Sunday, October 7, 2012

Mitt's bad math?


In 2012, I believe Obama deserves to lose. Everything I detested about Bush, Obama has expanded—the debt, entitlement state, “national security” state, and an even more powerful executive branch. Despite Obama having an edge in the polls, his actual job performance approval is not high. Many, and perhaps a majority, of Americans would like to reject him.
They are just not so sure Mitt Romney deserves to win.
Something Romney promised with his winning personality Wednesday night—deficit reduction—is also something hard numbers indicate he cannot deliver. If Obama said anything true it was this: “When you add up all the loopholes and deductions that upper income individuals are currently taking advantage of, you don’t come close to paying for $5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in additional military spending.”
He added: “It’s math, arithmetic.”
But Romney’s platform proves my point. If our annual deficit is between $1-1.5 trillion, and neither candidate is really serious about cutting entitlement costs which are far, far greater—how can anyone even pretend they’ll reduce the deficit while increasing spending by $2 trillion on our military?
If our soldiers are not paid enough, do not receive proper benefits, or do not have necessary weapons or essentials it is not because we don’t spend enough on the military. We currently spend more on our military than we ever have—and most of that money goes to fund a massive bureaucracy that has little to do with our actual defense.
Romney’s proposal to add $2 trillion in military spending makes it impossible to cut the deficit. Period. It’s math. It’s arithmetic. Barack Obama deserves to lose this election. But Mitt Romney does not deserve to win it.
The American Conservative

I've always held forth that not a dollar of defense spending should be cut before entitlements get drastically slashed......that doesn't get defense spending off the hook. One of the comments accompanying this article was a great reminder of someone who got it:
"During my 1980 campaign, I called federal waste and fraud a national scandal. We knew we could never rebuild America’s strength without first controlling the exploding cost of defense programs, and we’re doing it. When we took office in 1981, costs had been escalating at an annual rate of 14 percent. Then we began our reforms. And in the last two years, cost increases have fallen to less than 1 percent. We’ve made huge savings. Each F-18 fighter costs nearly $4 million less today than in 1981. One of our air-to-air missiles costs barely half as much.” - Ronald Reagan 

5 comments:

  1. First, the deficit can be massively reduced immediately by repealing Obamacare on day one. Second, it is not a choice anymore between two candidates it is a choice of decimation at the hands of marxist ideologue vs. free capitalism. Romney is a proven commodity in the business realm and there is no arguments there. He has created more jobs than Obama and his entire Administration. He is qualified. The area's of uncertainty is Romney's foreign policy chops. But again, building a stronger military will go a long way to keeping the current middle east agitators with something to think about other than a feckless Administration allow them to do as they please. This uncertainty of how far will a new Administration go to counter them is in itself a deterrent. Finally, any way you cut it about this being a choice between Obama and Romney is a no brainer as Obama will be emboldened to do as he pleases (lame duck) and prone to more damage that we will not be able to stop. Just ask the Russians, they want to give he more time because "he will be much more flexible in his second term" whisper.

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  2. I think you're absolutely correct, that this is not a contest of personalities, nor should it be. However, I would contend that the GOPs failings should be considered when assessing Romney, as he hasn't espoused a radical platform that gives me any confidance he will govern any better than his predecessors.

    I would also caution against what I consider a rhetorical redefinition of labels such as Marxist and free capitalism. Our sconomy during the past several decades, has been saddled with enough regulation and restriction to warrant not using the term free market with any true substance. The bailouts evern further removes our fiscal paradigm from the definition.

    Likewise, Obama hasn't governed anywhere near the ideology of Marxism. He's a crony captitalist, which by now is essentially an American tradition. I would by a narrow margin, probably rather see Romney at 1600 Penn than Obama, but business accumen does not arbitrarily qualify one to be the leader of a nation.

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  3. The Obama administration (cabinet) has a total of 8% business experience. I believe that Romney will have a much weightier percentage and that in of itself is good. Croney Capitalism has occurred under Obama to a greater exent but it is to buy their support of marxist redistributive change, as long as those companies get the favorable government nod. More and more people are demanding a change from all of that, which is how obama got elected in the first place. He ran on a "I'm an outsider, will change the way we have done government business in the past. He also promised no lobby crony crap but again, double down he did.

    Romney is much greater as a "get back to profitability" and wealth model vs. Obama totally destroying what we have known as a great nation of creating wealth for those who work for it. You have to admit, under former GOP guidance, regardless of their corruption and cronyism, regular American have had a greater net worth individually than anything Obama could have achieved with his "fundamentally Changin America" lies.

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  4. I think you're statement is generally fair across the board, though he hasn't governed economically much different than any other modern POTUS; as bank bailouts and farm subsidies can attest to....just to name a couple of examples. If Obama's role has been towards some form of Marxism, then the charge would have to be leveled against several of his predecessors as well.

    Regular Americans have enjoyed more prosperous times, to be sure....but Obama didn't come along and destroy the financial underpinnings of the nation......they have been rotting away for some time now. I do give Romney the probably edge when it comes to the economy....but he gets a fail at individual liberty and is on par with Obama on foreign policy.

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  5. BTW, I wouldn't rely on claims by Beck about Obama's cabinet experience in the private sector. That charge has been failing to live up under scrutiny....like many of his pronouncements.

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