The Debates:
Getting Past the Theatrics;
Going Right to the Substance

or

It’s Not Fixed

(Addendum below)

First, a Short Word On the Theatrics

The performances so far have been most entertaining.


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Romney mopped the floor with Obama in the first presidential debate; even the liberal press agreed.  Chris Matthews, not too pleased with Obama’s performance, had an epic meltdown, live, on MSNBC.

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During the vice presidential debate last week, Biden put on a performance that elicited speculations on dementia  and drunkenness, as well as a three-minute roast by the usually very liberal Saturday Night Live.

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No comedy act, however, topped the actual video of the Vice President’s performance:

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Poised for more mayhem in the second presidential debate last night, I was somewhat relieved to find that a certain degree of sanity was restored.

President Obama no longer looked like a deer in the headlights, and with the exception of one Drudge Report photo, he did not nervously leer, make faces at his opponent or the cameras (much), as Biden had done last week.

Well, Romney isn’t looking; let me just give him a quick evil eye…

 

 

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But now back to the substance!

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Cuttting Through the Folly

More important than laughing or wondering at the performances, is to cut through the folly, and to analyze the substance.

And the substance consists of two major components in this election: policy and reliability.

Policy –  how do the candidates and their party propose to solve our biggest problems today?

Reliability– will the candidates and their parties actually do what they say they will do, or are the candidates liars?

Policy – What Do Voters Say America Needs?

Yesterday’s MSNBC leading headline read:  What readers want answered at the presidential debate: Gas prices, Social Security, jobs.

Translation: Economy is the primary problem facing our nation and concerning our voters today.

Aside: Some Americans, myself included, believe that abortion is the primary problem/issue facing our nation.  That economy is actually dependent upon abortion. That a nation that kills its own children cannot prosper.  That no amount of economic prosperity can justify the killing of 54 million human beings.  That economic prosperity will not be bestowed on a nation that defies God’s fundamental commandments.  But, although correct, that is not the dominating mainstream thought, and is a subject for a future blog article. 


Back to Economy, the primary problem readers wanted answered at last night’s presidential debate.

Obama-Biden Economic Policy 

The Obama-Biden team proposes to solve economic problems by raising taxes on the rich, in contrast to Ryan and Romney’s plans to solve economic problems by cutting spending, and cutting taxes, in order to create jobs, which would generate an expanding economy, resulting in increased government revenue.

Biden’s statement one week before the October 11th debate outlined and clarified the Obama-Biden position on the economy:
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Biden clearly stated their intention to let the trillion dollar “Bush” tax cuts expire, effectively raising $1 Trillion worth of taxes.   The tax cuts would only be extended for all households earning less than $250,000 per year, so those households would have no effective tax hike.  The $1 Trillion tax would be paid only by people earning $250,000 or more per year.

The Slogan is catchy:
$1 Trillion Tax Hike for Top Earners

Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?
We get Scrooge McDuck to fork over all the extra money we want to spend.
But is that possible?
Will it produce enough money to cover Obama’s spending?
How much will we be taking from the “rich guys”?

How will the “rich guys” respond to this maneuver?
Let’s look at some details.

Also, look at Thou Shalt Not Kill They Neighbor’s Cow 

Reality Check- Simple Arithmetic

We want to take $1 Trillion from the rich, the top 1.5 %, those who earn over $250,000 per year.
Let’s see how much we have to take from each one, and what that will do to them.

First of all, Biden misled us with his $1 Trillion claim, since his proposal is to raise $1 Trillion of taxes over 4 years, not over 1 year.

So we are trying to take an extra $0.25 Trillion per year from the “rich guys.”

That won’t dent Obama’s annual $1.3 Trillion deficit much, but let’s continue with the analysis, because it leads to a surprising place.

For data on how many rich guys there are, and how much money they have, we looked at the Tax Foundation’s Data Tables.  They don’t list Obama-Biden’s top 1.5%ers who earn $250,000 per year or more, but they do list the 1%ers, who earn $340,000 per year or more.  Close enough for our purposes.  The two sets of numbers are not likely to differ too much.

The top 1% group has a combined Adjusted Gross Income of $1.3 Trillion, of which they already pay 24%, or $0.3 Trillion in tax per year.  In order to raise another 0.25 Trillion from this group as Biden proposes, they would have to be taxed an additional 19%, almost a doubling of their Federal tax bill.  Their federal tax would go up from 24% to 43%.

Jaguar XF ($82,000)

So, the small businessman or doctor who now earns $340,000 per year already pays $82,000 in Federal income tax per year.  Yes, that’s right, each small businessman or doctor first gives the federal government the equivalent of a Jaguar XF every year.  Add Social Security, Medicare, and State and Local tax deductions, and rich guy’s annual take-home pay becomes about $227,000.  Now he has given Uncle Sam about $113,000 per year; a Mercedes SL55AMG every year. (This car can do 155 mph.)  On top of this now, the Obama-Biden proposal would raise these people’s federal taxes an additional 19% and would mean an additional $65,000 in taxes for that household.  This would bring down their take-home income to $162,000.  The total given over to the government would be $178,000 per year; like buying the government an Aston Martin DB9 Volante every year.  This household is left with 48% take-home pay of $162,000 per year, after they started with $340,000.

Aston Martin DB9 Volante ($178,000)

This also changes the proportion of taxes that the 1%ers pay.  Right now, as a group, they pay 37% of all federal income taxes.  Yes, the 1% pays 37% of our bills.  The new Obama-Biden proposal would change this to the 1%ers paying 66% of all of America’s federal taxes.  WOW!

Doubling a Household’s Federal Income Tax

How many Americans in any income bracket can afford to have their federal taxes doubled and to have their take-home pay reduced to 48%?

Most people earning upwards of $250,000 don’t work 9-to-5 for a boss.  Not too many bosses are that generous with salaries. Many of these “rich guys” own a small business and are working long hours.  Evenings and weekends.  Others are medical doctors, who are running an office and are paying off medical school loans.  Whether they are businesses or doctors, they will have to come up with the extra $65,000 Obama and Biden want somewhere.  Guess where that will be?  They will hire less help at the business or office, and they will cancel any plans of expansion.  Their actions will eliminate jobs, and will stifle the economy.  The people working under them will lose their jobs.

Biden and Obama’s proposal to hike up taxes by failing to extend expiring tax cuts is often termed Taxmageddon.  This plan could push the U.S. back into a recession, and the Taxmageddon expiration date is fast approaching – January 1, 2013, in two months.  

Summarizing the Obama-Biden Economic Policy:

Here’s a summary of Obama-Biden’s economic plans :

  • Obama/Biden will double taxes on the “rich guys” with Taxmageddon.  The 1%ers who now already pay 37% of the nation’s federal tax bill will get to pay 66% of the nation’s tax bill.
    Another recession? Who cares?
  • This maneuver will only reduce the deficit by 0.25 Trillion per year (19%)? Who cares?
  • The national debt, now $16 Trillion, will continue to grow at the rate of $1 Trillion per year? Who cares?  Not Obama/Biden.
  • Small businesses, which provide 65% of the jobs in America will be punished, and will be forced to lay off people? Who cares?
  • Despite the ballooning deficit, Obama-Biden will continue spending.
  • Whenever Romney proposes spending cuts, Obama-Biden will ridicule the solution most households (or nations) in serious debt ought to use – they will ridicule spending cuts.

  • Obama-Biden will particularly ridicule cutting government funds to Big Bird.  No matter that Big Bird is a one-percenter with an annual income of over $50 million per year, about four times higher that what Mitt Romney makes.   Yet Big Bird still gets federal subsidies through PBS, and Obama-Biden don’t want to see those cut.  Who cares?

 

  • Biden-Obama will also ridicule Romney’s plans to cut Planned Parenthood funding.  Planned Parenthood continues to make money, despite its status as a nonprofit organization.  Planned Parenthood is now a $1 Billion Group which makes a profit from it’s primary income generator, abortion, and which still receives 46% of it’s budget from tax money.
    51% of Planned Parenthood’s revenue comes from abortions.
    Two thirds of America opposes federal funding of abortion.  But who cares?  Obama likes abortion, and he loves Planned Parenthood.  Why not subsidize more 1%ers, as long as they are Obama’s friends?

Big Bird and Planned Parenthood were 1%ers.
Solyndra and  a series of over 20 green energy companies which received $4 Billion in federal grants? All 1%ers.
But they are Obama’s friends, so that’s O.K.
Anyone who supports Obama with donations or in the media is Obama’s friend. He will help them all become 1%ers.  And they don’t need to worry about taxation, Obama will make sure his friends obtain or retain tax-exempt status no matter how rich they are, like Big Bird and Planned Parenthood.

Reliability and Honesty

That leads us to reliability and honesty, the second major component of importance in this election.
What good are promised policies, if they are never implemented?
What good are debates, if lies are used in the arguments?

The last two debates, Biden’s and last night Obama’s, were fraught with lies.
Not  only Biden and Obama lied, but moderator Crowley lied and manipulated last night.

Biden’s Debate Lies

Biden was called out on his VP debate lies by lots of people during the past week. 
These include:
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Breitbart.com:

The National Review Online accused Biden of intellectual dishonesty, and the White House Dossier called Biden a new Batman’s Joker nemesis: The Liar.  Apparently Joe Biden has a history of law-school and campaign-trail dishonesty.

During the Vice Presidential debate, Joe Biden lied about religious freedom, about Libya, about Medicare, lied about his own voting record for the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war, lied about the Iranian nuclear program, lied about Ryan cutting embassy security budget, lied about his previous debate with Sarah Palin, and lied about the details of the Bush tax cuts.  See the above links for details.

Obama’s Debate Lies (and Shocking Gaffe)

Top Ten Lies of the Second Presidential Debate

Obama lied about tax cuts made by himself, about Romney’s statements in interviews, about Romney’s immigration views, about mammograms provided by Planned Parenthood, about tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, about oil and gas production on federal lands, about women’s salary discrepancies, about Romney’s intentions toward auto manufacturers, and about his own misrepresentation of the Benghazi attacks as demonstrations against an anti-Islamic video.

Gaffe: Obama claimed that low gas prices cratered our economy and will crater it again if Romney is elected and gets gas prices down.
Yes, you read that right: President Obama seems to believe that low gas prices kill the economy. It’s not Obama’s economic policies that have damaged our economy, it’s the low gas prices that he inherited from Bush that have damaged our economy.  And if you elect Romney, he will lower the gas prices again, and he will thus damage the economy again.
How did that come out of the mouth of the President of the United States?

Candy Crowley’s Debate Lies and Biased Manipulations  

Debate moderator Candy Crowley interrupted Romney when he accused President Obama of not acknowledging that the Benghazi attacks were acts of terror the day after the Benghazi attacks.  She was wrong, admitted she was wrong after the debate, and it turns out that she had been in perfect command of these facts almost 3 weeks ago, but conveniently forgot the facts when jumping to silence Romney during the debate.  She saved Obama with a false fact-check:

While moderating Tuesday’s debate, Crowley forgot the timeline and facts she commanded two weeks earlier, and she inexplicably took President Obama’s side when Obama and Romney were arguing about whether Obama referred to the Libya attacks as acts of terror on the day after. – Breitbart.com 

There has even been a sugggestion that Candy Crowley may have acted in collusion with Obama in this interchange;  the probability that Candy Crowley would have the text of the President’s Rose Garden speech handy and opened to the correct line on such short notice has been questioned.

Candy Crowley also interrupted Romney 28 times during the debate, contrasted with interrupting Obama 9 times, chose 2/3 of the questions to be favorable to Obama, and let Obama have the last word 8 out of 11 times.  She also allowed, for the third debate in a row, the Obama/Biden ticket more debate time than the Romney/Ticket received.
Not too surprising for a biased reporter who had just called Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan the “death wish ticket.”

Summarizing the Debates:

Policy

On Policy, Obama-Biden propose to continue the bulk of their present spending.  The taxation of the “rich” which they propose will generate inadequate revenue to staunch the fiscal bleed, and will risk a second, larger recession.

Romney-Ryan propose the repeal of ObamaCare and tax cuts to spur the growth of business; when business grows, government tax income grows without increasing taxation.

History has shown repeatedly that reduction of tax rates generates more prosperity, so that a larger chunk of the tax burden is taken on by rich people when you lower rich people’s taxes, because their businesses start to flourish.  They not only transact more business, and give the government more taxes, but they also create more jobs.  This phenomenon was observed three times in the 20th century, in the 1920’s, and under Presidents JFK in the 1960’s and Reagan in the 1980’s;  more tax revenue went back to the federal government each time the taxes were lowered.

The explanation for this seemingly contradictory phenomenon is that rich people reinvest more in their businesses, expand, generate more jobs, keep their businesses in the US, and thus generate a more thriving, larger economy when you lower taxes on the rich.  Taking a smaller percentage from a larger number of rich guys give you more money in the end.

This is why nations do not overtax the rich.  Overtax the rich, and they either go away or they close their companies and the nation loses jobs.

Here’s a listing of nations, and how much they tax their wealthiest 10% (for us, that would be those households earning above $80,000 per year): from No Country Leans on Upper-Income Households as Much as the U.S., 2011

 

Who Taxes the Rich the Most? Share of Taxes Paid by the Richest 10%
Switzerland 21%
Sweden 27%
France 28%
Japan 29%
Germany 31%
Canada 36%
Australia 37%
United Kingdom 39%
Italy 42%
United States 45%

Apparently, United States top earners already pay a larger share of taxes than any other industrialized nation. America’s top 10% earners pay 45% of the nation’s tax bill.  President Obama apparently wants to hike up the amount that our top earners will pay to something on the order of 66%.

Any logical person must either challenge President Obama’s grasp of fundamental economics and arithmetic, or must challenge his dedication to his sworn duty to protect this nation as President of the United States.  This has been suggested by some; 2016: The Movie points out the compatibility of President Obama’s actions during the past four years with an anti-colonialist philosophy that seeks to level the global playing field and to take away America’s economic advantage.  But either way, one cannot rationally, based on economy, vote for Obama on Novemer 6th.

So take your pick: would you prefer that your job depends on “rich” people like  small businesses or doctors hiring you and paying a competitive rate for your work, or would you rather have the government take the “rich” people’s money, squander much of it on creating 1%er jobs for previous campaign donors, and dole the rest out to you through meager welfare checks, which expire and no longer regard you as unemployed after 26 weeks, as Obama is doing now?

Reliance on our rich people for jobs = democracy.

Reliance on the government for jobs = communism.

Reliability and Trust

Neither Obama, nor Biden have given America any reason to believe anything they promise.  Few of their 2008 campaign promises have been fulfilled, and their debates are laced with lies and fallacious attacks on Romney/Ryan, rather than a focus on a serious plan for repairing the economy.

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Sorry fellas, the Taxing the Rich slogan won’t work.  We just disproved it with arithmetic, and Obama has disproved it in practice during the last four years.   The Taxing the Rich slogan will only get you votes from those who don’t know their arithmetic, and who are bitter, envious, and who want to bite the hand that feeds them.

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Results Not Too Surprising

In the light of all that has been discussed, it is not surprising that as the debates progress, Romney is beginning to beat Obama in the polls.

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And speaking of polls, and speaking as a person who has hung up the telephone on at least 40 pollsters during the last few months, and who as a conservative, in  Clint Eastwood’s words, “plays it closer to the vest,” and as someone who has previously blogged about the disparity between poll results and election results, particularly in the Walker Recall Re-Election, I would not be surprised if President Obama is ousted by a landslide less than 3 weeks from now, by a much larger margin than any poll ever shows.  Conservatives often refrain from participating in polls.

How sadly right Clint Eastwood was about the empty chair!
“When someone does not do their job, we have to let them go.”

Addendum:

Confirming my suspicions, later today, two pieces of news came out:

Bottom Line: It’s Not Fixed

President Clinton, during a campaign event in Ohio today,  acknowledged that the economy is not fixed:

Governor Romney’s argument is “We’re not fixed, so fire him, and put me in.”  It is true, we’re not fixed.  When President Obama looked into the eyes of that man, who said, in the debate, “I had so much hope four years ago, and I don’t now,” I though he was going to cry.  Because he knows that it’s not fixed. – Bill Clinton

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The Economy: It’s Not Fixed

Let’s fix it: