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It is all about short term gains. "Next quarter, our payroll will be lower." This problem has been brewing since the 80s, when people found out that gutting companies and looting their pension funds was wildly profitable, and that nobody would put you in jail if you did it. In fact, they run you for president.

Oh, I dunno. Maybe by watching something like this?

http://noticias.univision.com/destino-2012/

Or reading one of these?

http://www.eldiariony.com/
http://www.mittromney.com/es
http://www.barackobama.com/es/

There's an entire media industry serving tens of millions of people which you seem to be ignorant of, you racist twit.

http://www.barackobama.com/
http://www.mittromney.com/

There, now you can have both sets of propaganda, and be almost exactly as well informed as you were before you read any of it.

http://www.mittromney.com/
Lots of information there on Romney's policies and ideas.
Why not simply inform yourself, rather than repeat these tiresome and slanted charges planted in your mind by partisan news sources?

Because if his website is anything like the public appearances of Romney himself, it changes content based on the state your IP address maps to.

http://www.mittromney.com/

Lots of information there on Romney's policies and ideas.

Why not simply inform yourself, rather than repeat these tiresome and slanted charges planted in your mind by partisan news sources?

Your logic is flawed because you don't take into account the fact that Romney has changed his opinions on things quite substantially in a rather short period of time. Having a website that tells us his current views really doesn't help in terms of knowing what will happen over the next 4-8 years.

http://www.mittromney.com/

Lots of information there on Romney's policies and ideas.

Why not simply inform yourself, rather than repeat these tiresome and slanted charges planted in your mind by partisan news sources?

It's amazing how few people have actually addressed your question.

You're right to point out that many high-income (and thanks for not conflating "high-income" with "wealthy") taxpayers earn most of their income from capital gains (and interest and dividends). But Romney's plan does not propose eliminating capital gains tax for high-income individuals -- that's only for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 (citation here). It does keep in place the lower capital gains tax rates that were part of the 2001-2003 Bush tax cuts -- the rationale being that lower rates on money earned from investment *should* lead to more investment and growth in the overall economy.

Broadening the base means things like capping or eliminating the number of deductions that people can claim on their tax returns. High-income people would pay taxes on a greater portion of their overall income. Romney has refused to commit to a specific proposal on this part, so we're left to speculate. Harvey Rosen has an interesting analysis of how it *could* be mathematically possible to "broaden the base" enough to offset the lower rates -- even with very little additional growth generated via the lower rates. In a nutshell:

• 1. Tax employer-provided health insurance as income -- could result in a lot of new tax revenue.
• 2. Tax "inside buildup" -- a type of tax-sheltered life-insurance income.
• 3. Keep the home mortgage deduction only for lower/middle-income earners. People in the top tax bracket might not get any of the usual deductions for medical expenses, charitable donations, or state and local taxes paid.

You can argue that a Romney administration would never go that far in eliminating deductions and loopholes, but that's different from "mathematically impossible". The Rosen paper puts all of this in a chart so you can compare the effects of different assumptions.

There's a pretty comprehensive round-up of people making the case that Romney plan could work here. (Yes, it's from a libertarian perspective. No, I'm not an economist or a libertarian myself.)

I'll assume you're not just a Republican posing as an independent to post propaganda, even though you really seem like one, what with your pitch-perfect recitation of the talking points.

Romney has stated that he plans to slash income taxes by 20% and eliminate the estate tax -- a huge giveaway to the old rich that will cost $4.8T over ten years. He insists he'll pay for it all by closing loopholes, but that's mathematically impossible. Either he's going to raise taxes on the middle class, or run up the deficit, or he's just flat out lying.

Romney has stated that he plans to peg military spending to 4%, which is more than even the military is asking for. That will cost us an additional $2.1T over ten years. Against, no indication of how we're going to pay for it.

That's close to seven trillion dollars that Romney wants to spend, all to benefit the rich and powerful. Meanwhile, Obama is trying to cut military spending and bring taxes back closer to Clinton-era levels.

Sources:
http://www.mittromney.com/issues/national-defense
"Obama has already cut the projected defense budget by $487 billion. What is more, he proposed and signed into law a budget process that will result in an additional $492 billion of defense cuts over the next ten years. ... Mitt Romney will begin by reversing Obama-era defense cuts and return to the budget baseline established by Secretary Robert Gates in 2010, with the goal of setting core defense spending ... at a floor of 4 percent of GDP." -- Emphasis theirs.

http://www.mittromney.com/issues/tax
" Make permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates
        Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains
        Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
        Eliminate the Death Tax
        Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)"

I'll assume you're not just a Republican posing as an independent to post propaganda, even though you really seem like one, what with your pitch-perfect recitation of the talking points.

Romney has stated that he plans to slash income taxes by 20% and eliminate the estate tax -- a huge giveaway to the old rich that will cost $4.8T over ten years. He insists he'll pay for it all by closing loopholes, but that's mathematically impossible. Either he's going to raise taxes on the middle class, or run up the deficit, or he's just flat out lying.

Romney has stated that he plans to peg military spending to 4%, which is more than even the military is asking for. That will cost us an additional $2.1T over ten years. Against, no indication of how we're going to pay for it.

That's close to seven trillion dollars that Romney wants to spend, all to benefit the rich and powerful. Meanwhile, Obama is trying to cut military spending and bring taxes back closer to Clinton-era levels.

Sources:
http://www.mittromney.com/issues/national-defense
"Obama has already cut the projected defense budget by $487 billion. What is more, he proposed and signed into law a budget process that will result in an additional $492 billion of defense cuts over the next ten years. ... Mitt Romney will begin by reversing Obama-era defense cuts and return to the budget baseline established by Secretary Robert Gates in 2010, with the goal of setting core defense spending ... at a floor of 4 percent of GDP." -- Emphasis theirs.

http://www.mittromney.com/issues/tax
" Make permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates
        Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains
        Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
        Eliminate the Death Tax
        Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)"

there's an argument for nipping the problem in the bud before the mistake happens. an unstable idiot with a gun is a problem. no matter how faulty the gun or how many cops are standing around him

There is an argument, but the argument needs to be tempered with "how many lives is this going to cost us nipping it in the bud?" Because you *know* that an actual invasion over the DMZ or by sea means that everything stationed by NK behind the DMZ gets launched.

Diplomacy has worked over the past decades, because it has prevented war that would have levelled Seoul, because we know that they know that crossing the DMZ means cruise missile strikes on all thier SAM bases and then tons of bombs from BUFs. As crazy as you think the North Koreans are, there is a method to their madness.

And MAD still exists. Except that it's not mutual, it's simply assured destruction by us of anyone who uses a nuke against us, even if all they have is one.

just that you are wrong that this kind of thing just goes away on its own

No. It doesn't go away on its own. That's what diplomacy is for. If you resort to invasion it means that you have failed.

Your mistake is that you think diplomacy is "doing nothing." It's not.

What frightens me is the assholes from PNAC and FPI who are advising Romney are pushing for an interventionist "strike first, ask questions later" military policy. An Imperial America, if you will. It's not like these guys are hiding it.

Read from their own mouths:

http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/about/ - the current Neocon philosophy on foreign policy and the military.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm - The predecessor for the above.

http://www.mittromney.com/collection/foreign-policy - Mitt Romney's official stance on the "American Century" (he did not pick this title by accident).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-taps-foreign-policy-national-security-advisers/2011/10/06/gIQAnDHzPL_story.html - the article describing who is on Mitt's staff.

http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/about/staff - Listing of staff at FPI.

Please notice the similarity of individuals at both think-tanks and who is staffing Mitt's foreign policy jobs, and the similarities in philosophy all of the above is.

Taken as a totality, it is frightening, because it basically guarantees that we will be at least in a shooting war with Iran if Romney gets elected. They will *insist* he does so.

--
BMO

Romney has a clearly laid out plan for what he wants to do. You may not like the plan, but he has one.

No he fucking hasn't. He's said, "Obama sucks" and "I'm going to repeal the ACA". That's it. He has NOT put forth any kind of plan whatsoever.

You do some searching before you make such obviously clueless statements: The Romney/Ryan plan.

Meanwhile Obama and Democrats in general have failed to produce a budget for THREE FUCKING YEARS. How can you vote for that kind of nonsense?

The Republicans in Congress are just as guilty.

Are you really so uninformed as to not know that 0bama had a majority in the House for his first two years? If so, you shouldn't be posting on this topic.

At this point we just need someone that will pick a direction and go there. Right now it seems far more likely Romney will do so than Obama, especially based on past history. Romney inherited a badly run Olympics and made it work; Obama inherited a bad economy and made it worse.

False, and false. You cannot say Romney has any kind of direction, especially given the proven inconsistencies between him now and him even a few years ago.

I believe Romney will stick with his stated path, as there will be a lot of upside to doing so, and no downside.

On the other hand, if you want to discuss a politician that's failed to come through on his campaign promises, there's always 0bama. Just another of the many reasons he'll be out of a job come November.

And just about all leading economists agree that the economy is far better than when Obama inherited it.

Quit with the uncited lies. It's getting annoying.

LOL! This has been the weakest recovery from a recession since the Great Depression, and you're touting 0bama's approach? What he's proven beyond a reasonable doubt is that his ideas are bankrupt, figuratively and literally.

America needs better, and R&R will provide that come Election Day. I hope you can cope. ;-)

Take all you want!

Apparently pretty well.

Still doesn't make sense. Being able to send data like that would require that the web site accept GET requests but 99% of the time sites only use the POST method.

Hillary's photo gallery requires Flash, so I didn't view it

Obama's site requires Flash. In fact parts of the site require the latest version of Flash.

Giuliani's site uses Flash for most of the photos

McCain makes extensive use of Flash right on his home page. Also, his page on Government Spending, Lower Taxes and Economic Prosperity has an out of place </b> tag which confuses Konqueror (version 3.3.2) and causes everything after Ending Pork Barrel Spending to appear bold.

Romney's site is the only one that appears to be designed to take advantage of Flash and provide an alterative to those who don't use it.

Edwards site has an annoying Flash-based advertisement before you can view the home page. I missed it originally because I don't use Flash. He has a variety of audio formats on the site. For some reason he only offers one format at a time. One topic is in WMA while another is in MP3.

Thanks to Netcraft; now we can pick our candidates more easily.
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Windows Server 2003

John Edwards: http://johnedwards.com/ Linux

Barak Obama http://www.barackobama.com/ Linux

Republicans
Rudy Giuliani: http://www.joinrudy2008.com/ Microsoft-IIS/6.0 John McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/ Windows Server 2003 Mitt Romney: http://www.mittromney.com/ Linux

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 20 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!

http://johnedwards.com/ - Result: Failed validation / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because on line 341, 358, 371, 384-385, 396, 398, 408, 410 it contained one or more bytes that I cannot interpret as utf-8

http://www.barackobama.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 66 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!

http://www.joinrudy2008.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 8 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional!

http://www.johnmccain.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 95 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional!

http://www.mittromney.com/ - Result: Failed validation, 22 errors / Failed Automated Verification for Section 508
This page is not Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict!

If these candidates used their web skills on Federal Websites, they could be exposing themselves to prosecution under the Disabilities Act.
http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/guide/1194.22.h tm