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GOP Debate Threads

babe said:
I'm sure I could dig up a lot of issues in this microcosm of the presidential campaigns this coming year. . . . and I confess to a bias in favor of Ben Carson. Over a year ago, my wife presented me with his book in autobiography.

I like Ben Carson.

Ben's autobiographical embellishments might be on the same scale as this breakfast story recently:

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/hillary-clintons-story-about-marines-rejection-173811079.html

clearly, Hillary in 1975 was just surveying military recruitment officers for gender bias, not trying to become a military enlistee.
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Ben Carson is a ****ing idiot.
 
Howard said:
Let me be more blunt, and lets see if we get a straight answer here.

Who HERE is saying that's what they want?
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No one from what I can tell-- which makes it perplexing when they then pledge allegiance to politicians and parties that perpetuate it.
 
babe said:
On the same level of evidence and analysis, "If we can just not tax people unjustly, they can afford to buy the healthcare they choose."
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Because that seems to have worked so well historically.
 
Howard said:
Tbh, Carson shows the same aptitude for government leadership that Sanders does for economics.
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This is an interesting push-back that I keep seeing from Conservatives, a bald assertion that Sanders doesn't know anything about economics.

This is totally weird to me. The universal conservative platform at the moment is:
a) we have unacceptable deficit levels
b) we cut taxes now (generally skewed towards the top end to varying degrees)
c) this reduces government revenues
d) ???
e) Economic Growth

No one really has an explanation for d outside of vague allusions to the Laffer curve. The closest we get is Rand Paul who outright says that he would essentially cut all spending (even the popular stuff) down to virtually nothing.

Brief aside: when I watch GOP debates I always find myself at least a little sympathetic to Rand Paul. Everyone else strikes me as spouting bad ideas because they are cynical and believe they will get elected. Rand Paul has bad ideas but I do believe they intellectually all hang together and that he honestly believes them. He is truly unafraid of saying unpopular things and taking positions that are somewhat out of line with conventional GOP thinking. He certainly came off as the adult in the room when everyone was talking about Russia at the most recent debate. I would never vote for Rand, but I like to think if I knew him I'd be his friend. /Brief Aside

On the other hand, Bernie is open about increasing the size of government. I think his total comes down to an additional $18 trillion over ten years spread out across eight programs (despite what I constantly see about "free college," that's only the fourth most expensive plank. The lion's share is the single-payer medicare for all provision).

Bernie also proposes a more than proportionate rise in revenue through $36.8 trillion in projected cost savings and tax increases. Those savings boil down to five categories:

1. "Ending Regressive Health Care": $32 trillion
2. Taxes on latency arbitrage and other stock market volatility measures: $3.5 trillion
3. Closing corporate loopholes regarding storage of wealth overseas: $900 billion
4. Restoring the Estate Tax for the top 0.3%: $319 billion
5. Ending fossil fuel subsidies: $135 billion

We can play with the numbers all we want, but he's actually projecting/proposing revenue increases that are more than double the cost of his proposed expenditures. That appears, on face, to be a viable method of not simply "giving things away" and it doesn't play in the same "I will make the economy grow by X% and that alone will save us" logic.

That said, Bernie's stuff obviously isn't foolproof. Slightly under 90% of the savings side is one item titled "End Regressive Health Care" which is undefined and I'm not certain what ending Regressive Health Care looks like. I think it might be referring to deductions to taxable income from employer sponsored health plans. That's a mixed bag when it comes to what the "cash savings" actually are because it assumes a) that the cost of health care in pre-tax dollars will then be given to workers in post-tax dollars and b) that workers will be sophisticated enough to understand that the increase in taxation is more than offset by increased earnings.

If what actually happens is that you commit to paying for medicare for all and employers respond by simply cutting the benefit without increasing employee pay by the amount previously represented by the benefit then the $32 trillion in increased revenue doesn't materialize. That would actually be on your employer, but Bernie would be pretty easily blamable politically and it doesn't get us out of the hole.

In any event, can anyone break down the exact path to budget neutrality for any of the GOP plans that I can provide for Bernie? Even with the proviso I just mentioned? I really doubt it. I'm not even 100% for Bernie by the way, but I do think he actually means well and isn't a lunatic or a cynic. And those go a long way with me for the same reason that I have sympathy for Rand Paul.
 
Stoked said:
Define "justly" lol.
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It seems to me that Dal is unable to discuss this subject coherently, or to compose himself adequately to back up his conclusion with careful information.

Carson is a sincerely devout believer in Christ who puts that right up front, and has an autobiography that puts his development of that faith across his lifetime out with substantial reason which many Christians can relate to. That he is a member of the Seventh-Day Adventists reminds me of the time when I was a Mormon missionary routinely knocking on all the doors in town, when a Seventh-Day Adventist minister who presided over a large congregation and a school in one town invited me to come speak at the morning devotional in his school. I call that an example of the finest altruism and the sort of community dialog we need.

I don't doubt in the least the basic faith and general substance of truth in Carson's world view. We have a President now who is an ideological Marxist, who has associated with the most extreme anti-American agitators across many years of his life, whose autobiography is a effete narcissistic fiction throughout, who promised to "fundamentally transform America" who has proved his basic commitment to his world view.

I would like to mend the excesses of that development by installing a sincere American Christian in the Oval Office who would restore our nation's basic grounding in constitutional law and redirect our public policy towards promoting the interests of regular American citizens.

Most importantly, I don't want "Obamacare" to stay on our laws. I want the best healthcare on the planet human innovation and competitive economics can provide, not that crap the Canadians have to accept or go abroad for care.
 
Sirkickyass said:
This is an interesting push-back that I keep seeing from Conservatives, a bald assertion that Sanders doesn't know anything about economics.

This is totally weird to me. The universal conservative platform at the moment is:
a) we have unacceptable deficit levels
b) we cut taxes now (generally skewed towards the top end to varying degrees)
c) this reduces government revenues
d) ???
e) Economic Growth

No one really has an explanation for d outside of vague allusions to the Laffer curve. The closest we get is Rand Paul who outright says that he would essentially cut all spending (even the popular stuff) down to virtually nothing.

Brief aside: when I watch GOP debates I always find myself at least a little sympathetic to Rand Paul. Everyone else strikes me as spouting bad ideas because they are cynical and believe they will get elected. Rand Paul has bad ideas but I do believe they intellectually all hang together and that he honestly believes them. He is truly unafraid of saying unpopular things and taking positions that are somewhat out of line with conventional GOP thinking. He certainly came off as the adult in the room when everyone was talking about Russia at the most recent debate. I would never vote for Rand, but I like to think if I knew him I'd be his friend. /Brief Aside

On the other hand, Bernie is open about increasing the size of government. I think his total comes down to an additional $18 trillion over ten years spread out across eight programs (despite what I constantly see about "free college," that's only the fourth most expensive plank. The lion's share is the single-payer medicare for all provision).

Bernie also proposes a more than proportionate rise in revenue through $36.8 trillion in projected cost savings and tax increases. Those savings boil down to five categories:

1. "Ending Regressive Health Care": $32 trillion
2. Taxes on latency arbitrage and other stock market volatility measures: $3.5 trillion
3. Closing corporate loopholes regarding storage of wealth overseas: $900 billion
4. Restoring the Estate Tax for the top 0.3%: $319 billion
5. Ending fossil fuel subsidies: $135 billion

We can play with the numbers all we want, but he's actually projecting/proposing revenue increases that are more than double the cost of his proposed expenditures. That appears, on face, to be a viable method of not simply "giving things away" and it doesn't play in the same "I will make the economy grow by X% and that alone will save us" logic.

That said, Bernie's stuff obviously isn't foolproof. Slightly under 90% of the savings side is one item titled "End Regressive Health Care" which is undefined and I'm not certain what ending Regressive Health Care looks like. I think it might be referring to deductions to taxable income from employer sponsored health plans. That's a mixed bag when it comes to what the "cash savings" actually are because it assumes a) that the cost of health care in pre-tax dollars will then be given to workers in post-tax dollars and b) that workers will be sophisticated enough to understand that the increase in taxation is more than offset by increased earnings.

If what actually happens is that you commit to paying for medicare for all and employers respond by simply cutting the benefit without increasing employee pay by the amount previously represented by the benefit then the $32 trillion in increased revenue doesn't materialize. That would actually be on your employer, but Bernie would be pretty easily blamable politically and it doesn't get us out of the hole.

In any event, can anyone break down the exact path to budget neutrality for any of the GOP plans that I can provide for Bernie? Even with the proviso I just mentioned? I really doubt it. I'm not even 100% for Bernie by the way, but I do think he actually means well and isn't a lunatic or a cynic. And those go a long way with me for the same reason that I have sympathy for Rand Paul.
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I like Rand Paul too, and I can actually follow the thinking Kicky lays out here.

I have personal experience with how the regulations of our many federal agencies stifle economic growth by driving smaller business off the playing field while protecting major corporate interests and markets through their power to staff legal departments capable of complying with the regulations and their influence through lobbyists who can carve out some favored path through the maze. I have no doubt that our economy would quickly rebound with any of these conservative politicians who would cut government back in significant ways that could restore the level playing field in our economy to any extent. We would have very significant increases in our tax base in this country with a smaller tax percentage as well.

I've had a few Marxist friends who are probably in the Bernie Sanders camp now. I think Bernie Sanders has been a more consistent politician than most in any camp. When One Brow talks about how there are liberals who are not just corporate hacks like the Clintons, I can relate to that "extreme" on the left who agree with me on the basics of how our corporate interests have inordinate influence in our government.

right now I'm listening to Mark Levin on podcast rewind from a few days ago discussing the dabate, pointing out how Kasich speaks for "crony Capitalists" of the ilk who run our present government, even under Obama. Obama is a disappointment as an ideological "Marxist", he licks the boots of the crony capitalists. Obamacare was written by corporate lobbyists for entrenched healthcare industries who made it into something that reduces actual care while enlarging revenues for providers. The price we pay has gone up spades.
 
dalamon said:
Ben Carson is a ****ing idiot.
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He has said some things that seem uninformed, but so have most people. He seems like a very good person, if that counts for anything in this world. It's interesting how upset liberals get when a minority or female conservative candidate gets any traction. It seems to upset them much more than when the candidate is a white male. Why is that?
 
Joe Bagadonuts said:
He has said some things that seem uninformed, but so have most people. He seems like a very good person, if that counts for anything in this world. It's interesting how upset liberals get when a minority or female conservative candidate gets any traction. It seems to upset them much more than when the candidate is a white male. Why is that?
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The narrative is that the Rs oppress every one not a white male. To be a woman or minority in the R party is to deny who they are. or some such BS. I think this only applies to a segment of the left. not all think this way.

Interestingly enough to me the top 5 GOPers are :

Trump - White Male
Carson - Black Male
Rubio - Latino Male
Cruz - Latino Male
Bush - White Male
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e..._republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html

Only 2 fit the typical R racial and gender makeup popularly mocked.
 
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Joe Bagadonuts said:
He has said some things that seem uninformed, but so have most people. He seems like a very good person, if that counts for anything in this world. It's interesting how upset liberals get when a minority or female conservative candidate gets any traction. It seems to upset them much more than when the candidate is a white male. Why is that?
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This has absolutely nothing to do with being a black male and you know it. Herman Cain was a blubbering idiot and so is Ben Carson. Neither of them can do simple math. Both would bankrupt the country. First there was Cain with his 9-9-9 plan that sounded like he was trying to sell pizzas again, and now there's Carson who can't answer how his math on his personal tax plan just doesn't add up.

How on earth can you argue that liberals are the ones who don't support anyone but a white male? Do you think Barack is white? Do you think hillary is just masquerading as a female?
 
b_line said:
This has absolutely nothing to do with being a black male and you know it. Herman Cain was a blubbering idiot and so is Ben Carson. Neither of them can do simple math. Both would bankrupt the country. First there was Cain with his 9-9-9 plan that sounded like he was trying to sell pizzas again, and now there's Carson who can't answer how his math on his personal tax plan just doesn't add up.

How on earth can you argue that liberals are the ones who don't support anyone but a white male? Do you think Barack is white? Do you think hillary is just masquerading as a female?
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I have never said that liberals won't support a liberal black male or a liberal woman, and I have no idea where you're getting that from. I am saying that a conservative black male or woman seems to set them off. If the problem is these particular candidates are too flawed (as you are saying) why don't their liberal detractors simply say that? Why do they instead so often resort to demeaning them in ways similar to the post I responded to from Dal?
 
Joe Bagadonuts said:
I have never said that liberals won't support a liberal black male or a liberal woman, and I have no idea where you're getting that from. I am saying that a conservative black male or woman seems to set them off. If the problem is these particular candidates are too flawed (as you are saying) why don't their liberal detractors simply say that? Why do they instead so often resort to demeaning them in ways similar to the post I responded to from Dal?
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I have never heard any politician other than trump demean another politician for not being a white male. The assertion that liberals demean candidates because of their race or gender is ludicrous.
 
b_line said:
I have never heard any politician other than trump demean another politician for not being a white male. The assertion that liberals demean candidates because of their race or gender is ludicrous.
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I agree that it seems ludicrous given the stated liberal agenda of raising the oppressed up and giving them a voice, but the examples are frequent. When a minority speaks out against liberal ideas the libs go insane. The same is true for women.
 
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