No, you shouldn't care. POTUS has no power of repeal. The only way Obamacare can get repealed is if Congress pushes for it, which is never going to happen because of the amounts of votes that would be required. All Romney is doing is paying lip-service to the Republican hardcore.
US Presidential Election: Tuesday November 6th, 2012
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No, you shouldn't care. POTUS has no power of repeal. The only way Obamacare can get repealed is if Congress pushes for it, which is never going to happen because of the amounts of votes that would be required. All Romney is doing is paying lip-service to the Republican hardcore.
Yeah sorry that was the word I was going for, my English let me down there.
As the President says...'You are judged by what you say'.No point speculating.
Romney stands for nothing. But he despices anyone who does not agree with him...ie vote for him. No need to speculate. We have his own words.
I know he can't repeal it, the SCOTUS was the last, best hope of the act's opponents. However, he will unite with congress to erode the law and water down the impact. With Obama I'm confident he will seek to strengthen it and get this country on the path to a single-payer system.
Contrast 8 years with Bill Clinton with 8 years with George Bush and you get the difference.
Women's Rights- Theoretically Obama is protecting women's reproductive rights and promote's gender equality, would Romney do the same?
LGBT Rights- Obama repealed DADT as well as promoting marriage equality, Romney wouldn't have.
Worker's Rights- Obama at least keeps basic protections for workers, Romney would love to see America 'be more competitive' by repealing protections for workers.
Healthcare- Obama wants to protect poorer Americans by giving assistance in paying insurance and has introduced protections for young people and people with pre-existing conditions. Romney says he wants to appeal it.
Tax and Government Spending- Obama wants to keep the lower bracket tax rates but allow to the top rate to go back to the Clinton era rate. Romney wants to cut the top rate even further. Both want to make cuts to 'entitlements' but Romney would need to cut deeper since he would have lower revenues.
Foreign policy/ defence- Obama is VERY hawkish, but not stupidly so (although he's pretty vindictive to people who work against US interests)- he is willing to open diplomatic relationships with most countries. Romney says he would intervene in Syria, says he'd attack Iran, go after China, thinks Russia is a major threat.. also thinks there's no point trying to get a peace deal between Palestine and Israel, at least Obama will try.
Environment- Obama accepts the scientific consensus that climate change is happening, and is caused by human activity, says he wants to do something about it (but probably won't). Romney doesn't 'believe' in climate change and will deregulate environmental standards leading to increased pollution.
LGBT Rights- Obama repealed DADT as well as promoting marriage equality, Romney wouldn't have.
Worker's Rights- Obama at least keeps basic protections for workers, Romney would love to see America 'be more competitive' by repealing protections for workers.
Healthcare- Obama wants to protect poorer Americans by giving assistance in paying insurance and has introduced protections for young people and people with pre-existing conditions. Romney says he wants to appeal it.
Tax and Government Spending- Obama wants to keep the lower bracket tax rates but allow to the top rate to go back to the Clinton era rate. Romney wants to cut the top rate even further. Both want to make cuts to 'entitlements' but Romney would need to cut deeper since he would have lower revenues.
Foreign policy/ defence- Obama is VERY hawkish, but not stupidly so (although he's pretty vindictive to people who work against US interests)- he is willing to open diplomatic relationships with most countries. Romney says he would intervene in Syria, says he'd attack Iran, go after China, thinks Russia is a major threat.. also thinks there's no point trying to get a peace deal between Palestine and Israel, at least Obama will try.
Environment- Obama accepts the scientific consensus that climate change is happening, and is caused by human activity, says he wants to do something about it (but probably won't). Romney doesn't 'believe' in climate change and will deregulate environmental standards leading to increased pollution.
They can collectively find ways to thwart it by defunding parts of it and preventing other parts from being implemented. If I'm not mistaken, it doesn't fuly kick in until 2014, so there's plenty that can be done between Jan of 2013 to Jan of 2014.
I believe this too. I honestly don't see a Republican president in the next dozen years. By then we will have single payer.
Interesting point I just read that this election could see both Romney and Ryan lose their home states.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/2012_elections_senate_map.html
Interesting movement of polls in Senate races.
This was supposed to be the year Republicans took control of the Senate.
Interesting movement of polls in Senate races.
This was supposed to be the year Republicans took control of the Senate.
This election year I did not have any hopes for the House....but with the top of the Republican ticket imploding...just maybe.
Ryan losing his seat will be so sweet.
EDIT: Look at Generic Congressional polls.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/generic_congressional_vote-2170.html
Romney will get destroyed in the presidential election now. A lot of the money that would have gone to his campaign will go to the senate races, that could be decisive in a few of the races.
It's funny because this is truly one of the biggest "choice" elections in the history of the country. Romney should have been turning this into a referendum on Obama, instead his own gaffes and policies have made this a choice election.
Thanks for the first non-facetious response. My point was this: as far as the economy is concerned, POTUS isn't really in a position to do any of these things. Let me give you an example; Lydon Johnson was much more successful in a legislative sense, before he became POTUS. Being President did not afford him any more power in Congress than he had as a regular member of either House.
I would be more concerned about the state of Congress than whoever is President when it comes to the economy. Because as has been shown recently by the Tea Partiers, a vocal group in Congress can make it very difficult to pass budgets. The only vaguely interesting thing about Romney's campaign is the fact that he appointed Paul Ryan as his running mate, which shows you just how powerful the Tea Party is becoming within the Republican party. Whether you think this is a good thing or not would obviously depend on your ideological leanings.
Obama pulling away in Florida. Romney has lost Wisconsin. If its a wave election, Ryan will be gone.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/fl/florida_romney_vs_obama-1883.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/wi/wisconsin_romney_vs_obama-1871.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/fl/florida_romney_vs_obama-1883.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/wi/wisconsin_romney_vs_obama-1871.html
How is Obama protecting women's rights when he has no power to do so? No doubt he definitely holds these views, but I'm not fairly sure Romney is not against abortion either.
Perhaps. Although Romney did allow marriage certificates to be issued for same sex couples while governor.
This is not an issue for a Presidential campaign since he would not be able to do so.
Already talked about this previously.
OK. This might be a difference, if we weren't talking about moves of 3-4 percentage points. Minuscule isn't even the word for it.
Fair point. Romney is quite crazily Hawkish. However, whether Obama or Romney is president, military intervention in Syria is a very high likelihood. And so is attacking Iran. And the US has been 'going after' China for quite a while because of the way the administration there has been handling it's currency - which is supposed to be illegal under WTO agreements.
His views on Palestine, Israel and Russia are quite worrying though.
Very true. But again, POTUS has no jurisdiction over this. Although he could arguably push the enforcement agencies to be more lax with their punitive measures. Who knows.
Republicans keep proposing legislation that defines life at earlier and earlier points. Obama would veto anything that got to his desk like that. Romney, who knows what he really thinks. He'd likely be more subtle about how he'd try and change the law. Possibly go the long route by appointing pro-life Supreme Court justices.
Romney and Ryan also are against acts which say that an employer must pay people the same who do the same job. The gender wage gap isn't as great (and can be explained by life choices for the most part- IIRC the difference thats 'unexplained' in the labour report is about 2 cents per hour) but two people doing the same job to the same standard should be paid the same.
3-4% is minuscule? Income tax is roughly half of all tax collected by the US and people earning over $250k pay the majority of that.. it would be a huge amount.
You can go through Romney's history and find him taking opposing positions on most issues. The Mitt Romney campaigning for president as we speak is: pro-life, against gay marriage (and civil unions), wants to repeal Obamacare, wants to extend tax cuts on those earning over 250,000 (it's a lot of money, not minuscule), doesn't know what a dirty bomb is, and has taken conflicting positions on global warming throughout this campaign, currently trending towards "doesn't believe".
Sure, you can go back to the Romney that campaigned for Governor of Massachusetts all those years ago and see quite a moderate candidate. But you'd have to ignore what he's actually campaigning on this election to his differences to Obama are "minuscule".
Sure, you can go back to the Romney that campaigned for Governor of Massachusetts all those years ago and see quite a moderate candidate. But you'd have to ignore what he's actually campaigning on this election to his differences to Obama are "minuscule".
Andrew, you seem to have this weird notion that anything that gets voted on by Congress is somehow unaffected by the President. Leaving aside the veto, he is the head of the executive branch. He has a massive amount of power into how laws are implemented.
Are we sure it isn't mjs Romney rather than Mitt?
I thought the TP hates his farther?
They don't know what to hate more. They'll accept his nutty foreign policy in order to get the domestic fiscal policy that they love.
His foreign policy is about the only thing that isnt nutty about him.
I'd accept less nutty. Total isolation is fecking stupid in the modern age. I'd cut down the bases and the arms exports significantly. Ramp up the UN and NATO involvement and maintain a strong QRF type military.
Swearing blind allegiance to the Likud mid-east strategy? A major party Presidential candidate in 2012 saying that "Russia is our number one enemy" strikes you as a particularly sane choice?
I think people branding his foreign policy as 'total isolation' is hyperbole at best. He wants to reduce military presence abroad, not get involved in decades-old conflicts, leave institutions such as the UN, all while ramping up defense spending at home to ensure full domestic protection. These measures might be considered extreme from an American perspective, especially considering their omnipresent global presence in the last 50 years, but to the rest of the world they can be interpreted as sensible.
We talking about Ron Paul here?
Right, and presumably he thinks it's a pretty good system. But because he's wedded to the GOP platform, he has to pretend to think it's a socialist monstrosity and pledge to repeal it.
And that's the problem. Yes, of course the President has very limited powers. But he's still the most powerful man in the country, and he can still advance his party's agenda and retard (even veto) the other's. When you vote for President you don't just vote for the man, you vote for the administration. Without a Dem President expending some of his political capital on pushing it forward, it's very unlikely any healthcare reform would have got through.
If Romney gets in, it will take enough of a swing that the House will certainly be Republican and the Senate may well be (because congressional elections in a general election year tend to swing with the presidential vote). That means the GOP agenda had a good chance of being enacted.
Differences from the Democratic agenda include a puritanical rejection of any kind of tax increase, a protection of ridiculous levels of military funding, rejection of environmental regulations, an unrealistic, nationalistic line on immigration, bigoted attitudes to gays and Muslims, and a neo-conservative foreign policy.
Democratic foreign policy is still very far from how most of us in this forum would like it, but it is more pragmatic than the Republican and is much less likely to result in another major middle-east war. And while Democrats are also massively beholden to banks and corporations, this is mitigated to some extent by their reliance on support from unions and grassroots organizations that ensure they maintain a (very moderately) redistributionist agenda.
A Romney administration would also put forward very conservative SCOTUS picks, which of course would have major ramifications in all sorts of legal and social areas.
Bollocks he does. He wants to grow the defense budget faster than it did during the cold war. Naive to think they'll all be sitting around Fort Dix.
Oh yes, that's not at all nutty. Let's massively increase defense spending and concentrate all our forces at home. Because invasion is our primary security concern.
Which world, specifically?
The SCOTUS picks are the number one issue for me. The next 5 years or so will influence several generations with justices retiring and the cases that are going to come before the court.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-richest-woman-20120830,0,3323996.story
World's richest woman says poor should have less fun, work harder
Gina Rinehart, the world's richest woman, says people who are jealous of the wealthy should work harder. (Twitter / August 30, 2012)
By David Lazarus
August 30, 2012, 9:31 a.m.
Just in case you were beginning to think rich people were deeply misunderstood and that they feel the pain of those who are less fortunate, here's the world's wealthiest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, with some helpful advice.
"If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain," she said in a magazine piece. "Do something to make more money yourself -- spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working."
Yeah, let them eat cake.
Rinehart made her money the old-fashioned way: She inherited it. Her family iron ore prospecting fortune of $30.1 billion makes her Australia's wealthiest person and the richest woman on the planet.
"There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire," she said by way of encouragement.
"Become one of those people who work hard, invest and build, and at the same time create employment and opportunities for others."
Boom. Almost too easy.
Why are people poor? Rinehart blamed what she described as "socialist," anti-business government policies, and urged Australian officials to lower the minimum wage and cut taxes.
"The millionaires and billionaires who choose to invest in Australia are actually those who most help the poor and our young," she said. "This secret needs to be spread widely."
She is despicable. Probably the most hated woman in Australia. Which is saying something given that we have a female PM and Paulne Hanson.
On Foreign policy I am pretty much in full agreement with Obama except I want us out of Afghanistan sooner...like early next year.
Romney is an utter idiot and I would not trust him with a kitchen knife....unless he is going to cut his own throat.
Ron Paul should be locked up. His son is a smarter than Ryan but still must have failed Math like all Tea party ideologues.
That we have such people in office is thebigger worry for this country
Gina looks like she's had her fair share of cake.
..and she is uglier than a pig.
I'm sure Obama wants out too, but one doesn't simply walk out of Afghanistan...it has to be done slowly. His overall foreign policy has been his strongest plus this term and I'm bemused as to why he's considered the worst president we have ever had. Nuanced, careful diplomacy over 'bring 'em on' is no contest really. Handling the increasingly volatile ME and trying to quell a belligerent Israel isn't easy and it requires a bit more than carrying a big stick about.
Since Grinner was begging for it:
I think history will prove Obama was one of our best presidents. Its right wing nonsense that he is poor. Dubya has to be among the worst we ever had of course.
On Afghanistan, I'm sickeded by the constant murder of our guys by turncoat Afghan troops and the Taliban. I cannot see how that corrupt regime will ever be ready to take charge. Suppose we just cannot just drop everything and leave either.
While I am overall in agreement with our policy with Israel...someone needs to bitchslap Netanyaho.
That picture is way too small Excal. Disappointing performance.
Overall Israel is a friend, but it should be on our terms, not theirs. Nixon ordered their arms shipments be shut off in 1973 and the war ended within days. We could coerce them as we see fit but their influence seems much greater than it was.
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