Arguably the most important moment of the Republican presidential nominating process wasn't a gaffe or an attack -- it was a question that didn't even require anyone to say anything at all.
At a debate for the eight GOP candidates in mid-August, Fox News' Bret Baier asked the Republican field whether they could accept a debt-reduction deal in which they received $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. All eight candidates said such a compromise simply wouldn't be good enough.
Looking back, Jon Huntsman regrets the incident. As of yesterday, Mitt Romney doesn't.
For those who can't watch clips online, CBS's Bob Schieffer asked about this on "Face the Nation" yesterday, and Romney was as obstinate as he was last summer, even when talking about a 10-to-1 compromise in his favor.
"I do feel that way. Government is big and getting larger.... The only solution to taming an out-of-control spending government is to cut spending and my policies reduce the rate of spending."
It's important to appreciate just how ridiculous this is.
Let's note for context that in March 2011 — just last year — Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee released a report on deficit reduction. In it, House GOP officials outlined their ideal cuts-to-revenue ratio, and concluded that "successful" attempts to cut the deficit meet a specific goal: "85% spending cuts and 15% revenue increases." Roughly speaking, that's about a 5-to-1 ratio in Republicans' favor — and this is what GOP officials characterized as their ideal just a year ago.
Romney, however, is far to the right of where House Republicans were in 2011 -- we've gone from a Republican standard demanding a 5-to-1 deal in their favor to rejecting a 10-to-1 deal in their favor.
The larger message to the electorate was hard to miss: Romney has no intention of compromising.
As a policy matter, if a 10-to-1 cuts-to-revenue ratio is considered far too liberal for the Republican Party in the 21st century, we can say with certainty the GOP is obviously not serious about debt reduction. We can also say with certainty that the Republicans' presidential nominee doesn't have the foggiest idea how to shape a coherent approach to fiscal sanity.
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"It's important to appreciate just how ridiculous this is...."
Yes because we can't deprive BIG OIL/GAS/COAL, PhARMA, BIG AGRI-business, AND those deep money corporate sponsors on WALL STREET to actually pay taxes! We've got to soak the middle & poor until they bend to the will of the dark side young Skywalker.....
instead of going with the "Big Government" angle, why wasn't Romney asked about Big Business and the 1% siphoning away the bloodline of the country? Why did Bob Schieffer fall for the Republican talking-point?
The numbers are there that "Big Government" only applies to social and voting issues (which Republicans are inflating at a mind-boggling rate) while "Big Business" in its corruption is suffocating the country.
I'm glad we now have Romney parroting the 10-to-1 line, but come on. Is actual journalism dead in favor of fellating candidates so the news agency gets 'exclusive' interviews? A pox on "Big Media".
We must, MUST make sacrifices to the Job Creators or they will withdraw their favor from us and we will wither away to dust.
@Drew, do you not realize that "journalism" died, it couldn't get "sponsors"! Corporate media or as I like to call it - corporate propaganda is "objective" - so going with "Big Government" gets that knee-jerk reaction that the reich approves of....
"It's important to appreciate just how ridiculous this is...."
Yes because we can't deprive BIG OIL/GAS/COAL, PhARMA, BIG AGRI-business, AND those deep money corporate sponsors on WALL STREET to actually pay taxes! We've got to soak the middle & poor until they bend to the will of the dark side young Skywalker.....
Any budget that is more than what Washington signed into law is too much even though we now have more than 300 million citizens and the country spans a whole continent. Romney is afraid of managing anything that requires expansion of R&D or infrastructure.
He's a liquidator not a growth guy. Feels only comfortable at fire sales?
Of course the right believes we should spend trillions on defending ourselves from Russia and other boogey men. We also must subsidize big oil and nuclear power plants. We need to have more money spent on useless equipment to give to homeland security so those minimum waged guards can toy with stuff they know nothing about. Then there are the important issues like regulating abortion clinics while deregulating toxins.
Kinsd of makes one wonder just where the right will hide when their @!$%# hits the fan.
Bob Schieffer was more persistent in his asking questions of Mittens yesterday than normal. Not his normal repuknican @sskisser self; only a bootlicker.
This was after a very long segment earlier in the morning with CBS pimping for Marco Rubio to get the v.p. nomination.
Our Corporately Owned Media...
ABC = Always Been Corporate
CBS = Corporate Bootlicking System
CNN = Corporately Nice Network
FOX = propaganda
NBC = schizophrenic (Morning Joke & Rachel Maddow)
I do wish that Ted Turner would admit that he is disgusted with what CNN has become!
I turned to CNN this morning and they had some sort of roundtable on the "Don't Say Vagina" excoriation in Michigan.
Some woman said, "Well that congresswoman should be talking about the substance, not performing 'The Vagina Monologues'."
Well that was the entire point of why she was censured in the first place! She was arguing against the substance, got censured for it, and now is protesting. She's getting flack for protesting her inability to talk about the content of the bill because she's not talking about the content of the bill?
Seriously CNN, wtf? Competing for the FOX market, are we?
Kind of funny thing with CNN, when that "mogul" Ted Turner was in charge they actually reported factual news -in fact they were well respected world wide back then. I guess as Ted and Warren Buffet prove, not all rich people are scum.
And I have it from a friend that resides in France that CNN international still reports factual news as they are competing with BBC World and Al Jasera not versions of Faux Lite
What amazes me is that the mainstream reporting on this doesn't actually tell people what it will take to balance a budget on spending cuts alone (hint: zero absolutely everything but the military and Social Security and you still have a deficit.)
Of course, we could also zero out Social Security and finally get a budget surplus, but only if we keep the FICA payroll tax without paying anyone the benefits.
Social Security has always had a surplus so much so that congress has consistantly "borrowed" from the fund. The shortfall predictions you hear about are predictions about when SSI will no longer be operating on that surplus but will be "down to" using money coming in at the time it goes out.
Of the roughly $15 Trillion of 'debt', $2.6 Trillion of it is in the Social Security Trust Fund. That is about 17% of the total debt. Since Saint Ronald Regan and Mr. Andrea Mitchell (Alan Greenspan) saved social security forever by raising retirement ages and increasing SS taxes, that $2.6 Trillion is what we have 'overpaid'.
Why the f*ck is it that the only government debt that the repukes want to default on is that accumulated because working people overpaid to build up a surplus?
and we need not mention anywhere in the MSM that if we lifted the SS cap to 250k the "problem disappears.
Americans certainly cant handle the truth , let alone easy solutions to made up problems
This message really needs to be pounded as a major talking point. Have people really forgotten that they pay into Social Security and the system has been plundered at working class expense?
If Schieffer doesn't remind Romney (and more specifically, the audience) what Romney said earlier, Romney surely would have said 10-1 is a good deal.
Oh, please. We are so far past the point where a tax hike will pay for anything, it no longer matters. The only real reason to raise taxes on the rich for instance, is retribution. All the millionaire's tax would only pay for three months of the payroll tax cut.
There there's the issue of baseline budgeting... slowing the rate of growth is not a cut in the real world. For that alone Democrats are not believable when they talk about spending cuts.
Lastly, considering how loudly Democrats squealed when unions where asked to contribute miniscule amounts to support their benefits, Romney is right to ignore any proposal and the protestations following. Spending has to be cut, there is no getting around it. Otherwise the last chance for Govt responsibility gives up the ghost. And no, adding more debt to a debt driven recession won't help.
First, so let's say you've become accustomed to getting a 4% salary increase each year in your job. But this year, they only give you a 1% increase (slowing the rate of growth in your salary). You would not consider that any kind of a cut?
Second, you say Democrats are not believable on this issue, but the data shows that of all our Presidents dating back to and including Reagan, the rate of spending growth has been greater under the GOP than under Clinton and Obama. You can say all you want that Republicans are more responsible when it comes to spending, but that doesnt make it true.
The answer is not to go back to Bush policies; a better answer, from a deficit standpoint, would be to go back to Clinton policies.
First "cut" has specific connotations outside of the beltway. As in, less than last time.
Second, Republicans in charge of Congress makes it true. Here's a lovely graph making my point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Federal_Debt_1901-2010.png
Lastly, you can't just order up the Clinton era, that would require we be anticipating a new millennium, no large wars, a stock market bubble, and a leader that makes Americans feel good about themselves.
Beyond that, on the first go round, Republicans would have settled for all the Clinton rates. Shared sacrifice in a dire time as it were. But Obama had to play class warfare and demagogue the rich. Bad move.
Shooter - debt does not equal deficit. So your graph, while interesting, is less related to spending than the topic we are discussing, which is spending cuts and the deficit.
Why can't we just order up the Clinton era? Repubs seem to want to order up the W era. Besides, I don't recall "anticipating" any large wars or a stock market bubble back then. Y2K was all hype as it turned out, and if you're referring to W as "a leader that makes Americans feel good about themselves," well that just didn't turn out to be true either.
Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall hearing any Republicans say they would have settled for going back to the Clinton rates. All I hear is them doing everything they can to protect the wealthy while soaking it to the middle-and lower classes, if not through higher income taxes, through other types of taxes and fees and reductions in other things that benefit them. The end result of that is lower demand for consumer goods and services, which translates to more layoffs by corporations, and an economy that ultimately fails. Along with that, government revenues decline and the deficit increases even with actual spending cuts as you define them. It won't matter whether we have a leader who makes us feel good about ourselves.
And tax cuts do not equal jobs.
You're the one that brought up Presidents and spending, I'm not surprised you want to return to the original topic. And I was referring to Clinton as the President that made Americans feel good about themselves.
As for Republicans accepting Clinton rates, here's my source http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/business/economy/03leonhardt.html
As for income taxes half the country doesn't pay any. Maybe you'd like to tell us how that's a burden? The rest of the taxes besides payroll aren't my problem, that's a local issue.
Meanwhile back to "demand", we always have demand, we don't always have a way to pay for it. Where do consumers get money to pay for "demand"? Jobs. Why don't we have jobs? Because Obama is anti-business. Apparently he didn't get the memo that business is the source of wealth (goods and services) and profit, without which no new jobs or taxes appear.
If you think temporarily giving people an extra twenty bucks a month is going to fool them into believing happy days are here again, think again. On the other hand North Dakota has jobs, demand, and taxes coming out of it's ears. It might be instructive if you check it out.
"Always," as you say, for basic things like bread and milk. Sure. But when you don't have enough income, other things fall out of the picture. Need a new stove because three burners don't work anymore? Too bad - you'll just have live with the fourth one. Same for your car, your clothes, what you do for entertainment...the list goes on. You're not demanding those things because you can't pay for them anyway. And the corporations who make the stoves, cars, clothes, etc. Aren't going to make them just to give people jobs so they can afford to buy them. It just doesn't work that way. Companies follow models designed to minimize their inventory holding costs. Somebody needs to be ready to buy products before they make more products to put into inventory. Profit doesn't create jobs; demand does.
And please, give me one quote from Obama where he says he's anti-business.
Need a new stove, that's demand. Want a new car, clothes and entertainment? That's demand. All those things require a job, and twenty dollars a week in a payroll tax cut isn't going to fool producers into thinking they should hire.
Meanwhile, yes, profit creates jobs. There is no other reason to hire someone, other than to make a profit. If a company loses money (doesn't make a profit) no taxes get paid and no new hires are made. Everything begins and ends with business and profit. As is amply demonstrated in North Dakota.
Almost forgot about Obama, nobody in their right mind is going to declare himself anti-business. No need though, actions speak loudest.
It's not demand if don't have the money to go out and buy it.
"Profit creates jobs." Lol - by that logic, we should all be working for oil companies by now. To maximize profit, you match production to demand at the optimal price people are willing to pay. You don't just keep hiring and making more of something with every additional dollar of profit you make - unless of course you want to go out of business eventually.
Don't know much about economics, do you?
Why doesn't the media point out that GOVERNMENT is not growing, the DEBT is. The SIZE of government is actually shrinking. It's the cost of the programs that were PREVIOUSLY enacted that we are still spending on!...
It is something to think about the human brain. The brain stores every emotion, every action and everything you have seen in your lifetime. But on top of it, there is a form of energy to it all that would be called your spirit that lives on. We know certain things about Physics, a very practical science, but when it comes to the Physics of our spirits we really know so little. The energy of our spirits goes somewhere that we know has everything recorded instantly of our past, present and future like it is happening all at once, but we cannot even figure out how it works. And that there is something much greater and more powerful behind it all that when we do pass on whenever that is will always keep a balance of separating positive and negative energy (spirits) away from each other. Since negative energy (spirits) is really nothing but destructive and will look to consume anything it gets near. Negative energy (spirits) have to be contained as if they are like radiation and put away in a safe place called hell, otherwise their destructive habits would cause an off balance to the whole universe and life itself. This form of energy (spirits) must stay there until sufficient negative energy is expelled or as what could possibly happen negative energy looks to consume thus the only thing left there is other negative energy to devour. And if negative energy is devouring other negative energy, then there will be a much older negative energy that exists there that will consume you like a snack just so it can endure and go on.