What will improve Republicans chances next time?

russ_watters

DH, RE postgrad: Yes, I see it.

...?

Mentalist

Change the leaders of the party. But then again, I would never vote republican because all they do is rehash the most grating ideas for the country, "lower taxes, re-position educational programs, and increased military spending".

CAC1001

This is a good point.

mathwonk

I suspect Republicans would be a lot more believable on "lower taxes" arguments if they would agree that high earners like Romney should pay at the same tax rate as middle class families pay, not half. if everyone pays his share, it lowers taxes for a lot of people. without that I think it is hard to make a case that Republicans care about anyone but the wealthy.

E.g. Mr. Romney asserted a desire to close loopholes in the tax code. If he would begin a campaign now, to close the many loopholes that he himself took advantage of, such as off shore accounts, sham charitable trusts that seem designed to leave "little or nothing" for the designated charity after his own withdrawals, and the many other tax dodges revealed in his own returns over the past few years, I believe he would gain a lot of credibility.

I may be naive, but these issues of fairness and responsibility seem in line with the traditional values Republicans espouse.

But I don't think this will be easy to do, since Republicans seem to derive much of their financial support from entities that benefit from financial inequities such as banks. For the same reason, looking at the lists of top donors above, it appears as if Democrats would have a hard time asking big beneficiaries of "non profit" tax exemptions, and government "research" grants, to pay their share as well, such as large universities. (You may favor research, but if like me you have actually generated some of those grants by your own work, you know much of the money goes into the "overhead" slush fund controlled by university research vice presidents).

russ_watters

So then you are just assuming that the loopholes he and other Republicans would close would not include the loopholes for the rich, right?

I also find it incredulous to suggest that Republicans are only interested in helping the rich, when the Bush tax cuts applied to everyone. The party trying to single out one group is the other one.

Also, your slicing of the groups is wrong: Obama is not just targeting the super-rich who have unusually low tax rates. He is mostly targeting the high end working professionals who already pay the highest rates.

Misleading caricatures don't provide a good basis for a discussion. It seems to me that this discussion is being harmed by people buying-in to the anti-GOP campaign rhetoric, not their actual positions and weaknesses.

mathwonk

Russ, the fact you find these things incredulous is the problem many Republicans seem to have, they just don't see the world as objectively as most others do. This is what Karl Rove exemplified when he doubted even the Fox news forecasters.

You didn't even read my post objectively. When I make a genuine suggestion as to how Romney could gain credibility, you assumed I meant to imply he would not do these things.

russ_watters

Objectively? Mathwonk, your facts are flat-out wrong. How is that objective?

aquitaine

Actually my parents, who were middle class at the time, didn't see even a penny from those cuts. Don't tell me it helped everyone, because it didn't.

Pythagorean

Beyond speculation on either side, it would be nice to see the demographics for age. The 2009 Gallup poll I posted did gender demographics.

Greg Bernhardt

The top 4 income backets were all lowered by about 3% so....? Either it helped or your parents are not middle class.

Pythagorean

Tax cuts didn't help me either. I was a commercial fisherman at the time. I got gouged for about 1/3 of my income.

And it wasn't over 30k a year...

Pythagorean

Iow, it depends on industry and what kind of earner youre considered, not just how much you make.

russ_watters

That really isn't possible. Are you guys guessing? Do you really not know what the Bush tax cuts were?

russ_watters

:boggle: Incredulous again.

Here's the Bush tax cuts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_tax_cuts

Synopsis:
The cuts came through two separate acts, passed in 2001 and 2003. The second act merely acclerated the phase-in of the cuts. The cuts (single earners):
So for example, if a person made $30,000 per year AGI, most taxes were in the second bracket, but the marginal rate was in the third. The overall changes were:
On the first $6,000, a reduction of 5%.
On the next $22,000, no change
On the next $2,000, a reduction of 3%.
Savings: $360 per year

In addition, the deductions for joint filing and the per child tax credit were increased.

In addition -- for mathwonk -- since the vast majority of people pay far less than a 14% effective tax rate, making everyone pay what Romney paid (about 14%) would vastly increase taxes for most people.

Pythagorean

I know that I got charged as a farmer without the deductions and it was about 1/3 of my settlement. We don't get paid wages, we get a cut of the profit from the skipper. We're free agents, not employees.

So if bush tax cuts helped me, it wasn't much...

Now that I have kids and work as an employee, the bush tax cuts are great.

russ_watters

Do you remember the $300 check Bush sent you?

Pythagorean

yes...