presidential election 2012: Romney v Obama

[Huang Guang Chen]

As an Australian radio host has said, Romney needs some more pizzazz. He's suggested sexing up his name, and badabing, he came up with - The Stormin' Mormon!

HG

[ChewDawg]

As an Australian radio host has said, Romney needs some more pizzazz.
HG

Yeah, he could be classy and have pizzazz like former Australian Labor PM Bob Hawke and leave his wife when she gets alzheimers (they divorced before she got it but I would argue she showed symptoms of short-term memory loss in the 90s). The audacity of Australians sometimes!

[Huang Guang Chen]

At least he cried about it (and pretty much everything else) on telly.

The Stormin' Mormon is perfect. Gives him some of that military feel the Reps seem to enjoy and he so lacks. Well, okay, to be fair, while others his age were off in Vietnam he was fighting the good fight from a bicycle in a white shirt and black badge in France, and verbally defending the war, erhm, as a Christian missionary should.

HG

[Winston Smith]

So how did President Obama get off to the fastest start in recent history in piling up government debt in the U.S. while "spending so little"? Are there some sort of Wall Street style government accounting shenanigans going on?

[Huang Guang Chen]

What a strange way to attack the Dems, Winston. Funny thing is my dear departed grandad probably said almost the same, verbatim, but ended it with "the Turks" instead of "the Dems."



And oh dear, just recently, Gallup put this out.
Americans Still Blame Bush More Than Obama for Bad Economy - About half of Republicans blame Bush


And broken down:


HG

[Winston Smith]

What a strange way to attack the Dems, Winston. Funny thing is my dear departed grandad probably said almost the same, verbatim, but ended it with "the Turks" instead of "the Dems."

. . . HG

I'm not attacking anyone, Turks or Democrats. I merely asked a factual question: how does national debt increase at such a fast rate historically without commensurate spending? Is it some sort of accounting trick or is there some other explanation? I see that the answer is: the extension of Bush era tax cuts, the continuation of Bush era foreign wars and the ongoing repair work of the damage done to the U.S. economy while a distracted Bush was off tilting at windmills of mass destruction in the Middle East. Bad Bush!

[Huang Guang Chen]

Apologies, Winston. I haven't been back on this site for sometime, and mistook you for someone else. Someone that does like to bait the dems.

I guess the upside is that Obama is or has wound down the wars. Unfortunately the cost of that will play out in both human and monetary terms for some considerable time. And we may have to add in a further financial bail-out at some point, as the structural issues behind the previous crash have still not been addressed.

HG

[Chris]

Repubiclans getting nervous about Rmoney's refusal to release his financial documents:

[MikeN]

I'm not attacking anyone, Turks or Democrats. I merely asked a factual question: how does national debt increase at such a fast rate historically without commensurate spending?

Collapse of government revenue due to huge recession? The reason Reagan had such a high debt increase was that he made massive tax cuts without accompanying spending cuts. Clinton didn't cut spending but had huge increases in revenue due to both raising taxes and a booming economy.
Obama has made some tax cuts, but has had to bring in a stimulus and watch countercyclical spending rise, but the overall economy is just not generating much revenue.

[Winston Smith]

I'm not attacking anyone, Turks or Democrats. I merely asked a factual question: how does national debt increase at such a fast rate historically without commensurate spending?

Collapse of government revenue due to huge recession? The reason Reagan had such a high debt increase was that he made massive tax cuts without accompanying spending cuts. Clinton didn't cut spending but had huge increases in revenue due to both raising taxes and a booming economy.
Obama has made some tax cuts, but has had to bring in a stimulus and watch countercyclical spending rise, but the overall economy is just not generating much revenue.

Makes sense. Thanks to you and HG for clarifying that.