts in tax rates on top income brackets and corporations. He has tried to dodge the normal process in which tax proposals are “scored” by independent auditors, but the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has done the math, and the revenue loss from these cuts comes to $4.3 trillion over the next decade.
On the spending side, Mr. Ryan proposes huge cuts in Medicaid, turning it over to the states while sharply reducing funding relative to projections under current policy. That saves around $800 billion. He proposes similar harsh cuts in food stamps, saving a further $130 billion or so, plus a grab-bag of other cuts, such as reduced aid to college students. Let’s be generous and say that all these cuts would save $1 trillion.
On top of this, Mr. Ryan includes the $716 billion in Medicare savings that are part of Obamacare, even though he wants to scrap everything else in that act. Despite this, Mr. Ryan has now joined Mr. Romney in denouncing President Obama for “cutting Medicare”; more on that in a minute.
So if we add up Mr. Ryan’s specific proposals, we have $4.3 trillion in tax cuts, partially offset by around $1.7 trillion in spending cuts — with the tax cuts, surprise, disproportionately benefiting the top 1 percent, while the spending cuts would primarily come at the expense of low-income families. Over all, the effect would be to increase the deficit by around two and a half trillion dollars.
Yet Mr. Ryan claims to be a deficit hawk. What’s the basis for that claim?
Well, he says that he would offset his tax cuts by “base broadening,” eliminating enough tax deductions to make up the lost revenue. Which deductions would he eliminate? He refuses to say — and realistically, revenue gain on the scale he claims would be virtually impossible.
At the same time, he asserts that he would make huge further cuts in spending. What would he cut? He refuses to say.
What Mr. Ryan actually offers, then, are specific proposals that would sharply increase the deficit, plus an assertion that he has secret tax and spending plans that he refuses to share with us, but which will turn his overall plan into deficit reduction.
If this sounds like a joke, that’s because it is. Yet Mr. Ryan’s “plan” has been treated with great respect in Washington. He even received an award for fiscal responsibility from three of the leading deficit-scold pressure groups. What’s going on?
The answer, basically, is a triumph of style over substance. Over the longer term, the Ryan plan would end Medicare as we know it — and in Washington, “fiscal responsibility” is often equated with willingness to slash Medicare and Social Security, even if the purported savings would be used to cut taxes on the rich rather than to reduce deficits. Also, self-proclaimed centrists are always looking for conservatives they can praise to showcase their centrism, and Mr. Ryan has skillfully played into that weakness, talking a good game even if his numbers don’t add up.
The question now is whether Mr. Ryan’s undeserved reputation for honesty and fiscal responsibility can survive his participation in a deeply dishonest and irresponsible presidential campaign.
The first sign of trouble has already surfaced over the issue of Medicare. Mr. Romney, in an attempt to repeat the G.O.P.’s successful “death panels” strategy of the 2010 midterms, has been busily attacking the president for the same Medicare savings that are part of the Ryan plan. And Mr. Ryan’s response when this was pointed out was incredibly lame: he only included those cuts, he says, because the president put them “in the baseline,” whatever that means. Of course, whatever Mr. Ryan’s excuse, the fact is that without those savings his budget becomes even more of a plan to increase, not reduce, the deficit.
So will the choice of Mr. Ryan mean a serious campaign? No, because Mr. Ryan isn’t a serious man — he just plays one on TV.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/opinion/krugman-an-unserious-man.html [with comments]
--
Galt, Gold and God
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 23, 2012
So far, most of the discussion of Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican nominee for vice president, has focused on his budget proposals. But Mr. Ryan is a man of many ideas, which would ordinarily be a good thing.
In his case, however, most of those ideas appear to come from works of fiction, specifically Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”
For those who somehow missed it when growing up, “Atlas Shrugged” is a fantasy in which the world’s productive people — the “job creators,” if you like — withdraw their services from an ungrateful society. The novel’s centerpiece is a 64-page speech by John Galt, the angry elite’s ringleader; even Friedrich Hayek admitted that he never made it through that part. Yet the book is a perennial favorite among adolescent boys. Most boys eventually outgrow it. Some, however, remain devotees for life.
And Mr. Ryan is one of those devotees. True, in recent years, he has tried to downplay his Randism, calling it an “urban legend.” It’s not hard to see why: Rand’s fervent atheism — not to mention her declaration that “abortion is a moral right” — isn’t what the G.O.P. base wants to hear.
But Mr. Ryan is being disingenuous. In 2005, he told the Atlas Society, which is devoted to promoting Rand’s ideas, that she inspired his political career: “If I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” He also declared that Rand’s work was required reading for his staff and interns.
And the Ryan fiscal program clearly reflects Randian notions. As I documented in my last column, Mr. Ryan’s reputation for being serious about the budget deficit is completely undeserved; his policies would actually increase the deficit. But he is deadly serious about cutting taxes on the rich and slashing aid to the poor, very much in line with Rand’s worship of the successful and contempt for “moochers.”
This last point is important. In pushing for draconian cuts in Medicaid, food stamps and other programs that aid the needy, Mr. Ryan isn’t just looking for ways to save money. He’s also, quite explicitly, trying to make life harder for the poor — for their own good. In March, explaining his cuts in aid for the unfortunate, he declared, “We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.”
Somehow, I doubt that Americans forced to rely on unemployment benefits and food stamps in a depressed economy feel that they’re living in a comfortable hammock.
But wait, there’s more: “Atlas Shrugged” apparently shaped Mr. Ryan’s views on monetary policy, views that he clings to despite having been repeatedly, completely wrong in his predictions.
In early 2011, Mr. Ryan, newly installed as the chairman of the House Budget Committee, gave Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, a hard time over his expansionary policies. Rising commodity prices and long-term interest rates, he asserted, were harbingers of high inflation to come; “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens,” he intoned, “than debase its currency.”
Since then, inflation has remained quiescent while long-term rates have plunged — and the U.S. economy would surely be in much worse shape than it is if Mr. Bernanke had allowed himself to be bullied into monetary tightening. But Mr. Ryan seems undaunted in his monetary views. Why?
Well, it’s right there in that 2005 speech to the Atlas Society, in which he declared that he always goes back to “Francisco d’Anconia’s speech on money” when thinking about monetary policy. Who? Never mind. That speech (which clocks in at a mere 23 paragraphs) is a case of hard-money obsession gone ballistic. Not only does the character in question, a Galt sidekick, call for a return to the gold standard, he denounces the notion of paper money and demands a return to gold coins.
For the record, the U.S. currency supply has consisted overwhelmingly of paper money, not gold and silver coins, since the early 1800s. So if Mr. Ryan really thinks that Francisco d’Anconia had it right, he wants to turn the clock back not one but two centuries.
Does any of this matter? Well, if the Republican ticket wins, Mr. Ryan will surely be an influential force in the next administration — and bear in mind, too, that he would, as the cliché goes, be a heartbeat away from the presidency. So it should worry us that Mr. Ryan holds monetary views that would, if put into practice, go a long way toward recreating the Great Depression.
And, beyond that, consider the fact that Mr. Ryan is considered the modern G.O.P.’s big thinker. What does it say about the party when its intellectual leader evidently gets his ideas largely from deeply unrealistic fantasy novels?
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/opinion/krugman-galt-gold-and-god.html [with comments]
--
Prime Time for Paul Ryan’s Guru (the One That’s Not Ayn Rand)
Illustration by Peter Oumanski
Friedrich von Hayek
Associated Press
By ADAM DAVIDSON
Published: August 21, 2012
As Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney take the stage in Tampa next week, the ghost of an Austrian economist will be hovering above them with an uneasy smile on his face. Ryan has repeatedly suggested that many of his economic ideas were inspired by the work of Friedrich von Hayek, an awkwardly shy (and largely ignored) economist and philosopher who died in 1992. A few years ago, it was probably possible to fit every living Hayekian in a conference room. Regardless of what happens in November, that will no longer be the case.
Hayek’s ideas aren’t completely new to American politics. Some mainstream Republicans, including Ronald Reagan, have name-checked him since at least the 1980s as a shorthand way of signaling their unfettered faith in the free market and objection to big government. But few actually engaged with Hayek’s many contentious (and outré) views, particularly his suspicion of all politicians, including Republicans, who claim to know something about how to make an economy function better. For these reasons, and others, Hayek has become fashionable of late among antigovernment protesters, and if Ryan brings even a watered-down version of his ideas into the Republican mainstream, the country’s biggest battles about the economy won’t be between right and left, but within the Republican Party itself — between Tea Party radicals who may feel legitimized and the establishment politicians they believe stand in their way.
For the past century, nearly every economic theory in the world has emerged from a broad tradition known as neoclassical economics. (Even communism can be seen as a neoclassical critique.) Neoclassicists can be left-wing or right-wing, but they share a set of crucial core beliefs, namely that it is useful to look for government policies that can improve the economy. Hayek and the rest of his ilk — known as the Austrian School — reject this. To an Austrian, the economy is incomprehensibly complex and constantly changing; and technocrats and politicians who claim to have figured out how to use government are deluded or self-interested or worse. According to Hayek, government intervention in the free market, like targeted tax cuts, can only make things worse.
Many of Ryan’s most famous proposals have clear Hayekian roots. His Roadmap for America’s Future includes calls for government to step out and let the market decide. His proposal to allow citizens to buy whatever health insurance they want, rather than use a government-promoted exchange, also seems to be embedded in the Austrian tradition. In other important ways, though, Ryan is anything but Austrian. While Hayek would laugh at an economic forecast for distant 2013, Ryan’s budget plan includes predictions about 2083. The congressman’s proposal for two separate tax systems — a flat-tax system and a loophole-filled tax system — is exactly the sort of contradictory governmental problem-solving that Hayek detested.
In actuality, Ryan is like a lot of politicians who merely cherry-pick Hayek to promote neoclassical policies, says Peter Boettke, an economist at George Mason University and editor of The Review of Austrian Economics. “What Hayek has become, to a lot of people, is an iconic figure representing something that he didn’t believe at all,” Boettke says. For example, despite his complete lack of faith in the ability of politicians to affect the economy, Hayek, who is frequently cited in attacks on entitlement programs, believed that the state should provide a base income to all poor citizens.
To be truly Hayekian, Boettke says, Ryan would need to embrace one of his central ideas, known as the “generality norm.” This is Hayek’s belief that any government program that helps one group must be available to all. If applied, Boettke says, a Hayekian government would eliminate all corporate and agricultural subsidies and government housing programs, and it would get rid of Medicare and Medicaid or expand them to cover all citizens. (Hayek had no problem with a national health care program.) Hayek also believed that the government should not have a monopoly on any service it provides; instead, private companies should compete by offering an alternative Postal Service, road system, even, perhaps, a private fire department.
Because his ideas seem almost willfully designed to alienate every constituency, this is not going to be the year — no matter what kind of enthusiasm Paul Ryan whips up among the Tea Party faithful — that they will become central to the Republican platform. “I’m quite sure I’ve never heard any view of Mitt Romney’s about Hayek,” Greg Mankiw, one of Romney’s lead economic advisers, told me. But elements of Hayek’s ideas will be valuable to those trying to build their influence outside the mainstream right. Tea Party favorites, like Senator Mike Lee of Utah and the Senate candidate Ted Cruz of Texas, appear to have developed a deeper commitment to the Austrians. Wayne Brough, an economist for FreedomWorks, the Tea Party-friendly activist group, told me that the group’s goal is to eventually fill Congress with Hayekians. And Bruce Caldwell, the author of the intellectual biography “Hayek’s Challenge,” said he hoped that we were experiencing, partly through Ryan’s ascendancy, the first stage of a slow but steady embrace of Hayek’s philosophy.
It may sound crazy, but it would not be the first time that once-fringe ideas entered mainstream party politics. Most economists and politicians dismissed the ideas of the British economist John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s, but by the 1950s they became the reigning orthodoxy for both parties. (Eisenhower and Nixon were Keynesians.) In the 1960s, a group of free-market-oriented economists at the University of Chicago developed a critique of Keynes that was ignored for years. But in the 1980s, after Reagan’s election, the Chicago approach came to dominate economic discussion on the right and even held sway among many Democrats until the financial crisis of 2008. Since then, there has been a bit of a free-for-all. Keynesian ideas have come to dominate much of the academic and policy world, but the Occupy and Tea Party movements make clear that there is increasing interest in previously ignored radical ideas.
Several activists and groups, including FreedomWorks [ http://www.freedomworks.org/ ], say they hope to turn the inchoate anger of the Tea Party into a focused pro-Hayek movement that would either take over the Republican Party or create a new one. That is a huge task. Nobody (not even Hayek) has ever taken his abstract, philosophical writings and constructed an actual plan for governance. Do you eliminate all those government agencies on the same day? How much should the government-issued base salary for all citizens be? And how exactly do you make plans for the future if you don’t believe in economic forecasts? There are countless practical issues, all of which are likely to spur intense argument, especially because other Tea Party favorites, like Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, often disagreed with Hayek (Rand once called him “pure poison”) and with one another on fundamental issues.
When I asked Boettke and Caldwell how they vote, they gave the same answer. They just root for gridlock: a divided Congress in a prolonged stalemate with the White House (so far, so good). They feel that, with our system, the most Hayekian thing they can hope for is a government incapable of doing anything. But they both agreed that if Hayekians do someday take over, the changes will be significant. Caldwell corrects people when they refer to Hayek as a conservative. Hayek didn’t want to conserve anything. And while that’s exactly what the most radical may want, it’s probably not the easiest policy to build a party around.
Adam Davidson is co-founder of NPR's “Planet Money,” a podcast [ http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/npr-planet-money-podcast/id290783428 ], blog [ http://www.npr.org/money ] and radio series heard on “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “This American Life.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/prime-time-for-paul-ryans-guru-the-one-thats-not-ayn-rand.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/prime-time-for-paul-ryans-guru-the-one-thats-not-ayn-rand.html?pagewanted=all ] [with comments]
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3967329 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=42599905 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=68707988 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72698525 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76078802 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77716479 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78439680 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78685733 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78491117 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78489608 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78542406 and preceding and following (just earlier this string)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78581882 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78607554 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78621903 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78666797 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78677636 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78695853 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78696467 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78742010 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78712800 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78744850 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54833454 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78787780 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78789956 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78826710 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78837862 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78836092 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78836282 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78837108 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78837850 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78841801 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78869746 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78870071 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78870545 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78875973 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78876110 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78885098 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78885786 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78913997 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78915505 and preceding (and any future following)
===
Romney’s budget plan is a fantasy
Romney is not going to make these kinds of cuts to the federal pie.
(Shannon Stapleton — Reuters)
Posted by Ezra Klein on August 14, 2012 at 11:44 am
The Republican budget might keep President Obama’s cuts to Medicare. But a Romney administration wouldn’t.
Lanhee Chen, the campaign’s policy director, left no room for doubt in his statement [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/08/13/yes-obamacare-cuts-medicare-more-than-president-romney-would/ ]: “A Romney-Ryan Administration will restore the funding to Medicare, ensure that no changes are made to the program for those 55 or older, and implement the reforms that they have proposed to strengthen it for future generations.”
Avik Roy, a health-care policy adviser to Romney, doubles down [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/08/13/yes-obamacare-cuts-medicare-more-than-president-romney-would/ ]. “Whatever you think of Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare, the fact is that a Romney administration would repeal them,” he writes.
But then how will a Romney administration make its budget math add up?
Consider what Romney has promised. By 2016, he says federal spending will be below 20 percent of GDP, and at least 4 percent of that will be defense spending. At that point, he will cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, meaning it can never rise above that level.
All that’s hard enough. Romney will have to cut federal spending by between $6 and $7 trillion over the next decade to hit those targets. As my colleague Suzy Khimm has detailed [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/14/compared-to-ryan-romney-wants-to-spend-much-more-on-defense-and-much-less-on-everything-else/ ], those budget promises already require cuts far in excess of what even Paul Ryan’s budget proposes.
But Ryan’s budget includes more than $700 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade, Romney’s budget won’t. And Romney promises that there will be no other changes to Social Security or Medicare for those over 55, which means neither program can be cut for the next 10 years. But once you add up Medicare, Social Security and defense and you’ve got more than half of the federal budget. So Romney is going to make the largest spending cuts in history while protecting or increasing spending on more than half of the budget.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities indulged [ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3658 ] this idea back in May. If Social Security and Medicare are spared from cuts, then to get federal spending under 20 percent of GDP while holding defense spending at 4 percent of GDP, “all other programs — including Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education, environmental protection, transportation, and SSI — would have to be cut by an average of 40 percent in 2016 and 57 percent in 2022.”
Consider what the Romney campaign, then, is saying: If Romney is elected, then by his third year in office, every single federal program that is not Medicare, Social Security, or defense, will be cut, on average, by 40 percent. That means Medicaid, infrastructure, education, food safety, road safety, the postal service, basic research, foreign aid, housing subsidies, food stamps, the Census, Pell grants, the Patent and Trademark Office, the FDA — all of it has to be cut by, on average, 40 percent. If Romney tried to protect any particular priority, it would mean all the others have to be cut by more than 40 percent.
That’s not even remotely plausible. The consequences would be catastrophic. The outcry would be deafening. And Romney has shown no stomach for selling such severe cuts.
Consider that, even as we speak, Romney is running away from the unpopular bits of the Ryan budget, which delivers far less devastating cuts than what Romney is promising. Does anyone really believe that he will take office and then propose cuts that make the Ryan budget look soft on federal spending? That he will take office and, after running away from specifics during the campaign, propose what would surely be the most unpopular budget in American history?
And does anyone believe that the real Romney is the guy who made these outlandish budget promises in order to win a Republican primary, rather than the guy who is disavowing Ryan’s Medicare cuts mere days after naming him to the ticket?
This is simply not a credible budget plan, and Romney’s fast retreat from Ryan’s most unpopular cuts makes it even less credible. And yet Romney, who has never released the specific cuts that would make his numbers add up, repeatedly touts it on the campaign trail, and the media dutifully reports his promises to cut federal spending by more than $500 billion in 2016, and in fact to balance the budget by the end of his second term, which would require far larger cuts than what I’ve outlined here, despite the fact that everyone basically knows these cuts aren’t credible and will never happen.
I’m not sure what alternative there is, exactly, except to say, as clearly as possible, Romney’s budget plan is a fantasy, and it will never happen.
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/14/romneys-budget-plan-is-a-fantasy/ [with comments]
--
Targeting the poor with GOP budgets
August 21, 2012
Ezra Klein breaks down the numbers and shows how Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney's plans are a sure bet for one thing: attacking programs that the poor rely on. Economist Jared Bernstein joins Ezra Klein to break down the shocking numbers that unfairly target poor Americans.
© 2012 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755822/vp/48746099#48746099 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rWZG2-HmTc , also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmYGvtZPAA ]
--
Romney vows to boost national debt by $716 billion, no one blinks
August 17, 2012
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/17/news/la-pn-romney-vows-to-boost-national-debt-by-716-billion-no-one-blinks-20120817 [with comments]
--
Mitt Romney Promise To Reverse Medicare Cuts Would Cause Trust Fund To Go Insolvent Earlier
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
08/16/12 11:09 AM ET
WASHINGTON -- GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's new promise to restore the Medicare cuts made by President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law could backfire if he's elected.
The reason: Obama's cuts also extended the life of Medicare's giant trust fund. By repealing them, Romney would move the program's insolvency eight years closer, toward the end of what would be his first term in office.
Instead of running out of money in 2024, Medicare's trust fund for inpatient care would go broke in 2016 without the cuts, according to estimates by the program's own experts.
That could leave a President Romney little political breathing room to execute his own Medicare plan. Outside experts say it could force deeper cuts, and sooner.
The Romney campaign says there's no problem with the candidate's pledge.
"The idea that restoring funding to Medicare could somehow hasten its bankruptcy is on its face absurd," said spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
Campaign officials say arcane federal accounting rules create a false sense of security about Medicare. They allow savings like Obama's cuts to also count toward funding other programs or reducing the overall deficit.
"Gov. Romney's plan is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with patient-centered reforms that control cost throughout the health care system and extend the solvency of Medicare," Saul said. "He will then implement real entitlement reform that places Medicare on a sustainable long-term footing so that future generations of Americans will not have to worry whether the program will be there for them."
But Obama's cuts were not directly aimed at Medicare's 48 million beneficiaries; instead they affect hospitals, insurers, nursing homes, drug companies and other service providers. Simply undoing the cuts would restore higher payments to those service providers. And that would cause Medicare to spend money faster.
"The fact of the matter is, what Romney is proposing now is to roll all that back, which would mean that Medicare would reach insolvency eight years earlier, which would mean that seniors would lose benefits," David Axelrod, a senior political adviser to Obama, said Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Romney's running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, kept the Obama cuts in his budget, which envisions greater savings by shifting future retirees into private insurance plans with a fixed payment from the government to help cover their premiums.
"If you are going to restore (Obama's cuts), then what it's going to do is complicate the financial condition of Medicare," said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, a fiscal conservative who says government health care programs are too costly.
"It's going to affect your long-term plan to reform Medicare and reduce the deficit and mounting debt burdens," said Walker, now heading the Comeback America Initiative, which promotes deficit reduction.
"If you are going to put that back, then how are you going to pay for it?" he asked.
Romney would "have to find other ways to get the cost down in the future," said economist Marilyn Moon, a former trustee overseeing Social Security and Medicare finances.
"These (Obama cuts) were all on service providers," said Moon, now director of the health program at the nonpartisan American Institutes for Research. Romney "would have three options: either cut it out of providers in a different way, ask beneficiaries to pay higher premiums in various ways, or raise taxes in order to pay for it."
Romney made his promise to restore the cuts on Tuesday at a campaign stop in Beallsville, Ohio.
Obama "has taken $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund," Romney told supporters. "He's raided that trust fund.
"And you know what he did with it? He used it to pay for Obamacare, a risky, unproven, federal takeover of health care," Romney continued. "And if I'm president of the United States, we're putting the $716 billion back."
That figure reflects the latest estimates of Obama's health care law by the Congressional Budget Office, covering a 10-year period from 2013-2022. It's a relatively modest share of total Medicare spending, currently about a $600 billion-a-year program.
"People need to look at what these spending reductions are before they conclude that they are really eager to undo them," said Paul Van de Water, a senior budget analyst with the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Why should Medicare beneficiaries want to pay more to providers to provide the same benefits?"
Despite its long-term financial problems, Medicare has been fairly stable since the passage of Obama's health care law. Premiums have remained about the same, reflecting a national slowdown in medical inflation. However, the brunt of the spending cuts has yet to be felt. Medicare's own economic forecasters have warned the cuts may prove politically unsustainable.
Romney has not spelled out full details of his Medicare plan. But if it is based upon Ryan's, the budget office says it would rein in Medicare spending more forcefully than Obama has.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/mitt-romney-medicare-cuts_n_1788517.html [with embedded video "Romney Uses Whiteboard To Slam Obama On Medicare", and comments]
--
Mitt’s Medicare whiteboard — corrected
( http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78627752 )
--
The Real White Board
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/16/699791/the-real-white-board-the-differences-between-obama-and-romney-on-medicare/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMKjr_jJjo
--
Truth and Lies About Medicare
Editorial
Published: August 18, 2012
Republican attacks on President Obama’s plans for Medicare are growing more heated and inaccurate by the day. Both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan made statements last week implying that the Affordable Care Act would eviscerate Medicare when in fact the law should shore up the program’s finances.
Both men have also twisted themselves into knots to distance themselves from previous positions, so that voters can no longer believe anything they say. Last week, both insisted that they would save Medicare by pumping a huge amount of money into the program, a bizarre turnaround for supposed fiscal conservatives out to rein in federal spending.
The likelihood that they would stand by that irresponsible pledge after the election is close to zero. And the likelihood that they would be better able than Democrats to preserve Medicare for the future (through a risky voucher system that may not work well for many beneficiaries) is not much better.
THE ALLEGED “RAID ON MEDICARE” A Republican attack ad says that the reform law has “cut” $716 billion from Medicare, with the money used to expand coverage to low-income people who are currently uninsured. “So now the money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you,” the ad warns.
What the Republicans fail to say is that the budget resolutions crafted by Paul Ryan and approved by the Republican-controlled House retained virtually the same cut in Medicare.
In reality, the $716 billion is not a “cut” in benefits but rather the savings in costs that the Congressional Budget Office projects over the next decade from wholly reasonable provisions in the reform law.
One big chunk of money will be saved by reducing unjustifiably high subsidies to private Medicare Advantage plans that enroll many beneficiaries at a higher average cost than traditional Medicare. Another will come from reducing the annual increases in federal reimbursements to health care providers — like hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies — to force the notoriously inefficient system to find ways to improve productivity.
And a further chunk will come from fees or taxes imposed on drug makers, device makers and insurers — fees that they can surely afford since expanded coverage for the uninsured will increase their markets and their revenues.
NO HARM TO SENIORS The Republicans imply that the $716 billion in cuts will harm older Americans, but almost none of the savings come from reducing the benefits available for people already on Medicare. But if Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan were able to repeal the reform law, as they have pledged to do, that would drive up costs for many seniors — namely those with high prescription drug costs, who are already receiving subsidies under the reform law, and those who are receiving preventive services, like colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations, with no cost sharing.
Mr. Romney argued on Friday that the $716 billion in cuts will harm beneficiaries because those who get discounts or extra benefits in the heavily subsidized Medicare Advantage plans will lose them and because reduced payments to hospitals and other providers could cause some providers to stop accepting Medicare patients.
If he thinks that will be a major problem, Mr. Romney should leave the reform law in place: it has many provisions designed to make the delivery of health care more efficient and cheaper, so that hospitals and others will be better able to survive on smaller payments.
NO BANKRUPTCY LOOMING The Republicans also argue that the reform law will weaken Medicare and that by preventing the cuts and ultimately turning to vouchers they will enhance the program’s solvency. But Medicare is not in danger of going “bankrupt”; the issue is whether the trust fund that pays hospital bills will run out of money in 2024, as now projected, and require the program to live on the annual payroll tax revenues it receives.
The Affordable Care Act helped push back the insolvency date by eight years, so repealing the act would actually bring the trust fund closer to insolvency, perhaps in 2016.
DEFICIT REDUCTION Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan said last week that they would restore the entire $716 billion in cuts by repealing the law. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that repealing the law would raise the deficit by $109 billion over 10 years.
The Republicans gave no clue about how they would pay for restoring the Medicare cuts without increasing the deficit. It is hard to believe that, if faced with the necessity of fashioning a realistic budget, keeping Medicare spending high would be a top priority with a Romney-Ryan administration that also wants to spend very large sums on the military and on tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
Regardless of who wins the election, Medicare spending has to be reined in lest it squeeze out other priorities, like education. It is utterly irresponsible for the Republicans to promise not to trim Medicare spending in their desperate bid for votes.
THE DANGER IN MEDICARE VOUCHERS The reform law would help working-age people on modest incomes buy private policies with government subsidies on new insurance exchanges, starting in 2014. Federal oversight will ensure a reasonably comprehensive benefit package, and competition among the insurers could help keep costs down.
But it is one thing to provide these “premium support” subsidies for uninsured people who cannot get affordable coverage in the costly, dysfunctional markets that serve individuals and their families. It is quite another thing to use a similar strategy for older Americans who have generous coverage through Medicare and who might well end up worse off if their vouchers failed to keep pace with the cost of decent coverage.
Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan would allow beneficiaries to use vouchers to buy a version of traditional Medicare instead of a private plan, but it seems likely that the Medicare plan would attract the sickest patients, driving up Medicare premiums so that they would be unaffordable for many who wanted traditional coverage. Before disrupting the current Medicare program, it would be wise to see how well premium support worked in the new exchanges.
THE CHOICE This will be an election about big problems, and it will provide a clear choice between contrasting approaches to solve them. In the Medicare arena, the choice is between a Democratic approach that wants to retain Medicare as a guaranteed set of benefits with the government paying its share of the costs even if costs rise, and a Republican approach that wants to limit the government’s spending to a defined level, relying on untested market forces to drive down insurance costs.
The reform law is starting pilot programs to test ways to reduce Medicare costs without cutting benefits. Many health care experts have identified additional ways to shave hundreds of billions of dollars from projected spending over the next decade without harming beneficiaries.
It is much less likely that the Republicans, who have long wanted to privatize Medicare, can achieve these goals.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/truth-and-lies-about-medicare.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/truth-and-lies-about-medicare.html?pagewanted=all ] [with comments]
--
Debunking Romney's Viral Medicare Lie
By Bob Cesca
Posted: 08/17/2012 4:42 pm
The Romney campaign appears to be engaged in a pattern that involves creating and spreading a new and colossal Lie of the Week. Prior whoppers include the "Obama is disenfranchising military voters lie" (debunked [ http://factcheck.org/2012/08/obama-not-trying-to-curb-military-early-voting/ ]) and the "Obama is gutting welfare reform lie" (also debunked [ http://factcheck.org/2012/08/does-obamas-plan-gut-welfare-reform/ ]).
By now, we all know what happened this week.
On Sunday's Meet the Press, right-wing apparatchik and Sarah Palin fanboy Rich Lowry [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/03/inris-rich-lowry-palin-se_n_131735.html ] shouted down Rachel Maddow on Medicare, saying that "Obamacare" cuts $700 billion [ http://wp.me/p1yofO-7KD ] from the program.
Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu appeared on CNN the next day and shouted down Soledad O'Brien [ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obrien-and-sununus-epic-shouting-match-put-an-obama-bumper-sticker-on-your-forehead-when-you-do-this/ ] with the same crap-on-a-stick. Specifically, he repeated the massive lie that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA or "Obamacare") cuts $700 billion from Medicare, implying that benefits were cut.
Sununu said [ http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romney-ryan-sununu-medicare.php ], "When Obama gutted Medicare by taking $717 billion out of it, the Romney plan does not do that. The Ryan plan mimicked part of the Obama package there. The Romney plan does not. That's a big difference."
So let's get this straight. Sununu just said the Paul Ryan Medicare Plan -- the one that Romney said he would've signed into law [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/12/678941/romney-embraced-ryan-budget/ ] had he been president -- cuts $717 billion from Medicare? Interesting. Thanks for clarifying, Mr. Sununu. It turns out that the $717 billion number that Sununu was screeching about on CNN was pulled out of a July 24 CBO memo [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43471-hr6079.pdf ] about the House plan to repeal Obamacare. Doug Elmendorf explained, "Spending for Medicare would increase by an estimated $716 billion over that 2013-2022 period." There's nothing in there about benefit cuts or anything else the Republicans have said. Nothing.
From here, the viral lie infected the discourse like the Ebola virus.
The Romney campaign released the following ad on Tuesday [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4gPvToKTWU ]:
And they kept repeating it in lockstep.
Lanhee Chen [ http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romney-ryan-sununu-medicare.php ], Romney's chief policy director told TPM, "Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have always been fully committed to repealing Obamacare, ending President Obama's $716 billion raid on Medicare and tackling the serious fiscal challenges our country faces."
Mitt Romney said to First Read [ http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/13/13266514-romney-struggles-to-get-square-with-ryans-medicare-plan ], "But my plan for Medicare is very similar to his plan, which is 'Do not change the program for current retirees or near-retirees but do not do what the president has done and that is to cut $700 billion out of the current program."
RNC Chairman and Star Wars Cantina Alien Reince Priebus said [ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/reince-priebus-doubles-down-accuses-obama-of-stealing-700-million-from-medicare/ ], "President Obama... stole $700 billion from Medicare."
Stole? I'm not sure how you get "theft" in all of this since the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") actually creates an entire roster of new benefits, including full coverage for preventative medical care without coinsurance or deductibles, discounts on prescription drugs and the gradual closure of the Part-D "donut hole" that had previously forced retirees to pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for medication. In total so far, 5.2 million Medicare recipients have saved $4 billion [ http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/239949-hhs-health-law-has-saved-seniors-nearly-4-billion-on-meds ] on prescription drugs alone because of the dreaded Obamacare legislation. That's $629 per person -- money they would have otherwise had to pay out their own pockets.
Regarding the mysterious $700 billion number, let's rewind the Way Back Machine to June. Not a single Republican was saying $700 billion. It turns out, the commonly repeated number was $500 billion. That's a huge difference.
After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Obamacare, with the help of a Republican chief justice who was appointed by a Republican president and decided in favor of a Republican policy proposal (the mandate), Republican Rep. Jon Runyan said [ http://www.politifact.com/new-jersey/statements/2012/jun/29/jon-runyan/jon-runyan-claims-barack-obamas-health-care-includ/ ], "My constituents simply cannot afford the $500 billion in new tax increases and $500 billion in Medicare cuts required to pay for this flawed legislation."
Mitt Romney said something similar in June, "Obamacare cuts Medicare -- cuts Medicare by approximately $500 billion dollars."
As far back as a year ago, the quoted number remained $500 billion.
Here's Michele Bachmann during a debate in June, 2011 [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/fact-checking-the-gop-debate-500-billion-in-cuts-to-medicare/2011/06/14/AGsnGAVH_blog.html ]: "Senior citizens get this more than any other segment of our population, because they know in Obamacare the president of the United States took away $500 billion -- a half-trillion dollars -- out of Medicare, shifted it to Obamacare to pay for younger people."
Mitt Romney in the same debate, "Obamacare takes $500 billion out of Medicare and funds Obamacare."
So somehow in the last few days, the amount that was "stolen" from Medicare has magically increased by $200 billion! That's amazing.
But of course they're all lying about the ACA. The notion of $500 billion in "cuts" ostensibly "stolen" from Medicare has been thoroughly debunked and discredited by everyone from Politifact [ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/12/michele-bachmann/did-president-obama-steal-500-billion-medicare/ ] to The Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/fact-checking-the-gop-debate-500-billion-in-cuts-to-medicare/2011/06/14/AGsnGAVH_blog.html ], both of which note that there aren't any cuts to benefits -- none. So it's no surprise to learn that the bigger lie about $700 billion (or $717 billion or $716 billion) in cuts has also been widely debunked by fact-checkers everywhere including Bloomberg [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/medicare-scare-ad-makes-false-claim-of-cuts-for-seniors.html ].
And yet they keep repeating it over and over and over, and, as we get closer to Election Day, the number is mysteriously increasing. At this rate, I suspect the Republican number to reach "Eleventy gazillion-gajillion dollars" by October.
So what exactly does the ACA do to Medicare spending? The ACA trims $428 billion [ http://www.medicareadvocacy.org/2010/10/28/health-care-reform-does-not-cut-medicare-benefits/ ] in waste, fraud and abuse. No cuts to benefits, just increased efficiency and fraud protections, and Medicare Advantage payments to private insurance corporations are balanced out to the same levels as Medicare proper.
That's all. Put another way, let's say you spend $100 on food today, and you plan to spend $200 on food tomorrow because you're having guests for dinner. In the interim, you opt to spend only $150 on food tomorrow because you clipped some coupons. You're still spending 50 percent more money tomorrow, so it's not a "cut" in spending. Instead, you've decided to simply save money that you didn't need to otherwise spend. Make sense? If so, explain it to your Republican friends because they don't seem to get it.
The savings will add another 8-10 years of solvency to Medicare without touching benefits, while, according to the CBO [ http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicare/207625-cbo-expects-health-spending-to-double ], Medicare spending is expected to nearly double by 2020. Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage premiums are down and enrollment is up, according to HHS [ http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2012pres/02/20120201a.html ] -- hardly indicative of a plan that's suffering due to the ACA.
The Republicans, including Mitt Romney, are vocally against these obviously positive changes to the system, and they've vowed to repeal Obamacare and all of the Medicare provisions within, including the streamlined savings, the preventative care coverage, and they'll re-open the donut hole, leaving retirees with potentially thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical expenses every year. But if a would-be President Romney repealed Obamacare, the system would be insolvent by 2016 [ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3532 ] and he'd be forced to reduce spending on the program with likely cuts to benefits anyway. At the same time, the Romney camp is positioning itself as the true savior of the program -- a claim that's absurd on its face and exactly the opposite of their true intentions.
It's almost cliche to write this, but this is classic George Orwell by way of Karl Rove. Up is down, black is white, Republicans will save Medicare while Democrats, who invented it and who have fought to sustain it at all costs, want to suddenly destroy it. The exact opposite is true. Nevertheless, the Lie of the Week plan appears to be working. Only 31 percent of seniors [ http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kaiser-poll-independents-seniors-don-t-obamacare_616551.html ] (ostensibly Medicare recipients) support the ACA while also supporting Mitt Romney for president [ http://thedailybanter.com/2012/06/millions-of-old-people-are-benefitting-from-obamacare-but-are-voting-for-romney-anyway/ ]. Considering the array of new benefits that would be repealed when Romney rolls back the ACA, this is staggering but not completely surprising given the pervasiveness of the Republican lies about the law.
Cross-posted at The Daily Banter [ http://thedailybanter.com/ ].
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go! [ http://www.bobcesca.com/ ]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/debunking-romneys-viral-m_b_1798617.html [with comments]
--
"Facts" - Obama for America TV Ad
Get the facts: http://OFA.BO/WBvfr2
Voiceover:
"Now Mitt Romney is attacking the President on Medicare?"
"The non-partisan AARP says Obamacare 'cracks down on Medicare fraud, waste, and abuse' and 'strengthens guaranteed benefits'."
"And the Ryan plan?"
"AARP says it would undermine ... Medicare and could lead to higher costs for seniors...."
"And experts say Ryan's voucher plan could raise future retirees' costs more than six thousand dollars."
"Get the facts."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJb6tA1cXT0
--
Obama Campaign Targets Paul Ryan, Joining Medicare Ad War
Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan, subject of a new ad by President Barack Obama's reelection campaign.
By Sam Stein
Posted: 08/17/2012 6:00 am Updated: 08/17/2012 8:55 am
President Barack Obama's reelection campaign is joining the Medicare ad wars, with a major new television advertisement airing in eight battleground states.
Titled "Facts," the spot responds to an argument made by the Mitt Romney campaign (included in an ad of its own) that the president's health care law raids or robs Medicare of more than $700 billion. It uses AARP, the senior citizens lobby, as an independent validator for claims that the president's reforms actually strengthen the program, while the proposals by the GOP ticket would undermine it.
"Mitt Romney continues to mislead the American people about President Obama’s record on Medicare -– and skip the truth about his own plan to eliminate the guarantee of Medicare and provide people with a voucher to buy health care instead," said a statement from Obama campaign spokesman Adam Fetcher announcing the ad [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJb6tA1cXT0 , as just above, embedded].
Beyond the first line, the spot makes no mention of Mitt Romney, by name. Instead, it makes several references to vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and his first round of proposals to turn Medicare into a voucher-like system, in which senior citizens would be given a check to buy private insurance. That's not just because the president's campaign wants to blanket Romney's candidacy in Ryan's budget. It's because the public, in all likelihood, was already introduced to the Ryan budget when it was the subject of intense town hall debates in the summer of 2011.
"Facts," according to Fetcher, will air in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.
UPDATE: 8:50 a.m. -- Amanda Henneberg, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, emailed over the following reply.
President Obama's new ad 'Facts' gets the facts wrong. The facts concerning the President's record on Medicare are clear: 1) Obama cut the program by $716 billion, 2) millions will be forced to lose their Medicare Advantage coverage and 3) the program will go bankrupt in 2024. Mitt Romney has a plan for Medicare that protects it for today’s seniors and strengthens it for future generations.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/obama-paul-ryan-medicare-_n_1793567.html [with comments]
--
Health Law Gives Medicare Fraud Fighters New Weapons
By Sarah Varney
August 21, 2012
Fighting health care fraud in the U.S. can seem like an endless game of Whack-a-Mole. When government fraud squads crack down on one scheme, another pops up close by.
But the fraud squads that look for scams in the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs have some new weapons: tools and funding provided by the Affordable Care Act.
Medicare and Medicaid pay out some $750 billion each year to more than 1.5 million doctors, hospitals and medical suppliers. By many estimates, about $65 billion a year is lost to fraud.
"For a long time we were not in a position to keep up with the really sophisticated criminals," said Peter Budetti, who oversees anti-fraud efforts at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "They're not only smart, they're extremely well-funded. And this is their full-time job."
And their creativity is endless. Criminals use real patient IDs to bill for wheelchairs that were never delivered or exams never performed. Dishonest doctors — a small percentage of physicians, to be sure — charge for care they never deliver or perform unnecessary operations. In one scam, criminals bill Medicare and a private insurer for the same patient.
But if crooks are smart, it may turn out that computers are smarter. The federal health law and other legislation directed the federal government to start using sophisticated anti-fraud computer systems. Budetti said the systems, which are being used first with Medicare, are similar to those used by credit card companies to detect suspicious purchases.
"We're able to now verify whether a person was being treated by two different physicians in two different states on the same day or a variety of other possibilities," he said.
The computer program crawls around the heaps of Medicare claims — some 4 million a day — to look for outliers: spikes in prosthetics in Miami or heart stents in Missoula. And for the first time, doctors and others who want to bill Medicare are being assessed based on their risk to commit fraud. Those who seem crooked are kept out.
Lou Saccoccio, head of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, said the aggressive computer systems and the government's new authority to suspend payments signal an important change at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"What the Affordable Care Act does and what CMS, I think, is doing now is really a shift of focus of the 'pay and chase' mentality," said Saccoccio. "[That's] where the fraud is committed, you've paid the money, now you have to go out and get it back and prosecute the individual."
Pay and chase has given way to a prevention of fraud model, he said.
Over the next decade, Congress will direct some $340 million in additional funding for government anti-fraud efforts. Still, Saccoccio expects that the aggressive new efforts, which he applauds, will yield far more leads than the current team of investigators and analysts can handle.
"As you get all this information, do you have the resources to look at it all, triage it, so to speak, and make determinations?" he asks.
There's only so much detective work investigators can do sitting at computer terminals, says Patrick Burns of Taxpayers Against Fraud. The effort also needs some foot soldiers, Burns said.
"There has not been historically, in health care, enough ground truth-ing," Burns said. "What I mean by ground truth-ing is: You go to Miami, you get 100 bills, and you go and actually see, is there a doctor's office where you're sending the money?"
Burns says the Obama administration's approach to fighting fraud has been more systematic than previous ones. Indeed, the number of so-called Medicare Strike Force teams operating around the country has quadrupled since 2009. Still, the mantra of the fraud fighters sounds a lot like a department store sale: The more you spend, the more you save.
"What we need to do is fund a war on fraud like we would fund a single day of a real war," Burns said. "If we do that, this country will straighten out real quick."
In the meantime, those in charge of the government's anti-fraud efforts say the new approach is working. The number of defendants facing fraud charges jumped sharply last year. At the end of next month, Medicare is expected to report to Congress the number of new scams detected and the number of new cheats kept out of the program.
Copyright 2012 Kaiser Health News. To see more, visit http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/
*
Related NPR Stories
Feds And Health Insurers Partner To Fight Fraud
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/07/26/157440906/feds-and-health-insurers-partner-to-fight-fraud
Feds Accuse Texas Doctor In $350 Million Medicare Fraud
http://www.wbur.org/npr/147576819/feds-accuse-texas-doctor-in-350-million-medicare-fraud
*
Transcript
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now, the fight against health care fraud is a little like the game of football. One side may have a good offense, so the other develops a better defense. So the offense adapts and tries something new. Now, when government fraud investigators stop one scheme, crooks may try something else. So Medicare and Medicaid fraud investigators have developed a new tool of their own. Here's Sarah Varney with our partner Kaiser Health News.
SARAH VARNEY, BYLINE: Forget purse snatching. Forget Ponzi schemes, smart criminals know the real money is made in health care. Medicare and Medicaid pay out some $750 billion each year to more than a million and a half doctors, hospitals and medical suppliers. By many estimates, about $65 billion a year is lost to fraud.
PETER BUDETTI: For a long time we were not in a position to keep up with the really sophisticated criminals.
VARNEY: Peter Budetti oversees anti-fraud efforts at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
BUDETTI: They're not only smart, they're extremely well funded. And this is their full time job.
VARNEY: And their creativity is endless. Criminals use real patient IDs to bill for wheelchairs that were never delivered. Dishonest doctors - a small percentage of physicians, to be sure - charge for care they never gave or perform unnecessary operations. In one scam, criminals bill Medicare and a private insurer for the same patient.
But if crooks are smart, it may turn out that computers are smarter. The federal health law and other legislation directed the federal government to start using sophisticated anti-fraud computer systems. Budetti says the systems, which are being used first in the Medicare program, are similar to those used by credit card companies to detect suspicious purchases.
BUDETTI: We're able, now, to verify whether or not people actually were being treated by two different physicians, in two different states on the same day or a variety of other possibilities.
VARNEY: The computer program crawls around the heaps of Medicare claims, some four million a day, to look for outliers: spikes in prosthetics in Miami or heart stents in Missoula. And for the first time, doctors and others who want to bill Medicare are being assessed based on their risk to commit fraud. Those who seem crooked are kept out.
Lou Saccoccio, head of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, says the aggressive computer systems and the government's new authority to suspend payments when there's a credible allegation of fraud, signal an important change at Medicare, known as CMS.
LOU SACCOCCIO: What the Affordable Care Act does and what CMS is doing now is really a shift of focus of the pay-and-chase type of mentality - where the fraud is committed, you've paid the money, now you have to go out and get it back and prosecute the individual - to a prevention type of mentality.
VARNEY: Over the next decade, Congress will direct some $340 million in additional funding for government anti-fraud efforts. Still, Saccoccio expects aggressive new efforts, which he applauds, will yield far more leads than the current team of investigators and analysts can handle.
SACCOCCIO: As you get all this information from the system, you know, how - do you have the resources to look at it all, to triage it so to speak and make determinations?
VARNEY: There's only so much detective work investigators can do sitting at computer terminals, says Patrick Burns of Taxpayers Against Fraud. Burns says to snuff out a scam, you've got to see it for yourself.
PATRICK BURNS: There has not been, historically, in health care arena, enough ground truth-ing. What I mean by ground truth-ing is: You simply go to Miami, you get a hundred bills. You look through them and you go and actually see, is there a doctor's office where you're sending the money?
VARNEY: Burns say the Obama administration's approach to fighting fraud has been more systematic than previous ones. Indeed, the number of so-called Medicare Strike Force teams operating around the country has quadrupled since 2009. Still, the mantra of the fraud fighters sounds a lot like a department store sale: The more you spend, the more you save.
BURNS: What we need to do is fund a war on fraud like we would fund a single day of a real war. If we do that, this country will straighten out real quick.
VARNEY: In the meantime, those in charge of the government's anti-fraud efforts say the new approach is working. The number of defendants facing fraud charges jumped sharply last year. And at the end of next month, Medicare is expected to report to Congress the number of new scams detected and the number of new cheats kept out of the program.
For NPR News, I'm Sarah Varney.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
View original article at NPR.org [ http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/21/158761170/health-law-gives-medicare-fraud-fighters-new-weapons ]
*
http://www.wbur.org/npr/158761170/health-law-gives-medicare-fraud-fighters-new-weapons
--
Middle-Age Blues
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: August 15, 2012
Paul Ryan is everywhere! Nobody can talk about anything but the congressman from Wisconsin. We now know he is the intellectual, spiritual and moral center of the House of Representatives, who keeps his body fat below 8 percent and excels at a sport that involves sticking your hand inside a catfish, grabbing it by the tonsils and pulling it out of the water. Also, I believe he may have been the guy who ran the men’s relay race in the Olympics on a broken fibula.
Today, let’s consider what the selection of Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate will mean to the American health care system. To start, there’s good news for senior citizens: You can stop worrying! Neither Ryan nor Romney wants to change Medicare coverage for people over 55.
Also, the news media is going to quit calling you senior citizens. You are now Medicare Sensitive Voters.
Any other questions? Let’s start with you over there in the corner — the one jumping up and down and hysterically waving your arms.
I am 54! How come nobody cares about my health care?
As Romney said on “60 Minutes,” the Republican ticket is “looking for young people down the road and saying, ‘We’re going to give you a bigger choice.’ ” So the good news is that: A) you are getting a choice, and B) you are now officially a young person.
No, I’m not! I am totally falling apart! And now you’re telling me that people just one year older than me will get guaranteed government coverage that everybody likes, while I am going to be getting a choice? What if I don’t want a choice?
Freedom is always good.
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
You are much too young to know that song. That’s why Ryan doesn’t want to let you have Medicare as we know it. To qualify for the current system, you’d have to be old enough to remember when Simon and Garfunkel were together.
But I’m glad you want to talk about Medicare. Now that Ryan is on the ticket, that’s the topic of the hour. No more debates about Bain Capital. Really, unless someone discovers that Bain Capital secretly shelled the Golan Heights, that subject is off the table.
So, about Medicare. Why don’t Romney and Ryan want to let me have it?
You really are obsessed with that, aren’t you? The National Republican Congressional Committee has warned all its candidates that whenever the subject comes up, they are to avoid mentioning “entitlement reform,” or “privatization,” or “every option is on the table.” Instead, the keywords are: “strengthen, secure, save, preserve, protect.”
So I suspect Romney and Ryan would say that they want to change the current system in order to strengthen, secure, save, preserve and protect your future health care. Which will involve a lot of choices, even though every option is not on the table. Totally not.
Basically, the Republican message is that it’s Barack Obama who is trying to destroy Medicare and that they will save it.
How do they think President Obama is going to destroy it?
Through Obamacare, the cause of everything that’s wrong with the country today, possibly including forest fires and the helium shortage. The administration’s theory is that new federal guidelines will force providers to be more efficient, reducing anticipated Medicare costs over the next 10 years by a little more than $700 billion.
The savings could be used to help provide health insurance coverage for the poor. That’s the core of the G.O.P. complaint. A new Romney ad tells older voters to think of it this way: “The money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.”
That sounds as if Romney believes old people are kind of selfish.
You think? Anyhow, under Paul Ryan’s proposal, instead of simply getting Medicare, people like you will be given a voucher and told to choose from among a whole bunch of health care plans. The Ryan theory was that the competition would force providers to be more efficient, reducing anticipated Medicare costs over the next 10 years by a little more than $700 billion.
Wait a minute ...
I know. But that was before he joined the ticket. Now all talk of $700 billion in savings is being retracted, like a great catfish being yanked by the throat from its cozy burrow.
If you want my opinion, Ryan’s passion for health care cost-cutting is actually not directed at Medicare so much as Medicaid. The seniors who could really take a hit would be the ones in nursing homes who’ve already run through their own savings.
That’s my Aunt Flossie! What’s going to happen to Aunt Flossie?
Do you have a spare bedroom?
*
Related
Obama-Ryan Battle Intensifies Over Medicare Savings (August 15, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/health/policy/battle-over-medicare-savings-intensifies-between-obama-and-paul-ryan.html
Related in Opinion
Op-Ed Columnist: When Cruelty Is Cute (August 15, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html
Op-Ed Contributor: Paul Ryan’s Fairy-Tale Budget Plan (August 14, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html
More on United States Elections
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/united-states-politics/index.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company (emphasis in original)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/opinion/collins-middle-age-blues.html [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan Talks Medicare At Florida Campaign Appearance
Republican vice-presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., right, introduces his mother, Betty Ryan Douglas, to supporters at a campaign rally in The Villages, Fla., Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012.
(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
By PHILIP ELLIOTT and JIM KUHNHENN
08/18/12 07:34 PM ET
THE VILLAGES, Fla. — Who loves Medicare more? President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney's running mate vied for that distinction Saturday as Medicare became the latest flashpoint in a presidential campaign of flying elbows.
The issue is dicey for both sides: Obama is steering billions from the entitlement to help pay for the expansion of coverage under his health care law; Paul Ryan is a champion of overhauling Medicare to make the traditional program no longer the mainstay for tomorrow's seniors – just one of many old-age health insurance choices.
But that didn't stop them from going head on.
On a day Romney devoted to raising campaign cash in Massachusetts, Ryan accused Obama of raiding the Medicare "piggybank" to pay for his health care overhaul and he warned starkly that hospitals and nursing homes may close as a result. The Wisconsin congressman introduced his 78-year-old mother to an audience of seniors in Florida and passionately defended a program that has provided old-age security for two generations of his own family.
"She planned her retirement around this promise," Ryan said as Betty Ryan Douglas looked on. "That's a promise we have to keep."
Campaigning in New Hampshire, Obama said it's a promise that the Republican ticket would tear up.
"You would think they would avoid talking about Medicare, given the fact that both of them have proposed to voucherize the Medicare system," he said in Windham. "But I guess they figure the best defense is to try to go on offense.
"So, New Hampshire, here is what you need to know: Since I have been in office, I have strengthened Medicare."
He hammered the point again later in the day while campaigning in Rochester, N.H.
Said Ryan in Florida: "You want to know what Medicare is saying about this? From Medicare officials themselves: One out of 6 of our hospitals and our nursing homes will go out of business as a result of this," meaning Obama's Medicare cuts.
That was a far from exact reference to a 2010 analysis by Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster. He said then that roughly 15 percent of hospitals and nursing homes that provide Medicare services could "become unprofitable" over a decade – not necessarily go out of business – thanks to cuts in payments from the government under the health care law.
But Foster's analysis also said the law would improve key Medicare benefits, solve the "doughnut hole" gap in coverage for seniors, expand health insurance to millions more people, reduce the federal budget deficit and extend the solvency of the government's hospital insurance trust fund by up to 12 years. Hospitals remain largely on board with the health care law, without apparent fear of closing.
Ryan, a deficit hawk and the House Republicans' chief budget writer, has stood out in Washington for laying out tough spending choices that many lawmakers in both parties avoid. So it was almost inevitable that his selection as running mate would vault Medicare to the top of the campaign debate.
Democrats say it's a debate they are glad to have because voters tend to trust them more than Republicans on the big social entitlements. But Obama has vulnerabilities, too, given the Medicare cuts he pushed to expand health insurance for the nation and to keep the costs of doing so in line.
The Obama campaign recognizes that Romney and Ryan have been pre-emptive. The likely Republican ticket tried to neutralize the usual Democratic criticism on Medicare by striking first with a Medicare ad and with their criticism of Obama's health law. "They are being dishonest about my plan because they can't sell their plan," the president said Saturday.
Ryan's proposal in Congress would encourage future retirees to consider private coverage that the government would help pay for through a voucher-like system, while keeping the traditional program as an option.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Medicare over time would spend thousands less per senior under the Ryan plan than under current policy. Critics say that would shift heavy costs to individual retirees. The government could always spend more than anticipated to meet changing realities, but at the cost of deeper deficits.
In New Hampshire, Obama cast the choice on Election Day as one between two fundamentally different approaches to the government's responsibility to its citizens. His approach of portraying Romney's tax and economic plans as a giveaway to the rich was familiar, but seemed to have a particularly sharp bite.
"They've been trying to sell this trickle-down snake oil before," he told his audience in Windham. "It did not work then. It will not work now. It will not reduce the deficit, it will not create jobs. It's the wrong direction for America."
In Massachusetts, Romney told reporters on Martha's Vineyard that he wishes he could spend more time campaigning in competitive states but must raise money at a furious pace because Obama broke all barriers four years ago.
"That's the challenge with a president who blew through the federal spending limits," he said. "Campaigns now have to spend a disproportionate amount of time fundraising. You appreciate all the help you get, but you wish you could spend more time on the campaign trail."
Asked if campaigns ads are not already saturating the airwaves in swing states, Romney replied, "80-some-odd days to go."
His staff estimated Romney will raise nearly $7 million from fundraising events held Friday and Saturday in Boston, Long Island and the Massachusetts resort areas of Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod and Nantucket.
Romney took a 10-minute break from fundraising Saturday to shake hands and pose for pictures at Millie's Restaurant in Nantucket, Mass.
Romney bought ice cream for several staff members, shook hands with adults and stroked a baby's head.
Alec Gavenda, 13, of Summit, N.J., marched up to Romney and introduced himself and his family to the candidate, who asked several questions about the vacationing group.
Greg Gavenda, 12, told Romney, "my brother has Down Syndrome," to which Romney smiled and said softly, "I figured that."
The boys' father, T.J. Gavenda, told the former governor, "We just ordered our Romney-Ryan yard sign."
But as the campaign entourage left the restaurant, a less-friendly man shouted demands that Romney release five years of personal tax returns.
Although Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he's conceded that Obama's almost certain to win the state in November.
Ryan, too, took a break – to raise money. At an evening reception on Florida's Treasure Island, Ryan drew a crowd of 200 people and raised another $1 million.
Speaking to donors who paid as much as $50,000 to have dinner with him, Ryan compared the United States with Europe, where a financial crisis has led to cuts in benefits for retirees. He said lawmakers there delayed action even though they saw impending problems, and seniors paid the price.
"They ran out of road to kick the can down, and now they have a debt crisis," Ryan said.
Ryan warned the same could happen here if the country doesn't get its hands around its own affairs.
Ryan's stop Saturday at the gated retirement cluster known as The Villages was familiar ground for presidential candidates. Florida has the highest concentration of voters over 65 in the country, with some 17 percent of Floridians fall into that group. Betty Ryan Douglas spends part of her year in Broward County's Lauderdale-by-the-Sea community and has been registered to vote in Florida since 1997.
Kuhnhenn reported from Rochester, N.H. Associated Press writer Charles Babington in West Tisbury, Mass., and Calvin Woodward in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/18/paul-ryan-medicare_n_1803004.html [with comments]
--
Dan Benishek Attacked In DCCC Ad Over Paul Ryan Medicare Plan
By Luke Johnson
Posted: 08/16/2012 8:56 am
Democrats are taking to the airwaves to attack the plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to turn Medicare into quasi-voucher program, a strategy that in the past has been a political winner.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running its first independent expenditure ad against Rep. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.)[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR5IJB_SoYQ (next below)].
"Benishek’s voted to essentially end Medicare," says a narrator, referring to the 2011 Ryan budget, though not by name. "Forcing seniors to pay over six thousand more a year."
Ryan revised his budget in 2012 to one that leaves traditional Medicare as an option [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/no-end-to-end-medicare-claim/ ], as opposed to his 2011 proposal, which only offered private health plans.
The DCCC is spending more than $73,000 to air the ad against Benishek, and has reserved $515,000 in airtime, according to the AP [ http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf/story/dccc-ad-targets-benishek-on-medicare/93cd43a98ba64a96a13e7ae3c29e5e7a ].
Benishek will face off against former State Rep. Gary McDowell (D), who he beat in 2010. His district, encompassing the Upper Peninsula and part of the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, is competitive. Conservative Democrat Bart Stupak represented it until 2011, when he retired.
Benishek's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/dan-benishek-dccc-ad_n_1788542.html [with comments]
--
Bizzaro World Right-Wing Health-Care Attack: Obamacare Not Universal
Conservatives and Tea Partiers are now complaining the president's private-sector oriented health-care overhaul didn't go far enough.
Aug 18 2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/bizzaro-world-right-wing-health-care-attack-obamacare-not-universal/261227/ [with comments]
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=71565214 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77506252 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78456304 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78488594 and preceding and following
(and http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78867693 and preceding [and any future following])
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78551301 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78579263 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78584470 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78626409 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78704047 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78799320 and preceding and following
===
Romney the Unknowable
By TIMOTHY EGAN
August 15, 2012, 9:20 pm
Ten days from now, some of the world’s best-paid magicians of image and narrative will unveil a reboot of a most unfathomable man, Willard Mitt Romney, a 2012 model with a shelf life of barely two months.
The Republican National Convention will mark the fourth time in 18 years, dating to a losing Senate race in 1994, that a Team Romney has tried to construct a Brand Romney. This problem of who he is, Romney acknowledged last year, has plagued him ever since he became a public figure.
In focus groups, he’s described as a tin man, a shell, an empty suit, vacuous, a multimillionaire in mom jeans. And that’s from supporters.
At the convention, you can expect to hear high praise for a virtuous, disciplined, loyal person of family and faith. You will surely hear the words “turnaround” and “no apology” — both titles of platitudinous and unread books by Romney — in defense of his business acumen and unshakable view of American exceptionalism.
But I doubt you will hear anything of the real Romney because he is afraid of his own past. His life — even with prep school privilege in Bloomfield Hills, the draft-avoiding refuges of mission work in Paris and business school at Harvard, a founding role at Bain Capital from a mentor who guaranteed he would never fail financially or professionally — is not without drama.
Yet that Romney story is laden with land mines of his making. Or rather, that of his party, which has turned so quickly against common-sense solutions to the nation’s problems that Romney’s real achievements, and prior principles, are now toxic to most Republicans.
Start with his family. His great-grandfather was a fugitive, tracked by federal marshals as he tried to plant polygamy throughout the Southwest for a radical new American faith. It’s a hell of a tale, Butch Cassidy with five wives. But Romney never mentions this arc for fear his Mormon religion will offend evangelical Christians who dominate the Republican Party.
He could talk about his father, or maybe not. George Romney, born in Mexico, was a principled politician who didn’t support Barry Goldwater’s nomination in 1964. He was nearly ousted from Richard Nixon’s cabinet for aggressive pursuit of racial integration in the suburbs. He opposed the Vietnam War. He not only paid a much higher rate of income tax than did his son, but he made public those taxes — 12 years of returns.
George Romney would be booed at this year’s convention.
What about Mitt the businessman? His years at Bain Capital, the private-equity firm, were supposed to be his chief selling point. The boys of Bain had numerous venture capital triumphs. But they also busted up a lot of lives with leveraged buyouts that inflicted heavy casualties.
Well before Democrats set out to make Bain a four-letter verb, Republicans during the primary recast Romney’s 15 active years in high finance as a plunder spree. “A bunch of rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company,” said Newt Gingrich. “Vulture capitalist,” cried Gov. Rick Perry.
More significant than Bain’s brand of “creative destruction” was how Romney himself got very rich. The bulk of his wealth came from capital gains, not salary or actual income. Those gains are taxed far less than many working people’s wages, and, with offshore accounts, the rates can go even lower. The story of American inequality is in the additional tax returns that Romney has vowed never to release.
With Bain and his colorful Mormon past off the table, that leaves Romney’s one-term as Massachusetts governor to highlight. He ruled as a moderate — oops, bad word. His greatest achievement, of course, was universal health care that became the template for Obamacare. He once called it, “the ultimate conservative idea.”
As he shed the ideas he embraced in the Bay State and tried to become “severely conservative,” Romney the unknowable became Romney the unlikable. His flip-flops were Olympic in caliber: on gun control, abortion, climate change, taxes, gays.
“Some are actually having children born to them,” he said of gay couples, in disgust, while groveling in the South, as reported in “The Real Romney,” the fair-minded biography by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman.
With Paul Ryan on the ticket, Romney becomes ever more hollow in comparison to the younger man of a cold-hearted-but-consistent philosophy.
A few weeks ago, Brian Williams of NBC News asked Romney if he was “unknowable to us.” Great question. Romney chuckled, that nervous stage laugh, and said voters will likely wait until the debates to discern his character. Fat chance. Better to chase fireflies with a thimble, for the true Romney is a phantom — lost long ago to reinventions and calculations.
*
Related
G.O.P. Packaging Seeks to Reveal a Warm Romney (August 20, 2012)
[tab headline: "Romney Campaign Works Feverishly to Project Relaxed Image"]
The Romney campaign wants the main stage for the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., to convey warmth and openness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/romney-campaign-works-feverishly-to-project-relaxed-image.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/romney-the-unknowable/ [with comments]
--
And now it gets interesting
The Polygamy Blog [ http://www.sltrib.com/Blogs/polygblog ]
Lindsay Whitehurst
Published on Aug 17, 2012 07:50PM
So it looks like we're going to see arguments on whether Utah's law banning polygamy is unconstitutional in the "Sister Wives" case, maybe as soon as this fall.
That's after a federal judge ruled in the Brown family's favor today, allowing the case to go forward even though Utah County prosecutors have promised they won't go after them, or any other consenting adults who don't commit other crimes.
Read the ruling here [ http://www.scribd.com/doc/103177874/Refusal-to-Dismiss-Sister-Wives-081712 ].
And the blog-response from Brown attorney Jonathan Turley here [ http://jonathanturley.org/2012/08/17/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-sister-wives-lawsuit-denies-second-motion-to-dismiss/ ].
The state's response is in my story, here [ http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54718559-78/utah-ruling-attorney-browns.html.csp ].
The next step in the process will come from the Browns, with a filing due Aug. 31. The deadline for a reply from the state is Sept. 14, and a rebuttal from the Browns is due Sept. 28.
I'm interested to see the state's direct response to the Browns' arguments that the law violates their rights to privacy, freedom of expression, etc. So far the state has been mainly been focused on trying to get the suit tossed.
Maybe they'll take a page from Canada's recent court case over their polygamy law? (It was upheld). Page through the vast trove of documents filed in that case here [ https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B-URIT52yhx4MDVkMDU5MDctZDM0Zi00ODQ4LWJkNWEtMWVjNmRjMGE2ZjQ0/edit?num=50&sort=name&layout=list ].
Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake City Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogspolygblog/54718979-191/case-state-browns-law.html.csp [with comments] [further in particular to the 16th item "No charges to be filed in Utah 'Sister Wives' case" (toward the end) at (and see in general) (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76212123 (and preceding and following)]
--
PARADE Exclusive: A Conversation With the Romneys
The Romney clan on the deck of their New Hampshire home.
[Ben Baker]
The couple pose in front of a photo backdrop outside their Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H. home.
Lynn Sherr
August 26, 2012 [issue of]
Editor's note: As part of PARADE's 2012 election coverage, the magazine will feature President Obama and the first lady in its Sept. 2 cover story.
It's probably the closest the Romneys have come to kicking back during this campaign summer: a late July afternoon on glistening Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Grandkids bounce on the trampoline, splash in the gentle waves, soak in the hot tub. The candidate's eldest son, Tagg, 42, and his wife, Jen, keep an eye on their brood while a passel of campaign workers and friends stir things up in the kitchen.
But you're never off the clock when you're running for president, which is why Mitt Romney‚ wearing pressed jeans and a more relaxed demeanor than he does on the stump‚ and his radiant wife, Ann, agreed to this dinnertime conversation with PARADE contributor Lynn Sherr. On the table, a typical New England lobster-and-corn supper. Nearby, 2-year-old Johnny in a high chair, occasionally cooing at his adoring grandmother. Coming before the announcement of his vice presidential pick and his awkward trip to Europe, the discussion focused on campaign vitriol, the governor's hopes for the Republican convention (set to begin Monday in Tampa), and very pragmatic questions from readers (culled from Parade.com, CafeMom, and two GateHouse Media newspapers: the Peoria Journal Star and the Canton Repository) about Romney's wealth and how he would have voters' backs if elected president.
Governor, your campaign speeches talk about the middle class, but the vast majority of the questions we received from readers asked about your ability to relate to their struggles. In essence, how do you know what it's like to be someone without means, someone, as one reader puts it, trying to scrape by, living on food stamps?
Governor Mitt Romney: Each of us faces struggles of one kind or another. Our life was not characterized by financial stress as much as it was by health issues. I served as a pastor of a congregation and saw people with various challenges and did my best to help them. I believe my experience in the private sector, the voluntary sector, and government has helped teach me what it takes to help people with different types of challenges.
We got this question from Kelsey M. of Orange, Va. 'I'm a stay-at-home mom of two children. How will your presidency improve my life?'
MR: One, you'll be able to see better jobs with rising income again. And you'll know that when your kids go to school, it's a school of your choice, not the government's. And you'll know that when your kids come out of school, there will be a good job waiting for them.
There were a number of questions about your financial wealth. New Jersey resident Harry H. asked if you would make this pledge: If elected, do you promise to bank in the United States?
MR: My investments have been managed for almost the last 10 years by a blind trust. A trustee decides where to put our money. If I am president, my understanding is the same principle applies, that I may not direct any of my investments. I can't tell you what my investments might be because I won't make them. But I am happy to have every investment in the United States.
You've received a lot of criticism from your opponents in the primaries. They said a lot of nasty things. Did it hurt?
MR: No. That's part of the political process. I don't worry about that.
ANN ROMNEY: Interesting—it didn't hurt at all this time.
Why do you think that in a recent poll, you lost out to the president in [voter] enthusiasm?
MR: To most folks that don't pay a lot of attention to the Republican primary process, I am not so well known. As I get better known, people will have greater confidence that I'm the person who can get this country working again for the middle class. It's nice to be loved, but it's better to be respected.
On the topic of respect, former New Hampshire governor John Sununu has said that President Obama needs to learn to be American. You've referred to his policies as 'foreign.' Do you believe that President Obama is un-American in any way?
MR: Governor Sununu was not suggesting he was't American, nor do I. I believe he's making us far more like Europe, with a larger, more dominant, more intrusive government. I believe if we keep going on that path, we will end up like Europe, with chronic high unemployment, no wage growth, and economic calamity at the doorstep. I think you have to return to celebrating success, encouraging entrepreneurship, and finding ways to get government out of the way.
Also from a reader, Nancy B., of Winter Springs, Fla.: 'I trust your acumen to assemble a great turnaround team for the economy. But who do you have in mind for advice on foreign affairs?'
MR: I don't have a secretary of state or national security adviser in mind at this point‚ it might be a little presumptuous. That being said, I speak with a number of the former secretaries of state and [other] leaders‚ Condoleezza Rice, Jim Baker, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, John Bolton, as well as people less well known. My leadership style is to have people of differing viewpoints express them openly and [then I] select among them myself.
Question from Texas resident Jean S.: 'Have you ever felt like a loser? What did you do to overcome that feeling?'
MR: I define myself by my relationship with God, my wife, and my family. And in those relationships, I am not a loser. I don't worry about what happens in politics and the opinions of others, or I'd lose my hair!
And we all know you haven't done that.
MR: Glue keeps it in place. [laughter]
Let's talk for a moment about your faith. How has tithing [the Mormon practice of giving 10 percent of one's income to the church] shaped your view of how we treat each other?
AR: I love tithing. When Mitt and I give that check, I actually cry.
MR: So do I, but for a different reason.
AR: I know this money is an indication of how much we trust God and love the principle of sacrifice. And it teaches us not to be too, too tied to the things of the world. And it is a very good reminder of how blessed we really are, and most of those blessings do not come from a financial source, but from the power above.
MR: Our church doesn't publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one's financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It's a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.
Tithing sounds like a form of it takes a village.You're helping the community.
MR: I think you'll find that conservatives are more generous philanthropically than people who are not conservatives. People who are in favor of small government are very much in favor of personal action to help other people in need.
Is that a form of socialism?
MR: From the very beginning, the willingness of neighbors to help raise the barn of a next-door neighbor was characteristic of America. But at the same time we take personal responsibility for our lives. Does government play a role? Absolutely. You know, I chuckle when I hear people say, 'Oh, they don't want any government.' Of course we want government! But it is government to encourage the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of its citizens, as opposed to direct the course of their living.
Mrs. Romney, many, many readers asked what would be your cause or causes should you become first lady.
AR: A lot of my life I've been working with at-risk youth. There are many lost children in this generation, and it's just shameful. I hope to continue to help at-risk youth make choices that will make their lives better.
What makes you nervous about your husband on the campaign trail?
AR: The only time I interfere is when I feel like his schedule is way too strenuous. He's only got so much he can give every day. So that's when I really put my foot down, saying, 'Dial it back, dial it back, dial it back.'
And never in a debate, never when he's making a speech?
AR: Well, I am nervous in debates. I don't like debates because—
MR: —she knows she could do better. [laughs] She wants to get up onstage and give it to them.
AR: Because there's so many traps you can fall in. But I enjoy his speeches. Even when I hear some of the same stories over and over again, I get emotional.
Do you cry?
AR: I do.
Do you, Governor?
MR: I'm emotional. I don't show it quite as clearly as John Boehner, but I'm an emotional person. There is a, I don't know, a societal norm that if you're running for office, you can't be emotional, and perhaps I bow to that too often.
Should you be elected, give me a picture of the White House. What is the feel? PARADE asked you once before if there'd be horses at the White House, and you said yes.
MR: Well, probably not at the White House itself, but nearby so she could go for her therapy. [Ann Romney was diagnosed with MS in 1998.]
Give me your White House vision.
MR: I'd like it to be open and have people feel welcome there. I don't just mean touring it, but also come to the East Room and see a performance of some kind.
Like what?
MR: Well, I would certainly want to hear from the Beach Boys, even though I know it's not the same group it used to be. Also Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith, and today's rock stars—The Killers are one group I enjoy.
AR: I love jazz, I love pop, I love rock, I love classical.
MR: I'd let Alabama come back and sing again, and Aerosmith. Different eras.
AR: We have a friend in the Eagles.
MR: These are not all Republicans, by the way. Some may turn us down, but—
AR: No, they would die to be mentioned.
MR: I think the Obamas have done a nice job of welcoming various artists and having people come enjoy the White House. I also think, by the way, that having two children in the White House is a good thing. I hope, if we are lucky enough to be there, our grandchildren could come on occasion.
AR: They'd want to move in, Mitt!
MR: I think having little feet in the hallway is wonderful.
And after the convention, how do you see the Republican Party?
AR: United.
MR: We're united now. You go and ask people who voted for John McCain: 'Are you thinking of voting for anyone other than Mitt Romney?' And you will have a very hard time finding someone who's thinking of voting in a different direction. ... We go to the convention with high hopes. There's a lot of enthusiasm for new leadership.
AR: It's a recognition that Mitt and I represent millions and millions of people's hopes. It's women's voices in my head right now.
What do they say?
AR: One is, they'e praying for me, which is unbelievably touching. The second is, 'Your husband has to save this country.' And they say it with such passion and conviction. I feel what they're yearning for and hoping for.
What is that?
AR: What I hear very frequently is, 'My children are going to be worse off than I am.' And I think that it is the first time in the history of America that one generation can say that. There is concern that a lot of their friends, a lot of their family are out of work; they may be out of work themselves. They really feel like something's gone. 'Mitt always says that we can do better. He's giving them a thread of hope to say, 'Join with us. We're going to be okay.'
Should the party change? There's been a lot of talk that it's gotten a little far to the right.
MR: I can't speak for something as big as 100-some-odd million people. The party is much bigger than any one person.
But you're going to be its leader.
MR: Hopefully a good one. [laughs]
© 2012 Parade Publications
http://www.parade.com/news/2012/08/26-conversation-with-the-romneys.html [with comment]
--
Utah tops U.S. in giving to charity, study says
Philanthropy » Less-religious states give less, study shows.
The Associated Press
First Published Aug 20 2012 10:01 am • Last Updated Aug 20 2012 06:12 pm
Boston • Mormon-dominated Utah leads the nation in charitable giving, thanks largely to LDS emphasis on tithing.
In fact, a new study on the generosity of Americans suggests that states with the least-religious residents are also the stingiest about donating to charity.
The study released Monday by the Chronicle of Philanthropy found that residents in states where religious participation is higher than the rest of the nation gave the greatest percentage of their discretionary income to charity.
A Gallup poll earlier this year ranked Utah as the second-most-religious state, behind Mississippi, and a religion census pegged the Salt Lake City area — headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — as the nation’s most-religious metropolis.
Mormons are taught to pay 10 percent of their income to the faith. To enter LDS temples and participate in Mormonism’s most sacred rites, members must meet this tithing requirement.
"Any LDS member who is faithful does that," said Valerie Mason, 70, of Mesa, Ariz., during an interview in Salt Lake City. "Some struggle with it. Some leave the church because of it. But we believe in the blessing. ... Tithing does bring the blessing of God’s promise."
The most generous state, according to the latest study, was Utah, where residents gave 10.6 percent of their discretionary income to charity, followed by Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina.
The least generous was New Hampshire, at 2.5 percent, followed by Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Churches are among the organizations counted as charities by the study, and some states in the Northeast rank in the top 10 when religious giving is not counted.
The study also found that patterns of charitable giving are colored in political reds and blues.
Of the 10 least generous states, nine voted for Democrat Barack Obama for president in the last election. By contrast, of the 10 most generous states, eight voted for Republican John McCain.
But Peter Panepento, the Chronicle’s assistant managing editor, said that political breakdown likely speaks to a state’s religious makeup, not its prevailing political views. He noted the lowest-ranked Democrat states were also among the least religious, while the top-ranked Republican states were among the more religious.
"I don’t know if I could go out and say it’s a complete Republican-Democrat difference as much as it is different religious attitudes and culture in these states," he said.
The study was based on Internal Revenue Service records of people who itemized deductions in 2008, the most recent year statistics were available.
By focusing on the percentage given to charity from discretionary income — the money left over after necessities are paid for — the study aimed to remove variables such as the differing costs of living around the country, Panepento said. The data allowed researchers to detail charitable giving down to the ZIP code.
In Boston, semi-retired carpenter Stephen Cremins said the traditional New England ideal of self-sufficiency might explain the lower giving, particularly during tight times when people have less to spare.
"Charity begins at home," Cremins said. "I’m a big believer of that, you know, you have to take care of yourself before you can help others."
The study found that in the Northeast — including New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York — people gave 4.1 percent of their discretionary income to charity. The percentage was 5.2 percent in the South, a region from Texas east to Delaware and Florida, and including most of the so-called Bible Belt.
Alan Wolfe, a political science professor at Boston College, said it’s wrong to link a state’s religious makeup with its generosity. People in less religious states are giving in a different way by being more willing to pay higher taxes so the government can equitably distribute superior benefits, Wolfe said. And the distribution is based purely on need, rather than religious affiliation or other variables, said Wolfe, also head of the college’s Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life.
Wolfe said people in less-religious states "view the tax money they’re paying not as something that’s forced upon them, but as a recognition that they belong with everyone else, that they’re citizens in the common good. ... I think people here believe that when they pay their taxes, they’re being altruistic."
When only secular gifts are counted, New York climbs from No. 18 to No. 2 in giving, and Pennsylvania rises from No. 40 to No. 4.
Among other findings:
» People who earn $200,000 per year give a greater percentage to charity when they live in ZIP codes with fewer people who are as wealthy as they are.
» People who earn between $50,000 and $75,000 annually give a higher percentage of their income to charity (7.6 percent) than those who make $100,000 or more (4.2 percent).
The Salt Lake Tribune contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press/The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54728309-78/states-religious-charity-giving.html.csp [with comments]
--
Romney’s equating of taxes and charitable giving sparks debate
By Rosalind S. Helderman, Published: August 18, 2012
Are taxes a form of charitable donation?
Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney seemed to suggest that he might think so last week, when he responded to questions about how much he pays in taxes by suggesting that people [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-ive-paid-at-least-13-percent-in-taxes-for-past-10-years/2012/08/16/bf4b5944-e7be-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_story.html ] should take into account his total contributions to the government and charities.
The comment was a quick one — a by-golly insistence that despite paying a relatively low tax rate on his vast income, the millions he has given to charity show that he’s not a greedy guy.
But experts who research public attitudes on philanthropy on both sides of the political spectrum said it was an inadvertently revealing moment, a brief window into the deep philosophical differences between how liberals and conservatives view government and society.
“Taxes are a form a of charity,” said Michael Tanner, a scholar at the Cato Institute [ http://www.cato.org/people/michael-tanner ] who has studied philanthropy, explaining the conservative viewpoint. “If we think of the point of taxes, it’s not to be punitive. We tax people because there’s some use, some public good, for which they’re needed.”
He added that one reason a conservative such as Romney aims to push tax rates down is a fundamental belief that individuals make better choices about what society needs than government does: “A conservative might say, ‘I know of something in my local community where my dollars might serve a better purpose.’?”
The flip side of the argument, the liberal side, is that the point of government is to provide a way for citizens to decide together what society needs and to get those things done.
“This is really the fundamental disagreement,” said Garrett Gruener [ http://www.altapartners.com/team_detail.php?id=18 ], the founder of Ask.com, who advocates higher taxes for himself and other ultra-wealthy individuals as part of the group Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength [ http://patrioticmillionaires.org/ ].
“Democracy is not a charity. It’s an enterprise of all Americans to accomplish things that we democratically decide are important,” he said. “Charity is something I do on my own, and I don’t expect others to have the same priorities I do.”
Romney is one of the wealthiest Americans ever to represent a major party in a presidential race, and his personal finances have been under a political microscope. Democrats argue that his effective tax rate — 13.9 percent in 2010 — is an illustration of federal policies that favor the wealthy, making breaks available to those who can pay accountants to find them and taxing investment income at a lower rate than wages.
He has also been under pressure from Democrats to release more information about his taxes. So far, he has released only his return from 2010, and he said he will make public his 2011 return.
No less than 13 percent
During a news conference Thursday, he insisted that in the past 10 years, he has not paid a federal income tax rate of less than 13 percent. He made the statement after Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he had been told [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/on-romneys-taxes-harry-reid-continues-his-tradition-of-stinging-remarks/2012/08/01/gJQA26xFQX_story.html ] that Romney had managed to avoid paying federal income taxes for 10 years.
“I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that,” Romney said.
Then he continued: “If you add in, in addition, the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent.”
It wasn’t the first time that Romney had appeared to suggest that it was appropriate to look at his tax and charity payments in total.
“I’m proud of the taxes I pay. My taxes, plus my charitable contributions, this year, 2011, will be about 40 percent,” he said in January during a debate [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-and-newt-gingrich-square-off-in-republican-debate/2012/01/26/gIQA2KzBUQ_story.html ] among Republican presidential candidates in Florida.
On their 2010 tax return [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-releases-tax-returns/2012/01/23/gIQAj5bUMQ_story.html ], Romney and his wife, Ann, reported giving nearly $3 million to charity, 13.8 percent of their total $21.7 million income. According to the Romney campaign, the couple gave more than $7 million in 2010 and 2011.
“The Romneys take to heart ‘to whom much is given, of him shall much be required,’ ” according to a statement on a campaign Web site page [ http://www.mittromney.com/learn/mitt/tax-return/main ] devoted to the tax issue. “Accordingly, they have been extraordinarily generous in their charitable giving .?.?. donating even more to charity than they paid in taxes.”
That level of giving is far beyond the contributions of most Americans. According to research by the Center on Philanthropy [ http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/ ] at Indiana University [ http://www.indiana.edu/ ] and the Giving USA Foundation [ http://www.givingusa.org/ ], Americans gave about 1.9 percent of disposable personal income to charity in each of the past three years.
It is also more than given by many leading political figures.
The Obamas
According to their 2011 tax return, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama paid an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent and gave to charity 22 percent [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-gifts-to-charity-just-1-percent/2012/02/14/gIQAXuMDER_blog.html ] of their adjusted gross income of $789,674. But their rate of giving has varied significantly, as has their income. Their 2005 return, for instance, showed them giving 4.6 percent of $1.66 million. In 2003, they gave 1.4 percent of $238,00; in 2004, they contributed 1.2 percent of $207,000.
Vice President Biden and his wife, Jill, gave 1.4 percent of their adjusted income to charity in 2010 and 1.5 percent in 2011. According to tax returns released Friday, the newly chosen Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his wife, Janna, gave 1.2 percent of their gross adjusted income to charity in 2010, a figure that jumped to 4 percent in 2011.
But the Romneys, who have estimated in financial disclosure forms that they are worth between $190 million and $250 million, are vastly more wealthy than most people, and the moral obligation of the super-wealthy is the subject of considerable discussion in ethics circles.
According to a calculator developed by Peter Singer [ http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/ ], a professor at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values [ https://uchv.princeton.edu/ ], Romney should have given at least $6 million of his income in 2010. Singer — who says Americans at all income levels should forgo more luxuries to help the global poor — termed Romney’s contributions “not all that impressive, given how much he has.”
Still, Romney’s contributions seem substantial to many.
“He’s a very generous guy,” said Leslie Lenkowsky, who is a professor at the Indiana University philanthropy center and who worked with Romney’s father, George, in support of the creation of AmeriCorps. “His family has a very good and positive history of charitable work.”
Lenkowsky, who was chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service under President George W. Bush, said many Republicans have long seen charity and government as interchangeable. They believe that government’s role should shrink and that charities should help the needy instead.
He said that point of view is embedded in the tax code, which extends a deduction for charitable donations on the theory that nonprofit groups save the government money through their work.
Notable differences
But Lenkowsky noted that people receive tax deductions for contributions to groups that would never receive government dollars. He cited the real example of an organization that sends red clown noses to troops in conflict zones to improve morale.
Another example is provided by religious organizations, which the government is constitutionally prohibited from funding. And a large percentage of the Romneys charitable giving goes to the Mormon Church; at more than $1.5 million, it represented half of their contributions in 2010.
“I wish he hadn’t tried to mix these things together,” Lenkowsky said. “It makes him look defensive. .?.?. He’s mixing apples and oranges. And he ends up with a fruit cocktail.”
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romneys-equating-of-taxes-and-charitable-giving-sparks-debate/2012/08/18/63bea3e6-e891-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html [with comments]
--
Should Romney's faith keep his taxes out of the public eye?
Mitt Romney's motorcade and campaign bus are parked in front of a church in Chillicothe, Ohio. The Republican says he hesitates to release more information about his finances because it would reveal how much he has given the Mormon Church. "It's a very personal thing."
(Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images)
By James Rainey
August 23, 2012
Mitt Romney believes that one of the “downsides” of releasing information about his finances — and presumably more than the two years of taxes he has been willing to reveal — is that it would reveal how much he has given to the Mormon Church, the presidential candidate said in an interview with Parade magazine [ http://www.parade.com/news/2012/08/26-conversation-with-the-romneys.html (third item above)].
Asked about tithing, the custom by which Mormons are expected to donate 10% of their income to the church, Ann Romney told the magazine: “I love tithing. When Mitt and I give that check, I actually cry.”
“So do I, but for a different reason,” Romney added, in an interview to be published this weekend. “Our church doesn't publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one's financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It's a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.”
But based on the 2010 return he has already released and projections of his 2011 return, the public already knows that the Romneys gave more than $4 million directly to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church got more money from the couple in those years via the Tyler Charitable Foundation, a nonprofit they control.
Democrats and even many Republicans have urged Romney for months to put more of his returns before the public. But the candidate has said that the two years of returns — plus years of financial disclosure forms from his time as governor of Massachusetts — tell voters all they need to know.
Ann Romney tried to close the door on the matter last month during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” saying she and her husband had provided all the information people need “to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life.” To share more, she said, would only open the door to more “attacks.”
It’s hard to imagine how the religious privacy argument is going to change many people’s minds. People know about the Romneys’ close ties to the LDS church. They want to see the additional returns to clear up some remaining questions— particularly about how the multimillionaire has invested his money and the tax rate he has paid, compared with average Americans.
Voters who want answers will ask why Romney’s relationship with God is so special that he has dispensation to reveal less than virtually every other presidential candidate in modern history.
Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times (emphasis in original)
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/23/news/la-pn-should-romneys-faith-keep-his-taxes-out-of-the-public-eye-20120823 [with comments]
--
NBC gets no Romney campaign help on Mormon special
By David Bauder on August 23, 2012
NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News unsuccessfully went back to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to request an interview for this week's prime-time special on the Mormon faith after he began to seem more open to talking about it.
The single-topic "Rock Center" episode [can be viewed, segment by segment, beginning at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/48773816/#48773816 (via http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/ )] will air Thursday as originally planned, said the show's executive producer, Rome Hartman.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, will be the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major political party, and his campaign has generally resisted talking about his faith. But Romney last weekend invited reporters to Mormon chapel services with his family, and a new campaign ad touted him as a defender of religious freedom.
NBC requested a Romney interview weeks ago but was denied. With the new developments, the network made another request Monday but was turned down again.
The newsmagazine's producers thought it worthwhile to examine the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the eve of one of its members becoming the Republican nominee for president. During the hour, correspondent Harry Smith does a piece on why Mormons are so successful in business and tours a Salt Lake City warehouse where a huge amount of supplies is kept for the needy.
Kate Snow profiles a gay person, a feminist and an interracial couple on their experiences within the church, and NBC finds a Mormon cast member of the Broadway show "The Book of Mormon."
"What we set out to do very broadly is not an hour on Mitt Romney but an hour about the religion that has played a very important role in shaping who he is," Hartman said Wednesday.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-08-23/nbc-gets-no-romney-campaign-help-on-mormon-special [with comment]
--
Mitt Romney: Church State Separation Taken Too Far By Some
Posted: 08/21/2012 10:17 am Updated: 08/21/2012 10:30 am
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes that "some" Americans have taken the separation of church and state too far, "well beyond its original meaning."
In an interview released Tuesday with the Washington National Cathedral's magazine [ http://www.nationalcathedral.org/press/PR-5QLKM-RU000F.shtml ( http://www.nationalcathedral.org/ )], Cathedral Age, Romney said those who "seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God" aren't acting in line with the Founders' intent.
The separation of church and state is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution, but Congress and the courts have debated the practical extent of that separation since its founding.
Romney said the Founders didn't intend for "the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation 'Under God, 'and in God, we do indeed trust."
President Barack Obama also was given a chance to answer questions about his Christian faith and about faith in public life. He called faith a "powerful force for good," but stopped short of suggesting that its influence in America had been forcibly diminished in recent years.
Romney, who is Mormon, didn't mention his faith by name during the nine-page interview, but acknowledged that, "I am often asked about my faith and my beliefs about Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind."
"Every religion has its own unique doctrines and history," he said, and "these should not be bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance."
Despite early speculation that Romney's Mormon faith would present a problem for Republican voters, a recent poll showed that [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/obamas-muslim-problem--romneys-mormon-problem/2012/07/26/gJQAu2vcCX_blog.html ] Republican and Democratic voters are generally unconcerned about his faith.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/mitt-romney-separation-church-state_n_1817764.html [with comments]
--
The Crackpot Caucus
Clockwise, from top left: Representatives John Shimkus of Illinois, Joe Barton of Texas, Jack Kingston of Georgia, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Todd Akin of Missouri and Paul Broun of Georgia
Clockwise, from top left: Seth Perlman/Associated Press; Manuel Balce Ceneta, via Associated Press; Stephen Morton, via Getty Images; Daniel Acker for The New York Times; Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via Associated Press; Paul Morigi, via Getty Images for Ovation
By TIMOTHY EGAN
August 23, 2012, 9:45 pm
The tutorial in 8th grade biology that Republicans got after one of their members of Congress went public with something from the wackosphere was instructive, and not just because it offered female anatomy lessons to those who get their science from the Bible.
Take a look around key committees of the House and you’ll find a governing body stocked with crackpots whose views on major issues are as removed from reality as Missouri’s Representative Todd Akin’s take on the sperm-killing powers of a woman who’s been raped.
On matters of basic science and peer-reviewed knowledge, from evolution to climate change to elementary fiscal math, many Republicans in power cling to a level of ignorance that would get their ears boxed even in a medieval classroom. Congress incubates and insulates these knuckle-draggers.
Let’s take a quick tour of the crazies in the House. Their war on critical thinking explains a lot about why the United States is laughed at on the global stage, and why no real solutions to our problems emerge from that broken legislative body.
We’re currently experiencing the worst drought in 60 years, a siege of wildfires, and the hottest temperatures since records were kept. But to Republicans in Congress, it’s all a big hoax. The chairman of a subcommittee that oversees issues related to climate change, Representative John Shimkus of Illinois is — you guessed it — a climate-change denier.
At a 2009 hearing, Shimkus said not to worry about a fatally dyspeptic planet: the biblical signs have yet to properly align. “The earth will end only when God declares it to be over,” he said, and then he went on to quote Genesis at some length [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7h08RDYA5E (next below)].
On the same committee is an oil-company tool and 27-year veteran of Congress, Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas. You may remember Barton as the politician who apologized to the head of BP in 2010 after the government dared to insist that the company pay for those whose livelihoods were ruined by the gulf oil spill.
Barton cited the Almighty in questioning energy from wind turbines. Careful, he warned, “wind is God’s way of balancing heat.” Clean energy, he said, “would slow the winds down” and thus could make it hotter. You never know.
“You can’t regulate God!” Barton barked at the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in the midst of discussion on measures to curb global warming.
The Catholic Church long ago made its peace with evolution, but the same cannot be said of House Republicans. Jack Kingston of Georgia, a 20-year veteran of the House, is an evolution denier, apparently because he can’t see the indent where his ancestors’ monkey tail used to be. “Where’s the missing link?” he said in 2011. “I just want to know what it is.” He serves on a committee that oversees education.
In his party, Kingston is in the mainstream. A Gallup poll in June found that 58 percent of Republicans believe [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx ] God created humans in the present form just within the last 10,000 years — a wealth of anthropological evidence to the contrary.
Another Georgia congressman, Paul Broun, introduced the so-called personhood legislation in the House — backed by Akin and Representative Paul Ryan — that would have given a fertilized egg the same constitutional protections as a fully developed human being.
Broun is on the same science, space and technology committee that Akin is. Yes, science is part of their purview.
Where do they get this stuff? The Bible, yes, but much of the misinformation and the fables that inform Republican politicians comes from hearsay, often amplified by their media wing.
Remember the crazy statement that helped to kill the presidential aspirations of Michele Bachmann? A vaccine, designed to prevent a virus linked to cervical cancer, could cause mental retardation, she proclaimed. Bachmann knew this, she insisted, because some random lady told her so at a campaign event. Fearful of the genuine damage Bachmann’s assertion could do to public health, the American Academy of Pediatrics promptly rushed out a notice, saying, “there is absolutely no scientific validity to this statement.”
Nor is there is reputable scientific validity to those who deny that the globe’s climate is changing for the worst. But Bachmann calls that authoritative consensus a hoax, and faces no censure from her party.
It’s encouraging that Republican heavyweights have since told Akin that uttering scientific nonsense about sex and rape is not good for the party’s image. But where are these fact-enforcers on the other idiocies professed by elected representatives of their party?
Akin, if he stays in the race, may still win the Senate seat in Missouri. Bachmann, who makes things up on a regular basis, is a leader of the Tea Party caucus in Congress and, in an unintended joke, a member of the Committee on Intelligence. None of these folks are without power; they govern, and have significant followings.
A handful of Republicans have tried to fight the know-nothings. “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming,” said Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor, during his ill-fated run for his party’s presidential nomination. “Call me crazy.”
And in an on-air plea for sanity, Joe Scarborough, the former G.O.P. congressman and MSNBC host, said, “I’m just tired of the Republican Party being the stupid party.” I feel for him. But don’t expect the reality chorus to grow. For if intelligence were contagious, his party would be giving out vaccines for it.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/the-crackpot-caucus/ [with comments]
--
Romney drops birth certificate joke on Obama (Wink, wink)
Posted By: Joe Garofoli
Aug 24 at 10:40 am
At roughly the same time running mate Paul Ryan talked about being part of a “campaign of ideas” and what a “principled vision” Mitt Romney proposes, Romney dropped a birth certificate joke at a campaign stop in Michigan.
Yes, 74 days before Election Day, Mitt got his birther on [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cht3bitxknI (next below, as embedded)].
Somewhere, Orly Taitz is smiling.
For those who have been avoiding the Internet for the past five years (Welcome!), the shout-out is to WIDELY DISPROVEN ACCUSATIONS [ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/apr/27/politifacts-guide-obamas-birth-certificate/ ] that President Obama was not born in the U.S. He was.
Democrats like to call moments like this “dog-whistles” — where conservatives don’t explicitly call out a hot-button issue, but their fans can “hear” what they’re saying anyways. And yes, the Dems have their own set of whistles. Then again, as BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith said: “Does it still count as a dog whistle when it’s really loud and you did it by mistake.”
Replied Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt:
“Throughout this campaign, Governor Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them. It’s one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Governor Romney’s decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America.”
Have to say that Mitt sounds a little like what the King of All Birthers, Pat Boone, told Shaky Hand Productions a while back….after he was introduced as a guest of honor at the California Republican Party convention[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_enTHx1WPzY (next below, as embedded)]:
But, c’mon. With all the things to rail on Obama about — start with the struggling economy, the high unemployment rate, no immigration reform — it is surprising to see Romney riff on this. Or maybe it is a harbinger of the stretch drive of this campaign.
© 2012 Hearst Communications Inc.
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/08/24/romney-drops-birth-certificate-joke-on-obama-wink-wink/ [with comments]
--
The Only Big Idea Coming Out of the Romney-Ryan Camp Is the Big Lie
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan spoke at a campaign event in Manchester, N.H., on Aug. 20.
(Evan Vucci / AP Photo)
The addition of Paul Ryan was supposed to infuse the Romney campaign with big ideas that would be argued in big debates with the Democrats, but so far, Michael Tomasky writes, all the GOP campaign has done is grossly distort the truth.
by Michael Tomasky
Aug 21, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
When Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-is-a-smart-pick.html ] as his running mate, we were told we were going to get the Big Debate on the Big Questions we’ve all been waiting for. Well, so far, it isn’t quite working out that way. The distinguishing fact of the Romney-Ryan campaign thus far is the extent to which it is built on outright lies in a desperate attempt to avoid honest debate at all costs. The Romney-Ryan strategy is the farthest thing in the world from a Big Debate. Instead, they muddy the waters as much as possible and lie as much as possible, and hope the press doesn’t call them on it and hope voters buy it.
The most blatant lie about Obama concerns the welfare rule change, which the Romney campaign is still pushing in a new ad. The Romney ad campaign says exactly the opposite of what the new rule stipulates. PolitiFact called the first Romney ad “Pants on Fire [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romney-keeps-lying-about-obama-and-welfare/2012/08/20/1c42b33e-ead2-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_blog.html ],” and Glenn Kessler [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/spin-and-counterspin-in-the-welfare-debate/2012/08/07/61bf03b6-e0e3-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html ] gave it four Pinocchios. But now here they come with a second ad saying that Obama “ended the work requirement.” Plainly and provably not true.
This is not normal. Normal is to stretch the truth. The Obama campaign stretches the truth in trying to connect Romney more directly than it should to Bain-related layoffs that happened after 2002. That’s your basic reach, and the campaign has been called on it. But it’s not a total lie. There is some little grain of truth there, that “Mitt Romney’s company” oversaw such-and-such layoffs, as there usually is in attack ads, even the most vicious ones. The Willie Horton ads were, after all, true. Racist, but true. But the Romney welfare ads have no grain of truth at all.
Okay. Just making stuff up about the other guy is bad enough. But it is in terms of past and future positions that what Romney-Ryan are doing really plows new and dishonorable earth. What’s happened on Medicare in the last week is just jaw-dropping. Did Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer and the folks at AEI lust for a huge philosophical throw down on Medicare solvency? Did they want a ticket that would courageously say to America, as Ryan used to say, that we just can’t afford to pay for all this anymore, and you, America, must now choose between the conservative truth-tellers and the liberal softies who will just tell you what you want to hear?
I think they wanted exactly that. But that sure isn’t what they’re getting. Romney and Ryan are both turning somersaults to say that they are this big government program’s true protectors. Ryan even dragged his mother into it [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYaFHMM1yIs (below, as embedded)] over the weekend! And as for Romney, it is just astonishing to hear him stand up as he did last week and whack Obama for cutting $716 billion from Medicare while lavishing praise on Ryan, whose Medicare plan from last year cuts exactly the same $716 billion (and then some), and say that he and Ryan are going to save Medicare, unlike that nasty Obama.
They know this. They know that the truth would crush them electorally. And so it follows that they know they must lie. They must lie about their Medicare plans. They must lie about the effects of their tax plans on average people and rich people. And they must tell a number of lies about Obama, all the better if they involve race, as the welfare lie does.
So this will be the entire point of the Romney-Ryan campaign. Lie lie lie. Muddy the waters. Turn day to night, fire to water, champagne to piss. Peddle themselves as the precise opposite of what they actually are. That is clearly the m.o.
This is the case for two reasons. First, it is forced on them historically. Ronald Reagan could get away with sunny generalizations about supply-side economics because in 1980, it was just a theory. Now, after George Dubya, it’s been utterly discredited in practice. Conservatives still must believe these absurd things—that lower tax rates will produce more revenue—but now we know they’re not true, so they have to lie about them. And second, it is simply in Romney’s weasely nature never to say anything forthright about any topic.
The Democrats’ job, of course, is to expose this charade for what it is and make Romney and Ryan defend their actual positions. The Obama campaign was a little slow to respond on Medicare, and even then the ad wasn’t as forceful as it might have been. It’s probably true that there’s a reservoir of good faith there—that is, most people simply aren’t going to believe that the Democrats want to harm Medicare. That should work to the Democrats’ advantage, but still, the Obama campaign and the Democrats generally have to nail these guys to the wall on what their actual positions are and what the impacts of their policies will be. Romney and Ryan are terrified of a real Big Debate. Obama and Biden need to drag them into one.
© 2012 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/21/the-only-big-idea-coming-out-of-the-romney-ryan-camp-is-the-big-lie.html [with comments]
--
Romney says fact-checkers biased in criticism of campaign's welfare ads
08/22/12
During an interview Wednesday [ http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/08/22/mitt-romney-interview-transcript-with-the-des-moines-register/ ] with the Des Moines Register, Mitt Romney said that the fact-checkers who have criticized his recent attacks on President Obama's welfare changes were examining the issue "in the way they think is most consistent with their own views."
[...]
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/244855-romney-says-fact-checkers-biased-in-criticism-of-campaigns-welfare-ads
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3967329 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54833454 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77287103 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=13127379 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72379799 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78733745 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77589007 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76212123 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78437534 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78454289 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77837984 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78628956 and following
Published on Aug 14, 2012 by tpmtv
more at foxnews.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPSXkmadapU
--
Breaking Down Paul Ryan's Fox News Interview With Brit Hume
Published on Aug 16, 2012 by TheYoungTurks
Was Congressman Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's 2012 Vice Presidential running mate, prepared for his Fox News interview with Brit Hume? How did he answer questions about Medicare, Social Security, and the federal budget deficit? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here:
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-brit-hume-praised-on-msnbc-for-exposing-paul-ryans-medicare-lie/
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/15/we-havent-run-the-numbers-a-startling-ryan-admi/189369
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQohUKieSEE
--
Paul Ryan Pretends Ayn Rand Not His Idol
Published on Aug 15, 2012 by TheYoungTurks
"Paul Ryan, the budget plan-toting and P90Xing representative from Wisconsin, was recently chosen by Mitt Romney as his running mate on the Republican ticket, yet a hatred for big government and love of washboard abs aren't the only things he feels strongly about. Ryan has had a life-long fascination and appreciation of Ayn Rand, author of philosophical novels like "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." Recently, as Ryan has risen in national prominence, he's taken to distancing himself from the libertarian hero; despite that, his current position is in fierce contradiction with fairly recent statements of praise for the Russian-born author...".* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here from Kate Sullivan: http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/08/veep-nominee-paul-ryan-renounces-former-fascination-with-ayn-rand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMdTD7rqT9Y
--
Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand
Published on Aug 14, 2012 by TheYoungTurks
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand ." That's freshly minted GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan talking -- statements he would eventually recant -- at a party celebrating what would have been the prolific author's 100th birthday...".* Did Rand, a libertarian darling, idolize serial killer Walter Edward Hickman? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
*Read more here from Jan Frel in Alternet.org: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/paul-ryans-biggest-influence-10-things-you-should-know-about-lunatic-ayn-rand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fojrlX6rmmM
--
Paul Ryan Rejects Ayn Rand In Face Of Catholic Criticism
Published on Apr 27, 2012 by TheYoungTurks
Via Talking Points Memo: "Under fire from the powerful U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for writing a budget that cuts deeply into programs that help the needy, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) defended his vision in a Thursday speech at Georgetown University...In a sign that the criticism bruised Ryan, he proceeded to label his well-documented affinity for Rand an "urban legend" in an interview with National Review published Thursday, saying he rejects her "atheist philosophy." He did not, however, comment on Rand's anti-government views that more closely reflect his political philosophy...".* Ben Mankiewicz and Michael Shure (host of TwenTYTwelve) discuss on The Young Turks.
*Read more from Sahil Kapur: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/paul-ryan-catholic-bishops-ayn-rand.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvvIEXQlQhc
--
Paul Ryan on balancing the budget
Published on Jul 20, 2012 by prosperityaction
Paul Ryan answers "Why does your budget take so long to balance?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ8HlHT_Lxk
--
Rep. Paul Ryan Unveils Budget Plan With $6.2 Trillion in Cuts
Uploaded by FoxNewsInsider on Apr 5, 2011
House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan unveiled a budget plan that will cut $6.2 trillion in spending. Ryan says the nation's "fiscal trajectory is simply not sustainable" and that President Obama's budget proposal accelerates the fall of the United States into a debt crisis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAxIDqkebzk
--
Paul Ryan Called Stimulus Wasteful, Then Sought Funds
08/15/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/paul-ryan-stimulus_n_1779003.html [with comments] [this AP piece just one of many pieces out there providing documented detail on this point]
--
Paul Ryan Defended Stimulus -- When George W. Bush Wanted It In 2002 (VIDEO)
08/19/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/19/paul-ryan-bush-stimulus_n_1803761.html [with a couple embedded videos including the promised one, and comments]
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78638491 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78667153 and following
===
Beware a Beautiful Calm
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 18, 2012
WASHINGTON
WHAT happens when you realize you are the machine you’re raging against?
Tom Morello, the Grammy-winning, Harvard-educated guitarist for the metal rap band Rage Against the Machine, punctured Paul Ryan’s pretensions to cool in a Rolling Stone essay rejecting R&R (Romney ’n’ Ryan) as R&R (rock ’n’ roll).
“He is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades,” Morello writes, adding: “I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta ‘rage’ in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically, the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.”
In my experience, when a presidential candidate needs some outside force to animate him — Michael Dukakis needed Kitty, Bob Dole needed C-Span, Willard needs Paul — it spells doom.
The fresh Gen X vice-presidential contender — like Sarah Palin, he favors the exclamation “awesome” — has had mixed reviews in his debutante cotillion.
Howard Fineman wrote in The Huffington Post that “Ryan turns out, upon closer inspection, not to be a purifying ideologue, but rather a young, power-hungry, ladder-climbing trimmer.” The self-styled deficit cutter backed W.’s deficit-exploding agenda, and the tut-tutting critic of the Obama stimulus grabbed for the president’s stimulus money.
Neocons and Tea Partyers, however, continued to rhapsodize. Grover Norquist told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt that Ryan would be the Dick Cheney of economic and tax policy. And that’s a compliment.
The comparison is apt. Ryan looks like a bonus Romney son, as Dan Quayle did with Bush senior. Republicans find the tableau of two rich white guys — same shirts, different generations — comforting. With W. and Cheney, the usual order switched and the vice-presidential candidate played the role of surrogate dad.
Where Ryan is like Cheney is in tone: at first blush, the Wisconsin congressman emanates a thoughtful, reassuring reasonableness, talking to reporters and sometimes Democratic lawmakers. Cheney’s deep voice, like the headmaster of a boys’ prep school, seemed moderate and measured, too, at first. But it is deceptive. Both men are way, way out there.
It is, to use a phrase coined by French doctors, la belle indifférence, or “the beautiful calm” of hysterical people. But the closer you look, the uglier it gets.
Just as Cheney, hunter of small birds and old friends, once defended cop-killer bullets and plastic guns that could slip through airport metal detectors, so Ryan, deer hunter, championed concealed guns and curtailing the background check waiting period from three days to one.
Just as Cheney was always willing to cough up money to guerrillas in Nicaragua and Angola but not to poor women whose lives were endangered by their pregnancies, so Ryan helped pay for W.’s endless wars while pushing endless anti-abortion bills, like one undercutting an exemption from the ban on using federal money for abortions in cases of rape or incest, and narrowing the definition of rape to “forcible rape.”
What on earth is nonforcible rape? It’s like saying nonlethal murder. Why redefine acts of aggression against women as non-acts of aggression?
Even Catholic bishops, who had to be dragged toward compassion in the pedophilia scandal, were dismayed at how uncompassionate Ryan’s budget was.
Mitt Romney expects his running mate to help deliver the Catholic vote and smooth over any discomfort among Catholics about Mormonism. (This is the first major-party ticket to go Protestant-less.) Yet after Ryan claimed his budget was shaped by his faith, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops deemed it immoral.
“A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons,” the bishops wrote in a letter to Congress.
The Jesuits were even more tart, with one group writing to Ryan that “Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The nuns-on-the-bus also rapped the knuckles of the former altar boy who now takes his three kids to Mass. As Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the Catholic social justice group Network, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, it’s sad that a Catholic doesn’t understand that “we need to have each other’s backs. Only wealthy people can ever begin to pretend that they can live in a gated community all by themselves.”
Even Ryan’s former parish priest in Janesville weighed in. Father Stephen Umhoefer told the Center for Media and Democracy, “You can’t tell somebody that in 10 years your economic situation is going to be just wonderful because meanwhile your kids may starve to death.”
Beyond the even-keeled Ryan mien lurks full-tilt virulence. A moderate demeanor is not a sign of a moderate view of the world.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/dowd-beware-a-beautiful-calm.html
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78665785 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78695949 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78791291 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78791298 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78872379 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78696026 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78671795 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78745448 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78741374 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78897941 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78908144 (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78911755 and following
===
"Embarrassed" Romney Adviser Doesn't Know When Romney's Budget Balances
Published on Aug 15, 2012 by ThinkProgress TP
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/17/708191/analysis-paul-ryan-votes-deficit/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9xpIqI2d5w
--
Top Romney Adviser Ed Gillespie: Romney 'Would Have Signed' Ryan's Budget
Published on Aug 12, 2012 by MrLespunk
As Mitt Romney's campaign was trying to distance itself from his running mate's proposed budget on Sunday, senior adviser Ed Gillespie admitted that the candidate "would have signed" Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) controversial plan.
After the Republican presidential hopeful on Saturday announced that he had selected Ryan as the vice presidential nominee, CNN obtained a campaign memo that sought to distinguish Romney's policies from Ryan's budget proposal.
"Gov. Romney applauds Paul Ryan for going in the right direction with his budget, and as president he will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance," the memo said.
In a briefing to reporters on Sunday, campaign spokesman Kevin Madden tried to prevent the race from turning into a referendum on Ryan.
"Gov. Romney is at the top of the ticket," Madden insisted. "And Governor Romney's vision for the country is something that Congressman Ryan supports."
But in a Sunday morning appearance on CNN, Gillespie was forced to admit that Romney supported Ryan's budget and would have signed it into law.
"Well, as Governor Romney has made clear, if the Romney -- sorry, if the Ryan budget had come to his desk as president, he would have signed it, of course," Gillespie told CNN's Candy Crowley. "And one of the reasons that he chose Congressman Ryan is his willingness to put forward innovative solutions in the budget."
Meanwhile, Democrats like Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod were calling the Ryan budget a "prescription for economic catastrophe" because it would turn Medicare into a voucher system while giving tax breaks to wealthy Americans.
"This was a guy who rubber stamped every aspect of the Bush economic policy, including not paying for two wars, a Medicare prescription plan, two big tax cuts," Axelrod told ABC's David Gregory on Sunday. "And now he wants trillions of dollars of more budget-busting tax cuts skewed to the wealthy."
"He's the guy who's the architect of a plan to end Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program and ship thousands of dollars of costs onto senior citizens," the senior Obama adviser added on ABC's This Week. "He's someone who was the architect of a Social Security privatization scheme that was so out there that even George Bush called it irresponsible, and he believes that we should ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOTM4oqZmtQ
--
(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78628097 and following
===
Does Paul Ryan Know What’s in His Budget?
By Dean Baker
Fri, Aug 17, 2012 2:56 PM EDT
If the news media had to work for a living, this is what they would all be asking right now. The reason is simple. The projections the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) made for Representative Ryan's budget imply that he literally wants to shut down the federal government.
His budget implies that after three decades the federal government will have no money to spend on health research, education, highways, airports, and other infrastructure, the Food and Drug Administration and most other activities that we associate with the federal government. His budget has money for Social Security, Medicare and other health programs and the Defense Department. That's it.
Numbers Don't Lie
This is not a vicious anti-Ryan attack coming from hyper-partisan Democrats. This is what the analysis [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-20-Ryan_Specified_Paths_2.pdf ] of his budget by the non-partisan CBO shows. It's right there in the fifth row of Table 2.
The table shows that in 2040, Representative Ryan would allot an amount equal to 4.75 percent of GDP to all these other areas of government including defense spending. By 2050, Ryan's allocation for these areas, including defense, falls to 3.75 percent of GDP.
The defense budget is currently a bit over 4.0 percent of GDP. Ryan has indicated that he would like to maintain or even increase this level of spending. The arithmetic is then straightforward. In 2040, Ryan would leave less than 0.75 percent of GDP for areas of spending that currently require more than five times this amount. In 2050, all these areas of spending would literally have to be zeroed out as defense spending will take up every cent and more that Ryan has left in his budget.
In CBO We Trust
It is important to understand that CBO tried to accurately present the implications of the budget that Representative Ryan gave them. CBO works for Congress. These are career civil servants. They cannot be easily fired, but if CBO's staff deliberately misrepresented a budget proposal from a powerful member of Congress like Paul Ryan, that is the sort of thing that could get them put out on the street.
The way CBO would typically analyze a proposal is that they would sit down with Representative Ryan and his staff and determine as closely as possible the outlines of the budget he is proposing. They would then produce projections which would be shown to Ryan and his staff to ensure that they had accurately represented his proposed budget. CBO would only publish a document with these projections after Representative Ryan and his staff had a chance to review them and agreed that they had accurately represented his proposal.
This means that there can be no accident here. CBO did not blindside Representative Ryan with a half-baked analysis they did in the middle of the night. We can safely assume that the projections from CBO do in fact represent the budget proposal as presented to them by Representative Ryan and his staff.
Is He Serious?
This leaves the obvious question. Is he serious? Does Representative Ryan really think it is a good idea to end the federal government's role in building and maintaining infrastructure, in financing education, in funding basic research in health care and other areas, in maintaining our national parks, federal courts, the FBI? His budget says that this is what he thinks, since these services will not be provided for free (FBI agents expect to get paid), but it is difficult to believe that a politician running for national office would really want to eliminate most of the government.
Anyhow, this is the most basic question that reporters should be asking Representative Ryan now that Governor Romney has selected him as his vice presidential candidate. We know that they all have to run stories about his high school friends and his college courses, but the public has a right to know where he stands on the policy issues that he has put at the center of his political agenda.
If reporters do their job, they have a simple question to put to Mr. Ryan. "Your budget would put an end to everything the government does, except for Social Security, health care and defense. Is this really what you want to do?"
Dean Baker is an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research [ http://www.cepr.net/ ]. He has written extensively on a wide range of topics, including the housing bubble. His most recent book is The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive (free download available here [ http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/books/the-end-of-loser-liberalism ]).
*
For more from Dean Baker, check out his recent appearance on The Daily Ticker [video embedded].
*
Copyright © 2012 Yahoo! Inc.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/baker-does-paul-ryan-know-budget-185617687.html [with comments]
===
Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand's Ideas: In The Hot Seat Again
by The Atlas Society
Apr 30, 2012
Last Thursday and Friday a flurry of news stories [ http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&btnmeta_news_search=1&q=paul+ryan+ayn+rand&oq=paul+ryan+ayn+rand&aq=f&aqi=d2&aql=&gs_nf=1 ] appeared addressing—again—the link between Rep. Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand’s ideas. The new stories and blog posts were in response to a National Review article (“Ryan Shrugged [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/297023/ryan-shrugged-robert-costa ]”) which seemed to characterize as “urban legend” not only the idea that Paul Ryan is an Objectivist (he’s never indicated that he is), that he embraces an Objectivist epistemology (he’s never said that he does), but also that he is a devotee of Ayn Rand, and that he requires that his staff read Atlas Shrugged. (See National Review's "Ryan Isn't a Randian [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/295806/ryan-isn-t-randian-brian-bolduc ]" for more along these lines.)
In their responses to the National Review article, Elspeth Reeve at The Atlantic Wire [ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/04/how-tell-paul-ryan-wants-be-veep-hes-rejected-his-former-idol-ayn-rand/51605/ ] and Jay Bookman of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution [ http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2012/04/27/paul-ryan-erases-ayn-rand-from-the-picture/ ] were among those who quoted a sentence or two (circulating for some time on the Internet) spoken by Ryan in a speech he made at a 2005 Atlas Society event. We’re now releasing the full audio of Ryan’s speech, made at our “Celebration of Ayn Rand” event (photo above).
Scroll to bottom for audio file. [audio of Ryan's complete speech embedded at the end of the piece]
(Rep. Ryan is introduced by The Atlas Society's Ed Hudgins, director of advocacy.)
Some exerpts from the audio (with minute and second markers):
(1:45) I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand [ http://www.atlassociety.org/ayn_rand ] and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people..you know everybody does their soul-searching, and trying to find out who they are and what they believe, and you learn about yourself.
(2:01) I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged [ http://www.atlassociety.org/atlas-shrugged ]. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead [ http://www.atlassociety.org/ayn_rand_fountainhead ] then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.
(2:23) But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.
(2:38) In almost every fight we are involved in here, on Capitol Hill, whether it’s an amendment vote that I’ll take later on this afternoon, or a big piece of policy we’re putting through our Ways and Means Committee, it is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict: individualism vs. collectivism.
(2:54) And so when you take a look at where we are today, ah, some would say we’re on offense, some would say we’re on defense, I’d say it’s a little bit of both. And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.
(3: 21) It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are. I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech (at Bill Taggart’s wedding) on money when I think about monetary policy. And then I go to the 64-page John Galt speech, you know, on the radio at the end, and go back to a lot of other things that she did, to try and make sure that I can check my premises so that I know that what I’m believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism…
(6:53) Is this an easy fight? Absolutely not…But if we’re going to actually win this we need to make sure that we’re solid on premises, that our principles are well-defended, and if we want to go and articulately defend these principles and what they mean to our society, what they mean for the trends that we set internationally, we have to go back to Ayn Rand. Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.
[audio of Ryan's complete 2005 Atlas Society speech embedded]
©2012 The Atlas Society
http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan Doesn't Follow Ayn Rand on Civil Liberties
Ben Adler on August 15, 2012 - 6:11 PM ET
Throughout his career Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proudly touted the influence of philosopher Ayn Rand on his political beliefs. Rand’s most devoted followers are returning the favor. “I think the announcement is great news,” Aaron Day, the CEO of the Atlas Society, an organization dedicated to promoting Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, told POLITICO [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79612.html ] in an email. “The influence of Rand on Ryan as it relates to the role and nature of government is a huge step forward for the liberty movement. Ryan highlighted the principles of liberty, freedom, free enterprise, and self-determination (all consistent with Ayn Rand’s philosophy).”
This, alas, is false. It is true that Ryan, like his mentor Jack Kemp, subscribes to Rand’s heartless belief in refusing to aid the less fortunate. But Ryan does not share any of Rand’s commitments to freedom, other than the freedom to be selfish.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a report [ http://www.aclulibertywatch.org/files/vp-report-card.pdf ] on the Republican vice-presidential contenders. Ryan’s record is just as bad as the others’, and his running mate’s. Writing in the Huffington Post, ACLU president Anthony Romero observed [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/protect-life-act-passes-house-of-representatives_n_1009876.html ], “There’s no constitutional daylight between Ryan’s civil liberties positions and Romney’s and that means a pall of darkness over our Constitution and the rights it guarantees.”
Here are some examples:
-§ Immigration: Libertarians believe in open borders, but Paul Ryan doesn’t. Ryan opposes the DREAM Act and he voted in favor of building a fence along the US border with Mexico.
-§ Gay rights: Ryan has voted in favor of amending the US Constitution to ban gay marriage. He supported banning gay marriage in Wisconsin and opposed letting gay soldiers serve openly in the military. It is impossible to support individual freedom and limited government while trying to amend the Constitution to take away the rights of consenting adults to marry the person they love, and to take away the rights of more civilized states to recognize such unions.
-§ Reproductive rights: Ryan has all the usual right-wing positions on abortion. He has voted to ban federal funding of abortions and even for training healthcare providers in abortion care. He also opposes requiring insurers to provide coverage for contraception. One could justify that on libertarian grounds by arguing that granting the freedom to get an abortion or obtain contraception is not the same as requiring companies or taxpayers to pay for it. But some of his positions are indefensible. For example, Ryan has voted to ban abortion in Washington, DC. The notion that Wisconsites in Congress should tell the more progressive citizens of DC how to live their private lives is the epitome of heavy-handed federal authoritarianism. Ryan also co-sponsored the “Protect Life Act” which would trample on states’ rights and individual economic liberty by preventing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/protect-life-act-passes-house-of-representatives_n_1009876.html ] women from using their own money to buy an insurance plan that covers abortion on state exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.
-§ Voting Rights: Ryan supports [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsCdw7pXJYU ] laws that require voters to show photo identification. This imposition on the constitutional right of every citizen to cast a ballot could disenfranchise millions of low-income Americans, amounting a modern-day poll tax.
Reporters and pundits are raising [ http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/08/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rand.html ] Ryan’s long history of praising Rand and requiring his staffers to read her books. They also note that Ryan has more recently repudiated her, especially her atheism, in an effort to appeal to religious social conservatives. Unfortunately, Ryan has actually never supported many central tenets of libertarianism. Unless it is an excuse to support a policy benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the poor, Ryan has no interest in individual liberty.
Copyright © 2012 The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169412/paul-ryan-doesnt-follow-ayn-rand-civil-liberties [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan-Sponsored Bahrain Trade Agreement Under Scrutiny Amid Crackdowns
Paul Ryan, who championed the U.S. trade agreement with Bahrain.
By Joshua Hersh and Zach Carter
Posted: 08/20/2012 7:46 pm Updated: 08/21/2012 11:28 am
WASHINGTON -- A spate of anti-democratic actions in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain have turned an unflattering spotlight on a six-year-old U.S. free trade agreement sponsored and promoted by Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice president.
Ryan was the House GOP point man for the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement [ http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/archives/2004/march/zoellick-joins-launching-us-bahrain-fta-con ], which Congress passed by a wide margin in 2005. By finalizing the deal, Bahrain landed the biggest prize in global economics: unfettered access to American consumers, the largest market in the world.
In return, the oil-rich kingdom agreed to reform labor practices and improve conditions for workers. Ryan and foreign policy leaders said they hoped an economic relationship would help stabilize the Middle East by spurring democratic reforms and improving the region's human rights record. The 9/11 Commission also said trade deals may improve counter-terrorism [ http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch12.pdf ] operations in Bahrain.
"It's the carrot approach," Ryan said in 2009, explaining a positive way to encourage a change in behavior, rather than relying exclusively on punitive or military measures. "This is a way to help expand democratic capitalism, because through each of these trade agreements we require things like the rule of law and forcible contracts, women's rights, advancements towards openness, transparency and democracy."
But the hoped-for reforms never materialized. And rather than help change Bahrain for the better, the trade pact is making it difficult for the U.S. to discourage recent misbehavior.
In recent years, Bahrain has repeatedly resorted to brutal tactics to put down a democratic uprising in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring. Numerous accounts said the regime imprisoned and tortured doctors [ http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/2011/08/201184144547798162.html/ ] who had treated protesters.
Last week, Nabeel Rajab, one of Bahrain's leading political opposition figures, was sentenced to three years in prison [ http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/bahrain-sentences-activist-to-3-years-in-prison-for-inciting-protests/ ] for supposedly "inciting" protest by using Twitter.
The trade pact with Bahrain not only took a powerful economic carrot off the foreign policy table, it also eliminated a critical economic stick. Any economic sanctions that the U.S. might seek to impose on Bahrain would violate the terms of the trade deal.
"We know that free trade agreements lead to offshoring and job loss to the detriment of middle-class American families," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) "What may be less known by the American public is that these agreements, supported by the Romney-Ryan ticket, allow global institutions to impede our ability to exert economic leverage over nations with whom we sign FTAs when they do not play by the rules, or act against U.S. interest. In the case of Bahrain, rather than any move toward democracy, we are witnessing gross human rights abuses, including against workers' rights, with little leverage to change the regime’s behavior."
Ryan declined to comment.
Breaking the deal and imposing economic sanctions for Bahrain, ironically, could subject the U.S. to retaliatory trade sanctions.
"A lot of times people just say, 'Free trade breeds democracy, we don't have to worry about it beyond that.' And our view is, Where is the evidence for that?" said Celeste Drake, an international trade specialist at the AFL-CIO, which fought the Bahrain deal -- as it does most free-trade agreements -- and still opposes it. "Often all you've done is limited the scope of the how you can try to persuade a country to change its ways."
Organized labor has been particularly aggrieved with the Bahrain free-trade agreement. A labor dispute filed last year by the AFL-CIO and others accused the kingdom of violating the labor protections of the Bahrain free-trade deal.
In a recent hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on Bahrain, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) was among those concerned that the trade deal may grant too much support to a regime that has not lived up to its human rights obligations. Wyden's criticism is notable in light of his close relationship with Ryan. The two have co-authored a Medicare reform proposal, and are well known in Washington for their mutual affinity.
"I have always felt that expanded trade can be a great force for progress as one of the tools for real social progress and improving the quality of life of people," Wyden said. "But free trade cannot mean trade free from honoring commitments, and I am concerned that Bahrain's labor commitments pursuant to the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement have not been fully implemented."
The Obama administration has been reluctant to use any foreign policy tools -- trade or otherwise -- against Bahrain. Labor and human rights activists said they believe the U.S. Department of Labor has completed a months-long investigation in the claims against the trade agreement, and sent a letter [ http://pomed.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/FTA-Letter-Bahrain.pdf ] last week to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis urging her to release the report -- and to nullify the free-trade deal.
"Serious and escalating violence and violations of human and labor rights continue in Bahrain," the letter to Solis concluded. "We believe this lack of progress risks sending a signal to both Bahraini civil society and to the Bahraini government that the U.S. government is not serious about the promotion of human and labor rights in Bahrain."
The Labor Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Huffington Post. When she was a member of Congress, Solis voted against the Bahrain agreement, as did current Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.
Some congressional Democrats are now voicing concerns about the deal. "One of the reasons I and many of my Democratic colleagues opposed the U.S.-Bahrain FTA was our fear that Bahrain would not live up to its commitments to protect workers enshrined in that agreement," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). "Unfortunately, these concerns were clearly warranted in light of the multi-year campaign of violence against trade unionists and the repression of peaceful protests. In my view, Bahrain has clearly violated the labor rights provision of the trade agreement."
The flaws with the Bahrain deal were evident to organized labor and other groups when the agreement was inked. When nations trade with an unstable or abusive regime, they sometimes include specific terms in trade agreements nullifying provisions in the event of a coup or a human rights crackdown.
But as the AFL-CIO's Drake pointed out, the labor provisions in the Bahrain deal were weak, with generalizations and unenforceable pledges that both countries would "strive to ensure" certain working standards.
Not all pro-democracy advocates see the Bahrain free-trade agreement in itself as an obstacle to democracy. The irony that a Labor Department investigation would never have happened without the deal is not lost on them. But they said the agreement's value is largely dependent on whether these provisions are actually enforced.
"The sentiment we're hearing from the activists isn't that FTA is bad, actually quite the opposite," said Cole Bockenfeld, the director of advocacy on the Project on Middle East Democracy, where he has worked extensively with Bahraini rights groups. "They realize how important it is to get the economy independent from the hard-liners in the government, and that is helped by FTA. But the problem people have with it is that it's leverage the U.S. has that they aren't using."
"There’s no point in having the leverage of the FTA unless it’s being used," added Brian Dooley, a Bahrain advocate at Human Rights First. "If we see the FTA as a point of engagement for the U.S. government to press the Bahrain regime on reform, then it has to use it. Progress has been glacial or non-existent."
Members of Congress are traditionally far more concerned with the domestic economic effects of trade deals than the foreign policy implications. The Bahrain pact came up for a vote at a time when Congress was also considering the much larger Central American Free Trade Agreement, which had more serious implications for U.S. jobs, especially in the textile industry. Many members of Congress who voted against CAFTA voted in favor of the Bahrain deal in order to appease the trade-friendly U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which backed both agreements. Only 95 members of the House voted against the Bahrain deal, including 13 Republicans.
The pact passed the Senate by unanimous consent, when both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were senators.
"I vote against most trade deals because they negatively impact textiles, and I'm from North Carolina," said Rep. Howard Cobell (R-N.C.), who opposed both deals. When asked whether human rights issues had come up at the time, Cobell replied, "That could have been part of it, but I don't remember."
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who was a congressman in 2005 and opposed the trade agreement, said the U.S. "must press Bahrain to abide by core human and labor rights" because it is required by the deal and "because it is the right thing to do."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/paul-ryan-bahrain-trade-agreement_n_1813975.html [with comments]
--
Atlas Spurned
August 14, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/ayn-rand-wouldnt-approve-of-paul-ryan.html [with comments]
--
What did Ayn Rand teach Paul Ryan about monetary policy?
(Adam Jennings — Associated Press)
Posted by Brad Plumer on August 13, 2012 at 11:53 am
In 2005, Paul Ryan explained that he often looks to Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” as inspiration for his views on monetary policy. “I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech, at Bill Taggart’s wedding, on money when I think about monetary policy,” he said [ http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again (above, two items up)] in a speech to the Atlas Society. So what are Ryan’s views on this front? And what do they have to do with Ayn Rand?
Over the past few years, economists and policymakers have been debating whether the Federal Reserve should do more to bolster the economy and bring down the still-high U.S. unemployment rate. True, the central bank has already cut interest rates — its traditional tool for stimulus — as far as possible. But the Fed has shifted to a number of novel tactics, such as quantitative easing, to try to bring down real rates even further and inject more money into the economy.
Paul Ryan has been heavily involved in these debates from his perch in the House. But he comes at monetary policy from a somewhat non-mainstream perspective. Like many other Republicans, he has repeatedly criticized [ http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/usa-campaign-romney-fed-idINL2E8JC57520120813 ] Ben Bernanke’s efforts to stimulate the economy. But he has also gone further, arguing that the Federal Reserve shouldn’t be focused on reducing unemployment, period. And he has argued repeatedly for a “sound money” policy that has left some economists scratching their heads.
Perhaps Ryan’s most unconventional opinion on monetary policy came in the summer of 2010, when he told [ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/what_would_republicans_do_for.html ] Ezra Klein that the Federal Reserve should actually raise interest rates even as the U.S. economy was still struggling: “[T]here’s a lot of capital parked out there, and we need to coax it out into the markets,” he said. “I think literally that if we raised the federal funds rate by a point, it would help push money into the economy, as right now, the safest play is to stay with the federal money and federal paper.”
This is not a common view. Most economists tend to think that raising interest rates will slow the economy down. Here [ http://www.american.com/archive/2007/september-october-magazine-contents/how-the-fed-works/ ], for instance, is Mitt Romney’s economic adviser Kevin Hassett explaining the basics of monetary policy back in 2007: ”When inflation fears are aroused, the Fed increases the fed funds rate (called a ‘tightening’) in order to slow activity in sectors of the economy, such as housing and automobiles, that are particularly sensitive to interest rates.”
As Hassett explains, raising rates is something the Fed does when the economy is overheating and inflation is at elevated levels. Yet, at the moment, inflation doesn’t appear to be the main problem facing the U.S. economy. High unemployment is:
Ryan, however, has been consistent in his view that the Fed should do whatever it takes to fight inflation — and stop trying to fret over the unemployment rate. In 2008, Ryan sponsored a bill [ http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.6053: ] that would repeal the Federal Reserve’s “dual mandate” to tackle both inflation and high unemployment. Instead, under his bill, the Fed would focus only on “price stability.”
To that end, Ryan has roundly criticized Bernanke’s efforts to stimulate the U.S. economy by buying up assets and injecting money into the economy. For instance, one way the Fed’s efforts are thought to work is by reducing the value of the dollar, helping U.S. exports. But Ryan has countered that there is “nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens than debase its currency.” (See this report [ http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/usa-campaign-romney-fed-idINL2E8JC57520120813 ] by Reuters’s Mark Felsenthal for a round-up of Ryan’s criticisms of Bernanke over the years.)
As an alternative approach, Ryan has suggested [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123595257066605147.html ] that the United States should return to “sound money” by anchoring the value of the dollar to, say, the price of a basket of commodities. This isn’t quite a return to the long-abandoned gold standard, but it’s a roughly similar concept. It would prevent the Federal Reserve from boosting the money supply in times of crisis, as the Fed did in 2008. And Ryan’s approach could have other downsides as well. As economist David Beckworth explained here [ http://www.frumforum.com/how-sound-is-ryans-sound-money-plan/ ], if the dollar was pegged to commodities like metals or soybeans, it would be greatly affected by outside forces, such as swings in Chinese demand. “For better or for worse,” he told FrumForum’s Noah Kristula-Green, “the political process can’t allow big swings in the monetary policy by outside forces.”
So what does any of this have to do with Ayn Rand? Over at Slate, Dave Weigel has a longer explanation [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/13/what_paul_ryan_s_ayn_rand_fandom_means_for_monetary_policy.html ] of the parallels between Ryan’s monetary policy and “Atlas Shrugged.” In the passages that Ryan has highlighted, Rand’s characters lament that statists have destroyed all “objective standards” for currency by abandoning the gold standard and boosting the supply of paper money in order to assist the “looters and moochers.” (Franklin Roosevelt abolished the gold standard [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act ] in 1934 in order to fight [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Depression#Gold_standard ] the Great Depression — economists such as Milton Friedman and Bernanke have argued that the gold standard had been making monetary policy unduly contractionary.)
“Now, take all of that and apply it to our current debates about the Federal Reserve,” writes [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/13/what_paul_ryan_s_ayn_rand_fandom_means_for_monetary_policy.html ] Weigel. “I hope it doesn’t surprise you that Ryan, since at least 2008, has wanted the Fed to abandon the employment mandate. He doesn’t say this in a stupid way, like Rick Perry. He says it by citing Ayn Rand.”
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/13/what-did-ayn-rand-teach-paul-ryan-about-monetary-policy/ [with comments]
--
Why Paul Ryan Is A Crank On Monetary Policy
By Jeff Spross on Aug 14, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Following the rise of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to the vice-presidential slot on the Republican ticket, most of the discussion has focused on the content and consequences of the budgets he engineered for the House GOP. But Ryan has also been a vociferous critique of the Federal Reserve and its Chairman Ben Bernanke. Given the Fed’s considerable power [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/17/528891/fed-six-ways-boost-economy/ ] to effect the health of the economy and the level of employment — and its ongoing reticence [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/01/623391/fed-statement-0801/ ] to sufficiently act on that power — it’s worth calling more attention to Ryan’s views on monetary policy, which are every bit as radical as his views on government taxation and spending.
Ryan has repeatedly (and wrongly) predicted inflation. Throughout the recession Ryan reacted to monetary stimulus by repeatedly [ http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-14/romney-ryan-see-fed-qe-as-inflation-risk-amid-low-prices ] warning [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/business/economy/10fed.html ] that inflation is just around the corner [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/01/622641/video-deflating-the-gops-inflation-fear-mongering/ ]. That inflation remains [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/13/516299/chart-fed-fails/ ] at near-historic lows while unemployment has hit near-historic highs has apparently left the vice-presidential nominee undeterred. Ryan even called on the Fed [ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/what_would_republicans_do_for.html ] to raise interest rates to combat this predicted inflation, even though increased rates would add one more drag on the already struggling economy.
Ryan wants to end the dual mandate. In 1978, Congress passed the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which directed the Fed to concern itself equally with keeping prices stable and unemployment low. Ryan sponsored a bill [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/11/paul-ryans-non-budget-policy-record-in-one-post/ ] to repeal Humphrey-Hawkins and direct the Fed to concern itself solely with inflation. This reinforces the point that Ryan wants to put a thumb on the scales in favor of price stability and ignoring the need to lower unemployment. But Ryan’s argument is also based on bad history: As The Atlantic’s Matthew O’Brien notes [ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/forget-paul-ryans-budget-his-scariest-idea-is-about-the-federal-reserve/261066/ ], the period since the passage of Humphrey-Hawkins has been one of both unusually low inflation and unusually low fluctuations in the level of inflation.
Ryan is a hard-money crank. In 2009, Ryan called [ http://www.gop.gov/press-release/09/02/27/rep-paul-ryans-speech ] for the U.S. dollar to be benchmarked to a commodity standard. This is essentially a gold standard, except the gold is replaced by an alternative basket of commodities. It would also carry all of the same problems. It would shackle [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/03/20/448357/bernanke-gold-standard/ ] the Fed’s ability to assist the economy in a recession or depression. It would also drive [ http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/23/302277/the-trouble-with-gold/ ] interest rates up or down depending on how prices of those benchmarked commodities behave, regardless of whether such rate changes make sense in the context of the overall economy.
Ryan’s monetary policy hails from Ayn Rand. ThinkProgress has already reported [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/04/18/159391/truth-about-ayn-rand/ ] on Ryan’s professed infatuation with the radical right-wing novelist, and how her stances have influenced his budget policy — an infatuation he has since tried to disavow [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/04/26/471730/paul-ryan-ayn-rand/ ]. Yesterday, Slate’s Dave Weigel caught a linkage [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/13/what_paul_ryan_s_ayn_rand_fandom_means_for_monetary_policy.html ] between Rand’s writings and Ryan’s monetary views as well. In 2005, Ryan told [ http://www.atlassociety.org/ele/blog/2012/04/30/paul-ryan-and-ayn-rands-ideas-hot-seat-again (above, three items up)] the Atlas Society, “I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech, at Bill Taggart’s wedding, on money when I think about monetary policy.” That speech is from Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, and features one of her protagonists praising gold as “objective value,” and condemning paper money as the destruction of value and the tool of “looters.”
As economist Mark Thoma wrote, “I don’t understand why someone with such a clownish views [ http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/08/paul-ryans-nutty-views-on-monetary-policy.html ] is lauded as a policy wonk.” But the Republicans’ presidential candidiate, Mitt Romney, has also shown a good deal of sympathy [ http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-14/romney-ryan-see-fed-qe-as-inflation-risk-amid-low-prices ] with Ryan’s views — views which, as O’Brien dryly notes [ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/forget-paul-ryans-budget-his-scariest-idea-is-about-the-federal-reserve/261066/ ], basically boil down to worrying that “the Federal Reserve will try to bring unemployment down.”
© 2012 Center for American Progress Action Fund
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/14/687301/paul-ryan-monetary-crank/ [with comments]
--
Bernanke Letter Defends Fed Actions
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
Associated Press
By JON HILSENRATH
Updated August 24, 2012, 5:18 p.m. ET
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a letter responding to questions posed by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House oversight committee, defended actions the Fed has taken to support the economy and said there is room for the Fed to do more.
"There is scope for further action by the Federal Reserve to ease financial conditions and strengthen the recovery," Mr. Bernanke wrote in a letter dated Aug. 22, a copy of which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
The Fed's "Operation Twist" program—buying long-term Treasury bonds and selling short-term securities—is still "working its way through the economic system," Mr. Bernanke said. The program was first launched in September 2011 and in June 2012 was extended through the end of this year.
Asked by Mr. Issa if it were premature to consider additional monetary moves, Mr. Bernanke said that "because monetary policy actions operate with a lag," the Fed must make policy "in light of a forecast of the future performance of the economy."
The Fed chairman also said that the Fed's bond-buying of recent years has "helped to promote a stronger recovery than otherwise would have occurred, and to forestall the possibility of a slide into deflation…by putting downward pressure on longer-term interest rates and contributing to broader easing in financial conditions."
The written comments echo remarks that Mr. Bernanke has made to lawmakers and the media. They are notable, in part, because Mr. Bernanke is to deliver a highly anticipated speech on Aug. 31 at a Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in which he could send clearer signals about what new steps the Fed might take.
Minutes of the Fed's July 31-Aug. 1 meeting, released this week, showed the Fed leaning strongly toward actions that could include a new round of bond buying, guidance that interest rates will stay low for even longer than previously thought, or other measures. The Fed next meets Sept. 12 and 13.
In an Aug. 1 letter to the Fed chairman, Mr. Issa raised several issues.
"Of particular concern to me is the persistent drumbeat of highly reputed academics, former government executives, and market participants, who express grave concern with regard to the actions of the Federal Reserve, its apparent use of monetary policy to generate short term solutions, and the resulting risky balance sheet that weakens the Federal Reserve's ability to withstand the next financial crisis."
In reply, Mr. Bernanke sought to allay concerns about potentially damaging consequences of the steps it has taken to date. The Fed, he said, is "keenly attuned to the risks of inflation." He also sought to play down worries that long-term interest rates, now very low, will shoot higher down the road when the Fed does one day start to reduce the size of its bond holdings. The Fed, he said, "will normalize the size of its balance sheet through gradual pre-announced sales in order to ensure that markets have an appropriate amount of time to make adjustments."
The Fed has held off on new action, in part, because officials wanted to see how markets and the economy responded to Operation Twist. One of several options on the table for the Fed's September meeting is for the central bank to replace Operation Twist with an outright bond-buying program.
Copyright ©2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358404577609231770784446.html [with the letter from Bernanke and the letter from Isaa embedded, embedded video, and comments]
--
Romney Wouldn’t Appoint Bernanke to New Fed Term
Aug 23, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-23/romney-says-he-hasn-t-considered-single-person-to-head-fed.html [with comments]
--
Consider keeping Bernanke, top Romney adviser says
Aug 22, 2012
(Reuters) - Ben Bernanke received an unlikely defense of his work at the U.S. Federal Reserve by a top Mitt Romney adviser, who said on Tuesday that he should be considered for a third term as chairman.
Glenn Hubbard, economic adviser to the Republican presidential candidate, said he would advise a possible President Romney that Bernanke should "get every consideration" to stay on beyond January 2014, when the chairman's current term expires.
The comments may come as a surprise given Romney has said he would not reappoint Bernanke beyond 2014. Further, many top Republicans have blasted the Fed's aggressive policies since the Great Recession as overreaching and reckless.
"Ben is a model technocrat. He gets paid nothing for getting kicked around all the time. I think they ought to pat him on the back," Hubbard said in an interview, adding he has known Bernanke since they were "practically kids" and regularly speaks to him.
"I may or may not agree with him, but that's very different from saying I question his motives. I wish politicians would stop doing that," Hubbard told Reuters TV. (Reuters TV interview: http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/08/21/reuters-tv-top-romney-economist-gives-bernanke-high?videoId=237201108&videoChannel=117853 )
The comments from Hubbard - who himself was considered for the Fed chairmanship under former President George W. Bush, who ultimately picked Bernanke - suggests there is at least some support for the head of the U.S. central bank within the Romney camp as it battles to unseat President Barack Obama.
[...]
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-usa-campaign-hubbard-fed-idINBRE87L00P20120822 [no comments yet]
--
Romney Takes His Political Inspiration From Europe's Worst Mistakes
By William K. Black
Posted: 08/15/2012 8:42 am
One of Governor Romney's criticisms of President Obama is that he "takes his political inspiration from Europe...."
Romney never gives specifics on this criticism. The irony is that Romney (and Representative Ryan) "takes his political inspiration from Europe" and that the European policies they embrace have already proven disastrous in Europe. Here are five examples:
1. Austerity. European austerity has promptly forced the Eurozone back into recession. Romney, channeling Germany's Prime Minister Merkel, claims that deficits are "immoral" and must be ended. Austerity is pro-cyclical policy that makes recessions far more severe. It has pushed several European nations into Great Depression levels of unemployment, which has reduced income and tax revenues and increased budget deficits. The EU's Stability and Growth Pact (an oxymoron designed by regular morons) produces instability and negative growth by banning EU nations from using effective counter-cyclical fiscal policies that have proven successful for decades in reducing the severity and length of recessions.
2. Slashing working class wages. Ryan is an implacable opponent of unions and wants to end the minimum wage. Merkel is demanding the repeal of European laws protecting workers and is coercing the periphery to reduce working class wages. Unemployment rates are roughly 25% in Spain and Greece and the unemployment rate for the young is nearly 50%. The old sick joke is true again in Ireland - its leading export is the Irish. Real wages in Europe has fallen and unemployment has increased sharply.
3. Ryan wants to remove the Federal Reserve's statutory mandate to seek full employment consistent with price stability and have it subject to a solitary mandate to maintain price stability. That mimics the disastrous single mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB lacks the legal authority to help the nations of Europe respond to the worst economic catastrophe since the devastation caused by World War II. It is an insane policy. The ECB's crippled mandate meant that our Federal Reserve had to intervene in Europe to save several European Central Banks from collapse, which could have led to a global depression. Ryan wants to adopt a European policy that has proven grotesquely self-destructive.
4. Romney wants to end any vigorous financial regulation. He is inspired by the now infamous European "lite touch" regulation. The United Kingdom (UK) epitomized lite touch regulation. The failure of most of the UK's largest banks, the Libor, HSBC, and Standard Chartered scandals and the allegedly rogue operation of JPMorgan's Chief Investment Office in the City of London constitute a record of failure and scandal without equal. Romney and Ryan oppose any serious regulation of banking and call for the immediate repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act in its entirety and the re-adoption of European-style "lite touch" regulation.
5. Romney's lead economic advisor, N. Gregory Mankiw, continues to champion the regulatory "competition in laxity" that produced the "race to the bottom" that simultaneously destroyed effective financial regulation throughout the developed world. This perverse dynamic has created the criminogenic environments that drive our recurrent, intensifying financial crises. Mankiw is pushing the "need" for the U.S. to win that race to the bottom against the City of London. The only way to "win" a race to the bottom is to refuse to race, but Mankiw takes his policy inspiration from Europe and the City of London. Mankiw's advice has caused Romney to ignore the recurrent disasters and the warnings of effective regulators, economists, and white-collar criminologists that his European-inspired anti-regulatory policies are criminogenic.
The truth is that Europe has some excellent and some terrible economic policies. Romney and Ryan have shown an unerring talent for embracing Europe's worst financial policies and denigrating its best policies. What is amazing is that no matter how badly the European policies fail, Romney and Ryan ignore the failures and promise to drag us down the path to inevitable failure. Romney and Ryan complain about unemployment in the U.S. while pushing Europe's austerity policies that would massively increase unemployment, debt, and deficits in the United States.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. |
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/romney-economic-policy_b_1778271.html [with comments]
--
America’s Aversion to Taxes
Italy’s health care is part of a more generous social safety net than that of the United States.
Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg News
Fewer Government Resources
Industrialized countries have offered more public services over time, largely financed by tax revenue. But the United States collects the same amount of taxes as it did 45 years ago, leaving less money for services.
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
[ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/15/business/fewer-government-resources.html ]
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: August 14, 2012
There is something to be said for universal health care systems.
When my son developed a rash on an Italian vacation in Liguria last month, the pharmacist showed me to the doctor downstairs, who diagnosed the problem at no charge and sent me off with a handshake and a joke about a daughter in med school at the University of California, San Diego.
Italy may be in a funk, with a shrinking economy and a high unemployment rate, but the United States can learn a lot from it, and not just about the benefits of public health care. Italians live longer. Their poverty rate is much lower than ours. If they lose their jobs or suffer some other misfortune, they can turn to a more generous social safety net.
Every developed country aspires to provide a better life for its people. The United States, among the richest of all, fails in important ways. It has the highest poverty [ http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932381893 ] and the highest infant mortality [ http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/infant-mortality_20758480-table9 ] among developed nations. We provide among the least generous unemployment benefits [ http://www.oecd.org/els/benefitsandwagesstatistics.htm ] in the industrial world. Not long ago one of the most educated countries in the world, the United States is slipping [ http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/tertiary-education-graduation-rates_20755120-table1 ] behind [ http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932506457 ].
The reason is not difficult to figure out: rich though we are, we can’t afford the policies needed to improve our record. The politicians in Washington all know that we face a long-term fiscal crisis. By 2020, 70 million Americans are expected to be on Social Security [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/social_security_us/index.html ], up from 45 million in 2000. The ranks on Medicare [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html ] will swell to 64 million, up from 40 million in 2000. Virtually every economist [ http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_5hFa4fmjPDXbnww ] knows that just maintaining Medicare and Medicaid [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicaid/index.html ] benefits will require raising taxes on the middle class.
But though the nation’s fiscal challenge has taken center stage in the presidential election campaign, raising more taxes from American families remains stubbornly off the table.
President Obama [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html ] is willing to accept higher taxes on families earning over $250,000 a year. But he is going nowhere near higher taxes on the middle class. And Mitt Romney [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/mitt-romney ] and his vice-presidential pick, Paul Ryan, are moving decidedly in the opposite direction. Not only do they want to extend indefinitely the tax cuts passed by President George W. Bush, but they are also calling for a piñata of additional ones, and would cut social spending in return.
Citizens of most industrial countries have demanded more public services as they have become richer. And they have been by and large willing to pay more taxes to finance them. Since 1965, tax revenue raised by governments in the developed world have risen to 34 percent of their gross domestic product from 25 percent, on average.
The big exception has been the United States. In 1965, taxes collected by federal, state and municipal governments amounted to 24.7 percent of the nation’s output. In 2010, they amounted to 24.8 percent. Excluding Chile and Mexico, the United States raises less tax revenue, as a share of the economy, than every other industrial country.
No wonder we can’t afford to keep more children alive. In 2007, the most recent year for which figures are available, the United States government spent about 16 percent of its output on social programs [ http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/government-social-spending_20743904-table1 ] — things like public health, food and housing for the poor. In Italy, that figure was 25 percent.
American policy makers justify our choice for low taxes with the claim that they foster economic growth. But the evidence is, at best, mixed. Since 1980, income per person has grown roughly the same across developed nations, about 300 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. It has grown a little faster in the United States than in the European Union and Canada, but slower than in higher tax countries like Japan, Norway and Sweden.
To a large extent, this is because we have chosen a tax system that raises relatively little revenue and inflicts maximum economic harm. Every other industrial country has a national consumption tax, which can be used to raise a lot of money without distorting people’s economic incentives. The United States, by contrast, relies mostly on taxes on labor and capital that damp people’s drive to work and invest, putting a drag on economic growth. And the tax code is riddled with preferences and loopholes that further distort people’s economic behavior.
It is tempting to blame the administration of George W. Bush for the tax shortfall. At the end of the administration of President Bill Clinton, tax revenue reached almost 30 percent of the nation’s economic output. The federal government ran a budget surplus. The Bush tax cuts [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/taxation/bush_tax_cuts/index.html ] sharply reduced the federal tax collection. Then the Great Recession further eroded tax revenue. And, of course, nobody wants to raise taxes in the middle of an economic downturn.
Yet Americans’ aversion to taxes runs deeper. We’ve been collecting less in taxes than other rich countries at least since the early 1970s, relative to size of the economy. But according to Gallup [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/1714/Taxes.aspx ], only three times since the 1950s have more Americans said their taxes were “about right” than said they were “too high.” Scholars have resorted to cultural traits to explain our reluctance to pay for our government.
Alberto Alesina, an Italian-born economist at Harvard, contrasts American individualism rooted in the belief that effort brings success with Europeans’ belief in state redistribution — born of Europe’s long history of inherited wealth. Americans who think they have a fair shot at striking it rich vote against high taxes on their expected future wealth. Europeans who believe wealth is mostly a matter of luck and connections are less resistant to paying taxes for collective welfare.
Support for taxes also depends on how the money is spent. In Italy and throughout Western Europe, every time a voter goes to the doctor, he or she sees taxes at work.
By contrast, the ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the United States can sap support for government redistribution. Ten years ago, the sociologist William Julius Wilson wrote that American whites rebelled against welfare because they saw it as using their hard-earned taxes to give blacks “medical and legal services that many of them could not afford for their own families.” In more homogeneous European countries, taxpayers may be more willing to pay for social programs because recipients are similar to themselves.
Where does this leave American society? Many conservatives in the Tea Party movement [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_party_movement/index.html ] believe the government is already too big. Mr. Romney and most Republicans in Congress have even signed a formal pledge not to raise income taxes. Will no administration ever again dare raise taxes on the middle class?
It may not be impossible for the American political system to accept the case for a bigger government, with higher taxes and better public services. Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Mr. Clinton passed tax increases to address budget deficits.
Bruce Bartlett, a tax expert who worked in the administrations of Mr. Reagan and the elder Mr. Bush, says he believes that the deteriorating budget outlook will ultimately persuade the political class. “We need a few more years in which conservatives try to deal with the problem solely through spending,” he said. “We need to travel down this road a few more years and then people will recognize it is futile.”
There are tentative signs that Americans may become more willing to give money to Uncle Sam. Two of the three times that more Americans said their taxes were “about right” than “too high” have occurred since 2009. And the economic crisis might even increase support for government action.
The economists Paola Giuliano of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Antonio Spilimbergo of the International Monetary Fund found [ http://ftp.iza.org/dp4365.pdf ] that Americans who experienced economic shocks tended to become more supportive of government redistribution, especially when the shock came in their late teens or early 20s.
When elections are decided by today’s 18- to 25-year-olds, perhaps the American debate over taxes will come to resemble that in the rest of the world.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/business/economy/slipping-behind-because-of-an-aversion-to-taxes.html [with comments]
--
Zombies
Published on Aug 16, 2012 by Jackie ForNH
We need to get serious about what is at stake with pledge politics. Our next Governor needs to be independent, not blindly beholden to the no-tax pledge. Find out more at http://www.pledgezombies.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTZMTTcvTm8 [via/more at "Jackie Cilley, New Hampshire Governor Candidate, Releases Tax Pledge Zombie Ad", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/jackie-cilley-tax-zombie_n_1796999.html (with comments)]
--
Worshipping at the Altar of Ayn Rand's Undeserving Elite (Ryan Is No Kemp)
By Frank Schaeffer
Posted: 08/15/2012 12:15 pm
I have something in common with Republican vice presidential nominee Congressman Paul Ryan: We were both friends with the late Congressman Jack Kemp [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kemp ]. Today, some Republicans are comparing Paul Ryan to Kemp. That is a slur on Kemp.
As a recent, extensive portrait [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/us/politics/family-faith-and-politics-describe-life-of-paul-ryan.html?pagewanted=all ] of Ryan in the New York Times notes, such comparisons are far from accurate:
Over the years, Mr. Ryan's emphasis shifted. Mr. Kemp was not nearly as concerned with cutting government programs as Mr. Ryan is today. They agreed on [low] taxes, but their views on spending and the role of government were different.
Kemp was Ryan's mentor when Ryan was in his 20s, and they remained close. But in the substantial differences between Kemp and Ryan one can read another story: the slide of the Republican Party into extremism.
Jack will be remembered as a compassionate mainstream Republican. Ryan has become a living caricature of the Tea Party. Jack became an evangelical Christian who had been raised in the Christian Science Church. And that church was hardly devoted to selfishness. Mary Baker Eddy taught that a life of service should include work benefiting the community and an overarching plan for the betterment of all humanity. Ryan was raised a Roman Catholic but today worships at the altar of the goddess of the undeserving self-loving elite -- Ayn Rand -- and calls her his "single most influential thinker [ http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/Jamie-Stiehm/2012/08/14/paul-ryans-dangerous-obsession-with-ayn-rand ]."
From the 1970s to the early 1990s, I was a regular visitor to the Kemps' home, as were my parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Schaeffer ]. This had a lot to do with the "Schaeffer Group" that met in their house to study my parents' evangelical books. I also used to meet Jack on the road when he dropped by events at which Dad or I were speaking and vice versa.
We fell out of touch after I fled the Republican Party [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/us/20beliefs.html ] but my memories of Jack are fond. And Jack was the sort of man who kept me on his family's Christmas card list no matter that the likes of Rush Limbaugh were calling me a traitor.
My last phone conversation with Jack was in 2000, ironically when Jack argued (loudly) with me over my support for John McCain in his presidential primary bid battle with George W. Bush. Jack called McCain a "war monger" and called Bush a "peacemaker." Jack was rebuking me because I'd done a number of radio interviews at McCain's campaign manager Mark Salter's request, supporting McCain and blasting Bush. I was rooting for McCain because in his pre-Palin/Tea Party sellout McCain was correctly calling people like Falwell "agents of intolerance."
By then (though he worked with the religious right closely earlier) Jack agreed with McCain on his harsh assessment of the religious right. There was no love lost between Jack and likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson et al though they did all use each other handily. Back in the early 1990s when I had just started writing about why I'd left the religious right, Jack called to commend me and said "the religious right will destroy the Republican Party."
I never got the chance to ask Jack what he thought about his "peacemaker" taking us to war in Iraq for no reason. But it's instructive that the last time I talked to Jack he was to my "left" (so to speak) over the issues of war and peace. Given that I then had a son in the Marine Corps I was pretty "hawkish" in those days. (I'll bet Jack would have some choice words today for Romney more or less promising to go to war with Iran on Day One of his presidency.)
Jack and I were once close enough that in 1984 he helped me edit a book of pro-capitalist essays aimed at the evangelical public called Is Capitalism Christian? [ http://www.amazon.com/Is-Capitalism-Christian-Perspective-Economics/dp/0891073620 ] (Crossway Books, 1985). The 20 or so contributors included Emmett Tyrell (editor of the American Spectator), Warren Brookes (columnist for the Boston Herald), Michael Novak (author of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism) and Paul Johnson (author of Modern Times).
Jack not only provided many personal introductions to these neoconservative leaders but he also provided this jacket copy endorsement: "I can think of only one thing better than reading Frank Schaeffer on Christianity and capitalism -- that's Frank Schaeffer bringing together most of the greatest thinkers of our time on the subject. Is Capitalism Christian? is an outstanding expression of the Judeo-Christian approach to economics."
Jack shared Ryan's disdain for taxes. But Jack's "supply side" economic ideas were all about cutting taxes in a way that he sincerely believed would bring in more revenue to the Treasury (according to the low tax "Chicago school" theories) and thus help everyone -- including the poor -- by helping the federal government remain strong. Jack was not trying to make the super-rich even richer at the expense of the poor.
Jack was no right wing ideologue. He had a complex, sometimes contradictory, set of ideas. He was a champion for more immigration, the center of the American experience as he described it. So Jack argued for citizenship for immigrants here illegally. And he never would have allowed the good faith and credit of the US to languish worldwide to score points against a Democratic president. Ryan did this very thing by being the Tea Party's front man behind the Republicans' battles with President Obama, including last year's congressional budget fiasco. That Ryan-driven fiasco brought the nation to the brink of default. And Ryan was also the politician who killed the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction proposal for purely political reasons.
While it was an honor to know Jack, I'm no longer proud of the book I worked on with him or my other gung-ho efforts to introduce evangelicals to neoconservative ideology. I've watched all of Jack's pet economic theories (which I imbibed from Jack and others) tested and trounced by a reality far too intricate for any one ideology to correctly describe let alone "fix."
But even back when I was spreading the "gospel" of Jack's supply side ideas I was Christian first and a neoconservative/Religious Right ideologue second. So, there was one line I wouldn't cross: endorsing Ayn Rand.
Ayn Rand said [ http://freedomkeys.com/faithandforce.htm ]: "If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject." Contrast that with the words of Jesus: "You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."
Jack was a fan of Rand in his younger days. But over the years and with some help from my father, he struggled to balance his one-time youthful fondness for Rand's writings with his growing commitment to an evangelical Christian worldview. I recall Dad challenging Jack about his residual fondness for Rand. Dad -- hardly a lefty and called one of the "fathers of the Religious Right" -- described Rand as an "atheist extremist who hated the poor and despised Jesus."
Nevertheless, Rand's anti-tax ideas remained part of Jack's DNA. Jack convinced the Reagan administration to lower income taxes drastically as a magical Randian "solution" to all that ailed America. The long term results speak for themselves: Our degraded infrastructure, the near bankruptcy of countless municipal governments and the super-rich getting richer as the middle class slides to lower middle class status. This is not the outcome for which Jack worked.
Even so, Jack's tax-cutting ideas were mild compared to Ryan's pro-billionaire "budget." And Kemp never launched a slash and burn project that provided tax cuts for the rich while heaping tax burdens onto middle class families. Nor did he advocate eliminating the programs that keep the poor just this side of abject despair.
Mitt Romney has called [ http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/12/3758327/romneys-choice-of-paul-ryan-for.html ] Ryan's plan "an excellent piece of work." Who bears the burden of "excellent" plan? Jesus called them "the least of these."
Ryan's quotes about his passionate love of Rand's ideas run throughout his entire career... until April 2012, that is. With his political star rising nationally via his Religious Right/Tea Party following, he has tried to reinvent himself for a national religious audience, by hastily delinking himself from Rand. "I reject her philosophy," Ryan said [ http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/297023/ryan-shrugged-robert-costa ] when repeatedly pressed. "It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my [Roman Catholic] worldview."
Ryan was trying to answer several leading evangelical critics -- including the late Chuck Colson not to mention his own bishops, who blasted his budget as un-Christian. Colson even made a video attacking Ayn Rand, warning that her "patently anti-Christian ideas seem to be gaining steam."
Colson believed Rand's "followers" (i.e., Ryan et al) were undermining the Gospel and said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhbE8NDTY0c ]: "It shouldn't surprise you to learn that her worldview, called Objectivism, which rejects love of God, has even less regard for love of neighbor. Jennifer Rubin, who wrote the definitive biography of Rand, says that 'whereas traditional conservatism emphasized duties, responsibilities, and social interconnectedness, at the core' of Rand's ideology 'was a rejection of moral obligations to others.'"
Ryan knows that believing Christians can't vote for him in good conscience unless he distances himself from Rand. Colson called those like Ryan following Rand to account [id.] for "undermining the gospel." But actions speak louder than words. Ryan's budget would create a reality worthy of Rand's most selfish libertarian fantasies. The poor will literally be ground under the heels of the rich like some Old Testament prophecy denouncing the wealthy come to life.
As for Romney, nothing could be farther from Rand's ideas than the teachings [ http://mormon.org/commandments ] of the Mormon Church on love of neighbor. The fact Romney nominated a committed Randian ideologue [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/05/new-right-ayn-rand-marx ] is as shocking as it was that McCain nominated Sarah Palin. Both men sold out to the "agents of intolerance." In McCain's case the sellout was to the Religious Right, in Romney's case he sold out to both the Religious Right and to the Rand-following Tea Party.
The depth of the Romney sellout of his Mormon heritage is illustrated by any visit to Salt Lake City. There the visitor will find everything from church-financed food banks to employment offices extending an altruistic hand to the needy. Yet Romney has elevated Ryan, one who has proved with his budget that -- recent, expedient disclaimers aside -- he slavishly still follow his teacher who said [ http://www.angelfire.com/ex2/atheism/objectivism.html ], "suffering is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence -- man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone's altar nor for anyone's cause" (The Objectivist, Sept. 1969, 13).
"Suffering is not a claim check"... on our obligation to love others? Tell that to the Good Samaritan or rather to Jesus who said that alleviating suffering is not only a claim check but the only ticket to redemption.
With Romney nominating the author of the most extreme Randian attack on the poor ever introduced in Congress, the Republican Party has just defined itself as the utilitarian party of greed and individualism run amok. The once proud party of Jack Kemp now stands for creating a libertarian country where no one is their brother's keeper-unless you count the solicitous care the Koch brothers show for one another's ever-expanding financial wellbeing [ http://www.forbes.com/profile/david-koch/ ].
In the context of a moralistic campaign wherein the Republicans have made such a point of their "Christian" values -- and even accused President Obama of being "anti-religion" -- maybe it's fair to ask voters a question cast in the exclusionary terminology of today's religious right: Can you be a real Christian or even a good American, if you vote for leaders whose plan for the poor is based on a blatant denial of Jesus's teaching?
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back [ http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-God-Helped-Religious-Almost/dp/0306817500 ] and his forthcoming novel "Baptism By Sand."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/worshipping-at-the-altar-_b_1776332.html [with comments]
--
Which presidential candidate is truly pro-life?
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney shakes hands with supporters at his Super Tuesday primary election night rally March 6 in Boston.
(CNS/Reuters/Brian Snyder)
By Nicholas P. Cafardi
Aug. 10, 2012
COMMENTARY
A few weeks ago, I publicly defended [ http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=5168 ] Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York against onslaughts from the left that accused him of paying off pedophile priests to leave the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee. As I explained then, the archbishop was simply recognizing the rights to sustenance that a priest, good or bad, child abuser or not, has from the diocese according to the Code of Canon Law. We might not like it, but sustenance is the law of the church, and then-Archbishop Dolan was following the law.
Now I find it necessary to defend Cardinal Dolan, whose openness and personal character I truly admire, from onslaughts from the far-right, those folks who have created their own parallel magisterium in which the Catholic church sings one note: Making abortions illegal is the highest, truest (maybe only) teaching of our church.
Dolan is taking flak [ http://ncronline.org/node/31625 ] from the parallel magisterium for inviting the president of the United States, Barack Obama, to the traditional Al Smith Dinner this year, along with the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. According to the parallel magisterium, it is also a doctrine of the faith that Obama is pro-abortion and Romney is pro-life, and the church and its bishops and cardinals can associate only with the latter and not the former.
Let me say a few things about that comparison. First of all, I don't know anyone who is pro-abortion. Think about what that word means. It means you favor women becoming pregnant so you can help them abort their child and maybe profit from it. It is an ugly word, and it is used to emotionalize the debate when what we are really talking about is people who do not favor criminalizing abortion because they believe criminal statutes are ineffective ways to solve social evils. This makes them pro-choice, not pro-abortion.
There is no doubt Obama is pro-choice. He has said so many times. There is also no doubt Romney is running on what he calls a pro-life platform. But any honest analysis of the facts shows the situation is much more complicated than that.
For example, Obama's Affordable Care Act does not pay for abortions. In Massachusetts, Romney's health care law does. Obama favors, and included in the Affordable Care Act, $250 million of support for vulnerable pregnant women and alternatives to abortion. This support will make abortions much less likely, since most abortions are economic. Romney, on the other hand, has endorsed Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan's budget, which will cut hundreds of millions of dollars out of the federal plans that support poor women. The undoubted effect: The number of abortions in the United States will increase. On these facts, Obama is much more pro-life than Romney.
But let's not stop there. Obama does not financially profit from the abortion industry. Romney does. Bain Capital, in the time Romney was listed as its legal head and even when he was attending Bain board meetings, was an owner of Stericycle, a major disposer of the dead bodies of aborted children in the United States. (See: Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/romney-bain-abortion-stericycle-sec ].) Bain owned a share of Stericycle until 2004, selling its interest for a profit in the tens of millions of dollars. We can parse what Romney's 1999 "retroactive retirement" from Bain means, but he still gets an annual payout from the firm. To the extent those dollars are part of Bain's Stericycle profits, a strong argument exists that Romney is an abortion profiteer. How pro-life is that?
And it has long been known that millions of Bain Capital's original outside funding, solicited by Romney himself, came from wealthy El Salvadorian clans, some of whom, while they were funding Bain, were "linked to right wing death squads." (Salt Lake Tribune, 1999; See also: Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/mitt-romney-death-squads-bain_n_1710133.html ].) Death squads killed tens of thousands of mostly poor people in El Salvador. They also killed priests, nuns and Archbishop Oscar Romero. How pro-life is that? How pro-life is taking the money of these people and doubling or tripling it for them? And did any of their Bain profits fund more death squads? Before we endorse Romney's "pro-life" claims, isn't it important for us to know that?
So speaking as a temporary, part-time member of the parallel magisterium, I think that if anyone should be disinvited from the Al Smith Dinner, it is Mitt Romney. Based on the above record, he, and not Obama, is the anti-life, "pro-abortion" candidate.
The fact is, the personable Dolan did right to invite them both. The Al Smith Dinner is not a religious event. It is a political dinner at a ritzy hotel where folks who look gawky in tuxes make jokes and raise money for a good Catholic cause. No one should think that, by inviting the "pro-abortion" Mitt Romney to the dinner, Dolan is endorsing him and all of his "pro-abortion" anti-life positions.
[Nicholas P. Cafardi is a civil and canon lawyer and a professor and former dean at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh. After publication of this piece, Cafardi was named [ http://ncronline.org/node/31734 ] a co-chair for the "Catholics for Obama [ http://www.barackobama.com/catholics ]" campaign.]
Copyright © The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company
http://ncronline.org/news/politics/which-presidential-candidate-truly-pro-life [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan, Joe Biden: A Tale Of Two Catholics
By Daniel Burke
Posted: 08/15/2012 9:54 pm Updated: 08/15/2012 9:54 pm
(RNS) The 2012 presidential campaign could bear a new subtitle: A Tale of Two Catholics.
For the first time in U.S. history, both sides of the ballot include Roman Catholics: Democrats' Vice President Joe Biden, and Republicans' newly named vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
Ryan, 42, still belongs to the Catholic parish, St. John Vianney in Janesville, Wis., where he was an altar boy. Biden, 69, the first Catholic vice president in U.S. history, attends Mass at St. Patrick's Parish and St. Joseph on the Brandywine Church, both in Wilmington, De.
Biden and Ryan both cite their faith as a formative influence, but neither is known as a standard-bearer for the Catholic hierarchy's chief political causes: abortion and gay marriage. In fact, the two candidates are -- politically at least -- nearly polar opposites.
Biden agrees with the church on social justice issues like poverty, but runs afoul on gay marriage and abortion rights. Ryan, meanwhile, agrees with Catholic doctrine on abortion and gay marriage, but clashes with church leaders on social justice issues.
With Catholics comprising nearly a quarter of the U.S. electorate -- and nearly a third in Midwestern swing states -- the "Who's the Better Catholic?" debate may become far more than an intrachurch squabble.
"It has the potential to have a huge impact on this election," said Maria Mazzenga, a historian at Catholic University in Washington.
Neither the Democratic nor Republican party platforms perfectly align with the wide body of Catholic social doctrine, which encompasses views on everything from war to economics to the unborn.
"The official teachings of the church can't really be put into one camp or the other," said Mazzenga.
So Catholic politicians must often choose between church and party orthodoxy, said R. Scott Appleby, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.
"In our current system, is it possible to have a politician who, along with papal teaching, says no to abortion, no to nuclear proliferation, no to poverty? The answer is no," Appleby said.
Biden has said that "as a Roman Catholic, I am willing to accept the teachings of my church" on abortion. But, he continued in a 2008 "Meet the Press" interview, "for me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I am seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society."
Biden, who had already been barred from speaking at Catholic schools in Wilmington because of his stance on abortion, was blasted by bishops.
Archbishop Charles Chaput, a leading voice in the church who now heads the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, called Biden's argument "morally exhausted."
"It's certainly true that we need to acknowledge the views of other people and compromise whenever possible," Chaput said at the time, "but not at the expense of a developing child's right to life."
Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League, said the hierarchy has made it clear that outlawing abortion and defending traditional marriage are the church's top political priorities.
"This puts Biden at a decisive disadvantage in making the case that he better represents Catholic teachings," Donohue said.
But conservative Catholic activist Deal Hudson argues that Ryan, too, has a "Catholic problem."
The Wisconsin congressman chairs the House Budget Committee and is credited with writing the 2012 and 2013 House Republican budget plans, which call for steep cuts to programs that care for the poor, such as food stamps and Medicaid, while giving tax breaks to the wealthy.
For the last two years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has written a series of letters to House lawmakers, including Ryan, arguing that the "central moral measure" of any budget is how it affects "poor and vulnerable people."
Ryan's 2013 budget plan, which passed in the House, but has died in the Senate, "fails to meet these moral criteria," wrote Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.
Catholic nuns, scholars and Franciscans have been even more critical.
Nuns protested Ryan's budget on a nine-state bus tour this summer, rallying outside his district office. The Franciscan Action Network accused the congressman of "balancing the budget on the backs of the poor." Nearly ninety scholars at Georgetown University, the nation's oldest Catholic college, said that Ryan's budget owes more to Ayn Rand, whom he has cited as a major influence, than to the Gospel.
Ryan has vigorously defended his budget and fidelity to Catholic social teaching.
"The overarching threat to our whole society today is the exploding federal debt," Ryan said at Georgetown University in April. "The Holy Father, Pope Benedict, has charged that governments, communities, and individuals running up high debt levels are 'living at the expense of future generations' and 'living in untruth,'" he said.
Ryan has also cited the Catholic principle of "subsidiarity" to argue that government programs should not crowd out civic life, including local charities and churches.
In a Daily Beast article, Hudson suggested that Ryan has more convincing to do.
"The bottom line is this: the Romney-Ryan campaign must acknowledge the Catholic concerns about the budget as a major obstacle to winning the election," Hudson wrote on Monday.
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/paul-ryan-joe-biden-a-tal_n_1785421.html [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan: God Says That I Can Carry a Gun?
By Norman Lear
Posted: 08/16/2012 4:14 pm
Religious Right leaders are excited that Rep. Paul Ryan, in accepting Mitt Romney's invitation to be his running mate, said that our rights come from nature and God, not from government.
I can be moved to tears by the ideals included in our founding documents. My wife and I sent an original printing of the Declaration of Independence on a 10-year road trip around the country to let Americans have the thrill of reading these words in our nation's birth certificate, and in their own home towns: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights...."
Now, am I crazy to suspect that his "God not government" usage is less an homage to Thomas Jefferson or John Locke than it is a rhetorical boost for the right-wing project to claim a divine mandate for the Tea Party's radically restricted view of the role of government?
This wasn't the first time that our new Republican candidate for vice president used that formulation; several weeks ago he cited nature and God as the rationale for repealing health care reform too, criticizing the law's supporters for believing that health care was a government-granted right.
Other politicians and Religious Right leaders use the notion that our rights come from God to justify their opposition to legal equality for those who they believe displease God, particularly LGBT Americans -- the way some once argued that it was God's will or the natural order for certain people to be enslaved, or for women to subordinate their legal rights to their husbands. Or the way some people believe that wealth and success are signs of divine blessing (or simply of natural superiority à la Ayn Rand) so that we as a society shouldn't be too worried about those born into positions of want and restricted opportunity.
Some even argue that the Constitution was meant to create a government of, by and for Christians. They are demonstrably wrong. The authors of the Constitution explicitly considered and rejected proposals to insert Christianity into the Constitution, and they chose not to. The framers chose the more radical path of separating church and state and creating a country in which one's religious beliefs or lack thereof were no bar to citizenship or public office. Of course, on this as on many other issues, the reality is that in life and in law, at the nation's founding our society was far from the ideal. We struggled for the progress we have made and that struggle continues. So let's do celebrate the legacies from our founders, and at the same time maintain a healthy skepticism toward those who use the rhetoric of nature and God to deny the government's role in promoting the general welfare or securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-lear/paul-ryan-god-says-that-i_b_1791789.html [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan's Faux Populism
By Robert Reich
Posted: 08/17/2012 4:25 pm
On Friday, Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee, made the most populist speech of this campaign season.
"It's the people who are politically connected, it's the people who have access to Washington that get the breaks," he told an enthusiastic crowd of over 2,000 at a high school gym in Virginia.
"Well, no more. We don't want to pick winners and losers in Washington... . Hardworking taxpayers should be treated fairly and it should be based on whether they're good, whether they work hard and not who they know in Washington. That's entrepreneurialism. That's free enterprise."
Sounds good, but earlier this week -- three days after being picked as Romney's running-mate -- Ryan went to Las Vegas to pay homage to Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire who is the poster boy for using money to become "politically connected" in Washington, and getting the "breaks" that come with it. Adelson has promised to donate up to $100 million to make sure Romney and Ryan are in the White House next year.
Much of Adelson's fortune comes from his casino in Macau, in China, via his money-greased access to Washington.
When China's pitch for the 2008 Olympics was endangered by a House resolution opposing the bid because of China's "abominable human rights record," Adelson phoned Tom DeLay, then House majority whip and recipient of Adelson's political generosity -- urging him to block the resolution, which DeLay promptly did. The next day, according to the New York Times [see next item below], a Chinese vice premier promised Mr. Adelson an endless line of gamblers to the Macau casino.
The money Adelson has committed to putting Romney and Ryan into the White House is a business investment. Adelson has a lot riding on the 2012 election.
Last year, his Las Vegas Sands Corporation came under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- bribing Chinese officials to help expand its casino in Macau.
The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, meanwhile, is investigating whether the Sands Corporation violated federal money-laundering laws by accepting more than $100 million from high-rolling gamblers accused of drug trafficking and embezzlement, rather than reporting the suspicious funds to the government.
Ryan has also been a major recipient of contributions from billionaire energy moguls Charles and David Koch. Koch Industries PAC has donated more than $100,000 to Ryan's campaigns and his leadership PAC -- more than any other corporate PAC, according to a NY Times analysis of campaign records.
You see, Koch industries spans a variety of oil and gas investments -- whose value would be compromised if Congress and the White House got serious about climate change.
Small wonder Paul Ryan has emerged as one of Congress's most outspoken skeptics of climate change. He has also repeatedly voted against energy efficiency standards, including a House vote to prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
Several months ago, when I debated Paul Ryan on ABC-TV's This Week, he said we need to shrink the size of government because big corporations and wealthy individuals otherwise use government to their advantage.
"If the power and money are going to be here in Washington, that's where the influence is going to go ... that's where the powerful are going to go to influence it," he said.
It's an odd argument coming from Ryan because his proposed budget doesn't shrink government by cutting benefits and payments to big business and the rich. He increases military payments to defense contractors, for example, slashes Wall Street regulations, and gives giant tax benefits to the rich.
His budget shrinks government mainly by cutting benefits and payments to the poor and lower-income Americans. Over 60 percent of his spending cuts target programs for Americans in the bottom third of the income ladder.
Ryan is correct when he says "it's the people who are politically connected, it's the people who have access to Washington that get the breaks."
But his faux populism obscures the main point. A much smaller government still dominated by money would continue to do the bidding of billionaires like casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, energy moguls like the Koch bothers, military contractors, and other high rollers now actively trying to put Ryan and Romney into the White House.
It just wouldn't do anything for the rest of us.
ROBERT B. REICH [ http://robertreich.org/ ], Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/paul-ryan-budget_b_1799023.html [with comments]
--
In Thrall to Sheldon Adelson
Editorial
Published: August 16, 2012
Three days after Paul Ryan became the presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate, he made a pilgrimage on Tuesday [ ] to the Las Vegas gambling palace of Sheldon Adelson, the casino tycoon who is spending more than any other donor to try to send Mr. Ryan and Mitt Romney to the White House. No reporters were allowed, perhaps because the campaign didn’t want them asking uncomfortable questions about the multiple federal investigations into the company behind Mr. Adelson’s wealth.
Those questions, though, aren’t going away, and neither are the ones about the judgment of Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan in drawing ever closer to a man whose business background should lead them to back away — fast. By not repudiating Mr. Adelson’s vow to spend as much as $100 million on their behalf, the two candidates seem more eager to keep the “super PAC” dollars flowing than to preserve the integrity of their campaign.
The issues swirling about Mr. Adelson’s business practices are not new and can hardly come as a surprise to the Romney campaign. Last year, his company, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, announced that it was under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — specifically, that it bribed Chinese officials for help in expanding its casino empire in Macau. Later, the F.B.I. became involved, and even Chinese regulators looked askance at the company’s conduct, fining it $1.6 million for violating foreign exchange rules, The Times reported on Monday [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/politics/sheldon-adelsons-dealings-in-china-are-under-investigation.html?pagewanted=all ].
Then there’s an unrelated investigation by the United States attorney’s office in Los Angeles into whether the Sands Corporation violated federal money-laundering laws by accepting millions from high-rolling gamblers accused of drug trafficking and embezzlement. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444320704577566803521121134.html ] that federal authorities are examining whether the casino should have reported the suspicious funds to the government. Instead, the company accepted $100 million from one of the gamblers and gave him free hotel rooms, plane rides and large lines of credit.
The company has denied all allegations of improper behavior. But, since Mr. Adelson’s financial future is riding on the outcome of these federal investigations, it is legitimate to ask whether he has motivation for supporting the Republican ticket so lavishly, beyond his sharp disagreement with the Obama administration’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Mr. Adelson has certainly not hesitated to throw around his weight and wealth with Republicans before.
In 2001, when China was making a pitch to hold the Olympics, it was worried about a resolution pending in the House that would oppose the bid because of its “abominable human rights record.” To curry favor with China, Mr. Adelson called Tom DeLay, then the House majority whip — and another recipient of Mr. Adelson’s campaign generosity — and urged him to block the resolution, according to a court deposition [ http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_bruck?currentPage=all ] by William Weidner, then the president of Sands. Mr. DeLay quickly promised the bill would never see the light of day, and he was true to his word.
The next day, a Chinese vice premier promised Mr. Adelson an endless line of gamblers [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/politics/sheldon-adelsons-dealings-in-china-are-under-investigation.html?pagewanted=all ] to the Macau casino.
A careful presidential campaign would put distance between itself and a businessman like Mr. Adelson. Instead, this one is cultivating him. Mr. Romney recently met with him in Israel, and Mr. Ryan this week paid homage to him and other big donors in a private casino for high-rollers on the 36th floor of Mr. Adelson’s Venetian hotel. By allowing Mr. Adelson to have such an outsize role in their race, the candidates themselves are placing a very risky bet.
*
Related
At Ryan-Adelson Gathering, Budget Talk Trumps Israel (August 15, 2012)
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/ryan-meets-with-adelson-and-they-talk-budget/
Scrutiny for Casino Mogul’s Frontman in China (August 14, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/us/politics/sheldon-adelsons-dealings-in-china-are-under-investigation.html
Times Topic: Sheldon Adelson
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/sheldon_g_adelson/index.html
Related in Opinion
Campaign Stops: Embracing Sheldon Adelson (August 6, 2012)
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/embracing-sheldon-adelson/
Times Topic: United States Elections
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/united-states-politics/index.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/opinion/in-thrall-to-sheldon-adelson.html [with comments]
--
Jamie Dimon's Great New Slogan for Romney-Ryan
By Mike Lux
Posted: 08/14/2012 6:50 pm
Who knew that in addition to his prodigious talents as a Too Big To Fail banker, Jamie Dimon also had such great skills as a political PR guy? The Republicans have been struggling to come up with just the right slogan for the Romney-Ryan ticket. They had been strongly leaning toward "To the victor goes the spoils", since that phrase is such a great summary of both the Bain Capital philosophy and the Ryan budget, but had been afraid it didn't have quite enough edge to it. But now Dimon has nailed it for them. In an interview [ http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/encounter/jamie-dimon-2012-8/ ] with New York Magazine that came out yesterday, Dimon unveiled the new slogan: "It's a free. F*cking. Country." The fact that he was saying this in reaction to the idea of new regulations on Wall Street bankers fits perfectly with Romney and Ryan's vision for America, since they are violently opposed to any regulations on Wall Street bankers or other big corporate interests.
Right before he unveiled the perfect new slogan for Romney-Ryan, Dimon was comparing having regulations in the banking industry to Soviet Communism, and was crying a river for all those poor small bankers out there who might be affected by them. There's a certain irony to all this given that Dimon's JPMorgan Chase bank, along with five other TBTF banks, overwhelmingly dominate the financial marketplace, controlling over two-thirds of the country's financial assets, and have received major market advantages over smaller independent banks and credit unions because they are too big to fail, but Dimon doesn't seem to get irony too well. Given how little regulation the big banks have received over the years, the massive bailouts the industry scored when they got themselves into trouble in 2008-9, and how easy policy-makers have been on them in spite of the damage done to the economy, the arrogance and hubris of talking about Soviet style government is pretty amazing. But then that fits quite well with Romney and Ryan, too.
The new "It's a free. F*cking. Country." slogan, especially coming from such a quintessential figure like Dimon delivering it, fits the Romney-Ryan values and worldview like a hand in a glove. They believe wealthy, powerful, and well-connected people like themselves should be free to do whatever they want to do, no matter the cost to the rest of society. Wreck the economy, destroy jobs, pump up financial bubbles and then make money off them collapsing, cheat clients, pollute and overheat the planet, cheat sick people out of their insurance, fraudulently foreclose on homes, use overseas slave labor: it's all okay, do what you will, because it is a free. F*cking. Country. And if you don't get rich in that kind of country, it is your own fault anyway -- you must not be smart enough or hard working enough or feral enough to make it. After all, to the victor goes the spoils.
This debate we are having in the 2012 election is about both economics and values. The economics don't work for the vast majority of the country, because in the kind of economic system we have developed over the last 3 decades there are only a few winners while the great majority are squeezed. With the kind of massively big companies that dominate industry after industry, small and medium sized businesses are going broke in record numbers and there is less successful entrepreneurship possible. Top executive salaries and bonuses squeeze the wages and benefits (if workers are lucky enough to still get any) of everyone else in these companies. Workers with low wages can't afford to buy anything, so the economy keeps slowing down. In this kind of system, a tiny percentage of people win big through financial speculation, inventing an important new technology, running one of the all-powerful incumbent corporations, being an incredibly successful athlete or artist, or winning the lottery. A few more do well because they work important jobs for the winners or sell them high end luxuries. And just about everyone else in this system gets the short end of the shaft. Yes, it is a Free. F*cking. Country. But the richer you are, the free-er you get.
As bad as the economics of the Dimon-Romney-Ryan worlview are are, the values are even worse. I grew up being taught that this country was built on the idea that we are all created equal, and the USA's system was built to be of, by, and for the people. I was taught to believe in the Golden Rule, and that kindness and generosity and looking out and helping others mattered more than how wealthy I got. I was raised in the spirit of what my religious parents called the beloved community, which meant that the sick and the elderly got visited and assisted when they were in need, that the little kids in the neighborhood got looked after by everyone in the neighborhood, that the small businesspeople in the neighborhood were generous when their neighbors hit hard times. Are those the kinds of values we would be better off having as our society's cornerstones than the values of letting the victors take the spoils and let the devil take the hindmost? Especially when the hindmost encompasses 98 or 99 percent of us, as it seems to in the world of Romney and Ryan and Jamie Dimon.
Thanks to Jamie Dimon, the Republicans now have their perfect slogan. For the rest of us, I hope we will remember our older values, the values that built a great democracy and the broadest, most prosperous middle class in all of history.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/jamie-dimon-free-country_b_1776888.html [with comments]
--
Wall Street Lobbying Efforts Reach $4.2 Billion Since 2006, Or $1,331 A Minute, Report States
By Nick Wing
Posted: 08/17/2012 10:27 am
On Capitol Hill, it pays to pay. Wall Street certainly pays, and a new report unveils just how much, as well as what it gets in return.
Since 2006, the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, has poured around $4.2 billion into efforts to maintain influence in the halls of Congress, according to a new report [ http://www.nationofchange.org/washington-s-wall-street-sugar-daddies-1345124114 ] by Elect Democracy, a nonpartisan effort by human rights organization Global Exchange. That comes out to $1,331 a minute.
Of that total, $879 million has gone to the campaigns of lawmakers. Like most influence peddlers in Washington, the FIRE industry takes positions on legislation that affects the way it operates. Donations can't guarantee that a lawmaker votes a certain way on a bill, of course, but the intrinsic goal of lobbying is to encourage them to support the cause, in part by padding their campaign coffers.
How well does FIRE's operation work?
Thanks to Elect Democracy's new legislative scorecard, which tracks FIRE sector donations to members of Congress and rates their Wall Street voting loyalty, we now have a better idea.
Below, the findings from Elect Democracy [ http://www.globalexchange.org/sites/default/files/ED_LegislativeScorecard.pdf ]. How do your congressional representatives stack up?
Elect Democracy On FIRE
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/126917283/Elect-Democracy-On-FIRE [embedded]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/wall-street-lobbying_n_1796443.html [with comments]
--
Romney, Busy Fundraising, Wishes He Was on the Stump
By Emily Friedman
Aug 18, 2012 1:49pm
Pausing to forage for snacks aboard a charter flight between fundraisers today, Mitt Romney said today he wished he was out campaigning, and blamed President Obama for having to spend so much time seeking cash.
“That’s a challenge with a president who blew through the federal spending limits,” Romney said when asked by a reporter about having to spend so much time fundraising.
“It means that campaigns now have to spend a disproportionate amount of time fundraising,” Romney said. “You appreciate all the help you get, but you wish you could spend more time on the campaign trail.”
Romney hasn’t held a public campaign event since Tuesday, and his next one will be on Monday, meaning that Romney has focused nearly entirely on fundraising for five days.
Meanwhile, his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan has been busy on the stump, today holding a rally at the massive Florida retirement community The Villages.
Romney will spend today hopscotching between Martha’s Vineyard, Hyannis and Nantucket to attend three separate fundraisers, all of which include multiple tiers, offering photo lines and receptions to supporters willing to pay the price.
Copyright © 2012 ABC News Internet Ventures. Yahoo! - ABC News Network
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/romney-busy-fundraising-wishes-he-was-on-the-stump/ [with comments]
--
PAC Track
What and Where are the Super PACs Spending?
Aug. 24, 2012
http://projects.propublica.org/pactrack/#committee=all
*
Flood of Secret Campaign Cash: It’s Not All Citizens United
Aug. 23, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/flood-of-secret-campaign-cash-its-not-all-citizens-united [with comments]
*
No Tax Returns for You, Dark Money Groups Say
Aug. 22, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/no-tax-returns-for-you-dark-money-groups-say [with comments]
*
Who are the Super PACs’ Biggest Donors?
August 21, 2012
http://projects.propublica.org/pactrack/contributions/tree
*
How Some Nonprofit Groups Funnel Dark Money Into Campaigns
August 21, 2012
http://projects.propublica.org/dark-money/
*
From Citizens United to Super PACs: A Campaign Finance Reading Guide
Aug. 20, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/from-citizens-united-to-super-pacs-a-campaign-finance-reading-guide [with comments]
*
How Nonprofits Spend Millions on Elections and Call it Public Welfare
Billionaire David Koch, chairman of the board of the conservative Americans for Prosperity (AFP) advocacy group, attends a 'Cut Spending Now' rally at AFP's 'Defending the American Dream Summit' in Washington on November 5, 2011.
Aug. 19, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare [with comments]
*
A Tangled Web: Who’s Making Money From All This Campaign Spending?
March 21, 2012
http://www.propublica.org/special/a-tangled-web
*
Free the Files
http://www.propublica.org/series/free-the-files
--
The Bain Files: Inside Mitt Romney’s Tax-Dodging Cayman Schemes
[Image by Jim Cooke; photo via Getty]
John Cook
Aug 23, 2012 12:00 PM
Mitt Romney's $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures [ http://romneyfacts.com/cjtk.php ] he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns [ http://www.mittromney.com/learn/mitt/tax-return/main ] (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade.
Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested—at minimum—more than $10 million as of 2011 (that number is based on the low end of ranges he has disclosed—the true number is almost certainly significantly higher). Almost all of them are affiliated with Bain Capital, the secretive private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984 and ran until his departure in 1999 (or 2002, depending on whom you ask [ http://gawker.com/5926134/mitt-romney-retired-retroactively-from-bain-capital-whatever-the-hell-that-means ]). Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands. Together, they reveal the mind-numbing, maze-like, and deeply opaque complexity with which Romney has handled his wealth, the exotic tax-avoidance schemes available only to the preposterously wealthy that benefit him, the unlikely (for a right-wing religious Mormon) places that his money has ended up, and the deeply hypocritical distance between his own criticisms of Obama's fiscal approach and his money managers' embrace of those same policies. They also show that some of the investments that Romney has always described as part of his retirement package at Bain weren't made until years after he left the company.
Bain isn't a company so much as an intricate suite of steadily proliferating inter-related holding companies and limited partnerships, some based in Delaware and others in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and elsewhere, designed to collectively house roughly $66 billion in wealth in its many crevices and chambers. When Romney left in 1999, he and his wife retained significant investments in many of those Bain vehicles—he claims they are "passive investments" and that they are managed in a blind trust (though the trustee isn't blind enough [ http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mitt-romneys-blind-trust-blind/story?id=15188063 ] to meet federal standards of independence). But aside from disparate snippets of information contained in his federal and Massachusetts financial disclosure forms, his 2010 tax returns, and SEC filings, the nature of those investments has been obfuscated by design.
When he disclosed his finances to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in 2007 [ http://romneyfacts.com/assets/Personal%20Financial%20Forms/Personal%20finances/PFD/Romney%20PFD%202007.pdf ], Romney took care to publish the underlying holdings of many funds he invested with—after disclosing his $1 million-plus stake in "GS 2002 Exchange Place Fund LP," for instance, he listed six pages of individual equities the fund held, from Panera Bread Co. to Tribune Co. But when it came to the Bain investments, he simply listed the value of his investments in odd-sounding entities like "Sankaty High Yield Partners II LP" with no indication of what was inside. In an accompanying note, he claimed that he had tried and failed to get the information: "The filer has requested information about the underlying holdings of these funds and values and income amounts for these underlying holdings. However, the fund managers have informed the filer in writing that this information is confidential and proprietary, and has declined to provide such information."
That information—for Sankaty and 20 other funds—is now available here [ http://gawker.com/5933641 ], in the form of 48 documents totaling more than 950 pages. They consist predominantly of confidential internal audited financial statements from 2008, 2009, and 2010, as well as investor letters from the same period, for Bain entities that Romney has previously disclosed owning an interest it. Owing to the timeframe—during and after the catastrophic economic meltdown of 2008—some of the investments show substantial losses. One limited partnership had even entered into liquidation as of October 2008 after failing to meet certain payments owed to partners. Others show astronomical gains.
The documents are exceedingly complicated. We don't pretend to be qualified to decode them in full, which is why we are posting them here for readers to help evaluate—please leave your thoughts in the discussion below. We asked an attorney who specializes in complex offshore corporate transactions, including ones involving Cayman Island entities, to review them and help us understand them. (We also asked the Romney campaign. It hasn't responded yet.) The full set can be read here [id.].
Here's what we've found so far:
Equity Swaps, AIVs, and Mitt Romney's Other Tax-Dodging Tricks
http://gawker.com/5936864
Mitt Romney's Endless ‘Retirement' Package
http://gawker.com/5936873
How Mitt Romney Puts His Money Where Obama's Mouth Is
http://gawker.com/5936878
Derivatives, Short Sales, and Mitt Romney's Other Exotic Financial Instruments
http://gawker.com/5936876
Mitt Romney Is the National Enquirer's Banker
http://gawker.com/5936868
Copyright 2012 Gawker
http://gawker.com/5936394/ [with comments]
--
Documents Show Details on Romney Family Trusts
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE, FLOYD NORRIS and JULIE CRESWELL
Published: August 23, 2012
Hundreds of pages of confidential internal documents from the private equity firm Bain Capital published online [ http://gawker.com/5936394/ (just above)] Thursday provided new details on investments held by the Romney family’s trusts, as well as aggressive strategies that Bain appears to have used to minimize its investors’ and partners’ tax liabilities.
The documents include annual financial statements and investor letters circulated to limited partners in more than 20 Bain and related funds where Mitt Romney [ http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/mitt-romney ]’s financial advisers have at times invested large parts of his personal fortune, estimated at more than $250 million.
As part of his retirement agreement with Bain, Mr. Romney has remained a passive investor in the company’s ventures and continues to receive a share of the firm’s investment profits on some deals undertaken after his departure.
The documents, obtained and published by Gawker.com, do not specify the stakes held in the funds by the Romney family trusts or by other investors. But they highlight the range and complexity of Mr. Romney’s investments at a time when those very qualities have been the subject of the Obama campaign’s main attacks against him, including demands that Mr. Romney release his tax returns to clear up any suggestion that he might be benefiting financially from legal loopholes or tax shelters.
Many documents disclose information that, while routinely provided to Bain’s investors, is not typically disclosed to the public: the dollar value of Bain investments in specific companies, fees charged by Bain and other investment managers, and the value of different Bain funds in some years.
The documents also reveal that Bain held stakes in highly complex Wall Street financial instruments, including equity swaps, credit default swaps [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/credit_default_swaps/index.html ] and collateralized loan obligations.
“The unauthorized disclosure of a number of confidential fund financial statements is unfortunate,” said Alex Stanton, a Bain spokesman. “Our fund financials are routinely prepared by auditors and demonstrate a commitment to transparency with our investors and regulators, and compliance with all laws.”
Mr. Romney said last week that he had paid an effective federal tax rate of at least 13 percent over the past decade, but he declined — as he has over months of speculation and attacks — to release returns before 2010.
“My view is I’ve paid all the taxes required by law,” Mr. Romney said.
Bain private equity funds in which the Romney family’s trusts are invested appear to have used an aggressive tax approach, which some tax lawyers believe is not legal, to save Bain partners more than $200 million in income taxes and more than $20 million in Medicare [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html ] taxes.
Annual reports for four Bain Capital funds indicate that the funds converted $1.05 billion in accumulated fees that otherwise would have been ordinary income for Bain partners into capital gains, which are taxed at a much lower rate.
Although some tax experts have criticized the approach, the Internal Revenue Service is not known to have challenged any such arrangements.
In a blog post Thursday, Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said that there was some disagreement among lawyers, but that he believed: “If challenged in court, Bain would lose. The Bain partners, in my opinion, misreported their income if they reported these converted fees as capital gain instead of ordinary income.”
A typical private equity or hedge fund pays its managers in part with a management fee based on the size of the fund, and in part with a share of the profits earned by the fund. Those profits are considered “carried interest” and taxed at capital gains rates, which in recent years have been 15 percent, assuming that the underlying investment profits qualified for that treatment.
The tax strategy Bain appears to have used is intended to convert the remaining management fee — the part not based on investment profits — into capital gains. Mr. Romney appears to benefit from the carried interest structure in these funds, but it is not clear from the documents made public whether he also benefits from the fee waiver. The Romney campaign declined to comment.
In an article that appeared in the journal Tax Notes in 2009, Gregg D. Polsky, a tax law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, called the tax strategy “extremely aggressive” and said it was “subject to serious challenge by the I.R.S.”
Details in the documents suggest that Bain funds in which Mr. Romney’s fortune is invested also used a variety of legal mechanisms to help some investors avoid significant taxes.
A 2009 document concerning Bain Capital Asia, one of the firm’s overseas private equity funds, for example, refers to three “blocker” corporations used to invest in D&M Holdings, a Japanese electronics company.
Blocker corporations, typically set up in tax havens like the Cayman Islands, can help investors avoid a levy known as the unrelated business income tax, which was created to prevent nonprofit groups from undertaking profit-making ventures that compete with taxpaying companies.
The documents also showed that some of the funds owned equity swaps, which have been used to avoid taxes that would otherwise be owed on dividends paid by American companies to foreign-based investors, like funds based in the Caymans.
The major purpose of such “swaps,” a Senate committee report stated in 2008, “is to enable non-U.S. persons to dodge payment of U.S. taxes on U.S. stock dividends.” Congress later adopted a provision intended to prevent that tactic. Parts of that provision took effect in 2010 and other parts this year. It is not clear how effective the provision will be, and final I.R.S. regulations have yet to be released.
Before enactment of that provision, if a Cayman Islands hedge fund owned an American stock that paid dividends, a tax would normally be withheld when the dividend was paid. Under the swap arrangement, the shares were “owned” by an American company, typically a bank or brokerage firm, which was exempt from withholding taxes.
The hedge fund entered into a “total return swap,” in which the bank agreed to transfer all the financial benefits of owning the stock to the hedge fund, including the dividend payment. The hedge fund pays an interest rate that, in effect, pays the bank for the tax benefit of avoiding the withholding tax.
The 2009 financial statements of Absolute Return Capital Partners LP, a fund that maintains Cayman Island subsidiaries, reported $17.7 million in realized and unrealized profits from “equity contracts.” It was not clear if all of those profits related to total return swaps, but it is likely that at least some of them did.
That tactic is also used to avoid taxes in some other countries and to avoid restrictions on share ownership by noncitizens of some countries. In its 2010 annual report, released by Gawker, Viking Global Strategies, a hedge fund, reported using such swaps in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Romney family trusts have indirect stakes in that fund through a Goldman Sachs fund.
Like many other private equity and hedge funds, Bain and its affiliates operate several offshore funds that are domiciled in the Caymans for a variety of tax and regulatory reasons. For the most part, these Cayman-based funds are completely routine and legal, tax experts say.
*
Related
News Analysis: Giving Reins to the States Over Drilling (August 24, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/romney-would-give-reins-to-states-on-drilling-on-federal-lands.html
Romney Steadfast in the Face of Growing Calls to Release More Tax Returns (July 19, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/us/politics/romney-steadfast-against-release-of-more-tax-returns.html
Times Topic: Bain Capital
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/bain_capital/index.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/politics/documents-show-details-on-romney-family-trusts.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/us/politics/documents-show-details-on-romney-family-trusts.html?pagewanted=all ]
--
Bain Closes U.S. Plant, Forces Workers to Train Chinese Replacements
08/17/12
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/08/17/romney-bain-closes-us-plant-workers-train-chinese-replacements/ [with comments]
--
What I Learned at Bain Capital
Bloomberg
My business experience taught me how to help companies grow—and what to do when trouble arises. When you see a problem, run toward it before the problem gets worse.
By MITT ROMNEY
Updated August 23, 2012, 9:09 p.m. ET
The back-to-school season is here, and as parents take their children to shop for school supplies, I suspect that many of them will be visiting a Staples store. I'm very familiar with those stores because Staples is one of many businesses we helped create and expand at Bain Capital, a firm that my colleagues and I built. The firm succeeded by growing and fixing companies.
The lessons I learned over my 15 years at Bain Capital were valuable in helping me turn around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. They also helped me as governor of Massachusetts to turn a budget deficit into a surplus and reduce our unemployment rate to 4.7%. The lessons from that time would help me as president to fix our economy, create jobs and get things done in Washington.
A broad message emerges from my Bain Capital days: A good idea is not enough for a business to succeed. It requires a talented team, a good business plan and capital to execute it. That was true of companies we helped start, like Staples and the Bright Horizons child-care provider, and several of the struggling companies we helped turn around, like the Brookstone retailer and the contact-lens maker Wesley Jessen.
My presidency would make it easier for entrepreneurs and small businesses to get the investment dollars they need to grow, by reducing and simplifying taxes; replacing Obamacare with real health-care reform that contains costs and improves care; and by stemming the flood of new regulations that are tying small businesses in knots.
My business experience confirmed my belief in empowering people. For example, at Bain Capital we bought Accuride, a company that made truck rims and wheels, because we saw untapped potential there. We instituted performance bonuses for the management team, which had a dramatic impact. The managers made the plants more productive, and the company started growing, adding 300 jobs while Bain was involved. My faith in people, not government, is at the foundation of my plan to strengthen America's middle class.
I also saw firsthand through these investments how energy costs impact the ability of a business to grow. Today, energy costs are weighing on job creators across America because President Obama has limited energy exploration and restricted development in ways that sap economic performance, curtail growth, and kill jobs. I will take a sensible approach to tapping our energy resources, which will both create jobs and make energy more affordable for every sector of our economy.
In the 1990s, when the "old-technology" steel industry in the U.S. was failing, Bain Capital helped build a new steel company, Steel Dynamics, which has grown into one of the largest steel producers in America today, holding its own against Chinese producers. The key to its success? State-of-the-art new technology.
Here are two lessons from the Steel Dynamics story: First, innovation is essential to the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing. We are the most innovative, entrepreneurial nation in the world. To maintain that lead, we must give people the skills to succeed. My plan for a stronger middle class includes policies to give every family access to great schools and quality teachers, to improve access to higher education, and to attract and retain the best talent from around the world.
The second lesson is that we must have a level playing field in international trade. As president, I will challenge unfair trade practices that are harming American workers.
Running a business also brings lessons in tackling challenges. I was on the board of a medical diagnostic-laboratory company, Damon, when a competitor announced that it had settled with the government over a charge of fraudulent Medicare billing. I and fellow Damon outside board members joined together and immediately hired an independent law firm to examine Damon's own practices.
The investigation revealed a need to make some changes, which we did. The company, along with several other clinical-laboratory companies, ended up being fined for billing practices. And a Damon manager who was responsible for the fraud went to jail. The experience taught me that when you see a problem, run toward it or it will only get worse.
That will be my approach to our federal budget problem. I am committed to capping federal spending below 20% of GDP and reducing nondefense discretionary spending by 5%. This will surely result in much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington. But a failure of leadership has created our debt crisis, and ducking responsibility will only cripple the economy and smother opportunity for our children and grandchildren.
I'm not sure Bain Capital could have grown or turned around some of the companies we invested in had we faced today's anti-business environment. Andy Puzder, the chief executive of CKE Restaurants Inc., which employs about 21,000 people at Carl's Jr. and Hardee's restaurants, has said that the "current unfriendly economic environment perhaps best explains why American companies are sitting on over $2 trillion which they could invest."
President Obama has piled on excessive regulations, proposed massive tax increases, added more than $5 trillion in federal debt, and failed to address the coming fiscal cliff—all of which is miring our nation in sluggish growth and high unemployment.
I know what it takes to turn around difficult situations. And I will put that experience to work, to get our economy back on track, create jobs, strengthen the middle class and lay the groundwork for America's increased competitiveness in the world.
Mr. Romney is the Republican Party candidate for president.
Copyright ©2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444270404577605140607907860.html [ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444270404577605140607907860.html?mod=googlenews_wsj ] [with comments]
--
Actually, Massachusetts voters weren’t happy they hired Romney
The Rachel Maddow Show
August 24, 2012
Rachel Maddow points out that contrary to Mitt Romney's contention that the people who have hired him, including Massachusetts voters, are pleased that they did, in fact Massachusetts voters so unhappy with him he dropped to a 36?pproval rating and broke a many-administrations-long Republican winning streak for the governor's office when he left.
© 2012 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/48786116#48786116 [show links at http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/24/13465773-links-for-the-824-trms ]
--
Romney Prepares for His Hard Sell
Mitt Romney is revealing a bit more of his personal side.
Associated Press
Ann Romney
AFP/Getty Images
Mitt Romney with his five sons.
Romney Family
Video [embedded]
Mitt Romney is betting that a substance-over-style approach will pay off in November. But as WSJ's Monica Langley tells Alan Murray, Romney's low poll numbers on likability and trustworthiness suggest many Americans still don't know who he is.
By MONICA LANGLEY and SARA MURRAY
Updated August 24, 2012, 8:35 a.m. ET
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney strides into a hotel suite in Columbus, Ohio, where a couch awaits. He waves at it and quips: "People would like me to lie down and let it all out."
As he soon makes clear, Mr. Romney sees no reason to do that in the campaign's final stretch, which begins with his party's nominating convention next week.
To the contrary, the former businessman and governor, who gets more respect than adoration from voters, vows in an interview that he won't be part of the celebrity-style culture often favored by politicians. Despite pressure to be more revealing, he says he won't use his campaign as "a way to personalize me like I'm a piece of meat."
The approach carries risk. But it sheds light on Mr. Romney's attitude about winning—as well as his theory that 2012 marks a different kind of electoral climate. Voters, he wagers, are most interested in hiring a fix-it specialist for an ailing economy.
When appearing before crowds at campaign stops, Mr. Romney says, he doesn't think, "What can I do here to portray myself in a way that would be appealing to the public?"
"I think they're looking for someone who can make things better in America. They're not looking for someone to run another version of 'This is Your Life,' " he says.
Mr. Romney refused to appear in Web videos to re-introduce himself to voters after he sewed up the Republican nomination—though his staff urged him to do so. His wife, Ann, who is more comfortable in the role of family narrator, starred in the videos.
"People who've hired me in the past have been pleased that they did," Mr. Romney said, referring to his roles as chief executive of Bain Capital, governor of Massachusetts and head of the 2002 Winter Olympics. "And so, I'll describe my views and issues and concerns, but I don't have a plan to take everybody to my childhood home and say, 'Here's where I rode my bicycle'."
Mr. Romney's buttoned-up presentation may be a turn off for some voters, which is why in recent months he has participated in television and magazine interviews with more on the way. Polls show that voters give the GOP candidate higher scores than the president on ideas to improve the economy, but haven't warmed to him personally.
In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, just 38% said they had positive views of Mr. Romney personally, compared with 44% who viewed him negatively.
By contrast, President Barack Obama is viewed positively by 48% of voters, even as many register doubts about his handling of the economy, while 43% view him negatively. They also indicated the president was more likable and easygoing than Mr. Romney by more than a two-to-one margin.
The issue Mr. Romney faces "isn't a matter of talk show popularity," says Andrew Kohut, head of polling at the Pew Research Center. "It's a matter of general personal acceptability." Mr. Kohut attributes some of Mr. Romney's low poll scores on personal image to the drubbing he took in the Republican primary season from others in his own party, but adds that at the convention in Tampa next week, Mr. Romney "has the opportunity to make the case for himself both as a candidate and as a person."
Though the campaign will try to personalize Mr. Romney more at the convention, the prevailing view is that Mitt will be Mitt.
"People today look for celebrity, but Dad is being his authentic self," says his oldest son, Tagg. "If this is an 'American Idol' election of who can ham it up with the judges the best, it's an election Dad's not going to win. But if voters want someone who won't just feel their pain but do something about it, Dad should be their president."
After losing his bid to become the Republican nominee in 2008, Mr. Romney wanted to write a book. Tagg Romney encouraged his father to write about his "experiences on the trail, a tell-all that would sell more books and get him better known," he recalls. Instead, Mr. Romney sought to swing the spotlight away from himself. He penned "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness." The book, which outlines some of the nation's biggest problems and Mr. Romney's policy solutions for them, briefly topped the best-seller list upon release.
While running private-equity firm Bain Capital, colleagues say, Mr. Romney rejected investments in companies led by chief executives long on charisma but short on execution. "Mitt would viscerally pull back from self-promoters," says Steve Pagliuca, a Bain Capital managing director who worked with Mr. Romney for years.
Mr. Romney's longtime aversion to divulging personal details stems partly from his life as something of an outsider—as a Mormon and child of privilege, and then as a consultant and investor who came into existing companies.
His late father, George, the former head of American Motors and three-time governor of Michigan, was a major figure in his upbringing. Mr. Romney says he was raised to be unassuming: "No one likes someone who brags."
His father's influence pervades the campaign. Mr. Romney carries with him old campaign buttons from his father's presidential bid in 1968. "I would have spent my life in business and never imagined leaving the wonderful world of business and doing something in politics, but he did it," he says.
Despite his father's poor start as part of a new Mormon colony in Mexico, and his lack of a college degree, he was successful, "driven entirely by a passion for the things he believed, not at all a person of ego or guile," he says. Mr. Romney's critics have accused him of being driven more by political expediency, pointing to his changing policy stances on abortion, gun control and energy policy.
The Romney campaign is betting on another number to transcend the likability gap: the six-point lead their candidate has when voters are asked who can best handle the economy. In the August Journal/NBC News poll, 44% said Mr. Romney had good ideas to improve the economy while 38% said the president did.
Of course, the challenge for Mr. Romney is to also show empathy, say some voters who have seen him on the trail.
A voter like Marty Begin, a 49-year-old Pahrump, Nev., resident, should be a Romney supporter. He is a self-described conservative who is concerned about the nation's fiscal path and thinks it is time for people to swallow tough cuts to get entitlements like Social Security and Medicare in order. Yet Mr. Begin, a Republican, plans to cast his ballot for Mr. Obama.
"He's out of touch with the general American people," Mr. Begin says. "I don't know that there is a different side of Mitt Romney."
When a man wearing a New York Yankees shirt recently asked Mr. Romney a question at a New Hampshire town hall event, the candidate told a story that wrapped with a tone-deaf punch line: "It proves one thing," said Mr. Romney. "We all hate Yankees."
His newly announced running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), immediately swooped in with a save: "But not you, sir, we love you," he interjected.
Another person at the New Hampshire event, Patricia Loder, a 58-year-old private-school teacher in Massachusetts, acknowledges that Mr. Romney seems guarded—but she doesn't much care. She says she likes Mr. Romney's professional look and notes he seems more relaxed on the trail these days. "It's his business savvy and his policies," says Ms. Loder, who is supporting the Romney-Ryan ticket. "I'm certainly not voting for him based on popularity."
On the campaign trail, Mr. Romney regularly shows his preference for factual over personal details. When he rode with Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam between two events in the Nashville area earlier this summer, Mr. Romney peppered the up-and-coming Republican politician with number-specific questions about the state's budget and how Tennessee was controlling Medicaid costs. "When you have a short time to talk, you migrate to those topics you care most about," Gov. Haslam says.
When Mr. Romney held an impromptu news conference outside of a South Carolina airport this month, he requested one prop: A white dry-erase board to hastily map out the differences between his Medicare plan and the president's.
Dressed in a shirt and tie, he used a black marker to draw a grid and chart how his plan and Mr. Obama's would impact seniors and the next generation, as reporters looked on. Under Mr. Romney, the next generation box declared "solvent"; under Mr. Obama, "bankrupt."
"People want him to be someone he's not," one of the campaign's advisers said. "That was classic him."
On Thursday, Mr. Romney introduced his energy policy by whipping out a bar chart.
On a recent campaign swing in Virginia, Mr. Romney was engrossed in hashing out details on the federal budget with Mr. Ryan. "Mitt was a pig in slop," Mrs. Romney recalls, noting his zeal in crunching numbers. Her husband wouldn't be interrupted to better tuck in his shirt or see the crowd outside the bus window. Suddenly the campaign bus doors opened to blaring band music. Mr. Romney jumped up—just in time for his campaign aide to straighten the flag pin on his lapel. "Mitt just doesn't care about all the fluff," Mrs. Romney says.
His focus on details includes economizing on the stump. Last week, when the campaign stayed at a Marriott Renaissance, he lamented that a cheaper Marriott Courtyard was nearby. He washes his own Brooks Brothers no-iron shirts in hotel rooms. On one recent day, as he dashed to an awaiting car, he grabbed leftover boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and saved a bowl of fruit—not leaving anything for waste.
The appearance before coal miners last week was a typical dive into Mr. Romney's wonky side. Before the event, the candidate spent hours going back and forth with advisers on energy policy, studied data on his iPad and reviewed PowerPoint presentations prepared by his team.
He wanted, he says, to study how "regulations are affecting coal mining, how it's impacting employment in the coal sector and how it's also impacting energy prices." He also decided to research whether North America could reach "energy independence" in eight years, which "will bring a lot of manufacturing jobs back to the United States." (He concluded that it is possible.)
"Romney really got my attention by talking the facts and figures of our industry," says Leon Lieser, 65, an underground supervisor at American Energy Corp.'s Century coal mine in Beallsville, Ohio. "I knew he'd done some homework to visit our mine, and it made me think what he could do for all working people and the middle class."
Even as members of Mr. Romney's inner circle publicly disavow celebrity-style politics, the candidate's lack of intimacy with voters is a topic of regular, if private, discussion in Boston headquarters.
A recent polling briefing from the Romney campaign lays out his challenges: Voters give him lower marks than the president on likability, honesty and trustworthiness and whether he is able to understand the problems average Americans face.
To bat back, Mr. Romney has at times tried to open up in the most public of forums. He recently appeared with Mr. Ryan in a People Magazine spread, sat for an interview with Oprah Winfrey and, earlier, chatted about his childhood chores with Parade Magazine. The campaign has more TV interviews in the works to highlight the candidate's biography.
The convention will also offer a high-profile medium to recast the Republican hopeful to the broader electorate. While much of the agenda is expected to highlight Mr. Romney's business acumen, his relationship with his wife of more than four decades will also be on prominent display.
"People will get to know who I am by virtue of the life I've lived and the people around me," Mr. Romney says.
The campaign has also shifted to a fuller embrace of Mr. Romney's religious background—a particularly prickly issue because his Mormon faith has turned off some voters. For much of the race Mr. Romney rarely mentioned his church, and campaign aides bristled at questions about his religion.
In private, he engages with his spiritual and private life in an increasingly popular way: digitally. In addition to PowerPoint presentations, he reads the Bible and the Book of Mormon on his iPad. He also has several books stored—currently he is reading "How Green Was My Valley," set in Wales, his wife's ancestral home.
Recently, the campaign began allowing a small contingent of reporters to attend church with Mr. Romney on Sundays, and the convention program will highlight the work he has done with the Mormon church. Both give Mr. Romney an avenue to talk about how he counseled struggling families as a former pastor and his encounter with poverty-stricken families as a Mormon missionary. Much of his philanthropy has been tied to the church as well.
"It's just not something that he does ordinarily or easily, but he's given up more [access]," says Tom Rath, an adviser to the Romney campaign.
Mr. Romney has typically been guarded about some of the issues that hit closest to home for him. Encounters with strangers who have a family member with Down syndrome often resonate with Mr. Romney because his nephew has the condition.
Mr. Romney was long loath to talk about such personal matters on the stump. But at a recent fundraiser in Greenville, S.C., Mr. Romney began to peel back that layer as he spoke about the power one person has to change lives. He told the story of his 75-year-old sister and her 43-year-old son, who lives with her.
"My sister has eight children, the last of which was a Down syndrome child, and her compassion, her character, her love, her sense of family and her faith in God—all those things change the lives of all of her children, set them on a course which has provided them happy and blessed lives," he told an audience of donors.
Even as Mr. Romney plays down the likability quotient, he isn't ceding the issue to Mr. Obama.
"My course for the country is very different than the president's," he says in the interview. "But I'm also a different person than he is, but you know, he's a likable person, I'm sure." Mr. Romney shifts his weight on the couch, and adds: "I think the fact that I've got a family of five sons and five daughters-in-law, 18 grandkids and a wife that still puts up with me and more than a handful of friends that have been friends for decades is a pretty good indication that at least a few people like me as well."
Copyright ©2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444812704577605241155859860.html [with slide show, career timeline, interactive graphics, and comments]
--
Mitt has always plummeted in the polls
Uh oh. Gov. Mitt Romney was already falling in Dec 2004
(Credit: AP/Winslow Townson)
As governor, he excelled in alienating; how he spoiled a holiday party
By Edward Mason and Tom Mashberg
Friday, Dec 9, 2011 12:09 PM CST
When it comes to deep erosion of support, Mitt Romney is no political newbie. His collapsing poll numbers as governor of Massachusetts (from 2003 to 2007) are an ominous preview of the steady disenchantment he is experiencing now.
“His favorability was basically a straight line down from his honeymoon,” said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center and a longtime Massachusetts pollster. “Sometimes familiarity breeds contempt.”
Now a University of Massachusetts-Lowell/Boston Herald poll conducted last week shows that 48 percent of registered voters in Massachusetts have an unfavorable opinion of the former Republican governor, compared with just 40 percent favorable. In September, 45 percent of voters thought favorably of Romney, while 43 percent looked unfavorably on him. This 10-point swing in his favorability rating is mirrored nationally and in polls in early-voting states. For Romney, rapid descent is a familiar feeling.
Let’s go to the videotape.
Romney entered the Massachusetts State House in January 2003 with a flashy favorability rating of 61 percent. After demanding cuts to fix a $650 million budget hole, voters rewarded him in March 2003 with a 61 percent job approval rating as well, according to a University of Massachusetts-Lowell poll.
That was Romney’s zenith. By November 2004, voters were souring, and a Suffolk poll found his favorable rating had dropped to 47 percent.
A year later, that rating sank another 14 points. Just 33 percent of Bay State voters had a favorable opinion of Romney in 2005, according to Suffolk, while 49 percent were unfavorable.
Things did not improve in 2006, when Suffolk found that his unfavorable rating had risen to 55 percent while his favorable remained stagnant.
By November 2006, as he closed out his increasingly absentee term, his overall job approval rating had cratered to 36 percent. He’d also begun ducking reporters, notably dodging questions after a menorah-lighting ceremony outside his office.
“To know Mitt Romney is to dislike him,” said Thomas Whalen, a Boston University political science professor. “That is the moral of the story.”
The Hanukah episode came after Romney spent nearly a month away from the Bay State – and the local media — stoking his 2008 presidential ambitions. After cheerfully delivering remarks to a Jewish audience about a neighbor whose name wasn’t Semitic-sounding, Romney dashed down the hall to his office as reporters gave chase. It was not endearing.
Romney was hurt by a slow economic recovery — while the jobless rate fell, the state was 47thin the nation in job creation, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies. He also raised $375 million of business taxes, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. Being a Republican in Massachusetts during the Bush administration hardly helped.
But Romney’s laser focus on his presidential aspirations led to a political blunder that cost him dearly. He wagered his future on running a slate of 100 Republicans against a Democratic state Legislature in 2004 in a very blue state – and they all lost. Romney, Whalen said, spent the rest of his term using his post as a springboard for his next gig – the presidency.
“It was so blatantly obvious he was planning to leave town,” Whalen said. “People saw it as a cynical ploy.”
[...]
Edward Mason, former Statehouse bureau chief for the Eagle-Tribune (North Andover) during the Romney administration, can be reached at edward.mason04@gmail.com.
Tom Mashberg, a veteran investigative editor and reporter for the Boston Herald and Boston Globe, can be reached at mashberg@rcn.com.
Copyright © 2011 Salon Media Group, Inc.
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/09/mitt_has_always_plummeted_in_the_polls/ [with comments]
--
Broken Promises: Romney's Massachusetts Record
Published on May 31, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom
Learn more: http://OFA.BO/ZaCuUs
Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, decreased debt, and smaller government.
Here's what Massachusetts got instead:
Jobs: 47th out of 50 states in job creation
Taxes and fees: Increased more than $750 million per year
Long-term debt: Increased more than $2.6 billion
Fact is, Romney economics didn't work then, and won't work now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlnaYOv0DZY
--
Political Page Turners
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: August 17, 2012
Let’s see if we can clear up a few things.
First of all, Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are not the same person. They aren’t even related! Stop spreading rumors! Although they do sort of look alike and enjoy spending time together. Perhaps Mitt regards Paul as the sixth son he never had.
Ryan is the one who lives on the same block where he grew up. Romney is the one who lives above the car elevator.
Ryan is the one who spent his youth cooking hamburgers at McDonald’s. Romney is the one who used to enjoy dressing up as a police officer and playing fun pranks on his prep school friends. Neither one of them worked as a Wienermobile driver. Really, I don’t know where you get this stuff.
Ryan is the one who likes to catch catfish by sticking his fist into their burrows and dragging them out by the throat. Romney is the one who drove to Canada with his dog strapped to the car roof.
When it comes to the issues, both men are on the same page. Although the page does keep turning and you have to wonder how average voters can cope with all of the confusion.
Fortunately, polls suggest average voters have already decided who they’re going to support and, therefore, have no need whatsoever to try to figure out which page the Romney-Ryan campaign is on.
Practically the only person in America who claims to have no idea who he’s going to vote for is Senator Joseph Lieberman, who recently declared himself absolutely and totally undecided. People, do you think it’s possible that the entire presidential campaign is now being waged just for the benefit of Joseph Lieberman? On the one hand, that’s a real waste of about $1 billion. On the other, it’s exactly what Joseph Lieberman has been waiting for all his life.
Anyhow, about the issues:
Ryan is the one who requested stimulus money for his district, but he is sorry. The stimulus was a terrible thing, and Ryan had no intention of trying to glom onto a chunk of it. He thought he was just forwarding a constituent request for some ... constituent thing. Or four.
Romney is the one who hired undocumented workers to mow his lawn. Totally by mistake.
Ryan is the one who voted for a massive prescription drug Medicare entitlement, the Bush tax cuts and two wars without paying for any of them. He is even sorrier about this than he is about the stimulus.
Romney is the one who passed Obamacare before Obama. But it wasn’t the same thing at all because it happened in a state.
Both men want to make more big tax cuts that will be paid for with the closing of tax loopholes. They are in total, complete concurrence that the identity of these loopholes is not an appropriate topic for a presidential campaign.
Ryan is supposed to be the Tea Party hero and Romney is the one they hated so much they were actually willing to contemplate a Newt Gingrich presidency to avoid him.
But I’m not entirely sure we can trust the hard right to know what it wants anymore. This week in Florida, a Republican primary uprising knocked out Cliff Stearns, a superconservative veteran congressman who had campaigned on his efforts to kill off federal funds for Planned Parenthood and embarrass the Obama administration with an investigation into the Solyndra loans. That sort of bragging enraged the faithful by reminding them that Stearns was a Washington insider, and he lost to a newcomer named Ted Yoho.
Maybe Tea Party voters now only want to send people to Washington who will lack the capacity to get anything done. Personally, I’m kind of O.K. with that. Also, I like the idea of having a congressman named Ted Yoho, as well as the fact that Yoho describes himself as a “large animal veterinarian.” We don’t have many veterinarians in Congress, and you never can tell when a visiting heifer will come down with a medical problem.
All right, a little more about the issues.
Romney has a plan to make Medicare solvent forever. We know this because he wrote “Solvent” on the board at a press conference the other day.
Ryan used to have a plan to make Medicare solvent forever by taking it away from everybody under age 55 and giving them health insurance vouchers instead. But that was so 2011.
Now, Ryan and Romney are on the same page when it comes to Medicare, which is that it must be saved from the $716 billion in cuts President Obama wants to make over the next 10 years. Although that same $716 billion was in the budget plan that Ryan got the House to pass this year. But it’s not like he expected it to happen. “We would never have done it,” he told campaign reporters, desperate wretches condemned to roam the earth with calculators, endlessly searching for the Ryan-Romney page.
© 2012 The New York Times Company (emphasis in original)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/opinion/collins-political-page-turners.html [with comments]
--
An Unserious Man
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 19, 2012
Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate led to a wave of pundit accolades. Now, declared writer after writer, we’re going to have a real debate about the nation’s fiscal future. This was predictable: never mind the Tea Party, Mr. Ryan’s true constituency is the commentariat, which years ago decided that he was the Honest, Serious Conservative, whose proposals deserve respect even if you don’t like him.
But he isn’t and they don’t. Ryanomics is and always has been a con game, although to be fair, it has become even more of a con since Mr. Ryan joined the ticket.
Let’s talk about what’s actually in the Ryan plan, and let’s distinguish in particular between actual, specific policy proposals and unsupported assertions. To focus things a bit more, let’s talk — as most budget discussions do — about what’s supposed to happen over the next 10 years.
On the tax side, Mr. Ryan proposes big cuts in tax rates on top income brackets and corporations. He has tried to dodge the normal process in which tax proposals are “scored” by independent auditors, but the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has done the math, and the revenue loss from these cuts comes to $4.3 trillion over the next decade.
On the spending side, Mr. Ryan proposes huge cuts in Medicaid, turning it over to the states while sharply reducing funding relative to projections under current policy. That saves around $800 billion. He proposes similar harsh cuts in food stamps, saving a further $130 billion or so, plus a grab-bag of other cuts, such as reduced aid to college students. Let’s be generous and say that all these cuts would save $1 trillion.
On top of this, Mr. Ryan includes the $716 billion in Medicare savings that are part of Obamacare, even though he wants to scrap everything else in that act. Despite this, Mr. Ryan has now joined Mr. Romney in denouncing President Obama for “cutting Medicare”; more on that in a minute.
So if we add up Mr. Ryan’s specific proposals, we have $4.3 trillion in tax cuts, partially offset by around $1.7 trillion in spending cuts — with the tax cuts, surprise, disproportionately benefiting the top 1 percent, while the spending cuts would primarily come at the expense of low-income families. Over all, the effect would be to increase the deficit by around two and a half trillion dollars.
Yet Mr. Ryan claims to be a deficit hawk. What’s the basis for that claim?
Well, he says that he would offset his tax cuts by “base broadening,” eliminating enough tax deductions to make up the lost revenue. Which deductions would he eliminate? He refuses to say — and realistically, revenue gain on the scale he claims would be virtually impossible.
At the same time, he asserts that he would make huge further cuts in spending. What would he cut? He refuses to say.
What Mr. Ryan actually offers, then, are specific proposals that would sharply increase the deficit, plus an assertion that he has secret tax and spending plans that he refuses to share with us, but which will turn his overall plan into deficit reduction.
If this sounds like a joke, that’s because it is. Yet Mr. Ryan’s “plan” has been treated with great respect in Washington. He even received an award for fiscal responsibility from three of the leading deficit-scold pressure groups. What’s going on?
The answer, basically, is a triumph of style over substance. Over the longer term, the Ryan plan would end Medicare as we know it — and in Washington, “fiscal responsibility” is often equated with willingness to slash Medicare and Social Security, even if the purported savings would be used to cut taxes on the rich rather than to reduce deficits. Also, self-proclaimed centrists are always looking for conservatives they can praise to showcase their centrism, and Mr. Ryan has skillfully played into that weakness, talking a good game even if his numbers don’t add up.
The question now is whether Mr. Ryan’s undeserved reputation for honesty and fiscal responsibility can survive his participation in a deeply dishonest and irresponsible presidential campaign.
The first sign of trouble has already surfaced over the issue of Medicare. Mr. Romney, in an attempt to repeat the G.O.P.’s successful “death panels” strategy of the 2010 midterms, has been busily attacking the president for the same Medicare savings that are part of the Ryan plan. And Mr. Ryan’s response when this was pointed out was incredibly lame: he only included those cuts, he says, because the president put them “in the baseline,” whatever that means. Of course, whatever Mr. Ryan’s excuse, the fact is that without those savings his budget becomes even more of a plan to increase, not reduce, the deficit.
So will the choice of Mr. Ryan mean a serious campaign? No, because Mr. Ryan isn’t a serious man — he just plays one on TV.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/opinion/krugman-an-unserious-man.html [with comments]
--
Galt, Gold and God
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 23, 2012
So far, most of the discussion of Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican nominee for vice president, has focused on his budget proposals. But Mr. Ryan is a man of many ideas, which would ordinarily be a good thing.
In his case, however, most of those ideas appear to come from works of fiction, specifically Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”
For those who somehow missed it when growing up, “Atlas Shrugged” is a fantasy in which the world’s productive people — the “job creators,” if you like — withdraw their services from an ungrateful society. The novel’s centerpiece is a 64-page speech by John Galt, the angry elite’s ringleader; even Friedrich Hayek admitted that he never made it through that part. Yet the book is a perennial favorite among adolescent boys. Most boys eventually outgrow it. Some, however, remain devotees for life.
And Mr. Ryan is one of those devotees. True, in recent years, he has tried to downplay his Randism, calling it an “urban legend.” It’s not hard to see why: Rand’s fervent atheism — not to mention her declaration that “abortion is a moral right” — isn’t what the G.O.P. base wants to hear.
But Mr. Ryan is being disingenuous. In 2005, he told the Atlas Society, which is devoted to promoting Rand’s ideas, that she inspired his political career: “If I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” He also declared that Rand’s work was required reading for his staff and interns.
And the Ryan fiscal program clearly reflects Randian notions. As I documented in my last column, Mr. Ryan’s reputation for being serious about the budget deficit is completely undeserved; his policies would actually increase the deficit. But he is deadly serious about cutting taxes on the rich and slashing aid to the poor, very much in line with Rand’s worship of the successful and contempt for “moochers.”
This last point is important. In pushing for draconian cuts in Medicaid, food stamps and other programs that aid the needy, Mr. Ryan isn’t just looking for ways to save money. He’s also, quite explicitly, trying to make life harder for the poor — for their own good. In March, explaining his cuts in aid for the unfortunate, he declared, “We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.”
Somehow, I doubt that Americans forced to rely on unemployment benefits and food stamps in a depressed economy feel that they’re living in a comfortable hammock.
But wait, there’s more: “Atlas Shrugged” apparently shaped Mr. Ryan’s views on monetary policy, views that he clings to despite having been repeatedly, completely wrong in his predictions.
In early 2011, Mr. Ryan, newly installed as the chairman of the House Budget Committee, gave Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, a hard time over his expansionary policies. Rising commodity prices and long-term interest rates, he asserted, were harbingers of high inflation to come; “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens,” he intoned, “than debase its currency.”
Since then, inflation has remained quiescent while long-term rates have plunged — and the U.S. economy would surely be in much worse shape than it is if Mr. Bernanke had allowed himself to be bullied into monetary tightening. But Mr. Ryan seems undaunted in his monetary views. Why?
Well, it’s right there in that 2005 speech to the Atlas Society, in which he declared that he always goes back to “Francisco d’Anconia’s speech on money” when thinking about monetary policy. Who? Never mind. That speech (which clocks in at a mere 23 paragraphs) is a case of hard-money obsession gone ballistic. Not only does the character in question, a Galt sidekick, call for a return to the gold standard, he denounces the notion of paper money and demands a return to gold coins.
For the record, the U.S. currency supply has consisted overwhelmingly of paper money, not gold and silver coins, since the early 1800s. So if Mr. Ryan really thinks that Francisco d’Anconia had it right, he wants to turn the clock back not one but two centuries.
Does any of this matter? Well, if the Republican ticket wins, Mr. Ryan will surely be an influential force in the next administration — and bear in mind, too, that he would, as the cliché goes, be a heartbeat away from the presidency. So it should worry us that Mr. Ryan holds monetary views that would, if put into practice, go a long way toward recreating the Great Depression.
And, beyond that, consider the fact that Mr. Ryan is considered the modern G.O.P.’s big thinker. What does it say about the party when its intellectual leader evidently gets his ideas largely from deeply unrealistic fantasy novels?
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/opinion/krugman-galt-gold-and-god.html [with comments]
--
Prime Time for Paul Ryan’s Guru (the One That’s Not Ayn Rand)
Illustration by Peter Oumanski
Friedrich von Hayek
Associated Press
By ADAM DAVIDSON
Published: August 21, 2012
As Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney take the stage in Tampa next week, the ghost of an Austrian economist will be hovering above them with an uneasy smile on his face. Ryan has repeatedly suggested that many of his economic ideas were inspired by the work of Friedrich von Hayek, an awkwardly shy (and largely ignored) economist and philosopher who died in 1992. A few years ago, it was probably possible to fit every living Hayekian in a conference room. Regardless of what happens in November, that will no longer be the case.
Hayek’s ideas aren’t completely new to American politics. Some mainstream Republicans, including Ronald Reagan, have name-checked him since at least the 1980s as a shorthand way of signaling their unfettered faith in the free market and objection to big government. But few actually engaged with Hayek’s many contentious (and outré) views, particularly his suspicion of all politicians, including Republicans, who claim to know something about how to make an economy function better. For these reasons, and others, Hayek has become fashionable of late among antigovernment protesters, and if Ryan brings even a watered-down version of his ideas into the Republican mainstream, the country’s biggest battles about the economy won’t be between right and left, but within the Republican Party itself — between Tea Party radicals who may feel legitimized and the establishment politicians they believe stand in their way.
For the past century, nearly every economic theory in the world has emerged from a broad tradition known as neoclassical economics. (Even communism can be seen as a neoclassical critique.) Neoclassicists can be left-wing or right-wing, but they share a set of crucial core beliefs, namely that it is useful to look for government policies that can improve the economy. Hayek and the rest of his ilk — known as the Austrian School — reject this. To an Austrian, the economy is incomprehensibly complex and constantly changing; and technocrats and politicians who claim to have figured out how to use government are deluded or self-interested or worse. According to Hayek, government intervention in the free market, like targeted tax cuts, can only make things worse.
Many of Ryan’s most famous proposals have clear Hayekian roots. His Roadmap for America’s Future includes calls for government to step out and let the market decide. His proposal to allow citizens to buy whatever health insurance they want, rather than use a government-promoted exchange, also seems to be embedded in the Austrian tradition. In other important ways, though, Ryan is anything but Austrian. While Hayek would laugh at an economic forecast for distant 2013, Ryan’s budget plan includes predictions about 2083. The congressman’s proposal for two separate tax systems — a flat-tax system and a loophole-filled tax system — is exactly the sort of contradictory governmental problem-solving that Hayek detested.
In actuality, Ryan is like a lot of politicians who merely cherry-pick Hayek to promote neoclassical policies, says Peter Boettke, an economist at George Mason University and editor of The Review of Austrian Economics. “What Hayek has become, to a lot of people, is an iconic figure representing something that he didn’t believe at all,” Boettke says. For example, despite his complete lack of faith in the ability of politicians to affect the economy, Hayek, who is frequently cited in attacks on entitlement programs, believed that the state should provide a base income to all poor citizens.
To be truly Hayekian, Boettke says, Ryan would need to embrace one of his central ideas, known as the “generality norm.” This is Hayek’s belief that any government program that helps one group must be available to all. If applied, Boettke says, a Hayekian government would eliminate all corporate and agricultural subsidies and government housing programs, and it would get rid of Medicare and Medicaid or expand them to cover all citizens. (Hayek had no problem with a national health care program.) Hayek also believed that the government should not have a monopoly on any service it provides; instead, private companies should compete by offering an alternative Postal Service, road system, even, perhaps, a private fire department.
Because his ideas seem almost willfully designed to alienate every constituency, this is not going to be the year — no matter what kind of enthusiasm Paul Ryan whips up among the Tea Party faithful — that they will become central to the Republican platform. “I’m quite sure I’ve never heard any view of Mitt Romney’s about Hayek,” Greg Mankiw, one of Romney’s lead economic advisers, told me. But elements of Hayek’s ideas will be valuable to those trying to build their influence outside the mainstream right. Tea Party favorites, like Senator Mike Lee of Utah and the Senate candidate Ted Cruz of Texas, appear to have developed a deeper commitment to the Austrians. Wayne Brough, an economist for FreedomWorks, the Tea Party-friendly activist group, told me that the group’s goal is to eventually fill Congress with Hayekians. And Bruce Caldwell, the author of the intellectual biography “Hayek’s Challenge,” said he hoped that we were experiencing, partly through Ryan’s ascendancy, the first stage of a slow but steady embrace of Hayek’s philosophy.
It may sound crazy, but it would not be the first time that once-fringe ideas entered mainstream party politics. Most economists and politicians dismissed the ideas of the British economist John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s, but by the 1950s they became the reigning orthodoxy for both parties. (Eisenhower and Nixon were Keynesians.) In the 1960s, a group of free-market-oriented economists at the University of Chicago developed a critique of Keynes that was ignored for years. But in the 1980s, after Reagan’s election, the Chicago approach came to dominate economic discussion on the right and even held sway among many Democrats until the financial crisis of 2008. Since then, there has been a bit of a free-for-all. Keynesian ideas have come to dominate much of the academic and policy world, but the Occupy and Tea Party movements make clear that there is increasing interest in previously ignored radical ideas.
Several activists and groups, including FreedomWorks [ http://www.freedomworks.org/ ], say they hope to turn the inchoate anger of the Tea Party into a focused pro-Hayek movement that would either take over the Republican Party or create a new one. That is a huge task. Nobody (not even Hayek) has ever taken his abstract, philosophical writings and constructed an actual plan for governance. Do you eliminate all those government agencies on the same day? How much should the government-issued base salary for all citizens be? And how exactly do you make plans for the future if you don’t believe in economic forecasts? There are countless practical issues, all of which are likely to spur intense argument, especially because other Tea Party favorites, like Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, often disagreed with Hayek (Rand once called him “pure poison”) and with one another on fundamental issues.
When I asked Boettke and Caldwell how they vote, they gave the same answer. They just root for gridlock: a divided Congress in a prolonged stalemate with the White House (so far, so good). They feel that, with our system, the most Hayekian thing they can hope for is a government incapable of doing anything. But they both agreed that if Hayekians do someday take over, the changes will be significant. Caldwell corrects people when they refer to Hayek as a conservative. Hayek didn’t want to conserve anything. And while that’s exactly what the most radical may want, it’s probably not the easiest policy to build a party around.
Adam Davidson is co-founder of NPR's “Planet Money,” a podcast [ http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/npr-planet-money-podcast/id290783428 ], blog [ http://www.npr.org/money ] and radio series heard on “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “This American Life.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/prime-time-for-paul-ryans-guru-the-one-thats-not-ayn-rand.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/prime-time-for-paul-ryans-guru-the-one-thats-not-ayn-rand.html?pagewanted=all ] [with comments]
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3967329 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=42599905 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=68707988 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72698525 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76078802 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77716479 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78439680 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78685733 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78491117 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78489608 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78542406 and preceding and following (just earlier this string)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78581882 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78607554 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78621903 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78666797 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78677636 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78695853 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78696467 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78742010 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78712800 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78744850 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54833454 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78787780 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78789956 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78826710 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78837862 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78836092 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78836282 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78837108 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78837850 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78841801 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78869746 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78870071 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78870545 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78875973 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78876110 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78885098 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78885786 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78913997 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78915505 and preceding (and any future following)
===
Romney’s budget plan is a fantasy
Romney is not going to make these kinds of cuts to the federal pie.
(Shannon Stapleton — Reuters)
Posted by Ezra Klein on August 14, 2012 at 11:44 am
The Republican budget might keep President Obama’s cuts to Medicare. But a Romney administration wouldn’t.
Lanhee Chen, the campaign’s policy director, left no room for doubt in his statement [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/08/13/yes-obamacare-cuts-medicare-more-than-president-romney-would/ ]: “A Romney-Ryan Administration will restore the funding to Medicare, ensure that no changes are made to the program for those 55 or older, and implement the reforms that they have proposed to strengthen it for future generations.”
Avik Roy, a health-care policy adviser to Romney, doubles down [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/08/13/yes-obamacare-cuts-medicare-more-than-president-romney-would/ ]. “Whatever you think of Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare, the fact is that a Romney administration would repeal them,” he writes.
But then how will a Romney administration make its budget math add up?
Consider what Romney has promised. By 2016, he says federal spending will be below 20 percent of GDP, and at least 4 percent of that will be defense spending. At that point, he will cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP, meaning it can never rise above that level.
All that’s hard enough. Romney will have to cut federal spending by between $6 and $7 trillion over the next decade to hit those targets. As my colleague Suzy Khimm has detailed [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/14/compared-to-ryan-romney-wants-to-spend-much-more-on-defense-and-much-less-on-everything-else/ ], those budget promises already require cuts far in excess of what even Paul Ryan’s budget proposes.
But Ryan’s budget includes more than $700 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade, Romney’s budget won’t. And Romney promises that there will be no other changes to Social Security or Medicare for those over 55, which means neither program can be cut for the next 10 years. But once you add up Medicare, Social Security and defense and you’ve got more than half of the federal budget. So Romney is going to make the largest spending cuts in history while protecting or increasing spending on more than half of the budget.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities indulged [ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3658 ] this idea back in May. If Social Security and Medicare are spared from cuts, then to get federal spending under 20 percent of GDP while holding defense spending at 4 percent of GDP, “all other programs — including Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education, environmental protection, transportation, and SSI — would have to be cut by an average of 40 percent in 2016 and 57 percent in 2022.”
Consider what the Romney campaign, then, is saying: If Romney is elected, then by his third year in office, every single federal program that is not Medicare, Social Security, or defense, will be cut, on average, by 40 percent. That means Medicaid, infrastructure, education, food safety, road safety, the postal service, basic research, foreign aid, housing subsidies, food stamps, the Census, Pell grants, the Patent and Trademark Office, the FDA — all of it has to be cut by, on average, 40 percent. If Romney tried to protect any particular priority, it would mean all the others have to be cut by more than 40 percent.
That’s not even remotely plausible. The consequences would be catastrophic. The outcry would be deafening. And Romney has shown no stomach for selling such severe cuts.
Consider that, even as we speak, Romney is running away from the unpopular bits of the Ryan budget, which delivers far less devastating cuts than what Romney is promising. Does anyone really believe that he will take office and then propose cuts that make the Ryan budget look soft on federal spending? That he will take office and, after running away from specifics during the campaign, propose what would surely be the most unpopular budget in American history?
And does anyone believe that the real Romney is the guy who made these outlandish budget promises in order to win a Republican primary, rather than the guy who is disavowing Ryan’s Medicare cuts mere days after naming him to the ticket?
This is simply not a credible budget plan, and Romney’s fast retreat from Ryan’s most unpopular cuts makes it even less credible. And yet Romney, who has never released the specific cuts that would make his numbers add up, repeatedly touts it on the campaign trail, and the media dutifully reports his promises to cut federal spending by more than $500 billion in 2016, and in fact to balance the budget by the end of his second term, which would require far larger cuts than what I’ve outlined here, despite the fact that everyone basically knows these cuts aren’t credible and will never happen.
I’m not sure what alternative there is, exactly, except to say, as clearly as possible, Romney’s budget plan is a fantasy, and it will never happen.
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/14/romneys-budget-plan-is-a-fantasy/ [with comments]
--
Targeting the poor with GOP budgets
The Ed Show
August 21, 2012
Ezra Klein breaks down the numbers and shows how Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney's plans are a sure bet for one thing: attacking programs that the poor rely on. Economist Jared Bernstein joins Ezra Klein to break down the shocking numbers that unfairly target poor Americans.
© 2012 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755822/vp/48746099#48746099 [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rWZG2-HmTc , also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmYGvtZPAA ]
--
Romney vows to boost national debt by $716 billion, no one blinks
August 17, 2012
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/17/news/la-pn-romney-vows-to-boost-national-debt-by-716-billion-no-one-blinks-20120817 [with comments]
--
Mitt Romney Promise To Reverse Medicare Cuts Would Cause Trust Fund To Go Insolvent Earlier
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
08/16/12 11:09 AM ET
WASHINGTON -- GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's new promise to restore the Medicare cuts made by President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law could backfire if he's elected.
The reason: Obama's cuts also extended the life of Medicare's giant trust fund. By repealing them, Romney would move the program's insolvency eight years closer, toward the end of what would be his first term in office.
Instead of running out of money in 2024, Medicare's trust fund for inpatient care would go broke in 2016 without the cuts, according to estimates by the program's own experts.
That could leave a President Romney little political breathing room to execute his own Medicare plan. Outside experts say it could force deeper cuts, and sooner.
The Romney campaign says there's no problem with the candidate's pledge.
"The idea that restoring funding to Medicare could somehow hasten its bankruptcy is on its face absurd," said spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
Campaign officials say arcane federal accounting rules create a false sense of security about Medicare. They allow savings like Obama's cuts to also count toward funding other programs or reducing the overall deficit.
"Gov. Romney's plan is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with patient-centered reforms that control cost throughout the health care system and extend the solvency of Medicare," Saul said. "He will then implement real entitlement reform that places Medicare on a sustainable long-term footing so that future generations of Americans will not have to worry whether the program will be there for them."
But Obama's cuts were not directly aimed at Medicare's 48 million beneficiaries; instead they affect hospitals, insurers, nursing homes, drug companies and other service providers. Simply undoing the cuts would restore higher payments to those service providers. And that would cause Medicare to spend money faster.
"The fact of the matter is, what Romney is proposing now is to roll all that back, which would mean that Medicare would reach insolvency eight years earlier, which would mean that seniors would lose benefits," David Axelrod, a senior political adviser to Obama, said Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Romney's running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, kept the Obama cuts in his budget, which envisions greater savings by shifting future retirees into private insurance plans with a fixed payment from the government to help cover their premiums.
"If you are going to restore (Obama's cuts), then what it's going to do is complicate the financial condition of Medicare," said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, a fiscal conservative who says government health care programs are too costly.
"It's going to affect your long-term plan to reform Medicare and reduce the deficit and mounting debt burdens," said Walker, now heading the Comeback America Initiative, which promotes deficit reduction.
"If you are going to put that back, then how are you going to pay for it?" he asked.
Romney would "have to find other ways to get the cost down in the future," said economist Marilyn Moon, a former trustee overseeing Social Security and Medicare finances.
"These (Obama cuts) were all on service providers," said Moon, now director of the health program at the nonpartisan American Institutes for Research. Romney "would have three options: either cut it out of providers in a different way, ask beneficiaries to pay higher premiums in various ways, or raise taxes in order to pay for it."
Romney made his promise to restore the cuts on Tuesday at a campaign stop in Beallsville, Ohio.
Obama "has taken $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund," Romney told supporters. "He's raided that trust fund.
"And you know what he did with it? He used it to pay for Obamacare, a risky, unproven, federal takeover of health care," Romney continued. "And if I'm president of the United States, we're putting the $716 billion back."
That figure reflects the latest estimates of Obama's health care law by the Congressional Budget Office, covering a 10-year period from 2013-2022. It's a relatively modest share of total Medicare spending, currently about a $600 billion-a-year program.
"People need to look at what these spending reductions are before they conclude that they are really eager to undo them," said Paul Van de Water, a senior budget analyst with the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Why should Medicare beneficiaries want to pay more to providers to provide the same benefits?"
Despite its long-term financial problems, Medicare has been fairly stable since the passage of Obama's health care law. Premiums have remained about the same, reflecting a national slowdown in medical inflation. However, the brunt of the spending cuts has yet to be felt. Medicare's own economic forecasters have warned the cuts may prove politically unsustainable.
Romney has not spelled out full details of his Medicare plan. But if it is based upon Ryan's, the budget office says it would rein in Medicare spending more forcefully than Obama has.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/mitt-romney-medicare-cuts_n_1788517.html [with embedded video "Romney Uses Whiteboard To Slam Obama On Medicare", and comments]
--
Mitt’s Medicare whiteboard — corrected
( http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78627752 )
--
The Real White Board
Published on Aug 16, 2012 by ThinkProgress TP
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/16/699791/the-real-white-board-the-differences-between-obama-and-romney-on-medicare/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMKjr_jJjo
--
Truth and Lies About Medicare
Editorial
Published: August 18, 2012
Republican attacks on President Obama’s plans for Medicare are growing more heated and inaccurate by the day. Both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan made statements last week implying that the Affordable Care Act would eviscerate Medicare when in fact the law should shore up the program’s finances.
Both men have also twisted themselves into knots to distance themselves from previous positions, so that voters can no longer believe anything they say. Last week, both insisted that they would save Medicare by pumping a huge amount of money into the program, a bizarre turnaround for supposed fiscal conservatives out to rein in federal spending.
The likelihood that they would stand by that irresponsible pledge after the election is close to zero. And the likelihood that they would be better able than Democrats to preserve Medicare for the future (through a risky voucher system that may not work well for many beneficiaries) is not much better.
THE ALLEGED “RAID ON MEDICARE” A Republican attack ad says that the reform law has “cut” $716 billion from Medicare, with the money used to expand coverage to low-income people who are currently uninsured. “So now the money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you,” the ad warns.
What the Republicans fail to say is that the budget resolutions crafted by Paul Ryan and approved by the Republican-controlled House retained virtually the same cut in Medicare.
In reality, the $716 billion is not a “cut” in benefits but rather the savings in costs that the Congressional Budget Office projects over the next decade from wholly reasonable provisions in the reform law.
One big chunk of money will be saved by reducing unjustifiably high subsidies to private Medicare Advantage plans that enroll many beneficiaries at a higher average cost than traditional Medicare. Another will come from reducing the annual increases in federal reimbursements to health care providers — like hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies — to force the notoriously inefficient system to find ways to improve productivity.
And a further chunk will come from fees or taxes imposed on drug makers, device makers and insurers — fees that they can surely afford since expanded coverage for the uninsured will increase their markets and their revenues.
NO HARM TO SENIORS The Republicans imply that the $716 billion in cuts will harm older Americans, but almost none of the savings come from reducing the benefits available for people already on Medicare. But if Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan were able to repeal the reform law, as they have pledged to do, that would drive up costs for many seniors — namely those with high prescription drug costs, who are already receiving subsidies under the reform law, and those who are receiving preventive services, like colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations, with no cost sharing.
Mr. Romney argued on Friday that the $716 billion in cuts will harm beneficiaries because those who get discounts or extra benefits in the heavily subsidized Medicare Advantage plans will lose them and because reduced payments to hospitals and other providers could cause some providers to stop accepting Medicare patients.
If he thinks that will be a major problem, Mr. Romney should leave the reform law in place: it has many provisions designed to make the delivery of health care more efficient and cheaper, so that hospitals and others will be better able to survive on smaller payments.
NO BANKRUPTCY LOOMING The Republicans also argue that the reform law will weaken Medicare and that by preventing the cuts and ultimately turning to vouchers they will enhance the program’s solvency. But Medicare is not in danger of going “bankrupt”; the issue is whether the trust fund that pays hospital bills will run out of money in 2024, as now projected, and require the program to live on the annual payroll tax revenues it receives.
The Affordable Care Act helped push back the insolvency date by eight years, so repealing the act would actually bring the trust fund closer to insolvency, perhaps in 2016.
DEFICIT REDUCTION Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan said last week that they would restore the entire $716 billion in cuts by repealing the law. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that repealing the law would raise the deficit by $109 billion over 10 years.
The Republicans gave no clue about how they would pay for restoring the Medicare cuts without increasing the deficit. It is hard to believe that, if faced with the necessity of fashioning a realistic budget, keeping Medicare spending high would be a top priority with a Romney-Ryan administration that also wants to spend very large sums on the military and on tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
Regardless of who wins the election, Medicare spending has to be reined in lest it squeeze out other priorities, like education. It is utterly irresponsible for the Republicans to promise not to trim Medicare spending in their desperate bid for votes.
THE DANGER IN MEDICARE VOUCHERS The reform law would help working-age people on modest incomes buy private policies with government subsidies on new insurance exchanges, starting in 2014. Federal oversight will ensure a reasonably comprehensive benefit package, and competition among the insurers could help keep costs down.
But it is one thing to provide these “premium support” subsidies for uninsured people who cannot get affordable coverage in the costly, dysfunctional markets that serve individuals and their families. It is quite another thing to use a similar strategy for older Americans who have generous coverage through Medicare and who might well end up worse off if their vouchers failed to keep pace with the cost of decent coverage.
Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan would allow beneficiaries to use vouchers to buy a version of traditional Medicare instead of a private plan, but it seems likely that the Medicare plan would attract the sickest patients, driving up Medicare premiums so that they would be unaffordable for many who wanted traditional coverage. Before disrupting the current Medicare program, it would be wise to see how well premium support worked in the new exchanges.
THE CHOICE This will be an election about big problems, and it will provide a clear choice between contrasting approaches to solve them. In the Medicare arena, the choice is between a Democratic approach that wants to retain Medicare as a guaranteed set of benefits with the government paying its share of the costs even if costs rise, and a Republican approach that wants to limit the government’s spending to a defined level, relying on untested market forces to drive down insurance costs.
The reform law is starting pilot programs to test ways to reduce Medicare costs without cutting benefits. Many health care experts have identified additional ways to shave hundreds of billions of dollars from projected spending over the next decade without harming beneficiaries.
It is much less likely that the Republicans, who have long wanted to privatize Medicare, can achieve these goals.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/truth-and-lies-about-medicare.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/truth-and-lies-about-medicare.html?pagewanted=all ] [with comments]
--
Debunking Romney's Viral Medicare Lie
By Bob Cesca
Posted: 08/17/2012 4:42 pm
The Romney campaign appears to be engaged in a pattern that involves creating and spreading a new and colossal Lie of the Week. Prior whoppers include the "Obama is disenfranchising military voters lie" (debunked [ http://factcheck.org/2012/08/obama-not-trying-to-curb-military-early-voting/ ]) and the "Obama is gutting welfare reform lie" (also debunked [ http://factcheck.org/2012/08/does-obamas-plan-gut-welfare-reform/ ]).
By now, we all know what happened this week.
On Sunday's Meet the Press, right-wing apparatchik and Sarah Palin fanboy Rich Lowry [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/03/inris-rich-lowry-palin-se_n_131735.html ] shouted down Rachel Maddow on Medicare, saying that "Obamacare" cuts $700 billion [ http://wp.me/p1yofO-7KD ] from the program.
Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu appeared on CNN the next day and shouted down Soledad O'Brien [ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obrien-and-sununus-epic-shouting-match-put-an-obama-bumper-sticker-on-your-forehead-when-you-do-this/ ] with the same crap-on-a-stick. Specifically, he repeated the massive lie that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA or "Obamacare") cuts $700 billion from Medicare, implying that benefits were cut.
Sununu said [ http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romney-ryan-sununu-medicare.php ], "When Obama gutted Medicare by taking $717 billion out of it, the Romney plan does not do that. The Ryan plan mimicked part of the Obama package there. The Romney plan does not. That's a big difference."
So let's get this straight. Sununu just said the Paul Ryan Medicare Plan -- the one that Romney said he would've signed into law [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/12/678941/romney-embraced-ryan-budget/ ] had he been president -- cuts $717 billion from Medicare? Interesting. Thanks for clarifying, Mr. Sununu. It turns out that the $717 billion number that Sununu was screeching about on CNN was pulled out of a July 24 CBO memo [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43471-hr6079.pdf ] about the House plan to repeal Obamacare. Doug Elmendorf explained, "Spending for Medicare would increase by an estimated $716 billion over that 2013-2022 period." There's nothing in there about benefit cuts or anything else the Republicans have said. Nothing.
From here, the viral lie infected the discourse like the Ebola virus.
The Romney campaign released the following ad on Tuesday [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4gPvToKTWU ]:
The ad quotes the same CBO memo that Sununu held up on CNN as evidence of these "cuts" to Medicare that really aren't cuts at all, but, instead, increases in government spending on Medicare should the law be repealed. That video, with Romney's approval at the end, is arguably the most insidious lie from a campaign with an already lengthy record of mendacity.
And they kept repeating it in lockstep.
Lanhee Chen [ http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romney-ryan-sununu-medicare.php ], Romney's chief policy director told TPM, "Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have always been fully committed to repealing Obamacare, ending President Obama's $716 billion raid on Medicare and tackling the serious fiscal challenges our country faces."
Mitt Romney said to First Read [ http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/13/13266514-romney-struggles-to-get-square-with-ryans-medicare-plan ], "But my plan for Medicare is very similar to his plan, which is 'Do not change the program for current retirees or near-retirees but do not do what the president has done and that is to cut $700 billion out of the current program."
RNC Chairman and Star Wars Cantina Alien Reince Priebus said [ http://www.mediaite.com/tv/reince-priebus-doubles-down-accuses-obama-of-stealing-700-million-from-medicare/ ], "President Obama... stole $700 billion from Medicare."
Stole? I'm not sure how you get "theft" in all of this since the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") actually creates an entire roster of new benefits, including full coverage for preventative medical care without coinsurance or deductibles, discounts on prescription drugs and the gradual closure of the Part-D "donut hole" that had previously forced retirees to pay thousands of dollars out-of-pocket for medication. In total so far, 5.2 million Medicare recipients have saved $4 billion [ http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/239949-hhs-health-law-has-saved-seniors-nearly-4-billion-on-meds ] on prescription drugs alone because of the dreaded Obamacare legislation. That's $629 per person -- money they would have otherwise had to pay out their own pockets.
Regarding the mysterious $700 billion number, let's rewind the Way Back Machine to June. Not a single Republican was saying $700 billion. It turns out, the commonly repeated number was $500 billion. That's a huge difference.
After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Obamacare, with the help of a Republican chief justice who was appointed by a Republican president and decided in favor of a Republican policy proposal (the mandate), Republican Rep. Jon Runyan said [ http://www.politifact.com/new-jersey/statements/2012/jun/29/jon-runyan/jon-runyan-claims-barack-obamas-health-care-includ/ ], "My constituents simply cannot afford the $500 billion in new tax increases and $500 billion in Medicare cuts required to pay for this flawed legislation."
Mitt Romney said something similar in June, "Obamacare cuts Medicare -- cuts Medicare by approximately $500 billion dollars."
As far back as a year ago, the quoted number remained $500 billion.
Here's Michele Bachmann during a debate in June, 2011 [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/fact-checking-the-gop-debate-500-billion-in-cuts-to-medicare/2011/06/14/AGsnGAVH_blog.html ]: "Senior citizens get this more than any other segment of our population, because they know in Obamacare the president of the United States took away $500 billion -- a half-trillion dollars -- out of Medicare, shifted it to Obamacare to pay for younger people."
Mitt Romney in the same debate, "Obamacare takes $500 billion out of Medicare and funds Obamacare."
So somehow in the last few days, the amount that was "stolen" from Medicare has magically increased by $200 billion! That's amazing.
But of course they're all lying about the ACA. The notion of $500 billion in "cuts" ostensibly "stolen" from Medicare has been thoroughly debunked and discredited by everyone from Politifact [ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/12/michele-bachmann/did-president-obama-steal-500-billion-medicare/ ] to The Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/fact-checking-the-gop-debate-500-billion-in-cuts-to-medicare/2011/06/14/AGsnGAVH_blog.html ], both of which note that there aren't any cuts to benefits -- none. So it's no surprise to learn that the bigger lie about $700 billion (or $717 billion or $716 billion) in cuts has also been widely debunked by fact-checkers everywhere including Bloomberg [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/medicare-scare-ad-makes-false-claim-of-cuts-for-seniors.html ].
And yet they keep repeating it over and over and over, and, as we get closer to Election Day, the number is mysteriously increasing. At this rate, I suspect the Republican number to reach "Eleventy gazillion-gajillion dollars" by October.
So what exactly does the ACA do to Medicare spending? The ACA trims $428 billion [ http://www.medicareadvocacy.org/2010/10/28/health-care-reform-does-not-cut-medicare-benefits/ ] in waste, fraud and abuse. No cuts to benefits, just increased efficiency and fraud protections, and Medicare Advantage payments to private insurance corporations are balanced out to the same levels as Medicare proper.
That's all. Put another way, let's say you spend $100 on food today, and you plan to spend $200 on food tomorrow because you're having guests for dinner. In the interim, you opt to spend only $150 on food tomorrow because you clipped some coupons. You're still spending 50 percent more money tomorrow, so it's not a "cut" in spending. Instead, you've decided to simply save money that you didn't need to otherwise spend. Make sense? If so, explain it to your Republican friends because they don't seem to get it.
The savings will add another 8-10 years of solvency to Medicare without touching benefits, while, according to the CBO [ http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicare/207625-cbo-expects-health-spending-to-double ], Medicare spending is expected to nearly double by 2020. Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage premiums are down and enrollment is up, according to HHS [ http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2012pres/02/20120201a.html ] -- hardly indicative of a plan that's suffering due to the ACA.
The Republicans, including Mitt Romney, are vocally against these obviously positive changes to the system, and they've vowed to repeal Obamacare and all of the Medicare provisions within, including the streamlined savings, the preventative care coverage, and they'll re-open the donut hole, leaving retirees with potentially thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical expenses every year. But if a would-be President Romney repealed Obamacare, the system would be insolvent by 2016 [ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3532 ] and he'd be forced to reduce spending on the program with likely cuts to benefits anyway. At the same time, the Romney camp is positioning itself as the true savior of the program -- a claim that's absurd on its face and exactly the opposite of their true intentions.
It's almost cliche to write this, but this is classic George Orwell by way of Karl Rove. Up is down, black is white, Republicans will save Medicare while Democrats, who invented it and who have fought to sustain it at all costs, want to suddenly destroy it. The exact opposite is true. Nevertheless, the Lie of the Week plan appears to be working. Only 31 percent of seniors [ http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kaiser-poll-independents-seniors-don-t-obamacare_616551.html ] (ostensibly Medicare recipients) support the ACA while also supporting Mitt Romney for president [ http://thedailybanter.com/2012/06/millions-of-old-people-are-benefitting-from-obamacare-but-are-voting-for-romney-anyway/ ]. Considering the array of new benefits that would be repealed when Romney rolls back the ACA, this is staggering but not completely surprising given the pervasiveness of the Republican lies about the law.
Cross-posted at The Daily Banter [ http://thedailybanter.com/ ].
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go! [ http://www.bobcesca.com/ ]
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/debunking-romneys-viral-m_b_1798617.html [with comments]
--
"Facts" - Obama for America TV Ad
Published on Aug 17, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom
Get the facts: http://OFA.BO/WBvfr2
Voiceover:
"Now Mitt Romney is attacking the President on Medicare?"
"The non-partisan AARP says Obamacare 'cracks down on Medicare fraud, waste, and abuse' and 'strengthens guaranteed benefits'."
"And the Ryan plan?"
"AARP says it would undermine ... Medicare and could lead to higher costs for seniors...."
"And experts say Ryan's voucher plan could raise future retirees' costs more than six thousand dollars."
"Get the facts."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJb6tA1cXT0
--
Obama Campaign Targets Paul Ryan, Joining Medicare Ad War
Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan, subject of a new ad by President Barack Obama's reelection campaign.
By Sam Stein
Posted: 08/17/2012 6:00 am Updated: 08/17/2012 8:55 am
President Barack Obama's reelection campaign is joining the Medicare ad wars, with a major new television advertisement airing in eight battleground states.
Titled "Facts," the spot responds to an argument made by the Mitt Romney campaign (included in an ad of its own) that the president's health care law raids or robs Medicare of more than $700 billion. It uses AARP, the senior citizens lobby, as an independent validator for claims that the president's reforms actually strengthen the program, while the proposals by the GOP ticket would undermine it.
"Mitt Romney continues to mislead the American people about President Obama’s record on Medicare -– and skip the truth about his own plan to eliminate the guarantee of Medicare and provide people with a voucher to buy health care instead," said a statement from Obama campaign spokesman Adam Fetcher announcing the ad [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJb6tA1cXT0 , as just above, embedded].
Beyond the first line, the spot makes no mention of Mitt Romney, by name. Instead, it makes several references to vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and his first round of proposals to turn Medicare into a voucher-like system, in which senior citizens would be given a check to buy private insurance. That's not just because the president's campaign wants to blanket Romney's candidacy in Ryan's budget. It's because the public, in all likelihood, was already introduced to the Ryan budget when it was the subject of intense town hall debates in the summer of 2011.
"Facts," according to Fetcher, will air in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada.
UPDATE: 8:50 a.m. -- Amanda Henneberg, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, emailed over the following reply.
President Obama's new ad 'Facts' gets the facts wrong. The facts concerning the President's record on Medicare are clear: 1) Obama cut the program by $716 billion, 2) millions will be forced to lose their Medicare Advantage coverage and 3) the program will go bankrupt in 2024. Mitt Romney has a plan for Medicare that protects it for today’s seniors and strengthens it for future generations.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/obama-paul-ryan-medicare-_n_1793567.html [with comments]
--
Health Law Gives Medicare Fraud Fighters New Weapons
By Sarah Varney
August 21, 2012
Fighting health care fraud in the U.S. can seem like an endless game of Whack-a-Mole. When government fraud squads crack down on one scheme, another pops up close by.
But the fraud squads that look for scams in the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs have some new weapons: tools and funding provided by the Affordable Care Act.
Medicare and Medicaid pay out some $750 billion each year to more than 1.5 million doctors, hospitals and medical suppliers. By many estimates, about $65 billion a year is lost to fraud.
"For a long time we were not in a position to keep up with the really sophisticated criminals," said Peter Budetti, who oversees anti-fraud efforts at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "They're not only smart, they're extremely well-funded. And this is their full-time job."
And their creativity is endless. Criminals use real patient IDs to bill for wheelchairs that were never delivered or exams never performed. Dishonest doctors — a small percentage of physicians, to be sure — charge for care they never deliver or perform unnecessary operations. In one scam, criminals bill Medicare and a private insurer for the same patient.
But if crooks are smart, it may turn out that computers are smarter. The federal health law and other legislation directed the federal government to start using sophisticated anti-fraud computer systems. Budetti said the systems, which are being used first with Medicare, are similar to those used by credit card companies to detect suspicious purchases.
"We're able to now verify whether a person was being treated by two different physicians in two different states on the same day or a variety of other possibilities," he said.
The computer program crawls around the heaps of Medicare claims — some 4 million a day — to look for outliers: spikes in prosthetics in Miami or heart stents in Missoula. And for the first time, doctors and others who want to bill Medicare are being assessed based on their risk to commit fraud. Those who seem crooked are kept out.
Lou Saccoccio, head of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, said the aggressive computer systems and the government's new authority to suspend payments signal an important change at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"What the Affordable Care Act does and what CMS, I think, is doing now is really a shift of focus of the 'pay and chase' mentality," said Saccoccio. "[That's] where the fraud is committed, you've paid the money, now you have to go out and get it back and prosecute the individual."
Pay and chase has given way to a prevention of fraud model, he said.
Over the next decade, Congress will direct some $340 million in additional funding for government anti-fraud efforts. Still, Saccoccio expects that the aggressive new efforts, which he applauds, will yield far more leads than the current team of investigators and analysts can handle.
"As you get all this information, do you have the resources to look at it all, triage it, so to speak, and make determinations?" he asks.
There's only so much detective work investigators can do sitting at computer terminals, says Patrick Burns of Taxpayers Against Fraud. The effort also needs some foot soldiers, Burns said.
"There has not been historically, in health care, enough ground truth-ing," Burns said. "What I mean by ground truth-ing is: You go to Miami, you get 100 bills, and you go and actually see, is there a doctor's office where you're sending the money?"
Burns says the Obama administration's approach to fighting fraud has been more systematic than previous ones. Indeed, the number of so-called Medicare Strike Force teams operating around the country has quadrupled since 2009. Still, the mantra of the fraud fighters sounds a lot like a department store sale: The more you spend, the more you save.
"What we need to do is fund a war on fraud like we would fund a single day of a real war," Burns said. "If we do that, this country will straighten out real quick."
In the meantime, those in charge of the government's anti-fraud efforts say the new approach is working. The number of defendants facing fraud charges jumped sharply last year. At the end of next month, Medicare is expected to report to Congress the number of new scams detected and the number of new cheats kept out of the program.
Copyright 2012 Kaiser Health News. To see more, visit http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/
*
Related NPR Stories
Feds And Health Insurers Partner To Fight Fraud
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/07/26/157440906/feds-and-health-insurers-partner-to-fight-fraud
Feds Accuse Texas Doctor In $350 Million Medicare Fraud
http://www.wbur.org/npr/147576819/feds-accuse-texas-doctor-in-350-million-medicare-fraud
*
Transcript
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now, the fight against health care fraud is a little like the game of football. One side may have a good offense, so the other develops a better defense. So the offense adapts and tries something new. Now, when government fraud investigators stop one scheme, crooks may try something else. So Medicare and Medicaid fraud investigators have developed a new tool of their own. Here's Sarah Varney with our partner Kaiser Health News.
SARAH VARNEY, BYLINE: Forget purse snatching. Forget Ponzi schemes, smart criminals know the real money is made in health care. Medicare and Medicaid pay out some $750 billion each year to more than a million and a half doctors, hospitals and medical suppliers. By many estimates, about $65 billion a year is lost to fraud.
PETER BUDETTI: For a long time we were not in a position to keep up with the really sophisticated criminals.
VARNEY: Peter Budetti oversees anti-fraud efforts at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
BUDETTI: They're not only smart, they're extremely well funded. And this is their full time job.
VARNEY: And their creativity is endless. Criminals use real patient IDs to bill for wheelchairs that were never delivered. Dishonest doctors - a small percentage of physicians, to be sure - charge for care they never gave or perform unnecessary operations. In one scam, criminals bill Medicare and a private insurer for the same patient.
But if crooks are smart, it may turn out that computers are smarter. The federal health law and other legislation directed the federal government to start using sophisticated anti-fraud computer systems. Budetti says the systems, which are being used first in the Medicare program, are similar to those used by credit card companies to detect suspicious purchases.
BUDETTI: We're able, now, to verify whether or not people actually were being treated by two different physicians, in two different states on the same day or a variety of other possibilities.
VARNEY: The computer program crawls around the heaps of Medicare claims, some four million a day, to look for outliers: spikes in prosthetics in Miami or heart stents in Missoula. And for the first time, doctors and others who want to bill Medicare are being assessed based on their risk to commit fraud. Those who seem crooked are kept out.
Lou Saccoccio, head of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, says the aggressive computer systems and the government's new authority to suspend payments when there's a credible allegation of fraud, signal an important change at Medicare, known as CMS.
LOU SACCOCCIO: What the Affordable Care Act does and what CMS is doing now is really a shift of focus of the pay-and-chase type of mentality - where the fraud is committed, you've paid the money, now you have to go out and get it back and prosecute the individual - to a prevention type of mentality.
VARNEY: Over the next decade, Congress will direct some $340 million in additional funding for government anti-fraud efforts. Still, Saccoccio expects aggressive new efforts, which he applauds, will yield far more leads than the current team of investigators and analysts can handle.
SACCOCCIO: As you get all this information from the system, you know, how - do you have the resources to look at it all, to triage it so to speak and make determinations?
VARNEY: There's only so much detective work investigators can do sitting at computer terminals, says Patrick Burns of Taxpayers Against Fraud. Burns says to snuff out a scam, you've got to see it for yourself.
PATRICK BURNS: There has not been, historically, in health care arena, enough ground truth-ing. What I mean by ground truth-ing is: You simply go to Miami, you get a hundred bills. You look through them and you go and actually see, is there a doctor's office where you're sending the money?
VARNEY: Burns say the Obama administration's approach to fighting fraud has been more systematic than previous ones. Indeed, the number of so-called Medicare Strike Force teams operating around the country has quadrupled since 2009. Still, the mantra of the fraud fighters sounds a lot like a department store sale: The more you spend, the more you save.
BURNS: What we need to do is fund a war on fraud like we would fund a single day of a real war. If we do that, this country will straighten out real quick.
VARNEY: In the meantime, those in charge of the government's anti-fraud efforts say the new approach is working. The number of defendants facing fraud charges jumped sharply last year. And at the end of next month, Medicare is expected to report to Congress the number of new scams detected and the number of new cheats kept out of the program.
For NPR News, I'm Sarah Varney.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
View original article at NPR.org [ http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/21/158761170/health-law-gives-medicare-fraud-fighters-new-weapons ]
*
http://www.wbur.org/npr/158761170/health-law-gives-medicare-fraud-fighters-new-weapons
--
Middle-Age Blues
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: August 15, 2012
Paul Ryan is everywhere! Nobody can talk about anything but the congressman from Wisconsin. We now know he is the intellectual, spiritual and moral center of the House of Representatives, who keeps his body fat below 8 percent and excels at a sport that involves sticking your hand inside a catfish, grabbing it by the tonsils and pulling it out of the water. Also, I believe he may have been the guy who ran the men’s relay race in the Olympics on a broken fibula.
Today, let’s consider what the selection of Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate will mean to the American health care system. To start, there’s good news for senior citizens: You can stop worrying! Neither Ryan nor Romney wants to change Medicare coverage for people over 55.
Also, the news media is going to quit calling you senior citizens. You are now Medicare Sensitive Voters.
Any other questions? Let’s start with you over there in the corner — the one jumping up and down and hysterically waving your arms.
I am 54! How come nobody cares about my health care?
As Romney said on “60 Minutes,” the Republican ticket is “looking for young people down the road and saying, ‘We’re going to give you a bigger choice.’ ” So the good news is that: A) you are getting a choice, and B) you are now officially a young person.
No, I’m not! I am totally falling apart! And now you’re telling me that people just one year older than me will get guaranteed government coverage that everybody likes, while I am going to be getting a choice? What if I don’t want a choice?
Freedom is always good.
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
You are much too young to know that song. That’s why Ryan doesn’t want to let you have Medicare as we know it. To qualify for the current system, you’d have to be old enough to remember when Simon and Garfunkel were together.
But I’m glad you want to talk about Medicare. Now that Ryan is on the ticket, that’s the topic of the hour. No more debates about Bain Capital. Really, unless someone discovers that Bain Capital secretly shelled the Golan Heights, that subject is off the table.
So, about Medicare. Why don’t Romney and Ryan want to let me have it?
You really are obsessed with that, aren’t you? The National Republican Congressional Committee has warned all its candidates that whenever the subject comes up, they are to avoid mentioning “entitlement reform,” or “privatization,” or “every option is on the table.” Instead, the keywords are: “strengthen, secure, save, preserve, protect.”
So I suspect Romney and Ryan would say that they want to change the current system in order to strengthen, secure, save, preserve and protect your future health care. Which will involve a lot of choices, even though every option is not on the table. Totally not.
Basically, the Republican message is that it’s Barack Obama who is trying to destroy Medicare and that they will save it.
How do they think President Obama is going to destroy it?
Through Obamacare, the cause of everything that’s wrong with the country today, possibly including forest fires and the helium shortage. The administration’s theory is that new federal guidelines will force providers to be more efficient, reducing anticipated Medicare costs over the next 10 years by a little more than $700 billion.
The savings could be used to help provide health insurance coverage for the poor. That’s the core of the G.O.P. complaint. A new Romney ad tells older voters to think of it this way: “The money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.”
That sounds as if Romney believes old people are kind of selfish.
You think? Anyhow, under Paul Ryan’s proposal, instead of simply getting Medicare, people like you will be given a voucher and told to choose from among a whole bunch of health care plans. The Ryan theory was that the competition would force providers to be more efficient, reducing anticipated Medicare costs over the next 10 years by a little more than $700 billion.
Wait a minute ...
I know. But that was before he joined the ticket. Now all talk of $700 billion in savings is being retracted, like a great catfish being yanked by the throat from its cozy burrow.
If you want my opinion, Ryan’s passion for health care cost-cutting is actually not directed at Medicare so much as Medicaid. The seniors who could really take a hit would be the ones in nursing homes who’ve already run through their own savings.
That’s my Aunt Flossie! What’s going to happen to Aunt Flossie?
Do you have a spare bedroom?
*
Related
Obama-Ryan Battle Intensifies Over Medicare Savings (August 15, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/health/policy/battle-over-medicare-savings-intensifies-between-obama-and-paul-ryan.html
Related in Opinion
Op-Ed Columnist: When Cruelty Is Cute (August 15, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html
Op-Ed Contributor: Paul Ryan’s Fairy-Tale Budget Plan (August 14, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html
More on United States Elections
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/united-states-politics/index.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company (emphasis in original)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/opinion/collins-middle-age-blues.html [with comments]
--
Paul Ryan Talks Medicare At Florida Campaign Appearance
Republican vice-presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., right, introduces his mother, Betty Ryan Douglas, to supporters at a campaign rally in The Villages, Fla., Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012.
(AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
By PHILIP ELLIOTT and JIM KUHNHENN
08/18/12 07:34 PM ET
THE VILLAGES, Fla. — Who loves Medicare more? President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney's running mate vied for that distinction Saturday as Medicare became the latest flashpoint in a presidential campaign of flying elbows.
The issue is dicey for both sides: Obama is steering billions from the entitlement to help pay for the expansion of coverage under his health care law; Paul Ryan is a champion of overhauling Medicare to make the traditional program no longer the mainstay for tomorrow's seniors – just one of many old-age health insurance choices.
But that didn't stop them from going head on.
On a day Romney devoted to raising campaign cash in Massachusetts, Ryan accused Obama of raiding the Medicare "piggybank" to pay for his health care overhaul and he warned starkly that hospitals and nursing homes may close as a result. The Wisconsin congressman introduced his 78-year-old mother to an audience of seniors in Florida and passionately defended a program that has provided old-age security for two generations of his own family.
"She planned her retirement around this promise," Ryan said as Betty Ryan Douglas looked on. "That's a promise we have to keep."
Campaigning in New Hampshire, Obama said it's a promise that the Republican ticket would tear up.
"You would think they would avoid talking about Medicare, given the fact that both of them have proposed to voucherize the Medicare system," he said in Windham. "But I guess they figure the best defense is to try to go on offense.
"So, New Hampshire, here is what you need to know: Since I have been in office, I have strengthened Medicare."
He hammered the point again later in the day while campaigning in Rochester, N.H.
Said Ryan in Florida: "You want to know what Medicare is saying about this? From Medicare officials themselves: One out of 6 of our hospitals and our nursing homes will go out of business as a result of this," meaning Obama's Medicare cuts.
That was a far from exact reference to a 2010 analysis by Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster. He said then that roughly 15 percent of hospitals and nursing homes that provide Medicare services could "become unprofitable" over a decade – not necessarily go out of business – thanks to cuts in payments from the government under the health care law.
But Foster's analysis also said the law would improve key Medicare benefits, solve the "doughnut hole" gap in coverage for seniors, expand health insurance to millions more people, reduce the federal budget deficit and extend the solvency of the government's hospital insurance trust fund by up to 12 years. Hospitals remain largely on board with the health care law, without apparent fear of closing.
Ryan, a deficit hawk and the House Republicans' chief budget writer, has stood out in Washington for laying out tough spending choices that many lawmakers in both parties avoid. So it was almost inevitable that his selection as running mate would vault Medicare to the top of the campaign debate.
Democrats say it's a debate they are glad to have because voters tend to trust them more than Republicans on the big social entitlements. But Obama has vulnerabilities, too, given the Medicare cuts he pushed to expand health insurance for the nation and to keep the costs of doing so in line.
The Obama campaign recognizes that Romney and Ryan have been pre-emptive. The likely Republican ticket tried to neutralize the usual Democratic criticism on Medicare by striking first with a Medicare ad and with their criticism of Obama's health law. "They are being dishonest about my plan because they can't sell their plan," the president said Saturday.
Ryan's proposal in Congress would encourage future retirees to consider private coverage that the government would help pay for through a voucher-like system, while keeping the traditional program as an option.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Medicare over time would spend thousands less per senior under the Ryan plan than under current policy. Critics say that would shift heavy costs to individual retirees. The government could always spend more than anticipated to meet changing realities, but at the cost of deeper deficits.
In New Hampshire, Obama cast the choice on Election Day as one between two fundamentally different approaches to the government's responsibility to its citizens. His approach of portraying Romney's tax and economic plans as a giveaway to the rich was familiar, but seemed to have a particularly sharp bite.
"They've been trying to sell this trickle-down snake oil before," he told his audience in Windham. "It did not work then. It will not work now. It will not reduce the deficit, it will not create jobs. It's the wrong direction for America."
In Massachusetts, Romney told reporters on Martha's Vineyard that he wishes he could spend more time campaigning in competitive states but must raise money at a furious pace because Obama broke all barriers four years ago.
"That's the challenge with a president who blew through the federal spending limits," he said. "Campaigns now have to spend a disproportionate amount of time fundraising. You appreciate all the help you get, but you wish you could spend more time on the campaign trail."
Asked if campaigns ads are not already saturating the airwaves in swing states, Romney replied, "80-some-odd days to go."
His staff estimated Romney will raise nearly $7 million from fundraising events held Friday and Saturday in Boston, Long Island and the Massachusetts resort areas of Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod and Nantucket.
Romney took a 10-minute break from fundraising Saturday to shake hands and pose for pictures at Millie's Restaurant in Nantucket, Mass.
Romney bought ice cream for several staff members, shook hands with adults and stroked a baby's head.
Alec Gavenda, 13, of Summit, N.J., marched up to Romney and introduced himself and his family to the candidate, who asked several questions about the vacationing group.
Greg Gavenda, 12, told Romney, "my brother has Down Syndrome," to which Romney smiled and said softly, "I figured that."
The boys' father, T.J. Gavenda, told the former governor, "We just ordered our Romney-Ryan yard sign."
But as the campaign entourage left the restaurant, a less-friendly man shouted demands that Romney release five years of personal tax returns.
Although Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he's conceded that Obama's almost certain to win the state in November.
Ryan, too, took a break – to raise money. At an evening reception on Florida's Treasure Island, Ryan drew a crowd of 200 people and raised another $1 million.
Speaking to donors who paid as much as $50,000 to have dinner with him, Ryan compared the United States with Europe, where a financial crisis has led to cuts in benefits for retirees. He said lawmakers there delayed action even though they saw impending problems, and seniors paid the price.
"They ran out of road to kick the can down, and now they have a debt crisis," Ryan said.
Ryan warned the same could happen here if the country doesn't get its hands around its own affairs.
Ryan's stop Saturday at the gated retirement cluster known as The Villages was familiar ground for presidential candidates. Florida has the highest concentration of voters over 65 in the country, with some 17 percent of Floridians fall into that group. Betty Ryan Douglas spends part of her year in Broward County's Lauderdale-by-the-Sea community and has been registered to vote in Florida since 1997.
Kuhnhenn reported from Rochester, N.H. Associated Press writer Charles Babington in West Tisbury, Mass., and Calvin Woodward in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/18/paul-ryan-medicare_n_1803004.html [with comments]
--
Dan Benishek Attacked In DCCC Ad Over Paul Ryan Medicare Plan
By Luke Johnson
Posted: 08/16/2012 8:56 am
Democrats are taking to the airwaves to attack the plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to turn Medicare into quasi-voucher program, a strategy that in the past has been a political winner.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running its first independent expenditure ad against Rep. Dan Benishek (R-Mich.)[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR5IJB_SoYQ (next below)].
"On Medicare, Congressman Benishek’s gone fishing -- and he’s got a whopper," says a narrator. "Privatizing Social Security and Medicare is the only way to do it," Benishek is quoted as saying.
"Benishek’s voted to essentially end Medicare," says a narrator, referring to the 2011 Ryan budget, though not by name. "Forcing seniors to pay over six thousand more a year."
Ryan revised his budget in 2012 to one that leaves traditional Medicare as an option [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/no-end-to-end-medicare-claim/ ], as opposed to his 2011 proposal, which only offered private health plans.
The DCCC is spending more than $73,000 to air the ad against Benishek, and has reserved $515,000 in airtime, according to the AP [ http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf/story/dccc-ad-targets-benishek-on-medicare/93cd43a98ba64a96a13e7ae3c29e5e7a ].
Benishek will face off against former State Rep. Gary McDowell (D), who he beat in 2010. His district, encompassing the Upper Peninsula and part of the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, is competitive. Conservative Democrat Bart Stupak represented it until 2011, when he retired.
Benishek's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/dan-benishek-dccc-ad_n_1788542.html [with comments]
--
Bizzaro World Right-Wing Health-Care Attack: Obamacare Not Universal
Conservatives and Tea Partiers are now complaining the president's private-sector oriented health-care overhaul didn't go far enough.
Aug 18 2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/bizzaro-world-right-wing-health-care-attack-obamacare-not-universal/261227/ [with comments]
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=71565214 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77506252 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78456304 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78488594 and preceding and following
(and http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78867693 and preceding [and any future following])
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78551301 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78579263 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78584470 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78626409 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78704047 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78799320 and preceding and following
===
Romney the Unknowable
By TIMOTHY EGAN
August 15, 2012, 9:20 pm
Ten days from now, some of the world’s best-paid magicians of image and narrative will unveil a reboot of a most unfathomable man, Willard Mitt Romney, a 2012 model with a shelf life of barely two months.
The Republican National Convention will mark the fourth time in 18 years, dating to a losing Senate race in 1994, that a Team Romney has tried to construct a Brand Romney. This problem of who he is, Romney acknowledged last year, has plagued him ever since he became a public figure.
In focus groups, he’s described as a tin man, a shell, an empty suit, vacuous, a multimillionaire in mom jeans. And that’s from supporters.
At the convention, you can expect to hear high praise for a virtuous, disciplined, loyal person of family and faith. You will surely hear the words “turnaround” and “no apology” — both titles of platitudinous and unread books by Romney — in defense of his business acumen and unshakable view of American exceptionalism.
But I doubt you will hear anything of the real Romney because he is afraid of his own past. His life — even with prep school privilege in Bloomfield Hills, the draft-avoiding refuges of mission work in Paris and business school at Harvard, a founding role at Bain Capital from a mentor who guaranteed he would never fail financially or professionally — is not without drama.
Yet that Romney story is laden with land mines of his making. Or rather, that of his party, which has turned so quickly against common-sense solutions to the nation’s problems that Romney’s real achievements, and prior principles, are now toxic to most Republicans.
Start with his family. His great-grandfather was a fugitive, tracked by federal marshals as he tried to plant polygamy throughout the Southwest for a radical new American faith. It’s a hell of a tale, Butch Cassidy with five wives. But Romney never mentions this arc for fear his Mormon religion will offend evangelical Christians who dominate the Republican Party.
He could talk about his father, or maybe not. George Romney, born in Mexico, was a principled politician who didn’t support Barry Goldwater’s nomination in 1964. He was nearly ousted from Richard Nixon’s cabinet for aggressive pursuit of racial integration in the suburbs. He opposed the Vietnam War. He not only paid a much higher rate of income tax than did his son, but he made public those taxes — 12 years of returns.
George Romney would be booed at this year’s convention.
What about Mitt the businessman? His years at Bain Capital, the private-equity firm, were supposed to be his chief selling point. The boys of Bain had numerous venture capital triumphs. But they also busted up a lot of lives with leveraged buyouts that inflicted heavy casualties.
Well before Democrats set out to make Bain a four-letter verb, Republicans during the primary recast Romney’s 15 active years in high finance as a plunder spree. “A bunch of rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company,” said Newt Gingrich. “Vulture capitalist,” cried Gov. Rick Perry.
More significant than Bain’s brand of “creative destruction” was how Romney himself got very rich. The bulk of his wealth came from capital gains, not salary or actual income. Those gains are taxed far less than many working people’s wages, and, with offshore accounts, the rates can go even lower. The story of American inequality is in the additional tax returns that Romney has vowed never to release.
With Bain and his colorful Mormon past off the table, that leaves Romney’s one-term as Massachusetts governor to highlight. He ruled as a moderate — oops, bad word. His greatest achievement, of course, was universal health care that became the template for Obamacare. He once called it, “the ultimate conservative idea.”
As he shed the ideas he embraced in the Bay State and tried to become “severely conservative,” Romney the unknowable became Romney the unlikable. His flip-flops were Olympic in caliber: on gun control, abortion, climate change, taxes, gays.
“Some are actually having children born to them,” he said of gay couples, in disgust, while groveling in the South, as reported in “The Real Romney,” the fair-minded biography by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman.
With Paul Ryan on the ticket, Romney becomes ever more hollow in comparison to the younger man of a cold-hearted-but-consistent philosophy.
A few weeks ago, Brian Williams of NBC News asked Romney if he was “unknowable to us.” Great question. Romney chuckled, that nervous stage laugh, and said voters will likely wait until the debates to discern his character. Fat chance. Better to chase fireflies with a thimble, for the true Romney is a phantom — lost long ago to reinventions and calculations.
*
Related
G.O.P. Packaging Seeks to Reveal a Warm Romney (August 20, 2012)
[tab headline: "Romney Campaign Works Feverishly to Project Relaxed Image"]
The Romney campaign wants the main stage for the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla., to convey warmth and openness.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/romney-campaign-works-feverishly-to-project-relaxed-image.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/romney-the-unknowable/ [with comments]
--
And now it gets interesting
The Polygamy Blog [ http://www.sltrib.com/Blogs/polygblog ]
Lindsay Whitehurst
Published on Aug 17, 2012 07:50PM
So it looks like we're going to see arguments on whether Utah's law banning polygamy is unconstitutional in the "Sister Wives" case, maybe as soon as this fall.
That's after a federal judge ruled in the Brown family's favor today, allowing the case to go forward even though Utah County prosecutors have promised they won't go after them, or any other consenting adults who don't commit other crimes.
Read the ruling here [ http://www.scribd.com/doc/103177874/Refusal-to-Dismiss-Sister-Wives-081712 ].
And the blog-response from Brown attorney Jonathan Turley here [ http://jonathanturley.org/2012/08/17/federal-court-rules-in-favor-of-sister-wives-lawsuit-denies-second-motion-to-dismiss/ ].
The state's response is in my story, here [ http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54718559-78/utah-ruling-attorney-browns.html.csp ].
The next step in the process will come from the Browns, with a filing due Aug. 31. The deadline for a reply from the state is Sept. 14, and a rebuttal from the Browns is due Sept. 28.
I'm interested to see the state's direct response to the Browns' arguments that the law violates their rights to privacy, freedom of expression, etc. So far the state has been mainly been focused on trying to get the suit tossed.
Maybe they'll take a page from Canada's recent court case over their polygamy law? (It was upheld). Page through the vast trove of documents filed in that case here [ https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B-URIT52yhx4MDVkMDU5MDctZDM0Zi00ODQ4LWJkNWEtMWVjNmRjMGE2ZjQ0/edit?num=50&sort=name&layout=list ].
Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake City Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogspolygblog/54718979-191/case-state-browns-law.html.csp [with comments] [further in particular to the 16th item "No charges to be filed in Utah 'Sister Wives' case" (toward the end) at (and see in general) (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76212123 (and preceding and following)]
--
PARADE Exclusive: A Conversation With the Romneys
The Romney clan on the deck of their New Hampshire home.
[Ben Baker]
The couple pose in front of a photo backdrop outside their Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H. home.
Lynn Sherr
August 26, 2012 [issue of]
Editor's note: As part of PARADE's 2012 election coverage, the magazine will feature President Obama and the first lady in its Sept. 2 cover story.
It's probably the closest the Romneys have come to kicking back during this campaign summer: a late July afternoon on glistening Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Grandkids bounce on the trampoline, splash in the gentle waves, soak in the hot tub. The candidate's eldest son, Tagg, 42, and his wife, Jen, keep an eye on their brood while a passel of campaign workers and friends stir things up in the kitchen.
But you're never off the clock when you're running for president, which is why Mitt Romney‚ wearing pressed jeans and a more relaxed demeanor than he does on the stump‚ and his radiant wife, Ann, agreed to this dinnertime conversation with PARADE contributor Lynn Sherr. On the table, a typical New England lobster-and-corn supper. Nearby, 2-year-old Johnny in a high chair, occasionally cooing at his adoring grandmother. Coming before the announcement of his vice presidential pick and his awkward trip to Europe, the discussion focused on campaign vitriol, the governor's hopes for the Republican convention (set to begin Monday in Tampa), and very pragmatic questions from readers (culled from Parade.com, CafeMom, and two GateHouse Media newspapers: the Peoria Journal Star and the Canton Repository) about Romney's wealth and how he would have voters' backs if elected president.
Governor, your campaign speeches talk about the middle class, but the vast majority of the questions we received from readers asked about your ability to relate to their struggles. In essence, how do you know what it's like to be someone without means, someone, as one reader puts it, trying to scrape by, living on food stamps?
Governor Mitt Romney: Each of us faces struggles of one kind or another. Our life was not characterized by financial stress as much as it was by health issues. I served as a pastor of a congregation and saw people with various challenges and did my best to help them. I believe my experience in the private sector, the voluntary sector, and government has helped teach me what it takes to help people with different types of challenges.
We got this question from Kelsey M. of Orange, Va. 'I'm a stay-at-home mom of two children. How will your presidency improve my life?'
MR: One, you'll be able to see better jobs with rising income again. And you'll know that when your kids go to school, it's a school of your choice, not the government's. And you'll know that when your kids come out of school, there will be a good job waiting for them.
There were a number of questions about your financial wealth. New Jersey resident Harry H. asked if you would make this pledge: If elected, do you promise to bank in the United States?
MR: My investments have been managed for almost the last 10 years by a blind trust. A trustee decides where to put our money. If I am president, my understanding is the same principle applies, that I may not direct any of my investments. I can't tell you what my investments might be because I won't make them. But I am happy to have every investment in the United States.
You've received a lot of criticism from your opponents in the primaries. They said a lot of nasty things. Did it hurt?
MR: No. That's part of the political process. I don't worry about that.
ANN ROMNEY: Interesting—it didn't hurt at all this time.
Why do you think that in a recent poll, you lost out to the president in [voter] enthusiasm?
MR: To most folks that don't pay a lot of attention to the Republican primary process, I am not so well known. As I get better known, people will have greater confidence that I'm the person who can get this country working again for the middle class. It's nice to be loved, but it's better to be respected.
On the topic of respect, former New Hampshire governor John Sununu has said that President Obama needs to learn to be American. You've referred to his policies as 'foreign.' Do you believe that President Obama is un-American in any way?
MR: Governor Sununu was not suggesting he was't American, nor do I. I believe he's making us far more like Europe, with a larger, more dominant, more intrusive government. I believe if we keep going on that path, we will end up like Europe, with chronic high unemployment, no wage growth, and economic calamity at the doorstep. I think you have to return to celebrating success, encouraging entrepreneurship, and finding ways to get government out of the way.
Also from a reader, Nancy B., of Winter Springs, Fla.: 'I trust your acumen to assemble a great turnaround team for the economy. But who do you have in mind for advice on foreign affairs?'
MR: I don't have a secretary of state or national security adviser in mind at this point‚ it might be a little presumptuous. That being said, I speak with a number of the former secretaries of state and [other] leaders‚ Condoleezza Rice, Jim Baker, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, John Bolton, as well as people less well known. My leadership style is to have people of differing viewpoints express them openly and [then I] select among them myself.
Question from Texas resident Jean S.: 'Have you ever felt like a loser? What did you do to overcome that feeling?'
MR: I define myself by my relationship with God, my wife, and my family. And in those relationships, I am not a loser. I don't worry about what happens in politics and the opinions of others, or I'd lose my hair!
And we all know you haven't done that.
MR: Glue keeps it in place. [laughter]
Let's talk for a moment about your faith. How has tithing [the Mormon practice of giving 10 percent of one's income to the church] shaped your view of how we treat each other?
AR: I love tithing. When Mitt and I give that check, I actually cry.
MR: So do I, but for a different reason.
AR: I know this money is an indication of how much we trust God and love the principle of sacrifice. And it teaches us not to be too, too tied to the things of the world. And it is a very good reminder of how blessed we really are, and most of those blessings do not come from a financial source, but from the power above.
MR: Our church doesn't publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one's financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It's a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.
Tithing sounds like a form of it takes a village.You're helping the community.
MR: I think you'll find that conservatives are more generous philanthropically than people who are not conservatives. People who are in favor of small government are very much in favor of personal action to help other people in need.
Is that a form of socialism?
MR: From the very beginning, the willingness of neighbors to help raise the barn of a next-door neighbor was characteristic of America. But at the same time we take personal responsibility for our lives. Does government play a role? Absolutely. You know, I chuckle when I hear people say, 'Oh, they don't want any government.' Of course we want government! But it is government to encourage the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of its citizens, as opposed to direct the course of their living.
Mrs. Romney, many, many readers asked what would be your cause or causes should you become first lady.
AR: A lot of my life I've been working with at-risk youth. There are many lost children in this generation, and it's just shameful. I hope to continue to help at-risk youth make choices that will make their lives better.
What makes you nervous about your husband on the campaign trail?
AR: The only time I interfere is when I feel like his schedule is way too strenuous. He's only got so much he can give every day. So that's when I really put my foot down, saying, 'Dial it back, dial it back, dial it back.'
And never in a debate, never when he's making a speech?
AR: Well, I am nervous in debates. I don't like debates because—
MR: —she knows she could do better. [laughs] She wants to get up onstage and give it to them.
AR: Because there's so many traps you can fall in. But I enjoy his speeches. Even when I hear some of the same stories over and over again, I get emotional.
Do you cry?
AR: I do.
Do you, Governor?
MR: I'm emotional. I don't show it quite as clearly as John Boehner, but I'm an emotional person. There is a, I don't know, a societal norm that if you're running for office, you can't be emotional, and perhaps I bow to that too often.
Should you be elected, give me a picture of the White House. What is the feel? PARADE asked you once before if there'd be horses at the White House, and you said yes.
MR: Well, probably not at the White House itself, but nearby so she could go for her therapy. [Ann Romney was diagnosed with MS in 1998.]
Give me your White House vision.
MR: I'd like it to be open and have people feel welcome there. I don't just mean touring it, but also come to the East Room and see a performance of some kind.
Like what?
MR: Well, I would certainly want to hear from the Beach Boys, even though I know it's not the same group it used to be. Also Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith, and today's rock stars—The Killers are one group I enjoy.
AR: I love jazz, I love pop, I love rock, I love classical.
MR: I'd let Alabama come back and sing again, and Aerosmith. Different eras.
AR: We have a friend in the Eagles.
MR: These are not all Republicans, by the way. Some may turn us down, but—
AR: No, they would die to be mentioned.
MR: I think the Obamas have done a nice job of welcoming various artists and having people come enjoy the White House. I also think, by the way, that having two children in the White House is a good thing. I hope, if we are lucky enough to be there, our grandchildren could come on occasion.
AR: They'd want to move in, Mitt!
MR: I think having little feet in the hallway is wonderful.
And after the convention, how do you see the Republican Party?
AR: United.
MR: We're united now. You go and ask people who voted for John McCain: 'Are you thinking of voting for anyone other than Mitt Romney?' And you will have a very hard time finding someone who's thinking of voting in a different direction. ... We go to the convention with high hopes. There's a lot of enthusiasm for new leadership.
AR: It's a recognition that Mitt and I represent millions and millions of people's hopes. It's women's voices in my head right now.
What do they say?
AR: One is, they'e praying for me, which is unbelievably touching. The second is, 'Your husband has to save this country.' And they say it with such passion and conviction. I feel what they're yearning for and hoping for.
What is that?
AR: What I hear very frequently is, 'My children are going to be worse off than I am.' And I think that it is the first time in the history of America that one generation can say that. There is concern that a lot of their friends, a lot of their family are out of work; they may be out of work themselves. They really feel like something's gone. 'Mitt always says that we can do better. He's giving them a thread of hope to say, 'Join with us. We're going to be okay.'
Should the party change? There's been a lot of talk that it's gotten a little far to the right.
MR: I can't speak for something as big as 100-some-odd million people. The party is much bigger than any one person.
But you're going to be its leader.
MR: Hopefully a good one. [laughs]
© 2012 Parade Publications
http://www.parade.com/news/2012/08/26-conversation-with-the-romneys.html [with comment]
--
Utah tops U.S. in giving to charity, study says
Philanthropy » Less-religious states give less, study shows.
The Associated Press
First Published Aug 20 2012 10:01 am • Last Updated Aug 20 2012 06:12 pm
Boston • Mormon-dominated Utah leads the nation in charitable giving, thanks largely to LDS emphasis on tithing.
In fact, a new study on the generosity of Americans suggests that states with the least-religious residents are also the stingiest about donating to charity.
The study released Monday by the Chronicle of Philanthropy found that residents in states where religious participation is higher than the rest of the nation gave the greatest percentage of their discretionary income to charity.
A Gallup poll earlier this year ranked Utah as the second-most-religious state, behind Mississippi, and a religion census pegged the Salt Lake City area — headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — as the nation’s most-religious metropolis.
Mormons are taught to pay 10 percent of their income to the faith. To enter LDS temples and participate in Mormonism’s most sacred rites, members must meet this tithing requirement.
"Any LDS member who is faithful does that," said Valerie Mason, 70, of Mesa, Ariz., during an interview in Salt Lake City. "Some struggle with it. Some leave the church because of it. But we believe in the blessing. ... Tithing does bring the blessing of God’s promise."
The most generous state, according to the latest study, was Utah, where residents gave 10.6 percent of their discretionary income to charity, followed by Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina.
The least generous was New Hampshire, at 2.5 percent, followed by Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Churches are among the organizations counted as charities by the study, and some states in the Northeast rank in the top 10 when religious giving is not counted.
The study also found that patterns of charitable giving are colored in political reds and blues.
Of the 10 least generous states, nine voted for Democrat Barack Obama for president in the last election. By contrast, of the 10 most generous states, eight voted for Republican John McCain.
But Peter Panepento, the Chronicle’s assistant managing editor, said that political breakdown likely speaks to a state’s religious makeup, not its prevailing political views. He noted the lowest-ranked Democrat states were also among the least religious, while the top-ranked Republican states were among the more religious.
"I don’t know if I could go out and say it’s a complete Republican-Democrat difference as much as it is different religious attitudes and culture in these states," he said.
The study was based on Internal Revenue Service records of people who itemized deductions in 2008, the most recent year statistics were available.
By focusing on the percentage given to charity from discretionary income — the money left over after necessities are paid for — the study aimed to remove variables such as the differing costs of living around the country, Panepento said. The data allowed researchers to detail charitable giving down to the ZIP code.
In Boston, semi-retired carpenter Stephen Cremins said the traditional New England ideal of self-sufficiency might explain the lower giving, particularly during tight times when people have less to spare.
"Charity begins at home," Cremins said. "I’m a big believer of that, you know, you have to take care of yourself before you can help others."
The study found that in the Northeast — including New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York — people gave 4.1 percent of their discretionary income to charity. The percentage was 5.2 percent in the South, a region from Texas east to Delaware and Florida, and including most of the so-called Bible Belt.
Alan Wolfe, a political science professor at Boston College, said it’s wrong to link a state’s religious makeup with its generosity. People in less religious states are giving in a different way by being more willing to pay higher taxes so the government can equitably distribute superior benefits, Wolfe said. And the distribution is based purely on need, rather than religious affiliation or other variables, said Wolfe, also head of the college’s Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life.
Wolfe said people in less-religious states "view the tax money they’re paying not as something that’s forced upon them, but as a recognition that they belong with everyone else, that they’re citizens in the common good. ... I think people here believe that when they pay their taxes, they’re being altruistic."
When only secular gifts are counted, New York climbs from No. 18 to No. 2 in giving, and Pennsylvania rises from No. 40 to No. 4.
Among other findings:
» People who earn $200,000 per year give a greater percentage to charity when they live in ZIP codes with fewer people who are as wealthy as they are.
» People who earn between $50,000 and $75,000 annually give a higher percentage of their income to charity (7.6 percent) than those who make $100,000 or more (4.2 percent).
The Salt Lake Tribune contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press/The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54728309-78/states-religious-charity-giving.html.csp [with comments]
--
Romney’s equating of taxes and charitable giving sparks debate
By Rosalind S. Helderman, Published: August 18, 2012
Are taxes a form of charitable donation?
Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney seemed to suggest that he might think so last week, when he responded to questions about how much he pays in taxes by suggesting that people [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romney-ive-paid-at-least-13-percent-in-taxes-for-past-10-years/2012/08/16/bf4b5944-e7be-11e1-8487-64e4b2a79ba8_story.html ] should take into account his total contributions to the government and charities.
The comment was a quick one — a by-golly insistence that despite paying a relatively low tax rate on his vast income, the millions he has given to charity show that he’s not a greedy guy.
But experts who research public attitudes on philanthropy on both sides of the political spectrum said it was an inadvertently revealing moment, a brief window into the deep philosophical differences between how liberals and conservatives view government and society.
“Taxes are a form a of charity,” said Michael Tanner, a scholar at the Cato Institute [ http://www.cato.org/people/michael-tanner ] who has studied philanthropy, explaining the conservative viewpoint. “If we think of the point of taxes, it’s not to be punitive. We tax people because there’s some use, some public good, for which they’re needed.”
He added that one reason a conservative such as Romney aims to push tax rates down is a fundamental belief that individuals make better choices about what society needs than government does: “A conservative might say, ‘I know of something in my local community where my dollars might serve a better purpose.’?”
The flip side of the argument, the liberal side, is that the point of government is to provide a way for citizens to decide together what society needs and to get those things done.
“This is really the fundamental disagreement,” said Garrett Gruener [ http://www.altapartners.com/team_detail.php?id=18 ], the founder of Ask.com, who advocates higher taxes for himself and other ultra-wealthy individuals as part of the group Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength [ http://patrioticmillionaires.org/ ].
“Democracy is not a charity. It’s an enterprise of all Americans to accomplish things that we democratically decide are important,” he said. “Charity is something I do on my own, and I don’t expect others to have the same priorities I do.”
Romney is one of the wealthiest Americans ever to represent a major party in a presidential race, and his personal finances have been under a political microscope. Democrats argue that his effective tax rate — 13.9 percent in 2010 — is an illustration of federal policies that favor the wealthy, making breaks available to those who can pay accountants to find them and taxing investment income at a lower rate than wages.
He has also been under pressure from Democrats to release more information about his taxes. So far, he has released only his return from 2010, and he said he will make public his 2011 return.
No less than 13 percent
During a news conference Thursday, he insisted that in the past 10 years, he has not paid a federal income tax rate of less than 13 percent. He made the statement after Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he had been told [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/on-romneys-taxes-harry-reid-continues-his-tradition-of-stinging-remarks/2012/08/01/gJQA26xFQX_story.html ] that Romney had managed to avoid paying federal income taxes for 10 years.
“I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that,” Romney said.
Then he continued: “If you add in, in addition, the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent.”
It wasn’t the first time that Romney had appeared to suggest that it was appropriate to look at his tax and charity payments in total.
“I’m proud of the taxes I pay. My taxes, plus my charitable contributions, this year, 2011, will be about 40 percent,” he said in January during a debate [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-and-newt-gingrich-square-off-in-republican-debate/2012/01/26/gIQA2KzBUQ_story.html ] among Republican presidential candidates in Florida.
On their 2010 tax return [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-releases-tax-returns/2012/01/23/gIQAj5bUMQ_story.html ], Romney and his wife, Ann, reported giving nearly $3 million to charity, 13.8 percent of their total $21.7 million income. According to the Romney campaign, the couple gave more than $7 million in 2010 and 2011.
“The Romneys take to heart ‘to whom much is given, of him shall much be required,’ ” according to a statement on a campaign Web site page [ http://www.mittromney.com/learn/mitt/tax-return/main ] devoted to the tax issue. “Accordingly, they have been extraordinarily generous in their charitable giving .?.?. donating even more to charity than they paid in taxes.”
That level of giving is far beyond the contributions of most Americans. According to research by the Center on Philanthropy [ http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/ ] at Indiana University [ http://www.indiana.edu/ ] and the Giving USA Foundation [ http://www.givingusa.org/ ], Americans gave about 1.9 percent of disposable personal income to charity in each of the past three years.
It is also more than given by many leading political figures.
The Obamas
According to their 2011 tax return, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama paid an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent and gave to charity 22 percent [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-gifts-to-charity-just-1-percent/2012/02/14/gIQAXuMDER_blog.html ] of their adjusted gross income of $789,674. But their rate of giving has varied significantly, as has their income. Their 2005 return, for instance, showed them giving 4.6 percent of $1.66 million. In 2003, they gave 1.4 percent of $238,00; in 2004, they contributed 1.2 percent of $207,000.
Vice President Biden and his wife, Jill, gave 1.4 percent of their adjusted income to charity in 2010 and 1.5 percent in 2011. According to tax returns released Friday, the newly chosen Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his wife, Janna, gave 1.2 percent of their gross adjusted income to charity in 2010, a figure that jumped to 4 percent in 2011.
But the Romneys, who have estimated in financial disclosure forms that they are worth between $190 million and $250 million, are vastly more wealthy than most people, and the moral obligation of the super-wealthy is the subject of considerable discussion in ethics circles.
According to a calculator developed by Peter Singer [ http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/ ], a professor at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values [ https://uchv.princeton.edu/ ], Romney should have given at least $6 million of his income in 2010. Singer — who says Americans at all income levels should forgo more luxuries to help the global poor — termed Romney’s contributions “not all that impressive, given how much he has.”
Still, Romney’s contributions seem substantial to many.
“He’s a very generous guy,” said Leslie Lenkowsky, who is a professor at the Indiana University philanthropy center and who worked with Romney’s father, George, in support of the creation of AmeriCorps. “His family has a very good and positive history of charitable work.”
Lenkowsky, who was chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service under President George W. Bush, said many Republicans have long seen charity and government as interchangeable. They believe that government’s role should shrink and that charities should help the needy instead.
He said that point of view is embedded in the tax code, which extends a deduction for charitable donations on the theory that nonprofit groups save the government money through their work.
Notable differences
But Lenkowsky noted that people receive tax deductions for contributions to groups that would never receive government dollars. He cited the real example of an organization that sends red clown noses to troops in conflict zones to improve morale.
Another example is provided by religious organizations, which the government is constitutionally prohibited from funding. And a large percentage of the Romneys charitable giving goes to the Mormon Church; at more than $1.5 million, it represented half of their contributions in 2010.
“I wish he hadn’t tried to mix these things together,” Lenkowsky said. “It makes him look defensive. .?.?. He’s mixing apples and oranges. And he ends up with a fruit cocktail.”
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romneys-equating-of-taxes-and-charitable-giving-sparks-debate/2012/08/18/63bea3e6-e891-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html [with comments]
--
Should Romney's faith keep his taxes out of the public eye?
Mitt Romney's motorcade and campaign bus are parked in front of a church in Chillicothe, Ohio. The Republican says he hesitates to release more information about his finances because it would reveal how much he has given the Mormon Church. "It's a very personal thing."
(Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images)
By James Rainey
August 23, 2012
Mitt Romney believes that one of the “downsides” of releasing information about his finances — and presumably more than the two years of taxes he has been willing to reveal — is that it would reveal how much he has given to the Mormon Church, the presidential candidate said in an interview with Parade magazine [ http://www.parade.com/news/2012/08/26-conversation-with-the-romneys.html (third item above)].
Asked about tithing, the custom by which Mormons are expected to donate 10% of their income to the church, Ann Romney told the magazine: “I love tithing. When Mitt and I give that check, I actually cry.”
“So do I, but for a different reason,” Romney added, in an interview to be published this weekend. “Our church doesn't publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one's financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It's a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.”
But based on the 2010 return he has already released and projections of his 2011 return, the public already knows that the Romneys gave more than $4 million directly to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church got more money from the couple in those years via the Tyler Charitable Foundation, a nonprofit they control.
Democrats and even many Republicans have urged Romney for months to put more of his returns before the public. But the candidate has said that the two years of returns — plus years of financial disclosure forms from his time as governor of Massachusetts — tell voters all they need to know.
Ann Romney tried to close the door on the matter last month during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” saying she and her husband had provided all the information people need “to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life.” To share more, she said, would only open the door to more “attacks.”
It’s hard to imagine how the religious privacy argument is going to change many people’s minds. People know about the Romneys’ close ties to the LDS church. They want to see the additional returns to clear up some remaining questions— particularly about how the multimillionaire has invested his money and the tax rate he has paid, compared with average Americans.
Voters who want answers will ask why Romney’s relationship with God is so special that he has dispensation to reveal less than virtually every other presidential candidate in modern history.
Copyright 2012 Los Angeles Times (emphasis in original)
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/23/news/la-pn-should-romneys-faith-keep-his-taxes-out-of-the-public-eye-20120823 [with comments]
--
NBC gets no Romney campaign help on Mormon special
By David Bauder on August 23, 2012
NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News unsuccessfully went back to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to request an interview for this week's prime-time special on the Mormon faith after he began to seem more open to talking about it.
The single-topic "Rock Center" episode [can be viewed, segment by segment, beginning at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/48773816/#48773816 (via http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/ )] will air Thursday as originally planned, said the show's executive producer, Rome Hartman.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, will be the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major political party, and his campaign has generally resisted talking about his faith. But Romney last weekend invited reporters to Mormon chapel services with his family, and a new campaign ad touted him as a defender of religious freedom.
NBC requested a Romney interview weeks ago but was denied. With the new developments, the network made another request Monday but was turned down again.
The newsmagazine's producers thought it worthwhile to examine the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the eve of one of its members becoming the Republican nominee for president. During the hour, correspondent Harry Smith does a piece on why Mormons are so successful in business and tours a Salt Lake City warehouse where a huge amount of supplies is kept for the needy.
Kate Snow profiles a gay person, a feminist and an interracial couple on their experiences within the church, and NBC finds a Mormon cast member of the Broadway show "The Book of Mormon."
"What we set out to do very broadly is not an hour on Mitt Romney but an hour about the religion that has played a very important role in shaping who he is," Hartman said Wednesday.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-08-23/nbc-gets-no-romney-campaign-help-on-mormon-special [with comment]
--
Mitt Romney: Church State Separation Taken Too Far By Some
Posted: 08/21/2012 10:17 am Updated: 08/21/2012 10:30 am
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes that "some" Americans have taken the separation of church and state too far, "well beyond its original meaning."
In an interview released Tuesday with the Washington National Cathedral's magazine [ http://www.nationalcathedral.org/press/PR-5QLKM-RU000F.shtml ( http://www.nationalcathedral.org/ )], Cathedral Age, Romney said those who "seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God" aren't acting in line with the Founders' intent.
The separation of church and state is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution, but Congress and the courts have debated the practical extent of that separation since its founding.
Romney said the Founders didn't intend for "the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation 'Under God, 'and in God, we do indeed trust."
President Barack Obama also was given a chance to answer questions about his Christian faith and about faith in public life. He called faith a "powerful force for good," but stopped short of suggesting that its influence in America had been forcibly diminished in recent years.
Romney, who is Mormon, didn't mention his faith by name during the nine-page interview, but acknowledged that, "I am often asked about my faith and my beliefs about Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind."
"Every religion has its own unique doctrines and history," he said, and "these should not be bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance."
Despite early speculation that Romney's Mormon faith would present a problem for Republican voters, a recent poll showed that [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/obamas-muslim-problem--romneys-mormon-problem/2012/07/26/gJQAu2vcCX_blog.html ] Republican and Democratic voters are generally unconcerned about his faith.
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/mitt-romney-separation-church-state_n_1817764.html [with comments]
--
The Crackpot Caucus
Clockwise, from top left: Representatives John Shimkus of Illinois, Joe Barton of Texas, Jack Kingston of Georgia, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Todd Akin of Missouri and Paul Broun of Georgia
Clockwise, from top left: Seth Perlman/Associated Press; Manuel Balce Ceneta, via Associated Press; Stephen Morton, via Getty Images; Daniel Acker for The New York Times; Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, via Associated Press; Paul Morigi, via Getty Images for Ovation
By TIMOTHY EGAN
August 23, 2012, 9:45 pm
The tutorial in 8th grade biology that Republicans got after one of their members of Congress went public with something from the wackosphere was instructive, and not just because it offered female anatomy lessons to those who get their science from the Bible.
Take a look around key committees of the House and you’ll find a governing body stocked with crackpots whose views on major issues are as removed from reality as Missouri’s Representative Todd Akin’s take on the sperm-killing powers of a woman who’s been raped.
On matters of basic science and peer-reviewed knowledge, from evolution to climate change to elementary fiscal math, many Republicans in power cling to a level of ignorance that would get their ears boxed even in a medieval classroom. Congress incubates and insulates these knuckle-draggers.
Let’s take a quick tour of the crazies in the House. Their war on critical thinking explains a lot about why the United States is laughed at on the global stage, and why no real solutions to our problems emerge from that broken legislative body.
We’re currently experiencing the worst drought in 60 years, a siege of wildfires, and the hottest temperatures since records were kept. But to Republicans in Congress, it’s all a big hoax. The chairman of a subcommittee that oversees issues related to climate change, Representative John Shimkus of Illinois is — you guessed it — a climate-change denier.
At a 2009 hearing, Shimkus said not to worry about a fatally dyspeptic planet: the biblical signs have yet to properly align. “The earth will end only when God declares it to be over,” he said, and then he went on to quote Genesis at some length [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7h08RDYA5E (next below)].
It’s worth repeating: This guy is the chairman.
On the same committee is an oil-company tool and 27-year veteran of Congress, Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas. You may remember Barton as the politician who apologized to the head of BP in 2010 after the government dared to insist that the company pay for those whose livelihoods were ruined by the gulf oil spill.
Barton cited the Almighty in questioning energy from wind turbines. Careful, he warned, “wind is God’s way of balancing heat.” Clean energy, he said, “would slow the winds down” and thus could make it hotter. You never know.
“You can’t regulate God!” Barton barked at the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in the midst of discussion on measures to curb global warming.
The Catholic Church long ago made its peace with evolution, but the same cannot be said of House Republicans. Jack Kingston of Georgia, a 20-year veteran of the House, is an evolution denier, apparently because he can’t see the indent where his ancestors’ monkey tail used to be. “Where’s the missing link?” he said in 2011. “I just want to know what it is.” He serves on a committee that oversees education.
In his party, Kingston is in the mainstream. A Gallup poll in June found that 58 percent of Republicans believe [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx ] God created humans in the present form just within the last 10,000 years — a wealth of anthropological evidence to the contrary.
Another Georgia congressman, Paul Broun, introduced the so-called personhood legislation in the House — backed by Akin and Representative Paul Ryan — that would have given a fertilized egg the same constitutional protections as a fully developed human being.
Broun is on the same science, space and technology committee that Akin is. Yes, science is part of their purview.
Where do they get this stuff? The Bible, yes, but much of the misinformation and the fables that inform Republican politicians comes from hearsay, often amplified by their media wing.
Remember the crazy statement that helped to kill the presidential aspirations of Michele Bachmann? A vaccine, designed to prevent a virus linked to cervical cancer, could cause mental retardation, she proclaimed. Bachmann knew this, she insisted, because some random lady told her so at a campaign event. Fearful of the genuine damage Bachmann’s assertion could do to public health, the American Academy of Pediatrics promptly rushed out a notice, saying, “there is absolutely no scientific validity to this statement.”
Nor is there is reputable scientific validity to those who deny that the globe’s climate is changing for the worst. But Bachmann calls that authoritative consensus a hoax, and faces no censure from her party.
It’s encouraging that Republican heavyweights have since told Akin that uttering scientific nonsense about sex and rape is not good for the party’s image. But where are these fact-enforcers on the other idiocies professed by elected representatives of their party?
Akin, if he stays in the race, may still win the Senate seat in Missouri. Bachmann, who makes things up on a regular basis, is a leader of the Tea Party caucus in Congress and, in an unintended joke, a member of the Committee on Intelligence. None of these folks are without power; they govern, and have significant followings.
A handful of Republicans have tried to fight the know-nothings. “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming,” said Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor, during his ill-fated run for his party’s presidential nomination. “Call me crazy.”
And in an on-air plea for sanity, Joe Scarborough, the former G.O.P. congressman and MSNBC host, said, “I’m just tired of the Republican Party being the stupid party.” I feel for him. But don’t expect the reality chorus to grow. For if intelligence were contagious, his party would be giving out vaccines for it.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/the-crackpot-caucus/ [with comments]
--
Romney drops birth certificate joke on Obama (Wink, wink)
Posted By: Joe Garofoli
Aug 24 at 10:40 am
At roughly the same time running mate Paul Ryan talked about being part of a “campaign of ideas” and what a “principled vision” Mitt Romney proposes, Romney dropped a birth certificate joke at a campaign stop in Michigan.
Yes, 74 days before Election Day, Mitt got his birther on [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cht3bitxknI (next below, as embedded)].
“I love being home, in this place where Ann and I were raised, where the both of us were born,” Romney said Friday. “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place where we were born and raised.”
Somewhere, Orly Taitz is smiling.
For those who have been avoiding the Internet for the past five years (Welcome!), the shout-out is to WIDELY DISPROVEN ACCUSATIONS [ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2011/apr/27/politifacts-guide-obamas-birth-certificate/ ] that President Obama was not born in the U.S. He was.
Democrats like to call moments like this “dog-whistles” — where conservatives don’t explicitly call out a hot-button issue, but their fans can “hear” what they’re saying anyways. And yes, the Dems have their own set of whistles. Then again, as BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith said: “Does it still count as a dog whistle when it’s really loud and you did it by mistake.”
Replied Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt:
“Throughout this campaign, Governor Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them. It’s one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Governor Romney’s decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America.”
Have to say that Mitt sounds a little like what the King of All Birthers, Pat Boone, told Shaky Hand Productions a while back….after he was introduced as a guest of honor at the California Republican Party convention[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_enTHx1WPzY (next below, as embedded)]:
And now, let’s return to the “campaign of ideas” that Ryan was talking about on The Laura Ingraham Show [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KQOm5jyS-g (next below)] Friday:
“And so we’re going to make this about ideas. We’re going to make this about a positive vision for the future. Specific ideas, using those founding principles that made us great in the first place, how we apply those principles to the problems of the day to get our country back on track and we’re going to give that very clear contrast. And in Tampa, I believe people will get to know who Mitt Romney is, the kind of man he is, the kind of human being he is and the kind of principled vision that he has for the country going forward.”
But, c’mon. With all the things to rail on Obama about — start with the struggling economy, the high unemployment rate, no immigration reform — it is surprising to see Romney riff on this. Or maybe it is a harbinger of the stretch drive of this campaign.
© 2012 Hearst Communications Inc.
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/08/24/romney-drops-birth-certificate-joke-on-obama-wink-wink/ [with comments]
--
The Only Big Idea Coming Out of the Romney-Ryan Camp Is the Big Lie
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan spoke at a campaign event in Manchester, N.H., on Aug. 20.
(Evan Vucci / AP Photo)
The addition of Paul Ryan was supposed to infuse the Romney campaign with big ideas that would be argued in big debates with the Democrats, but so far, Michael Tomasky writes, all the GOP campaign has done is grossly distort the truth.
by Michael Tomasky
Aug 21, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
When Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-is-a-smart-pick.html ] as his running mate, we were told we were going to get the Big Debate on the Big Questions we’ve all been waiting for. Well, so far, it isn’t quite working out that way. The distinguishing fact of the Romney-Ryan campaign thus far is the extent to which it is built on outright lies in a desperate attempt to avoid honest debate at all costs. The Romney-Ryan strategy is the farthest thing in the world from a Big Debate. Instead, they muddy the waters as much as possible and lie as much as possible, and hope the press doesn’t call them on it and hope voters buy it.
The most blatant lie about Obama concerns the welfare rule change, which the Romney campaign is still pushing in a new ad. The Romney ad campaign says exactly the opposite of what the new rule stipulates. PolitiFact called the first Romney ad “Pants on Fire [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romney-keeps-lying-about-obama-and-welfare/2012/08/20/1c42b33e-ead2-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_blog.html ],” and Glenn Kessler [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/spin-and-counterspin-in-the-welfare-debate/2012/08/07/61bf03b6-e0e3-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_blog.html ] gave it four Pinocchios. But now here they come with a second ad saying that Obama “ended the work requirement.” Plainly and provably not true.
This is not normal. Normal is to stretch the truth. The Obama campaign stretches the truth in trying to connect Romney more directly than it should to Bain-related layoffs that happened after 2002. That’s your basic reach, and the campaign has been called on it. But it’s not a total lie. There is some little grain of truth there, that “Mitt Romney’s company” oversaw such-and-such layoffs, as there usually is in attack ads, even the most vicious ones. The Willie Horton ads were, after all, true. Racist, but true. But the Romney welfare ads have no grain of truth at all.
Okay. Just making stuff up about the other guy is bad enough. But it is in terms of past and future positions that what Romney-Ryan are doing really plows new and dishonorable earth. What’s happened on Medicare in the last week is just jaw-dropping. Did Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer and the folks at AEI lust for a huge philosophical throw down on Medicare solvency? Did they want a ticket that would courageously say to America, as Ryan used to say, that we just can’t afford to pay for all this anymore, and you, America, must now choose between the conservative truth-tellers and the liberal softies who will just tell you what you want to hear?
I think they wanted exactly that. But that sure isn’t what they’re getting. Romney and Ryan are both turning somersaults to say that they are this big government program’s true protectors. Ryan even dragged his mother into it [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYaFHMM1yIs (below, as embedded)] over the weekend! And as for Romney, it is just astonishing to hear him stand up as he did last week and whack Obama for cutting $716 billion from Medicare while lavishing praise on Ryan, whose Medicare plan from last year cuts exactly the same $716 billion (and then some), and say that he and Ryan are going to save Medicare, unlike that nasty Obama.
The truth, of course, is that Ryan’s premium support plan would devastate Medicare because it would slow the increased spending to a rate well below the rate at which health-care costs have been rising in recent years. In polls like one the Kaiser Family Foundation commissioned earlier this year, even majorities of Republicans [ http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/11/news/la-pn-paul-ryans-plan-to-reshape-medicare-20120811 ] don’t want Medicare restructured along Ryanesque lines. These guys may not be able to count, but they can read polls, and so they know very well that if they gave the county the honest debate we were told we were going to have about Medicare, and for that matter about taxation, they’d wake up Nov. 7 with about 120 electoral votes in their pockets and conservatism in tatters.
They know this. They know that the truth would crush them electorally. And so it follows that they know they must lie. They must lie about their Medicare plans. They must lie about the effects of their tax plans on average people and rich people. And they must tell a number of lies about Obama, all the better if they involve race, as the welfare lie does.
So this will be the entire point of the Romney-Ryan campaign. Lie lie lie. Muddy the waters. Turn day to night, fire to water, champagne to piss. Peddle themselves as the precise opposite of what they actually are. That is clearly the m.o.
This is the case for two reasons. First, it is forced on them historically. Ronald Reagan could get away with sunny generalizations about supply-side economics because in 1980, it was just a theory. Now, after George Dubya, it’s been utterly discredited in practice. Conservatives still must believe these absurd things—that lower tax rates will produce more revenue—but now we know they’re not true, so they have to lie about them. And second, it is simply in Romney’s weasely nature never to say anything forthright about any topic.
The Democrats’ job, of course, is to expose this charade for what it is and make Romney and Ryan defend their actual positions. The Obama campaign was a little slow to respond on Medicare, and even then the ad wasn’t as forceful as it might have been. It’s probably true that there’s a reservoir of good faith there—that is, most people simply aren’t going to believe that the Democrats want to harm Medicare. That should work to the Democrats’ advantage, but still, the Obama campaign and the Democrats generally have to nail these guys to the wall on what their actual positions are and what the impacts of their policies will be. Romney and Ryan are terrified of a real Big Debate. Obama and Biden need to drag them into one.
© 2012 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/21/the-only-big-idea-coming-out-of-the-romney-ryan-camp-is-the-big-lie.html [with comments]
--
Romney says fact-checkers biased in criticism of campaign's welfare ads
08/22/12
During an interview Wednesday [ http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/08/22/mitt-romney-interview-transcript-with-the-des-moines-register/ ] with the Des Moines Register, Mitt Romney said that the fact-checkers who have criticized his recent attacks on President Obama's welfare changes were examining the issue "in the way they think is most consistent with their own views."
[...]
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/244855-romney-says-fact-checkers-biased-in-criticism-of-campaigns-welfare-ads
--
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3967329 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54833454 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77287103 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=13127379 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=72379799 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78733745 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77589007 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76212123 and preceding (and any future following);
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78437534 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78454289 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77837984 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78628956 and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
