Is Mitt Romney the Right Choice for the GOP in 2024?

[Dotini]

Did you know Mitt is short for Mittens? Mittens Romney, what silly parents he has!

Milton Willard Romney.

 

[CAC1001]

Btw, is that list of policy proposals serious?

I mean, I see two or three non-insane ideas, like easing regulations on nuclear power plants... but the rest? That's like a Reagan-era middle finger to everyone earning less than half a mil a year, isn't it?

Most of them seem pretty reasonable to me. Only one I can't really see as possible is the last one, "Pursue a Balanced Budget Amendment." The presidency has absolutely nothing to do with the amendment process. To amend the Constitution, you need a 2/3s vote from each house of Congress and then ratification by 3/4s of the state legislatures. Or the states can call a Constitutional convention in which at least one amendment must be proposed, and then again 3/4s of the states legislatures must ratify it (this method has never been used).

 

[ThinkToday]

http://www.alice965.com/Pics/Stupid%20News/mitt-romney-mittens-the-cat-for-president.jpg

Btw, is that list of policy proposals serious?

I mean, I see two or three non-insane ideas, like easing regulations on nuclear power plants... but the rest? That's like a Reagan-era middle finger to everyone earning less than half a mil a year, isn't it?

There's a long list. Could you be more specific with some examples where you think people are getting the finger and why?

 

[mheslep]

Most of them seem pretty reasonable to me. Only one I can't really see as possible is the last one, "Pursue a Balanced Budget Amendment." The presidency has absolutely nothing to do with the amendment process. To amend the Constitution, you need a 2/3s vote from each house of Congress and then ratification by 3/4s of the state legislatures. Or the states can call a Constitutional convention in which at least one amendment must be proposed, and then again 3/4s of the states legislatures must ratify it (this method has never been used).

Yes though the President's political initiative would be critical. With regards to Presidential legislative ability, that requires a phone call to any member of the President's majority party leadership in the House/Senate saying, "Here's the President's legislative proposal, go put it on the agenda. Thanks".

 

[Max™]

59 Policy Proposals That Will Get America Back To Work
1. Maintain current tax rates on personal income Who does this benefit?
2. Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains Who does this benefit?
3. Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains This is the definition of "throwing someone a bone", is it not?
4. Eliminate the death tax Who does this benefit?
5. Pursue a conservative overhaul of the tax system over the long term that includes lower,
flatter rates on a broader base Gee, so we should move towards a more regressive tax structure than we have, while cutting back on revenue that goes towards social programs which mostly benefit the poorest members of society?
6. Reduce corporate income tax rate to 25 percent *snerk*
7. Pursue transition from “worldwide” to “territorial” system for corporate taxation Interesting though, what exactly is it supposed to do?
8. Repeal Obamacare Not a bad idea, since the program that got through isn't nearly enough to fix the problems it should address, though I love that Romney dislikes a neutered version of Romneycare so much.
9. Repeal Dodd-Frank and replace with streamlined, modern regulatory framework Hey, it's not like we could crash the economy again in the same way, right?
10. Amend Sarbanes-Oxley to relieve mid-size companies from onerous requirements
11. Ensure that environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process
12 Provide multi-year lead times before companies must come into compliance with
onerous new environmental regulations Why not, doesn't hurt anyone who matters, right?
13. Initiate review and elimination of all Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy I'm curious what he means by "burnen the economy" and can't help but think it means "sort of almost prevents us from running the same scam we've been pushing since Reagan got people to buy trickle-down hooey".
14. Impose a regulatory cap of zero dollars on all federal agencies Why?
15. Require congressional approval of all new “major” regulations Isn't that already required? What good would it do?
16. Reform legal liability system to prevent spurious litigation
17. Implement agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea
18. Reinstate the president’s Trade Promotion Authority Yeah, because clearly the problem is that we don't have enough authority to promote trade, rather than because we don't export anything except military power anymore.
19. Complete negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership
20. Pursue new trade agreements with nations committed to free enterprise and open markets Translation: find some new shmucks to game.
21. Create the Reagan Economic Zone Yes, because Reagan-esque economics are so wonderful, oh wait, they are if you happened to get in on the game before it was rigged against everyone else.
22. Increase CBP resources to prevent the illegal entry of goods into our market
23. Increase USTR resources to pursue and support litigation against unfair trade practices
24. Use unilateral and multilateral punitive measures to deter unfair Chinese practices
25. Designate China a currency manipulator and impose countervailing duties Brilliant, let's see how much we can hurt the country that owns most of our debt!
26. Discontinue U.S. government procurement from China until China commits to GPA
27. Establish fixed timetables for all resource development approvals
28. Create one-stop shop to streamline permitting process for approval of common activities
29. Implement fast-track procedures for companies with established safety records to conduct
pre-approved activities in pre-approved areas
30. Amend Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview Well, I do agree here, carbon dioxide shouldn't be considered a pollutant.
31. Expand NRC capabilities for approval of additional nuclear reactor designs I agree completely, more nuclear plants and a more comfortable nuclear policy is a good thing.
32. Streamline NRC processes to ensure that licensing decisions for reactors on or adjacent to
approved sites, using approved designs, are complete within two years Again, sounds good.
33. Conduct comprehensive survey of America’s energy reserves I'm sure we left some massive oil fields around here somewhere, check the couch cushions!
34. Open America’s energy reserves for development
35. Expand opportunities for U.S. resource developers to forge partnerships with neighboring countries
36 Support construction of pipelines to bring Canadian oil to the United States Does he not know where we get most of our oil?
37. Prevent overregulation of shale gas development and extraction
38 Concentrate alternative energy funding on basic research
39. Utilize long-term, apolitical funding mechanisms like ARPA-E for basic research
40. Appoint to the NLRB experienced individuals with respect for the rule of law Yes, because clearly the problem with the NLRB is all the inexperienced shmucks casually ignoring laws.
41. Amend NLRA to explicitly protect the right of business owners to allocate their capital as they see fit Why not, nothing bad could happen from it, right?
42. Amend NLRA to guarantee the secret ballot in every union certification electionDoes he not understand that guaranteeing a secret ballot is merely an attempt to give employers power over union forming activities? Oh wait, he likes being able to fire people who work for him, of course he understands this.
43. Amend NLRA to guarantee that all pre-election campaigns last at least one month What? You already have to file a petition for an election 6 months in advance, now he wants to arbitrarily require that it lasts a certain period of time besides that?
44. Support states in pursuing Right-to-Work laws Ah yes, because it's better to be forced to accept lower wages while one benefits from collective bargaining without paying dues than to be forced to join a union to work at a unionised establishment. Clearly there are so many good reasons to be against joining unions that we should weaken them as much as possible.
45. Prohibit the use for political purposes of funds automatically deducted from worker paychecks Yeah, heck with unions being able to use their dues to try to get politicians who might favor unions into office!
46. Reverse executive orders issued by President Obama that tilt the playing field toward organized labor >.> Tilt the playing field "back" towards organized labor "slightly". Screw those workers, we need to bring back slavery I say!
47. Eliminate redundancy in federal retraining programs by consolidating programs and funding streams,
centering as much activity as possible in a single agency
48. Give states authority to manage retraining programs by block granting federal funds
49. Facilitate the creation of Personal Reemployment Accounts
50. Encourage greater private sector involvement in retraining programs
51. Raise visa caps for highly skilled workers
52. Grant permanent residency to eligible graduates with advanced degrees in math, science,
and engineering
53. Immediately cut non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent Yes, we spend too much on things that don't involve blowing people up. Government doesn't exist to help people, just shoot them.
54. Reform and restructure Medicaid as block grant to states *sigh*
55. Align wages and benefits of government workers with market rates Can't have any wage slaves getting by without strugging, can we?
56. Reduce federal workforce by 10 percent via attrition Nice choice of words.
57. Cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP Interestingly, the last time spending was like that was pre-great depression and during the periods with the best growth was when spending was from 25 to 40% of GDP.
58. Undertake fundamental restructuring of government programs and services
59. Pursue a Balanced Budget Amendment Big whoop, you want to balance the budget? Cap Defense spending at $600 billion a year, that'll cancel the "social security shortfall" completely. What else you got?

So yeah, lots of stuff to screw poor people, union workers, those who don't have, and lots of stuff to exclusively benefit those who have at the cost of everyone else suffering.

How is that not a giant Reagan-esque middle finger, again?

 

[Office_Shredder]

I'm just going to cover a couple of bulletin points because it's too much work to try to talk about all of them

1. Maintain current tax rates on personal income Who does this benefit?

Everybody who doesn't get their taxes increased? If you want to make a point make it, don't ask stupid questions and hope that we figure it out for you.

6. Reduce corporate income tax rate to 25 percent *snerk*

Ah yes, snerk. Well recognized as a decisive concluding argument.

[7. Pursue transition from “worldwide” to “territorial” system for corporate taxation Interesting though, what exactly is it supposed to do?

You only tax income that is earned in the country. If a corporation makes money selling stuff in Europe, they get taxed in Europe. If they move that money back to the US, they might be liable for taxes to the US government as well. This means that sometimes multinational corporations just avoid bringing money to the US, which is generally bad for the economy.

14. Impose a regulatory cap of zero dollars on all federal agencies Why?

Are you trying to argue with Mitt Romney in this forum? Did you even try to look this up? It doesn't make you sound smart or witty when you ask "Why would you ever want to do this?" when the arguments for why you would do something like this are well documented and easily found by googling the exact words in the bullet point. You're supposed to be demonstrating to us how terrible his plan is.

15. Require congressional approval of all new “major” regulations Isn't that already required? What good would it do?

No actually this is not how it works. For example
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/basics.html#regulation
And required congressional approval would backlog regulations requests. The argument (or at least one argument) would be that only legitimate regulations would be created and useless ones that exist only to expand the bureaucracy would die. I'm sure others would also reason that the ability to create regulations is essentially ceding legislative authority to the executive branch, separation of powers yadda yadda.

18. Reinstate the president’s Trade Promotion Authority Yeah, because clearly the problem is that we don't have enough authority to promote trade, rather than because we don't export anything except military power anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports
You mean... second largest exporting country in the world? OK sure.

21. Create the Reagan Economic Zone Yes, because Reagan-esque economics are so wonderful, oh wait, they are if you happened to get in on the game before it was rigged against everyone else.

Do you even know what "Reagan Economic Zone" is referring to? It has very little to do with what most people would call "Reagan economics", seeing how it doesn't even refer to domestic economic policy.

25. Designate China a currency manipulator and impose countervailing duties Brilliant, let's see how much we can hurt the country that owns most of our debt!

So we should just let China do whatever they want because they have a lot of debt? In particular enact one sided trade wars to allow them to accumulate more power over us? Yes good logic. And by most please be aware that it is fractionally less than half, only about 8%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Foreign_ownership

45. Prohibit the use for political purposes of funds automatically deducted from worker paychecks Yeah, heck with unions being able to use their dues to try to get politicians who might favor unions into office!

Do you realize that your description of the process is exactly the way that Romney would phrase it? And the reason he would do so is because it sounds (and kind of is) slimy and underhanded. Do you support limiting a large corporation's ability to spend unlimited money electing candidates who will support their agenda?

56. Reduce federal workforce by 10 percent via attrition Nice choice of words.

Are you aware that attrition has essentially a technical meaning? In particular nobody is fired when you reduce the workforce through attrition. It's not a nice choice of words, it's a legitimate means of describing the process through which the workforce will be reduced.

59. Pursue a Balanced Budget Amendment Big whoop, you want to balance the budget? Cap Defense spending at $600 billion a year, that'll cancel the "social security shortfall" completely. What else you got?

Umm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_for_2010
In 2010 we spent 700 billion (rounding up from wikipedia) on defense. So you propose saving 100 billion
The deficit in 2010 was
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget#Deficit
1.17 trillion. No, you did not balance the budget, I'm sorry.Overall I grade your rant attempt a D. No sourcing of facts (of which several were erroneous, so I can see why you couldn't find any sources for them), and very little in the way of justification for why you disliked things beyond snarky comments

 

[mheslep]

Just thumbing through ...

...36 Support construction of pipelines to bring Canadian oil to the United States Does he not know where we get most of our oil?

The US gets *most* of its oil from ... 1) US domestic production, 2) Canada, 3) Saudi Arabia, ...

...

How is that not a giant Reagan-esque middle finger, again?

When I read all that sarcasm I see your middle finger, not Gov. Romney's.

 

[Bacle2]

Dorry, I don't know well how to use the quoting system.

I'm just going to cover a couple of bulletin points because it's too much work to try to talk about all of themEverybody who doesn't get their taxes increased? If you want to make a point make it, don't ask stupid questions and hope that we figure it out for you.

Ah yes, snerk. Well recognized as a decisive concluding argument.

How is that worse than just posting a 59-point plan without justifying each of the points?

You only tax income that is earned in the country. If a corporation makes money selling stuff in Europe, they get taxed in Europe. If they move that money back to the US, they might be liable for taxes to the US government as well. This means that sometimes multinational corporations just avoid bringing money to the US, which is generally bad for the economy.

Why cater to them? They benefit greatly from being US companies. Or let's shame them into doing it. Despite all the whinning about the weight of regulations, they are making record profits and some are paying zero taxes. What else should we give them?

Are you trying to argue with Mitt Romney in this forum? Did you even try to look this up? It doesn't make you sound smart or witty when you ask "Why would you ever want to do this?" when the arguments for why you would do something like this are well documented and easily found by googling the exact words in the bullet point. You're supposed to be demonstrating to us how terrible his plan is.

Why should s/he have the burden of arguing how terrible the plan is, and not the OP arguing the effectiveness of the plan?

No actually this is not how it works. For example
http://www.epa.gov/lawsregs/basics.html#regulation
And required congressional approval would backlog regulations requests. The argument (or at least one argument) would be that only legitimate regulations would be created and useless ones that exist only to expand the bureaucracy would die. I'm sure others would also reason that the ability to create regulations is essentially ceding legislative authority to the executive branch, separation of powers yadda yadda.

Why is this a good idea? I mean beside the tired old line of the government being the enemy.Re cutting the military budget:
Just because cutting $100 billion does not by itself balance the budget, that does not mean it should not be done. It is a nice chunk of more than 8% of the deficithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports
You mean... second largest exporting country in the world? OK sure.Do you even know what "Reagan Economic Zone" is referring to? It has very little to do with what most people would call "Reagan economics", seeing how it doesn't even refer to domestic economic policy.So we should just let China do whatever they want because they have a lot of debt? In particular enact one sided trade wars to allow them to accumulate more power over us? Yes good logic. And by most please be aware that it is fractionally less than half, only about 8%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Foreign_ownership
Do you realize that your description of the process is exactly the way that Romney would phrase it? And the reason he would do so is because it sounds (and kind of is) slimy and underhanded. Do you support limiting a large corporation's ability to spend unlimited money electing candidates who will support their agenda?
Are you aware that attrition has essentially a technical meaning? In particular nobody is fired when you reduce the workforce through attrition. It's not a nice choice of words, it's a legitimate means of describing the process through which the workforce will be reduced.Umm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_for_2010
In 2010 we spent 700 billion (rounding up from wikipedia) on defense. So you propose saving 100 billion
The deficit in 2010 was
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget#Deficit
1.17 trillion. No, you did not balance the budget, I'm sorry.Overall I grade your rant attempt a D. No sourcing of facts (of which several were erroneous, so I can see why you couldn't find any sources for them), and very little in the way of justification for why you disliked things beyond snarky comments

Sorry, this came out horribly. How do I find out how to do the multiple quotes, please?

 

[lisab]

Sorry, this came out horribly. How do I find out how to do the multiple quotes, please?

Start with the first post you want to quote and click "Multi Quote". Then do the same for the second, third, etc. until you get to the last one. For that one, click "Quote" and that puts you into the reply page.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Sorry, this came out horribly. How do I find out how to do the multiple quotes, please?

I just format my posts by hand like that. Whenever you want to quote something just type [*quote]text you want quoted [*/quote] without the *'s. I don't trust those newfangled multi-quote buttons.

Looking back at my post I came across a bit sharper than I should have at points and I want to apologize for that.

Vis-a-vis too many points to discuss... the requirements for Romneys political propaganda and the requirements for posting on the politics forum here are different (the requirements here are much more stringent). You posted your concerns and I replied to the ones that I thought were most egregious, for the sake of productive conversation I think you should just pick a couple for us to go into more detail that you feel sum up the negative themes of his campaign

 

[russ_watters]

Bacle, I tried to fix the quotes for you as best I could (the main problem is your slashes were backwards), but I suspect the post is not what you want it to be. I can delete it if you want.

 

[mheslep]

How is that worse than just posting a 59-point plan without justifying each of the points?

Details here:
http://www.mittromney.com/sites/default/files/shared/BelieveInAmerica-PlanForJobsAndEconomicGrowth-Full.pdf

 

[Oltz]

Details here:

Thanks Mheslep I was about to re post that PDF for people to actually read since we are now essentially down to Mitt as the candidate.

I may re read it myself since I have not read it since originally posting the list and file.

 

[Office_Shredder]

http://m.cbsnews.com/fullstory.rbml?catid=57430011&feed_id=0&videofeed=36

I will be pretty disappointed if the obama campaign didn't turn this into romney's 'I invented the internet' moment

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Ron Paul has stopped campaigning.
Yahoo.com
Tomorrow we will see how Romney does unopposed. I can't figure out why uncommitted delegates haven't come out openly for Romney. What are they waiting for?

 

[Bacle2]

Bacle, I tried to fix the quotes for you as best I could (the main problem is your slashes were backwards), but I suspect the post is not what you want it to be. I can delete it if you want.

Actually, you did a pretty good job; thanks.