|
|
Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 5, 2012 15:16:46 GMT -5
I was fascinated to read today about Ricky Gill, a 29 year old Indian American, running to unseat a Democrat in a Republican-leaning district in California. He is a Princeton grad and Boalt Law (Berkeley) graduate. He has raised 1.3M to date and sunk about 700K. Anyway, a fascinating candidate worth attention (hopefully worth attention in the national GOP ranks as well given its current pedigree).
The Democrats need to pick up seats in a redistricted CA if the House is to flip. Thought this is worth a thread given the interesting primaries today (and that recall in Wisconsin).
|
|
kchoya
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Enter your message here...
Posts: 9,934
|
Post by kchoya on Jun 5, 2012 17:19:18 GMT -5
Anyone think that the WI recall was/is "recall" worthy?
|
|
|
|
Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 5, 2012 18:02:14 GMT -5
Anyone think that the WI recall was/is "recall" worthy? No - I don't think much of the recall procedure (and did not think much of it when Gray Davis was recalled). The ease of the procedure (roughly 500K signatures in WI compared to roughly 4M votes in the 2008 presidential in the state) is striking. That basically requires a few well-placed robocalls and some energy among serious activists. That being said, it is a vote, and there is nothing in Walker's record to suggest he can create or has created jobs. |
|
|
|
Post by flyoverhoya on Jun 5, 2012 19:36:18 GMT -5
Anyone think that the WI recall was/is "recall" worthy? Honestly, still not sure. Seems a little over the top for purely political disagreements, as opposed to some sort of malfeasance. That said, I would be happy to see Walker go. I have this idealistic notion that politicians should be smarter and better than most folks. Walker is neither. |
|
|
|
Post by AustinHoya03 on Jun 5, 2012 21:09:36 GMT -5
Best of luck making up, Wisconsin.
|
|
Boz
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
123 Fireballs!
Posts: 10,355
|
Post by Boz on Jun 5, 2012 21:34:00 GMT -5
Anyone think that the WI recall was/is "recall" worthy? No - I don't think much of the recall procedure (and did not think much of it when Gray Davis was recalled). The ease of the procedure (roughly 500K signatures in WI compared to roughly 4M votes in the 2008 presidential in the state) is striking. That basically requires a few well-placed robocalls and some energy among serious activists. That being said, it is a vote, and there is nothing in Walker's record to suggest he can create or has created jobs. Soo...recall the President, then? That was time, money and whatever else well spent up in Wisconsin. |
|
DFW HOYA
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 5,911
|
Post by DFW HOYA on Jun 5, 2012 21:46:28 GMT -5
Neither side will admit it, but there was a lot of wasted money in Wisconsin. Getting out the vote is one thing, but when over 85% of exit poll respondents reported they had made up their minds a year ago. there was a lot of ad buys that were pointless.
Classic brand management thinking--why does Budweiser spend hundreds of millions every year to be sold in every major league ballpark? So that Miller won't do the same.
|
|
|
|
Post by flyoverhoya on Jun 6, 2012 7:40:38 GMT -5
Someone really wasted money on the half dozen campaign commercials that I saw after 8:00 p.m. last night.
Interestingly, through a quirk in WI law, Barrett was subject to contribution limits, while Walker wasn't.
|
|
EasyEd
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 7,272
|
Post by EasyEd on Jun 6, 2012 8:12:51 GMT -5
Amazing victory for someone who took great political risks in dealing with budget deficits. If only we had a candidate for the presidency willing to take risks similar to that in Wisconsin.
|
|
Buckets
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,656
|
Post by Buckets on Jun 6, 2012 11:10:32 GMT -5
Scott Walker cut take-home pay for state employees by an average of 8%. Social Security needs immediate and permanent benefit cuts double that size. Considering the size of voting block and magnitude of cuts, doesn't sound like a successful campaign to me.
|
|
EasyEd
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 7,272
|
Post by EasyEd on Jun 6, 2012 12:45:59 GMT -5
Scott Walker cut take-home pay for state employees by an average of 8%. Social Security needs immediate and permanent benefit cuts double that size. Considering the size of voting block and magnitude of cuts, doesn't sound like a successful campaign to me. The alternative to this as well as similar cuts in Medicare and Medicare is financial disaster for our country. I'm still waiting for someone with the courage to tell the American people the real truth without resorting to politics and to lay out what must be done. Doing nothing or kicking it downstream is financial death for our country. |
|
|
|
Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 6, 2012 13:34:36 GMT -5
Scott Walker cut take-home pay for state employees by an average of 8%. Social Security needs immediate and permanent benefit cuts double that size. Considering the size of voting block and magnitude of cuts, doesn't sound like a successful campaign to me. The alternative to this as well as similar cuts in Medicare and Medicare is financial disaster for our country. I'm still waiting for someone with the courage to tell the American people the real truth without resorting to politics and to lay out what must be done. Doing nothing or kicking it downstream is financial death for our country. With all due respect, while the debt remains a serious problem, there does not appear to be reason to have faith in austerity measures or other measures designed to cut spending dramatically right now. Greece is a prime example of what happens here. The risk you run there, as here, is that spending cuts will hurt existing growth and then lead to lower tax revenue. Then, you are back where you started. A couple of data points - (1) The recent jobs slowdown here roughly coincides to when the stimulus spigot ran dry and spending slowed down or was cut. We can expect this to lower government revenue, leading to more cries to cut spending on top of the lower revenue we get in response to the lower spending. (2) Scott Walker's Wisconsin. His Wisconsin appears to be founded on this notion that the act of deregulation creates jobs - it makes conservatives all frisky thinking about it, nevermind that the state ranks in the lowest percentile of job growth during his tenure as governor. The thinking has always taken about 5 logical steps but perhaps that is better than the tinkle down economics that breathed life into the W Bush economic policy. For my money, I think Romney, through tax cuts and the like, might get the economy going to a greater degree because a Republican Congress would actually get something done for him (and for those who benefit from their policies). Would it be the best policy? No, but it would be a policy, which is more than I can say for them now. |
|
TBird41
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
"Roy! I Love All 7'2" of you Roy!"
Posts: 8,740
|
Post by TBird41 on Jun 6, 2012 14:24:00 GMT -5
The alternative to this as well as similar cuts in Medicare and Medicare is financial disaster for our country. I'm still waiting for someone with the courage to tell the American people the real truth without resorting to politics and to lay out what must be done. Doing nothing or kicking it downstream is financial death for our country. With all due respect, while the debt remains a serious problem, there does not appear to be reason to have faith in austerity measures or other measures designed to cut spending dramatically right now. Greece is a prime example of what happens here. The risk you run there, as here, is that spending cuts will hurt existing growth and then lead to lower tax revenue. Then, you are back where you started. . I disagree. 1) Austerity in most European countries has not taken the form of drastic spending cuts. It has taken the form of increased taxes (whether through tax increases or, in the case of Greece, actually collecting the taxes on the books). Almost all of the spending "cuts" have taken the form of cuts in the rate of spending. Any actual cuts, if there have been any, have been minimal. Even President Obama knows that raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea--the problem is the Europeans have generally decided to raise taxes. mercatus.org/publication/fiscal-austerity-europe-doesnt-mean-large-spending-cutsmercatus.org/publication/european-austerity-government-expenditures-country2) Countries that have cut spending without raising taxes have seen much better results. Sweden, the Baltic States and Germany are examples of this. So is Canada. The spending cuts usually must be accompanied by structural reform (for example, Germany making it easier to fire workers, which made companies more willing to hire workers, especially younger ones). mercatus.org/expert_commentary/two-kinds-austerity |
|
|
|
Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 6, 2012 14:53:11 GMT -5
The analysis there, although well-presented, is a bit troubling from the point of view of which countries are highlighted. I think most would agree that UK/France/Germany are not in the same conversation as Greece or some of the other troubled states, and it is hard to generalize across them. See below. What I see in the Greece graph - unusually adjusted for inflation - is that there is a flatline against the inflation and any efforts to revive the economy are just keeping pace (at best) with the macroeconomic reality, not moving it. For Greece, due to deflation, this means real cuts. Why is it so important to distinguish between Greece and the others? if you look at the Greek cuts, they go right to Keynesian employment considerations - spending on health services, spending on public investment, spending on defense. No question those cuts will put people out of work (albeit in service of an attempt to save the economy). Your cuts in Germany and Sweden (to pick 2 out of a hat) are quite different. While the Germans cut defense, their "austerity" measures merely trimmed spending, added consumption taxes (where the taxes could be soaked up - airline travel and the like) and cut some benefits (unemployment and the like). I think the modesty of such measures hardly calls for generalization as to what works since it is unlikely to move the dial in either direction in the face of broader economic forces. Nonetheless, damn right these worked, but also damn right that they happened in the strongest economies in Europe. Convenient. And another point - notions of "cutting taxes" or "raising taxes" mean something entirely different in Europe than here. While many of the countries in that study have income taxes, it appears that most of the measures in those countries were not as to income taxes. That does not mean that these measures were insigificant given the importance of VAT and the like - indeed some of these things were raised in the very countries that are heralded for not "raising taxes" as we would conceptualize that term. How this translates in terms of $ and economics is stuff for the actuaries. What would end up working here is probably some modest cut to spending - trim the stuff that does not help or is neutral at best - and keep other things stable. I doubt you'll find that it helps employment - ask David Cameron - ut it might help the debt. ON EDIT: It is also worth comparing US GDP growth to some of the supposed saviors in Europe as well - epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tsieb020. We appear to compare favorably to all of the heralded countries in the above study (save the smaller economies of the Baltics and the like), so what are we doing that they are not? In other words, perhaps the serial complaining of the conservative movement in this country ignores the basic reality that we have done something right and need not conform to Europhilia, what we perceive as working in France, and the like at the expense of realizing that the European leaders might be doing just the same thing but conforming to what has worked in the US. This would require a cure of some of the commonly accepted myths about Obama - namely that he has spent us through the roof and raised our taxes - but maybe it is worth a try. |
|
Buckets
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,656
|
Post by Buckets on Jun 8, 2012 9:16:54 GMT -5
Scott Walker cut take-home pay for state employees by an average of 8%. Social Security needs immediate and permanent benefit cuts double that size. Considering the size of voting block and magnitude of cuts, doesn't sound like a successful campaign to me. The alternative to this as well as similar cuts in Medicare and Medicare is financial disaster for our country. I'm still waiting for someone with the courage to tell the American people the real truth without resorting to politics and to lay out what must be done. Doing nothing or kicking it downstream is financial death for our country. Does that mean you're waiting for someone to campaign on a 16% permanent and immediate cut to social security benefits? Or are you saying this with the assumption that yours and everyone else over 55's benefits are locked in and you want a politician to tell everyone younger how much more their benefits are going to be reduced so that that older group sees not a dime reduction in their benefits? |
|
kchoya
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Enter your message here...
Posts: 9,934
|
Post by kchoya on Jun 8, 2012 9:44:28 GMT -5
The alternative to this as well as similar cuts in Medicare and Medicare is financial disaster for our country. I'm still waiting for someone with the courage to tell the American people the real truth without resorting to politics and to lay out what must be done. Doing nothing or kicking it downstream is financial death for our country. Does that mean you're waiting for someone to campaign on a 16% permanent and immediate cut to social security benefits? Or are you saying this with the assumption that yours and everyone else over 55's benefits are locked in and you want a politician to tell everyone younger how much more their benefits are going to be reduced so that that older group sees not a dime reduction in their benefits? What's wrong with that? I have time and I can adjust my long-term financial planning to account for changes made to Social Security and Medicare. Someone really old, like Ed, isn't in the same position. And I'm not sure any mainstream person/candidate is advocating an across-the-board "16% permanent and immediate cut to social security benefits." Maybe I missed that. Can you provide a link? |
|
Buckets
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,656
|
Post by Buckets on Jun 8, 2012 14:30:39 GMT -5
No one is proposing it because it's political suicide. It is from the Trustees Report and is an actuarially sound and politically impossible way to make Social Security solvent. Ed wants "someone with the courage to tell the American people the real truth without resorting to politics and to lay out what must be done," knowing full well that any politically feasible solution involves him sharing in exactly none of any sort of sacrifice. Whether it is Job Creators or The Middle Class, "shared sacrifice for everyone except you who is already overburdened" is already a very common platform for our political leaders.
|
|
EasyEd
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 7,272
|
Post by EasyEd on Jun 8, 2012 18:36:52 GMT -5
For what it's worth, I am willing to accept immediate, significant cuts in both Medicare and Social Security as part of an overall plan to make structural changes, not short-term changes. I'm also willing to accept tax increases, again as long as they are accompanied by structural changes to entitlements. Those casting stones at us old folks, are you willing to see cuts in student loans? Or home mortgage deductions? Tell me what you are willing to accept that hurts you.
|
|
hoyainspirit
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
When life puts that voodoo on me, music is my gris-gris.
Posts: 8,398 
|
Post by hoyainspirit on Jun 9, 2012 6:46:50 GMT -5
The administration has proposed significant cuts to entitlement programs. The cuts have been paired with revenue enhancements. These are solutions which, previously, Republicans have endorsed. Until, of course, they are proposed by this administration. Let's not forget that a stated goal of Republican leaders is to make this president a one term president, damn the consequences to the country.
|
|
Boz
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
123 Fireballs!
Posts: 10,355
|
Post by Boz on Jun 9, 2012 9:36:38 GMT -5
The goal of every opposition party is to make their counterpart a one-term President. Let's not get too crazy here.
You think it wasn't the goal of Democrats to make Bush a one-term president? Send me a postcard from Planet Naive.
And there is NOTHING wrong with this, by the way.
Republicans disagree with Obama's policies. They should want to get him out of office. Democrats disagreed with Bush's policies. And they tried their damndest to get him out.
Gridlock is frustrating and discouraging and disenfranchising, all true. But I'd rather those who I support stand up in objection to policies they think are wrong than just capitulate in the name of "compromise."
And if you don't believe anything I am saying, ask yourself: when they were decrying George Bush as a war criminal or worse, why are no liberals speaking out in opposition to Obama continuing (or even expanding) many of the Bush era policies in the war on terror? Gitmo, drone strikes, rendition, military trials, etc.
Are they suddenly all hunky-dory with these things? Or is it just a little bit likely that the volume level was turned way the hell up simply because of who was sitting in the Oval Office at the time?
|
|
