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If you're voting for economic reasons, then why?

Shutter_Label said:
Why would you vote for Romney, a man, who's state was #1 in debt?

Why would you vote for him? If you are voting solely on economic reasons? Just curious as to why?
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First, trying to win people over on a debate site full of actual politically minded individuals by showing a campaign ad that is essentially nothing but political propoganda isn't going to win you any support. People here are generally plugged in, understand that political ad's are often filled with spin and dishonesty, and most damning of all....can use this thing called "Google"

Factcheck.org said:
First, we should note that this is not the same kind of debt we hear about with the federal government. The Massachusetts debt referred to in the ad is long-term debt for capital improvements, bonds to pay for such things as road or bridge repair, to erect new buildings at the University of Massachusetts or to expand courthouses. That’s not the same as piling up yearly deficits to support operating expenses the way the federal government is. In fact, like most states, Massachusetts requires balanced budgets.
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FactCheck.org said:
But Massachusetts didn’t have far to go to reach the No. 1 spot. Massachusetts ranked second in 2003, the year Romney took office, according to Moody’s. And it was first in 2002.

“Massachusetts has always been a very high-debt state,” Michael Widmer, president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, told us. “That was the case before Romney was governor and it’s been the case since.” (Indeed, Massachusetts ranked second behind Connecticut in 2010, 2011 and 2012.)

In fact, the pace of the state’s rising long-term debt load actually slowed during Romney’s time as governor.

In a comparable length of time before Romney took office — from June 30, 1999, to Jan. 1, 2003 — the long-term debt in Massachusetts went from nearly $12 billion to $16 billion (see A-23), a $4 billion increase. That’s a 34 percent increase, compared with the 16.4 percent increase during Romney’s years.

Widmer put it this way: “He didn’t put his foot on the accelerator any more, or really take it off.”
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LINK

Now, for a Conservative and in the climate we're at now on the Federal level...I personally don't want to simply keep my things coasting, but it's still not an surprising that a propoganda campaign ad by one party rather distorts the legitimate record of the other.

Similarly, in regards to the jobs claim

FactCheck.org said:
The ad also rehashes the claim that under Romney, “Massachusetts fell to 47th in job creation, one of the worst economic records in the country.”

But as we wrote when the same claim was made in an earlier Obama campaign ad, it’s a bit misleading to say Massachusetts “fell” to 47th. The state ranking for job growth went from 50th the year before Romney took office, to 28th in his final year. It was 47th for the whole of his four-year tenure, but the ranking was improving, not declining, when he left.
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Second, Romney's record isn't the only thing important on the choice here. If I'm being completely honest, I have a hard time TRULY believing that either side is willing to take the necessary steps that I believe are needed to get us financially and economically in good stnading again. However...I believe that the Republicans at least have a SLIGHTLY better chance at doing it then Democrats. As such, I support their bids in the congress and the President. And that's why Romney is important. If the bids for the congress fail, it's important to have a President in there that can act as a buffer to a Democratic or Split congress. If the bid for congress succeeds, then I actually think Romney's moderate ameoba like nature is a benefit as it will hopefully result in slightly better results of a 100% controlled government than it did under two more ideologoical individuals in Bush and Obama.

The President is one part of a much larger puzzle when it comes to the government and it's ability to impact the economy and its own fiscal house...while Romney is by far not the best choice to fill the spot, he is better than the alternative and is important in the greater scheme of government.
 
Matt Foley said:
I'd imagine it's interest and then more interest.
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That goes with not being able to afford it. Let me post the graph again.


DFII5_Max_630_378.png
 
Romney's economic plans seems to be the same ole crap Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2 promised... basically more trickle down economics that leads to higher deficits and over increasing the countries debt. If you're going to increase the debt, at least do something worthwhile with the money (infrastructure please!), not just pad the wallets of the top 1%. The entire 100% benefit from infrastructure improvements.

Until Republicans have a better plan other than reducing taxes, running up the debt and increasing an already overbloated military, I'll never consider voting Republican. Romney will be another Bush if we elect him to do the same crap Bush did.
 
Born Free said:
16 trillion in debt and growing and that is a good thing, I would hate to ask when it would be a bad thing.
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Because debt financing during slow growth and especially during delveraging prevents a recession/depression.

You do realize that the US is offering negative yields and people are buying? Even if we didn't even need more debt, we should be issuing purely to refinance.
 
There's essentially one reason why I won't vote for Romney outside of the fact he has no moral character:

The GOP is pushing the worst form of austerity. Massive cuts and massive tax cuts. What we'll get in recession at the same time as booming deficits and debts. What's the damn point in spending cuts if you can't even reduce the debt?

Honestly the more proposals I hear from Republicans, the more I consider them economically illiterate.
 
obvious Child said:
There's essentially one reason why I won't vote for Romney outside of the fact he has no moral character:

The GOP is pushing the worst form of austerity. Massive cuts and massive tax cuts. What we'll get in recession at the same time as booming deficits and debts. What's the damn point in spending cuts if you can't even reduce the debt?

Honestly the more proposals I hear from Republicans, the more I consider them economically illiterate.
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Massive spending and tax cuts? Your use of the word massive is a bit much. Massive would better describe our deficit spending over the last 3.5 years.

So we just hold course with massive deficit spending and no spending cuts until...? I keep hearing that we need to spend until the economy turns around. As if for some magical reason business will start hiring and consumers will start spending and every thing will be all better. The economy has tremendous problems none of which has even begun to be addressed. The idea that if we just keep up deficit spending things will just turn around is childish. All we are presently doing is destroying our grandchildren. Again, the only country in Europe that is on the right track is Germany which passed welfare reform and austerity measures in the early 2000s.

We keep kicking the can down the road and the can keeps getting bigger.
 
gingern44 said:
Massive spending and tax cuts? Your use of the word massive is a bit much. Massive would better describe our deficit spending over the last 3.5 years.

So we just hold course with massive deficit spending and no spending cuts until...? I keep hearing that we need to spend until the economy turns around. As if for some magical reason business will start hiring and consumers will start spending and every thing will be all better. The economy has tremendous problems none of which has even begun to be addressed. The idea that if we just keep up deficit spending things will just turn around is childish. All we are presently doing is destroying our grandchildren. Again, the only country in Europe that is on the right track is Germany which passed welfare reform and austerity measures in the early 2000s.

We keep kicking the can down the road and the can keeps getting bigger.
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The way to make debt bigger is to put us back into recession. Your shining example, Germany has now forecast 0% growth this year if they are lucky and they are the best economy in Europe which is basically back in a recession. The U.S GDP is still growing at nearly 2% and things are turning around.
Even you can understand that if less people are employed revenues will decline and the debt will be worse. So yes, we need to wait until things turn around before slashing public sector jobs even more. We need the housing market to stabilize so construction workers can get back to work, we need the world economy to improve too.
Meanwhile interest rates are so low that borrowing is less painful now too. In time, growth will get us out from under this debt just like we grew are way out of the debt from WWII. But pain and suffering will not help our debt one bit, and neither will further tax cuts for the wealthy. So how could anybody be in favor of either?
 
No government policy can please everyone. So many keep whining and show their discontent at the ballot box. After elections it starts again for the next four years. It's a vicious circle.
 
gingern44 said:
Massive spending and tax cuts? Your use of the word massive is a bit much. Massive would better describe our deficit spending over the last 3.5 years.
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[

Wrong!

PolitiFact | Lots of heat (and some light) on Obama's spending

And you see the Ryan budget? That's significant spending cuts with significant tax cuts.

So we just hold course with massive deficit spending and no spending cuts until...?
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We need to engage moderate cuts with light tax increases at the same time as helping out the housing market. Until we get to a decent level of housing deleveraging, we're going to have slow growth period. The idea is to reduce the deficit by hurting everyone enough that it actually causes a positive balance but without changing their spending/savings behaviors dramatically.

I keep hearing that we need to spend until the economy turns around. As if for some magical reason business will start hiring and consumers will start spending and every thing will be all better. The economy has tremendous problems none of which has even begun to be addressed. The idea that if we just keep up deficit spending things will just turn around is childish. All we are presently doing is destroying our grandchildren. Again, the only country in Europe that is on the right track is Germany which passed welfare reform and austerity measures in the early 2000s.
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Not quite. Spending won't fix the housing market. Which is the real problem. But dramatic cuts in the form that Ryan wants will result in a recession absolutely no question. And Germany's welfare reform has nothing to do with its economic growth. Not to mention that German yields just went up suggesting that Germany isn't as safe as you think it is. If you look at Spain and Ireland, they went into the Crisis with solid financials. The government wasn't the problem there at all in terms of deficits and debts. It was the private sector that tanked their economies. Greece is a basketcase of high spending, massive tax evasion and low exports. Furthermore Germany was able to put the pain on other countries for its banks bad behavior. If German banks have been forced to take their losses early on rather than wide them down, Germany would be in a recession right now. Effectively Germany put the pain of its bad bank decisions on other countries.
 
obvious Child said:
[

Wrong!

PolitiFact | Lots of heat (and some light) on Obama's spending

And you see the Ryan budget? That's significant spending cuts with significant tax cuts.



We need to engage moderate cuts with light tax increases at the same time as helping out the housing market. Until we get to a decent level of housing deleveraging, we're going to have slow growth period. The idea is to reduce the deficit by hurting everyone enough that it actually causes a positive balance but without changing their spending/savings behaviors dramatically.



Not quite. Spending won't fix the housing market. Which is the real problem. But dramatic cuts in the form that Ryan wants will result in a recession absolutely no question. And Germany's welfare reform has nothing to do with its economic growth. Not to mention that German yields just went up suggesting that Germany isn't as safe as you think it is. If you look at Spain and Ireland, they went into the Crisis with solid financials. The government wasn't the problem there at all in terms of deficits and debts. It was the private sector that tanked their economies. Greece is a basketcase of high spending, massive tax evasion and low exports. Furthermore Germany was able to put the pain on other countries for its banks bad behavior. If German banks have been forced to take their losses early on rather than wide them down, Germany would be in a recession right now. Effectively Germany put the pain of its bad bank decisions on other countries.
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I think you have hit on something that is talked about to little. If we are to fix the economy and jobs, we need to fix the housing market. Neither political party has shown any inclination to fix the large overhang of houses and the millions of people who are living in homes they can't afford. There are a number of potential solutions, there will be pain no matter which solution is picked, thus we need some real political leadership to fix this problem.
 
washunut said:
I think you have hit on something that is talked about to little. If we are to fix the economy and jobs, we need to fix the housing market. Neither political party has shown any inclination to fix the large overhang of houses and the millions of people who are living in homes they can't afford. There are a number of potential solutions, there will be pain no matter which solution is picked, thus we need some real political leadership to fix this problem.
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Too little? How about not at all? :) Consumer spending is being held down by mortgage debt. Until we get that going it's going to be a slow road. The problem is that many people simply have short memories. The pre-bust boom was built on debt financed consumption, therefore any growth in the period after the bust will be much lower. The sad thing is partisans will use this to score political points and the idiot voters will buy it. Consumer spending will be lower than before simply because we have less debt to finance our consumption on an individual level.

We need to fix housing more than anything else. Or find a new massive industry that can generate growth to compensate for slower consumer spending. What saved us in the Dot Com was housing boom. What saved Clinton was the Dot Com. I don't know what will save us now. If there is anything.
 
obvious Child said:
Too little? How about not at all? :) Consumer spending is being held down by mortgage debt. Until we get that going it's going to be a slow road. The problem is that many people simply have short memories. The pre-bust boom was built on debt financed consumption, therefore any growth in the period after the bust will be much lower. The sad thing is partisans will use this to score political points and the idiot voters will buy it. Consumer spending will be lower than before simply because we have less debt to finance our consumption on an individual level.

We need to fix housing more than anything else. Or find a new massive industry that can generate growth to compensate for slower consumer spending. What saved us in the Dot Com was housing boom. What saved Clinton was the Dot Com. I don't know what will save us now. If there is anything.
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Well you have now hit on our second problem. The Fed through various methods, was able to facilitate the housing bubble to get us out of the funk created by the tech bubble. You are correct that people had been taking about $500 billion annually through home loans to goose the economy. Now not only do we not get the extra dollars, lending is constrained in that only viable lenders can actually get a mortgage, imagine that. So we do not have the excess dollars flowing from people who used their houses as a piggy bank and we have lost many jobs in the housing industry.

I will put on a helmet and throw out a potential solution to unfreeze the housing market. Allow loans held by Fannie and Freddie to be written down. This would entail giving people a break on their mortgage, with the proviso that when they sell, any proceeds first go to Fannie or Freddie up to the amount of forgiveness. I understand about the moral risk but we have to get this market moving. Once we do this, if people still can't pay their mortgages we have to be able to move the foreclosure process quicker, no longer be a squatter nation.

No candidate could suggest such a thing. Both sides would take their political shots as their are problems with this or any other solution.
 
washunut said:
I will put on a helmet and throw out a potential solution to unfreeze the housing market. Allow loans held by Fannie and Freddie to be written down. This would entail giving people a break on their mortgage, with the proviso that when they sell, any proceeds first go to Fannie or Freddie up to the amount of forgiveness. I understand about the moral risk but we have to get this market moving. Once we do this, if people still can't pay their mortgages we have to be able to move the foreclosure process quicker, no longer be a squatter nation.
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As I understand it, to actually make a difference the write down is going to have to be LARGE. Potentially making both insolvent immediately which would then require a recapitalization from tax dollars. I see where you're going but the costs to actually do it would be immense. I'm not saying this is bad, merely pointing out a problem.

No candidate could suggest such a thing.
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No candidate is going to be honest until after the election.
 
A lot has been tried to alleviate the real estate problem, but to no avail. It's just going to have to work itself out over time. I believe we're close to the bottom nationally and in some of the worst-hit cities the market is starting to rebound.
 
obvious Child said:
As I understand it, to actually make a difference the write down is going to have to be LARGE. Potentially making both insolvent immediately which would then require a recapitalization from tax dollars. I see where you're going but the costs to actually do it would be immense. I'm not saying this is bad, merely pointing out a problem.



No candidate is going to be honest until after the election.
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The cost will be large I agree. Probably hundreds of billions of dollars. But Fannie and Freddie are already wards of the state. They will be stuck with the losses when the houses are finally foreclosed on anyway. Why not stop the bleeding and get this over with.

You may remember we took a huge hit to clean up the S&L mess in the 80s. But becuase we did this we came out of that mess pretty quickly.
 
You want to help the housing market? Spend money and run inflation at a slightly higher rate. Increased income and the natural erosion of real debt caused by higher inflation solves the problem. Instead, we have people advocating for contractionary and deflationary policies like massive spending cuts.
 
washunut said:
I think you have hit on something that is talked about to little. If we are to fix the economy and jobs, we need to fix the housing market. Neither political party has shown any inclination to fix the large overhang of houses and the millions of people who are living in homes they can't afford. There are a number of potential solutions, there will be pain no matter which solution is picked, thus we need some real political leadership to fix this problem.
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There are several problems with the housing market as I see it. In too many areas, the price is still beyond what people can afford (without the lending gimmicks which was a vital part in the housing industry meltdown). The other reason why the housing market is unable to rebound is that even in areas which are or would be a buyers market, say Florida for example, Many people are under water from the washout, and the still weak economy without the job security (or jobs for that matter) make the purchase of a home not a good investment at this time.

Add to this, still high fuel prices and food prices without substantial increases in net income and also large increases in Health care. So, even for homes that were affordable with the money that people are making, people are spooked at the possibility of losing their jobs, or that too much money is now being spent on food and fuel.

Regardless, attempting to hold home prices artificially high will never get the housing industry back on its feet. We still see way too much of this. Sadly too I believe is because drastically lowered home values also lower the land taxes that are paid. Local governments don't want half in taxes of what they were getting. Sometimes, and I have seen this in my local area, some towns are simply raising the value artificially anyway just to get the taxes. That also hurts people because now they have to pay higher taxes which would have otherwise allowed them greater purchasing power, or home building.

So yes, you are correct in that government has not stepped up to fix the problem. Government is the problem and they are not going to be making any changes so we are left muddling around in a continued depressed housing market.
 
NAKED N00B said:
Debt right now is a good thing.
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The national debt never seemed to be a problem w/Republicans until Obama got into the White House. Now, suddenly it's a problem? Mind you, most of the debt was generated under TWO Republican presidents in modern history - Reagan and GW Bush.

Granted, I understand that under Pres. Obama, his Administration has spent trillions in a short time, but considering how deep our nation's economic problems were I understand the rational for the spending and don't see the addition to our national debt being a problem as long as Congress stops playing games and start doing what's necessary to spur job growth. Remember: It's Republicans who keep saying JOBS are the way to generate tax revenue and pay down the debt. So, if they're truly serious about doing what's right for the country and start payting down the debt they'd start compromising more and doing what's necessary to move this country forward instead of concentrating on regaining power throughout all levels of government - Executive, House, Senate, governorships, Federal Reserve - as well as in investment banking/business.
 
gingern44 said:
Trying to put all of Mass problems on Romney is a bit disingenuous. You would think pointing to the problems of a liberal bastion of a state like Mass or Cal would be taboo on the left.
I'm no fan of Romney but he to looks like the lesser of 2 evils.
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This same argument could go to defend Pres. Obama. I mean, our $16T national debt didn't magically appear during his administration, but folks keep acting as if it did. That, ladies and gentlement, is being very disingenuous.
 
Arbo said:
I didn't watch the video, as so far most of the Obama campaign video's I've seen are fraught with misinformation and half truths.

But as far as your question goes: We tried Obama, things are NOT BETTER. It's really that simple. We are probably going down the tubes either way, but why continue the failed Obama policies and ideology, thus, I will vote for change (of President).
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By most accounts, Obama's economic policies aren't failing. They've actually improved the economy. Pundits are just pissed because unemployment hasn't gone below 8% as promised. People forget that our nation's unemployment rate was over 10% in Feb/March 2009. It's slowly come down since. We also have to look at private sector job growth; 24 consecutive months of job growth. Granted, jobs haven't been added as quickly as anyone would like but businesses are hiring just not in large numbers and that won't come until some of these trade agreements with India, Central America and S. Korea begin to kick in OR until some new industry proves profitable in America.

People need to really pay attention to that last sentence. Why? Because as much as folks are focusing so heavily on the domestic front, they need to keep a watch on what's happening on the foreign policy front. Specifically, look for more trade agreements between our European allies and our African partners on top of the three aforementioned countries, as well as, stiffer crackdown on China's trade and currency manipulation.
 
Shutter_Label said:
Why would you vote for Romney, a man, who's state was #1 in debt?

Why would you vote for him? If you are voting solely on economic reasons? Just curious as to why?

There is a video and transcript below explaining the debt in his state and how his state was 47th in job creations.

Obama For America TV Ad: "Number One" - YouTube

[Narrator] When Mitt Romney was governor, Massachusetts was number one. Number one in state debt. $18 billion dollars in debt. More debt per person than any other state in the country. At the same time Massachusetts fell to 47th in job creation - one of the worst economic records in the country. First in debt, 47th in job creation. That's Romney Economics. It didn't work then. It won't work now.

Now that you have watched the video or either read the transcript. Why would you vote for Romney on a economic reasoning?
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Why you ask?

Because Sean Hannity says Obama is a terrorist.
 
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