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PoliGAF 2011: Of Weiners, Boehners, Santorum, and Teabags
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Clevinger said:
I doubt it. He just made 1.6 million dollars two days ago (even though his site was hammered by a "cyber attack")
Admiral Bone to Pick
Banned
Gaborn said:
Reading this article made me think: Isn't Ron Paul pretty old? He would be 77 years old by the 2012 election. Hypothetically, if he was elected president in 2012 and served two terms, he'd be 85 by the end of his presidency. Historically, the oldest person to ever take the office was Ronald Reagan at 69.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Rick Perry's camp says his book does not reflect his future policy beliefs.
Brian Beutler | August 22, 2011, 11:10AM
Texas Governor-turned-Presidential candidate Rick Perry is already walking away from his brand new controversial political manifesto Fed Up, and in particular its attack on Social Security as an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme.
His campaign spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that Fed Up "is a look back, not a path forward" written "as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto."
That's not exactly true. Perry spends most of the book criticizing New Deal, Great Society, and Obama administration policies, among others. But there are plenty of shoulds, coulds, and ought tos -- both explicit or implicit -- scattered throughout the book.
Here's one section on Social Security.
For too long, politicians afraid to face hard facts have been patching Social Security together with Band-Aids. They have been making fraudulent promises to the American people in order to perpetuate their own political careers, and now the chickens are coming home to roost, as the saying goes. An aging population with large numbers of retirees now want to cash in on those promises.
Ponzi schemes -- like the one that sent Bernard Madoff to prison -- are illegal in this country for a reason. They are fraudulent systems designed to take in a lot of money in a lot of money at the front and pay out none in the end. This unsustainable fiscal insanity is the true legacy of Social Security and the New Deal. Deceptive accounting has hoodwinked the American public into thinking that Social Security is a retirement system and financially sound, when clearly it is not.
If only the New Dealers had been kind enough to allow workers to make their own choice about whether to participate. As we know from experience, individuals would have done better on their own. Indeed many private pension plans return 8 percent per year, compared to Social Security's paltry 2 percent or less. Also, before the government padlocked the door in 1983, municipal governments were allowed to opt out of the system. Fittingly, three texas counties -- Galveston, Matagorda, and Brazoria -- did so. In 1981, Galveston county employees, for example, voted 78 percent to 22 percent to leave Social Security for a private option.
If you think Social Security is fraudulent, and unconstitutional, presumably you want to get rid of it or dramatically overhaul it. But those sorts of radical changes are extremely unpopular, and Perry would be better off politically having kept his powder dry on that score. The problem is he's outlined a vision of a different kind of retirement system based on private pension plans that he thinks would be preferable.
Separately, he argues that Social Security is unsustainable. Social Security will be solvent for about a quarter of a century, at which point, if nothing is done, benefits will drop by about 25 percent, to keep benefits in line with incoming revenues. Fairly modest changes to revenue and benefits could fix this long-term shortfall indefinitely. Eliminating the cap on the payroll tax cap would close the gap entirely.
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Does anybody still think Perry will win the nom now? To me he's becoming more and more of a joke. He seriously argued that private pensions should be the way to go over a small 2% rate of a return that SS has.
Yet does he not care that he's book came out after the Banking recession of 2008? Does he not remember that many people lost their money in their 401ks in 2008 and 2009?
Brian Beutler | August 22, 2011, 11:10AM
Texas Governor-turned-Presidential candidate Rick Perry is already walking away from his brand new controversial political manifesto Fed Up, and in particular its attack on Social Security as an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme.
His campaign spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that Fed Up "is a look back, not a path forward" written "as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto."
That's not exactly true. Perry spends most of the book criticizing New Deal, Great Society, and Obama administration policies, among others. But there are plenty of shoulds, coulds, and ought tos -- both explicit or implicit -- scattered throughout the book.
Here's one section on Social Security.
For too long, politicians afraid to face hard facts have been patching Social Security together with Band-Aids. They have been making fraudulent promises to the American people in order to perpetuate their own political careers, and now the chickens are coming home to roost, as the saying goes. An aging population with large numbers of retirees now want to cash in on those promises.
Ponzi schemes -- like the one that sent Bernard Madoff to prison -- are illegal in this country for a reason. They are fraudulent systems designed to take in a lot of money in a lot of money at the front and pay out none in the end. This unsustainable fiscal insanity is the true legacy of Social Security and the New Deal. Deceptive accounting has hoodwinked the American public into thinking that Social Security is a retirement system and financially sound, when clearly it is not.
If only the New Dealers had been kind enough to allow workers to make their own choice about whether to participate. As we know from experience, individuals would have done better on their own. Indeed many private pension plans return 8 percent per year, compared to Social Security's paltry 2 percent or less. Also, before the government padlocked the door in 1983, municipal governments were allowed to opt out of the system. Fittingly, three texas counties -- Galveston, Matagorda, and Brazoria -- did so. In 1981, Galveston county employees, for example, voted 78 percent to 22 percent to leave Social Security for a private option.
If you think Social Security is fraudulent, and unconstitutional, presumably you want to get rid of it or dramatically overhaul it. But those sorts of radical changes are extremely unpopular, and Perry would be better off politically having kept his powder dry on that score. The problem is he's outlined a vision of a different kind of retirement system based on private pension plans that he thinks would be preferable.
Separately, he argues that Social Security is unsustainable. Social Security will be solvent for about a quarter of a century, at which point, if nothing is done, benefits will drop by about 25 percent, to keep benefits in line with incoming revenues. Fairly modest changes to revenue and benefits could fix this long-term shortfall indefinitely. Eliminating the cap on the payroll tax cap would close the gap entirely.
###################
Does anybody still think Perry will win the nom now? To me he's becoming more and more of a joke. He seriously argued that private pensions should be the way to go over a small 2% rate of a return that SS has.
Yet does he not care that he's book came out after the Banking recession of 2008? Does he not remember that many people lost their money in their 401ks in 2008 and 2009?
Dude Abides
Banned
Do you maintain that a Romney presidency under dividied government would not differ from an Obama presidency under divided government?PhoenixDark said:
Precisely. I understand the jubilation regarding Qaddafi's deposition. But I will not allow recent events to cloud my judgement. We must escape the influence of recent events before we can accurately judge the wisdom of our intervention. The situation remains dangerous; myriad formidable problems remain. Still, I hope my skepticism proves unfounded.Invisible_Insane said:
PhoenixDark
Banned
ToxicAdam said:
She convinced me over the next two years that I was wrong!
Souldriver
Member
YesPhoenixDark said:
Mr. Serious Business said:
This. I understand Mittens being a threat, but batshit Bachmann being so competitive (and this isn't a Rasmussen poll either) is a terrifying thought.
Course, I'm sure that'll change dramatically once people start finding out more and more about her.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/somebodys-got-to-save-this-country-from-certain-do,21135/
...the horror....the horror...
...the horror....the horror...
Okay, I joke all the time about conservatives thinking that something like taxpayer funded wheelchairs would provide an incentive for people to willingly break their legs, but....
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201108220030
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http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201108220030
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Mortrialus
Banned
Oblivion said:
idontwanttoliveonthisplanet.jpg
TacticalFox88
Banned
Seriously. You can't make this shit up.Clevinger said:
Chichikov said:
Well it's never NOT going to be an issue at all when there is some contrast between candidates. Of course voters are going to be interested in what makes candidates different rather than the ways they share similar backgrounds. I just don't think it's an issue that would be raised by either campaign, in the same way that neither candidate's age was really raised by the candidates in 08.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Gaborn said:
Yeah but it was in the media and in many voters minds.
ViperVisor
Member
Homer: Hey, they have chairs with wheels and here I am using my legs like a sucker!
Homer: Hey, what's Lucky joined up to?
Woman: It's a machine that breaths for him.
Homer: And here I am using my own lungs like a sucker.
It is strange to listen to Simpsons commentaries and they can't laugh at jokes that were funny about Jimmy Carter being history's greatest monster or Clinton saying he was a pretty terrible president. In retrospect it is just sad how the meh times were actually the blurst of times.
Homer: Hey, what's Lucky joined up to?
Woman: It's a machine that breaths for him.
Homer: And here I am using my own lungs like a sucker.
It is strange to listen to Simpsons commentaries and they can't laugh at jokes that were funny about Jimmy Carter being history's greatest monster or Clinton saying he was a pretty terrible president. In retrospect it is just sad how the meh times were actually the blurst of times.
mckmas8808 said:
I'm not sure how big an issue it was in either. It might have been raised a bit, in a sense Hillary could have been raising Obama's youth a bit with her 2 am phone call ads (or whatever time the phone rang in the white house) but I don't recall it being a big issue in the media. Maybe I have selective memory, I certainly won't claim it was NEVER EVER raised, I believe some comedians made some jokes about the contrast, but I don't think it was a major factor.
The majority of people in an election aren't going to vote on a candidate's age unless major health problems develop. If Ron Paul were to have a massive heart attack and be wheel chair bound for example, or if Obama had a large tumor in his lungs. Either of these things are of course possible for anyone (as much as I hope neither would happen) I think it would come into play THEN in a health sense.
I want to be clear though, I'm not claiming age was never ever ever a factor in anyone's mind in 2008 or wouldn't be in the future, I'm just saying it's silly to suggest it would be a major focus of the campaign. Whatever attention people paid to it in '08 I sincerely doubt that's why they cast their ballots the way they did.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Oblivion said:
What the hell is wrong with Perry?
Admiral Bone to Pick
Banned
I think it would be fitting if someone spread the rumor that Perry had a secret black love child.
TacticalFox88
Banned
Holy freaking SHIT! If this is before even the real race begins, I weep for my sanity come next year.Oblivion said:
Normally I'd do some sort of "hyper right wing" bit here, but I just don't have it in me.Oblivion said:
I guess I could go on how hard it is for a corporation to get a seat at the lunch counter because people are all like "we don't like your kind in here, boy."
No, I'm not gonna do it. This is as stupid as when that one guy in the Ron Paul said "corporations love regulation" and "public schooling brainwashes children into not understanding liberty because they recieve federal funding."
Rick Perry is a bad human being.
Either Rick Perry's purported campaigning acumen doesn't translate well to the national stage, or he's got some strategy to consume the far right vote to secure the nomination and then plans to bank on the apathetic illl-informed electorate turning on Obama because of the economy regardless of who the opposition is...
Mortrialus
Banned
Mike M said:
That is probably what is going on and it will probably work.
Byakuya769
Member
Oblivion said:
Yea, saw this a couple of weeks ago on facebook and just left it alone. The sheer idiocy of thinking that there's 256 million americans that agree with that is hilarious. Somewhat frightening is throwing Michelle in that sort of talk though. Did people joke about Laura Bush dying being a good thing?
TacticalFox88
Banned
Pretty much the latter. The ill-informed will be the DEATH of this country, along with the greed of the top 1 percent.Mike M said:
Admiral Bone to Pick
Banned
Oblivion said:
How did you get that from Gaborn's post?
TacticalFox88
Banned
Wat? How in the hell did you come to that conclusion?Oblivion said:
Oblivion said:
Obviously, I mean, who wouldn't!
Seriously, I never got that attitude. I have strong political views, sure, but it's not personal. I actually think Obama comes off as very likable, very well meaning. He's a bit awkward and can sound like a bit of an academician at times but that's because of his background. For ANYONE to call for ANYTHING like what that woman called for is just craziness. I will argue against Obama's policies whenever I disagree with them but he's still my President even though I never voted for him and doubt very seriously I will in 2012.
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