Examining the 2012 Campaign Character Narratives: Obama vs. Romney

[ThomasT]

The threads on individual GOP candidates have pretty much died. Romney will be the GOP candidate. This thread is about any comparisons between Obama and Romney that would not have been appropriate in the threads pertaining to individual candidates. Personally, I don't like either one, but if I had to choose, then, at this time, I would choose Obama. The reason(s) for that will be part of the content of this thread -- and, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind as this thread develops. Voice your current opinions, and don't be afraid to change your mind because sometimes that's a good thing (as in, learning).

 

[Astronuc]

There is not a lot of excitement about the choice.

And there's articles like - Why Obama, Romney threaten your retirement
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-obama-romney-threaten-your-retirement-2012-05-24

I'd like to know how either would propose to balance the budget, or more preferably, how they plan to eliminate the federal deficit, because we can't continue to borrow indefinitely. What government expenses to they plan to cut, and how many layoffs will that produce?

 

[ThomasT]

There is not a lot of excitement about the choice.

And there's articles like - Why Obama, Romney threaten your retirement
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-obama-romney-threaten-your-retirement-2012-05-24

Thanks for the link Astronuc. I hope they both get a lot more into the details during the campaign. Currently, I don't like Romney's proposal of increasing the (SS) retirement age.

I'd like to know how either would propose to balance the budget, or more preferably, how they plan to eliminate the federal deficit, because we can't continue to borrow indefinitely.

It doesn't seem to me that either of these goals will be fully reached in the foreseeable future. But I think that at least reducing budget deficits and the rate of increase of the national debt are realistic goals for the next few administrations.

 

[ThomasT]

For convenience, I think these are the official websites for the Romney and Obama campaigns.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Yahoo is reporting that Romney has clinched the GOP nomination.

Yahoo.com

 

[russ_watters]

And there's articles like - Why Obama, Romney threaten your retirement
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-obama-romney-threaten-your-retirement-2012-05-24

I'd like to know how either would propose to balance the budget, or more preferably, how they plan to eliminate the federal deficit...?

I share your concern (it is my biggest economic concern), but what is the difference between balancing the budget and eliminating the deficit?

Since this is a democracy, we elect people based on promises of things we'd like to have happen. And since people like lower taxes and more government safety nets, that's what we get. It is a serious, fundamental problem with your system of government and for the first time (starting a couple of years ago) has me concerned about our long-term viability. I doubt either candidate will make a substantive change if [re]elected.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I share your concern (it is my biggest economic concern), but what is the difference between balancing the budget and eliminating the deficit?

The deficit is $15.7 trillion. It is the accumulated debt of previous years. Balancing the budget means keeping the deficit steady at it's current level of $15.7 trillion. Eliminating the deficit means paying off the accumulated deficit of previous years bringing it to $0.

 

[ThomasT]

Balancing the budget means keeping the deficit steady at it's current level of $15.7 trillion.

To elaborate. Balancing the budget means not spending more than than is taken in. Ie., not borrowing. If the US government doesn't borrow, and pays all of the interest on the national debt each year, then that debt won't increase ... unless the rate of interest does. If it also pays down the principle of the debt, then that portion of the budget that deals with the debt, assuming other expenditures increase or stay the same, will decrease.

Balancing the budget and decreasing the debt seem to me to be clearly attainable goals, which I doubt will be sufficiently addressed by either prospective administration, as there doesn't seem to be the political will to do either.

 

[russ_watters]

The deficit is $15.7 trillion. It is the accumulated debt of previous years.

I'm reasonably certain you have "debt" and "deficit" reversed...

Eliminating the deficit means paying off the accumulated deficit of previous years bringing it to $0.

...and mashed together.

 

[ThomasT]

Things are looking up for Obama.

 

[russ_watters]

Oy, that's tough to read - can't tell if the wrongness is being generated by the reporters or astrologers!

 

[turbo]

Obama and Romney would both have troubles with the current Congress. Presidents are administrators - not legislators. They have the ability to veto bills, but all spending bills have to originate in Congress, and by the time they get out of that morass, they are loaded with pork. It's going to be tough to get a handle on deficit spending without some adult behavior on the hill.

The presidential election is secondary (IMO) to the questions of 1) who controls the house and senate and 2) will they cut spending to less than our revenue stream.

In the end, I think that the presidential election will hang on whether the national economy is improving or not, which is pretty irrational, since the president cannot create jobs. If Congress would approve funding for infrastructure upgrades, we could have lots of new jobs (some estimates are in the millions of jobs) and those people would have money to spend, creating even more jobs in their communities.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

what is the difference between balancing the budget and eliminating the deficit?

I'm reasonably certain you have "debt" and "deficit" reversed... ...and mashed together.

OK, I get the vocabulary police part, but how come you couldn't figure out what he meant on your own?

 

[chemisttree]

Obama and Romney would both have troubles with the current Congress. Presidents are administrators - not legislators. They have the ability to veto bills, but all spending bills have to originate in Congress, and by the time they get out of that morass, they are loaded with pork. It's going to be tough to get a handle on deficit spending without some adult behavior on the hill.

The presidential election is secondary (IMO) to the questions of 1) who controls the house and senate and 2) will they cut spending to less than our revenue stream.

In the end, I think that the presidential election will hang on whether the national economy is improving or not, which is pretty irrational, since the president cannot create jobs. If Congress would approve funding for infrastructure upgrades, we could have lots of new jobs (some estimates are in the millions of jobs) and those people would have money to spend, creating even more jobs in their communities.

And just what guarantee do we have that the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" or any of it's successors will actually employ americans? Sadly none! I'm sure that hits home, Turbo...

 

[Vanadium 50]

I got some ARRA money, and the one thing I was absolutely not allowed to do with it was hire people directly. So I bought some computers - which I guess means that I hired some Chinese workers indirectly.

 

[russ_watters]

OK, I get the vocabulary police part, but how come you couldn't figure out what he meant on your own?

[shrug] not a mind reader. If Astronuc was suggesting elimination of the DEBT, that's a multi-decade task that isn't even desirable and isn't on the table as a topic of discussion in the campagn. Seemed an odd point to raise. That's why I asked for clarification.

 

[russ_watters]

...since the president cannot create jobs. If Congress would approve funding for infrastructure upgrades, we could have lots of new jobs (some estimates are in the millions of jobs) and those people would have money to spend, creating even more jobs in their communities.

A strong President with an amicable Congress can push through exactly such legislation, which is what Obama did. The real question is whether he can sell that to the voters as a positive thing. It won't be easy.

 

[Astronuc]

I share your concern (it is my biggest economic concern), but what is the difference between balancing the budget and eliminating the deficit?

I should have been more careful in my wording. I was referring to going beyond eliminating the deficit (stopping at a balanced budget) and actually reducing the debt, which means generating a surplus and pay off the principal, not just the interest. At this point, it would have to be over decades.

Some folks think that reducing taxes will some how free up investment which will be used to generate more jobs, and more jobs means paying more taxes while reducing unemployment payments. However, that magical thinking hasn't been working very well. It seems to me that a lot of capital has gone off-shore from where is loaned back to the US economy. Similarly the US trade balance is still in a huge deficit.

The only reason that the US economy is not officially in a recession is because the government continues to borrow money to buy goods and services.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The federal government racked up an almost $780 billion deficit in the first six months of the fiscal year, according to new data from the Congressional Budget Office.

While that's quite a large number, it's actually $53 billion less than the same period last year, when the deficit totaled $829 billion.
. . . .

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/06/news/economy/mid-year-budget/index.htm

"The 2012 budget plan was instead projected to reduce deficits by $1.1 trillion over the next ten years." Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget#Early_proposals
Simply reducing the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade ($100 billion per year) is not going to help very much.

Since this is a democracy, we elect people based on promises of things we'd like to have happen. And since people like lower taxes and more government safety nets, that's what we get. It is a serious, fundamental problem with your system of government and for the first time (starting a couple of years ago) has me concerned about our long-term viability. I doubt either candidate will make a substantive change if [re]elected.

:uhh:

We need a strong leader who will have to change the way it's done in Washington, and frankly I don't see either presidential candidate being a strong leader or changing/fixing how Washington works. I don't this we got the 'change' we expected from the current president, hence the disillusion among many of those who were Obama supporters 4 years ago.

The way I see, either we change course to fiscal responsibility, or we crash at the point that the government defaults on debt/interest payments. Either we adopt austerity voluntarily, or it will be imposed exogenously. Perhaps that's a topic for another thread.

 

[CAC1001]

If Congress would approve funding for infrastructure upgrades, we could have lots of new jobs (some estimates are in the millions of jobs) and those people would have money to spend, creating even more jobs in their communities.

The problem though is whether or not that would actually stimulate the economy, because it would require taking on a lot of additional debt in order to fund. In addition to our infrastructure, our military also needs upgrading. The vehicles of the Army and Marine Corps in particular for example have been driven way beyond what their original estimated service life was supposed to be. If stimulus spending was an easy cut-and-dried thing, we could have a huge bipartisan spending bill consisting of buying lots of brand-new military vehicles and equipment and also loads of infrastructure spending and projects, and then out of it we get a totally revamped military, great infrastructure, and a stimulated economy. But the reality is always more complicated. Politics comes into play over who gets the money and what infrastructure projects and military projects are really necessary versus which are just so some Congressperson can spend money on their constituents. In Obama's stimulus bill, one requirement was for infrastructure projects to be performed using unionized labor. That's an example of a political requirement that hampers things. And of course, we don't know for sure if it would all really stimulate.

 

[CAC1001]

I should have been more careful in my wording. I was referring to going beyond eliminating the deficit (stopping at a balanced budget) and actually reducing the debt, which means generating a surplus and pay off the principal, not just the interest. At this point, it would have to be over decades.

Paying off the debt isn't really a problem unless the debt is large enough to the point that it literally starts hamstringing the growth of the economy (which at this point it may be). But otherwise, to shrink the debt, all one needs to do is maintain a balanced budget, achieve healthy economic growth, and the debt, as a percentage of the GDP, will shrink over time. For example, a $15 trillion debt with a $15 trillion economy is a problem. But a $15 trillion debt with say a $25 trillion economy, would be fine.

Some folks think that reducing taxes will some how free up investment which will be used to generate more jobs, and more jobs means paying more taxes while reducing unemployment payments. However, that magical thinking hasn't been working very well. It seems to me that a lot of capital has gone off-shore from where is loaned back to the US economy. Similarly the US trade balance is still in a huge deficit.

This policy could work if taxes were at restrictively high rates, but they aren't right now, so it probably wouldn't. I do wonder if reducing, or even eliminating, the capital gains and corporate tax rates could work however, as the U.S. has among the highest corporate tax rates and capital gains tax rates in the world. Since income tax rates are really incredibly low when you take in the various credits that result in 50% of the country ultimately paying no federal income tax and various write-offs and so forth, we could maybe reduce the corporate and capital gains tax rates while increasing the income tax rates back to what they were in the Clinton years. Unfortunately, this would appear as "cutting taxes for the rich while raising them for everyone else," and thus wouldn't be politically popular.

The trade deficit I do not see as a problem. A trade "deficit" is not the same as a budget deficit, no more so than a "strong" dollar is better than a "weak" dollar. Remember, during the Great Depression, we ran very small trade deficits and even a trade surplus for some of the years!

We need a strong leader who will have to change the way it's done in Washington, and frankly I don't see either presidential candidate being a strong leader or changing/fixing how Washington works. I don't this we got the 'change' we expected from the current president, hence the disillusion among many of those who were Obama supporters 4 years ago.

Most people didn't realize that Obama was not really any change from Bush in terms of government and spending, he was just Bush taken up to a new level. Real change would have been a president who implemented fiscal responsibility to our government in the form of some kind of long-term plan that would be workable. Instead we got a blatant attempt at stimulus and a big healthcare bill and thus far no serious addressing of the debt issue, which I find really shocking.

The way I see, either we change course to fiscal responsibility, or we crash at the point that the government defaults on debt/interest payments. Either we adopt austerity voluntarily, or it will be imposed exogenously. Perhaps that's a topic for another thread.

I don't think our government will ever default on our debt/interest payments, I think we will end up seeing a combo of three things:

1) Higher taxes out of necessity
2) Large cuts (that would be unthinkable and politically not doable right now) to various aspects of government
3) Inflation (which acts as a tax)

The middle income will get pounded but that's what would/will occur to prevent the country from going over a cliff.

 

[phoenix:\\]

The deficit is $15.7 trillion. It is the accumulated debt of previous years. Balancing the budget means keeping the deficit steady at it's current level of $15.7 trillion. Eliminating the deficit means paying off the accumulated deficit of previous years bringing it to $0.

Like you alluded towards, it's up to the president to limit the deficit. I don't see the deficit being brought down to 0 within my lifetime though.

As for the topic, I do like Obama better than I do like Mitt Romney, and I previously was going to vote for Romney, as I was going to vote for him back in '08 before he lost the primary, instead of voting back in '08, I refused to vote. I primarily liked him as he was a progressive republican, but now, I really am having issues with his policies. He doesn't seem to be either republican or democrat in terms of ideology, rather a potential president looking out for his donors:

http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-02/nation/31520527_1_dodd-frank-bill-financial-crisis-senator-christopher-dodd

Mitt Romney doesn't seem like a fiscal president that I envisioned back in '08.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/10/news/economy/romney-defense-spending/index.htm

 

[jduster]

2012 is 1996. Obama is Clinton. Romney is Dole.

 

[Gokul43201]

And just what guarantee do we have that the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" or any of it's successors will actually employ americans? Sadly none! I'm sure that hits home, Turbo...

Just because 254 foreigners were employed with stimulus money is hardly a worthy argument that no Americans were.

According to the CBO:

CBO estimates that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2011 compared with what would have occurred otherwise:

~ They raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 0.2 percent and 1.5 percent,

~They lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.2 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points,

~They increased the number of people employed by between 0.3 million and 2.0 million, and

~They increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 0.4 million to 2.6 million. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)

http://cbo.gov/publication/43014

 

[jduster]

Sigh. There is no legitimate scientific or mathematical way to prove "what would have happened otherwise". As usual, the CBO reports are shallow and dubious.

 

[chemisttree]

I have absolutely no faith in the numbers you provided. The article I linked to showed how the recipients of the stimulus funds falsely reported 29 americans employed where none were. Likewise, the unemployment rate should reflect the number of americans employed rather than the total number of jobs provided and then using that number to adjust the unemployment rate reported for american citizens.

As Rep. DeFazio said in the article, "The goal of the stimulus bill was to put Americans back to work, not foreign nationals. It is obscene that U.S. companies were rewarded for abusing our American workers and immigration laws to undercut competition and squeeze more profits out of contracts.”

 

[Gokul43201]

Sure, if you want to believe that the CBO is talking through its hat, that the 160,000-odd individuals who entered their stimulus funded employment info at recovery.gov are bluffing, that every one of the half dozen or so papers that estimate on the order of a million new jobs are all talking about jobs given to foreigners, and you ignore the personal testimonies of Americans that claimed to have been hired with ARRA money ... then I suppose one could conclude that ZERO Americans got a job from the stimulus. Most reasonable people would have to work very hard to stick their heads that deep in the sand.

 

[Astronuc]

Hard times for Obama from slow economic recovery
http://news.yahoo.com/hard-times-obama-slow-economic-recovery-142116226.html

I'd like to know what budget cuts Romney plans.

 

[ThomasT]

Hard times for Obama from slow economic recovery
http://news.yahoo.com/hard-times-obama-slow-economic-recovery-142116226.html

I'd like to know what budget cuts Romney plans.

Thanks for the link. Yeah, It would be nice to know exactly how Romney might fix the economy (ie., engineer a situation where sufficient jobs are continually being created). Currently, I don't think that either Romney or Obama has a good working plan for fixing the economy. (I'd like to see exactly what Obama's stimulus money was spent on, and exactly how many permanent jobs it created.)

It seems that the only thing that we can be fairly sure of at this time is that under either Obama or Romney the financial sector is, generally, going to do well.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Real change would have been a president who implemented fiscal responsibility to our government in the form of some kind of long-term plan that would be workable. Instead we got a blatant attempt at stimulus and a big healthcare bill and thus far no serious addressing of the debt issue, which I find really shocking.

Let me get this straight.

The United States spends twice as much per capita on its health care as other first world nations while receiving one of the worst benefits from said system ... yet any attempt to end that (i.e. the health care bill) is not "seriously addressing" the deficit.

The countries which stimulus'd the hell out of their economies during the Great Recession are doing just fine, but our meager attempt at a stimulus is deemed "not serious". I agree, it was not serious - it was not serious because it was far too small and far too concentrated on sectors of our economy which are not particularly useful.

As for a "serious" plan of fiscal responsibility, you're absolutely right. Obama has only recently developed anything resembling a "serious" plan of fiscal responsibility, i.e. taxing the rich at levels more proportionate to the share of wealth they possesses and allowing the Bush tax cuts to finally die the death they so richly deserved a couple years ago.

As for Obama vs. Romney, the choice is simple. Do we want someone who can help fix the economy as meagerly as possible in our rightwardly-shifted backwater nation, or do we want someone who will add a dose of steroids to the policies that obliterated our economy in the first place? You decide.

 

[Astronuc]

Bill Clinton criticizes Obama’s Bain attacks, praises Romney’s 'sterling business career'
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/...ma-bain-attacks-praises-romney-141022725.html

Apparently Obama is backing away from criticizing Bain because one of his contributors is a Bain director.

Meanwhile - Romney Adviser Eric Fehrnstrom Slams Obama's Economic Leadership
http://news.yahoo.com/romney-adviser-eric-fehrnstrom-slams-obamas-economic-leadership-154054728--abc-news-politics.html

 

[denjay]

Regardless of their views, I think Obama is going to win pretty much hands down. He has a presence about him that the the public just loves. A Political Science TA I met called what Obama had "it". Obama has public speaking skills that Romney just does not have and in fact very few people have. People want a celebrity president and Obama is just that.

 

[ThomasT]

Regardless of their views, I think Obama is going to win pretty much hands down. He has a presence about him that the the public just loves. A Political Science TA I met called what Obama had "it". Obama has public speaking skills that Romney just does not have and in fact very few people have. People want a celebrity president and Obama is just that.

I agree with this. I suppose that the candidates aren't going to make any substantial changes in their expressions of their views. I expect that Obama will come off better to most people in any debates. He's just so much more a cool guy than Romney that it's not even a contest wrt their public personas, imo.

However, given Obama's performance as president and what might be reasonably expected given a Romney presidency, I don't think they're substantively too far apart, given existing constraints, wrt what either will actually do wrt major issues.

 

[Naty1]

A Political Science TA I met called what Obama had "it".

I'd not take any course with him.

Romny wins big time.

But I do have a suggested campaign slogan for Obama [instead of the famously socialist "Forward"]:

Get out of that unemployment line: Vote Obama!

 

[denjay]

From an objective standpoint, I cannot see any reasonable way Romney will get the presidency. Obama has multiple things going for him:

1. He's a returning president.
2. He is fantastic at public speaking. (which more or less determines who will be president as nominees from both parties tend to move towards the ideological center)
3. The Republican Primaries left a bad taste in everyone's mouth because of the wild amounts of showmanship and one-upping.
4. Romney does have a bad history of having the same opinion on a topic from years before.

 

[mege]

From an objective standpoint, I cannot see any reasonable way Romney will get the presidency. Obama has multiple things going for him:

1. He's a returning president.
2. He is fantastic at public speaking. (which more or less determines who will be president as nominees from both parties tend to move towards the ideological center)
3. The Republican Primaries left a bad taste in everyone's mouth because of the wild amounts of showmanship and one-upping.
4. Romney does have a bad history of having the same opinion on a topic from years before.

These issues could be applied to any year and are very generic.

Incumbents do well if things have improved (regardless of their hand in the matter). Perception still is that the country is declining or staying the same. This is probably the biggest part of the WI recall failure: people are going to see the positive stories coming out of WI which will make the national recovery come under further scrutiny.

The exception to the genericy of these comments is #2 - the President is very charismatic. He has a knack for having nearly anyone to relate to him just enough from one little shred from nearly any facet: he was brought up muslim (but is a Christian now), is (half) black, comes from a broken family (but knew his parents well?), has lived abroad (but calls Chicago home), his family struggled financially in his youth (but now he feels he should be taxed more), etc... so he covers all sides of his story and allows many to identify with him easilly. There are lots of things where he covers 'both sides' of an issue and relate to those listening.

On #3 specifically: when is this NOT the case?

#4 - I don't understand? Romney flipflops? Every politician has mutable opinions - President Obama campaigned in the 2008 Primaries AGAINST mandated insurance (both President Obama and then-Sen Clinton have been quoted: "solving the health care issue by mandating insurance is like solving homelessness by mandating home ownership" - this was to separate themselves from Howard Dean and some other lesser contenders), he was clearly against Gay marriage until recently, and the President has dozens of other unfulfilled promises. Personally - I'd much rather have someone that generally guides their actions on principles than some wavering opinion. We should elect someone of strong will to make decisions, not just look at the poll numbers and do whatever is most politically viable (which is what we've seen for 3 years). Not saying that Romney is the strongest willed character of the bunch, but he has a plan and some guiding ideals more than 'get re-elected'.