Portman: I think I'll be staying in the Senate

Redress · Aug 10, 2012

cpwill said:
Well, a Ryan on the ticket raises the stakes. It means, for example, that a victory for that ticket will be a victory and the public seal of approval on his policies.

No it does not mean that.

Simon W. Moon · Aug 10, 2012

TurtleDude said:
if taxes have to be raised shouldn't we start with those paying NO federal income taxes at all?

I don't think that the numbers break down very well with that effort.
Even a large percentage of something small is still small.

Am I correct in assuming that you're motivation is about "fairness" or something similar rather than actual results?

Kandahar · Aug 10, 2012

cpwill said:
Well, a Ryan on the ticket raises the stakes. It means, for example, that a victory for that ticket will be a victory and the public seal of approval on his policies.

I'm of the school of thought that the VP candidate can only bring harm, not help, to any presidential ticket. The exception would be that maybe the VP can help a point or two in their home state if they're popular. And if Wisconsin is close enough where Ryan could put the ticket over the top, it probably means Mitt Romney has already won 270 EVs elsewhere. Nate Silver had a good rundown on the electoral math of Mitt Romney's potential VPs earlier this week. I find it unlikely that a victory for any ticket would be a validation of the VP's policies. Most people don't even care about the VP as long as they can clear the competency threshold.

With that said, I'm definitely rooting for a Romney/Ryan ticket. That maximizes the chances of Romney's VP hurting his ticket.

Simon W. Moon · Aug 10, 2012

If he picked Bill Clinton for VP, he'd be a shoe-in.

; )

cpwill · Aug 10, 2012

Redress said:
So yeah, 1 democrat is bipartisan.

1 Democrat sponsor and 1 Republican sponsor.

There is no bipartisan support for the bill.

In fact when it comes specifically to Medicare reform, both Democrats and Republicans worked together to produce that bill.

Making it different than the Obama administrations plans for Medicare, which did not include bi-partisan buy-in.

That is from the CoChairs proposal, not the commissions proposal. From the commissions proposal: http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sit...files/documents/TheMomentofTruth12_1_2010.pdf, from page 29(for easy reference)

[As a matter of principle, tax reform must increase or maintain progressivity.]

And if you go to page 31 they also call for capital gains being taxed as standard income. You can't claim Bowles-Simpson when you just pick and choose what you want from it.

you are correct that there are differences between Simpson-Bowles and the Ryan Plan. Never did I claim they were the same. What I said was that they were both built along the same structure - that in order to fix our mess of a tax code we need to strip out complexity, reduce nominal rates, and reduce the number of brackets. Between Ryan and Simpson-Bowles they disagree on specifics (for example, the top tax rate in the Ryan plan is 25%, with Simpson-Bowles it's 23, 24, or 28). But these are differences in degree, sharing the same basic argument that tax reform needs to strip out complexity while reducing nominal rates and brackets. The Obama administrations' argument is to keep or increase current levels of complexity and brackets while increasing nominal rates. That is a difference not in degree but of type.

And, shocker, you oversimplify by leaps and bounds what obama calls for.

well we are using simplified models for all these tax plans, any one of which would still leave us with a tax code larger than the 6,000 characters allowed per post. However, that is a true depiction of the President's tax plans. But I like how your response here is basically to have no response.

What you do not see in Ryan's plan is cutting 300 billion from defense per year by 2020.

That is correct - Ryan cut defense, but not by that much. And yes, they are two different plans, and while similar, will not be perfect mirror images.

You seem to be desperately clinging to any daylight between Ryan and Simpson-Bowles as though that somehow excused the President.

Again, picking some parts and then rejecting others, then claiming it is Simpson-Bowles, which is not at all accurate.

Why do you constantly lie about those you are debating? I never claimed "it is Simpson-Bowles". What is wrong with you that you lack even the most basic ability to post factually and honestly?

See how I did that? I took a part where you were inaccurate, and instead of pointing out your inaccuracy, I accused you of falsehood. Now, I don't believe it, I think that you are probably simply just wrong. But I figured I'd give you a chance to try your own tactic on for size and see if you felt that it was a winner.

By the way you did not mention they call for increasing the retirement age for SS, and raising the tax ceiling(oh god, a tax increase on the wealthy!).

(shrug) that is correct, they called for an effective tax rate increase within the construct of lowering nominal rates while stripping out complexity. Ryan's plan currently leaves Social Security alone, and Ryan has been a voice in favor of raising the debt ceiling (which I think is what you meant to say) when necessary, as his plan includes raising the debt ceiling.

There is absolutely no evidence that people will pick the Ryan plan, and considering how bad a plan it is, I find it unlikely they would.

I think it's funny how you say this right before we lead into a discussion of the most controversial part of Ryan's plan where people demonstrate that they will pick Ryan's plan.

We been over this survey. When you ask leading questions("Without the change medicare costs would be unsustainable) with only keep or make this particular change(which is not the only two options available), you are not going to get accurate results. You are using a poll that is designed to get you results you want.

actually you are thinking of an entirely different poll on this question that we discussed.

What this poll did was pre-establish people's desire to change Medicare, and then see how they would respond to the arguments that would be raised in an actual debate on entitlement reform.

Now, I find this really entertaining. Because the poll I linked asked:

Which of these two descriptions comes closer to your view of what Medicare should look like in the future? Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government guaranteeing seniors health insurance and making sure that everyone gets the same defined set of benefits, OR, Medicare should be changed to a system in which the government would guarantee each senior a fixed amount of money to put toward health insurance. Seniors would purchase that coverage either from traditional Medicare or from a list of private health plans.

And found that the original break-down is 70-25 against.

And you cited a poll asking:

I'm going to read you two statements about the future of the Medicare program. After I read both statements, please tell me which one comes closer to your own view: Medicare should remain as it is today, with a defined set of benefits for people over 65, OR Medicare should be changed so that people over 65 would receive a check or voucher from the government each year for a fixed amount they can use to shop for their own private health insurance policy."

and found the score at 65-34 against. And you thought that was an effective counterpoint?

However, again, this discussion isn't pitting the Ryan plan against a mythical world where Medicare can continue as it is. That is not an option available to us. Neither Candidate is the candidate of "Medicare should remain as it is today". And so in an election built around fiscal and entitlement reform (which is what we are discussing, assuming we are able to get past Mediscare), we would actually get to see the breakdown of the competing plans. As has been demonstrated (see Attachment) in such an environment Ryan's plan has the greater ability to pull popular support, not least because A) he puts Seniors in charge and B) he cuts more for the wealthy in order to give more to the lower income.

Since we like polls so much here is a brand new one and consistent with most of the recent polling: CNN Poll: Obama holds 7-point lead over Romney – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

Hey look!

A Strawman!

How about we do something that's more on topic?

While American Adults are Evenly Divided on Ryan's Plan v Obama's for Deficit - Reduction, Seniors Prefer Ryan's 48-42%.

Which should tell us that those of you on here crowing about the possibility of winning on a Mediscare campaign may be counting your chickens before they hatch.

So while they may not like what Obama has done, they think what Romney will do is worse.

Voters continue to trust Romney on the economy, and some of those polls you are referencing ridiculously oversample Democrats.

However, again...

While American Adults are Evenly Divided on Ryan's Plan v Obama's for Deficit - Reduction, Seniors Prefer Ryan's 48-42%.

Huh. I wonder what Romney could do to invigorate the campaign and breathe new life back into it...

Romney is not running on his policy.

Romney is currently running on Obama's failure with the economy. And it's good to make that point - but you don't have to focus on it. People already get that the economy is in the rudders. Optimism is falling with our growth rates, and we are now at 42 months above 8% unemployment (nominal) with double digit unemployment (real). Romney needs to actually put forth a coherent, serious plan to restore growth while avoiding our looming fiscal crises, and he needs to run on that. Leave the "Obama failed" lines as a response to Obama's attacks on Romney's plan. That way Romney dictates the pace of events, and is campaigning inside of Obama's OODA loop. If you make the election about a plan forward, with everyone remembering in the back of their mind how it's been, then you win. If you focus only on how bad it is now..... :shrug: it becomes more 50/50.

I just find it funny you complain so much about democratic negative advertising while ignoring republican negative advertising.. You are not above "mediscare", but it is bad when some one else does it.

That is not correct - I deplored Republicans during the Obamacare debates for the way in which they handled Obamacares' cuts to Medicare. Entitlement reform isn't just a serious issue - it is a fiscal issue of life or death for our nation; and we have a responsibility to approach it like adults. Mediscare and accusations of killing grandma are bad no matter who does it.

OK, I am going to say this again, entitlement reform does not mean the Ryan plan. Just because we both agree we have to go from New York to San Francisco does not mean that your route of flying to Spain, driving across Europe, through Russia, through China to Beijing and flying from there to San Francisco is the best route. You can suppoort and run on entitlement reform without supporting the Ryan plan. In fact, the Ryan plan at the time Rubio ran was significantly different than it is now, so he clearly did not run on the current Ryan plan.

Either you are not as smart as I think you are, and points repeatedly fly over your head, or you use strawman arguments the way Boehner uses spray-on tan. No where had I argued that Rubio campaigned on the Ryan Plan - although he did later endorse it. The point was to say that Seniors in Florida are not as vulnerable to demagougery on this issue as Democrats are hoping, as demonstrated by the fact that they had already voted for a guy who campaigned on reducing entitlement expenditures (though he talked more about Social Security, as I recall, than Medicare).

Those of you salivating over a sure victory against Ryan are counting your chickens before they hatch, and some of those eggs are spoiled

.

cpwill · Aug 10, 2012

Redress said:
No it does not mean that.

As everyone from the left who has come in here has implicitly declared, Ryan on the ticket makes the election all about Ryan's plan.

TurtleDude · Aug 10, 2012

Simon W. Moon said:
I don't think that the numbers break down very well with that effort.
Even a large percentage of something small is still small.

Am I correct in assuming that you're motivation is about "fairness" or something similar rather than actual results?

my goal is a tax system that deprives congress of the massive extra constitutional power it grabbed through the progressive income tax scheme

Kandahar · Aug 10, 2012

cpwill said:
As everyone from the left who has come in here has implicitly declared, Ryan on the ticket makes the election all about Ryan's plan.

Well, having Ryan on the ticket certainly allows Obama to run AGAINST Ryan's plans and attack Mitt Romney for supporting it. I'm not sure I see the upside for Romney; having Ryan as his running mate doesn't mean he'll run on Ryan's platform if he thinks it will hurt him, and he doesn't need Ryan on the ticket to run on Ryan's platform if he wants to. Romney is not exactly a profile in courage, so I suspect he'll just go with someone bland who won't hurt him, like Pawlenty or Portman.

cpwill · Aug 11, 2012

Kandahar said:
Well, having Ryan on the ticket certainly allows Obama to run AGAINST Ryan's plans and attack Mitt Romney for supporting it

Nah - he will do that whether or not Ryan is the VP. Romney has already endorsed the plan, which means Obama is going to run Mediscare after the convention (that's what the personal assaults now are about - first you lower his favorables and reduce the willingness of people to trust him, and then you have the advantage when you begin arguing about whether or not folks trust him to reform Medicare). Romney has two options: he can sit back and play defense (and lose) or he can campaign explicitly on the Ryan Plan and bring enough voters to it.

I'm not sure I see the upside for Romney; having Ryan as his running mate doesn't mean he'll run on Ryan's platform if he thinks it will hurt him, and he doesn't need Ryan on the ticket to run on Ryan's platform if he wants to

He doesn't really have a choice. He had to endorse the Ryan plan to win the Primaries, and now he's tied to it. You can't be the guy who already has etch-a-sketch charges in your background that then goes out and claims that That Big Plan I Signed On To To Get Through The Primaries, Well I've Changed My Mind. It would be the equivalent of Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it", except much more explosive.

Romney is not exactly a profile in courage, so I suspect he'll just go with someone bland who won't hurt him, like Pawlenty or Portman.

:shrug: we shall see. I would be good with a Portman pick, but I would be disappointed in a Pawlenty pick.

...Earlier today, a charter plane took off in Boston, stopped in Chicago, then flew to the tiny airport in Janesville, Wis. Janesville, of course, is the hometown of Representative Paul Ryan, a top vice-presidential contender. According to a source on the ground, the plane is still in Wisconsin.

Tomorrow morning, Mitt Romney will visit the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Va....

Kandahar · Aug 11, 2012

It looks like he's picking Paul Ryan after all. I was racking my brain trying to think of a possible upside for Romney with this pick, and there's only one I could think of: Since Ryan is a lightning rod, maybe he'll absorb some of the criticism that would otherwise be directed at Romney himself. And maybe Romney actually views that as a positive.

Portman: I think I'll be staying in the Senate

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Simon W. Moon

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cpwill

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