Romney picks Paul Ryan as VP Running Mate

[GBMelBlount]

NORFOLK, Va.--Mitt Romney announced Saturday he's selected Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his vice presidential running mate. The announcement came just after 7am ET via Mitt's VP, a mobile application launched by the campaign earlier this month.

According to a statement the campaign released late Friday, the presumptive Republican nominee will appear with his running mate at an 8:45am rally here on the USS Wisconsin--the first stop of his four-day bus tour of key battleground states. The campaign offered no further details, and aides traveling with Ronney declined to comment.

The Romney campaign's confirmation comes hours after multiple news sources, including NBC News, the Huffington Post, the Associated Press and CNN, that Romney would name Ryan--reports the campaign refused to confirm. Early Saturday morning, the site, RomneyRyan.com, began referring to a page on Romney's official campaign website touting "America's Comeback Team."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/mitt-romney-announce-vp-pick-saturday-032140054.html





At an Atlas Society meeting celebrating Ayn Rand's life in 2005, Ryan said that "The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand",[23] and "I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff."[24]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ryan

Atlas Shrugged is the best book I have ever read.

[ALLD]

Time to take advantage of cheap domestic nat gas, high technology and a superior political system. This is the first step in opening America up for business again.

[SteelerEmpire]

Paul Ryan ? R U kiddin me ? At the "minimum" there went any chance to sway the Latino vote in Florida. There's a list of Democrats that I like. Theres a list of Republicans that I like. Paul Ryan is NOT on that list...

[GoSlash27]

I like Paul Ryan. If Romney wants to make this election about economic policy, Ryan's the obvious choice.
Unfortunately, Romney's at the top of the ticket so I won't be voting for them. I would've if it was reversed.

[ALLD]

I like Paul Ryan. If Romney wants to make this election about economic policy, Ryan's the obvious choice.
Unfortunately, Romney's at the top of the ticket so I won't be voting for them. I would've if it was reversed.

Very insightful and I would agree with your premise if the Democrats had a better candidate themselves. The bottom line is we get to choose between the lesser of two evils. Do you believe in self-reliance or do you think large government is the answer? I am somewhere in the middle, but both parties have become polar opposites in this election.


There is a clear choice and the winner will take it as a mandate to move further in one direction or the other.

[suitanim]

The TEA Party will like this, for what that's worth.

This eliminates the garbage logic argument that "Romney=Obama", and gives the GOP the upper hand on the issue of dealing with entitlements, since Ryan deals with it and Obama has absolutely nothing even approaching any kind of plan for SSI, Medicare or Medicaid other than letting them become more insolvent for the next President to deal with.

HOWEVER, there are two problems here. One is that old people can't hear the words "This won't affect you". They just can't. Anybody 60 or older is going to think that they will lose their benefits no matter what you tell them. The other problem related to that is this gives the Democrats (who have, again, NOTHING. No answer. No solution. No plan. No nothing other than to let these plans collapse under their own weight) the low road of demagoguery with the old tricks of showing evil men in suits pushing grandma off the cliff. Again.

And the less astute and Kool-aid drinkers just eat that retarded stuff up.

This is a high-risk, high-reward pick.

A note: The super far-right kook crowd will still not be pleased because Ryan was for TARP (because of the auto bailouts...he IS from Wisconsin). And they cannot compromise at all...

[Devilsdancefloor]

so far the media he is white, and to inexperienced to be president...... yeah whatever

[zulater]

so far the media he is white, and to inexperienced to be president...... yeah whatever

At least he's not a moron like Obama's Veep. :heh:

[GoSlash27]

Very insightful and I would agree with your premise if the Democrats had a better candidate themselves. The bottom line is we get to choose between the lesser of two evils. Do you believe in self-reliance or do you think large government is the answer? I am somewhere in the middle, but both parties have become polar opposites in this election.


There is a clear choice and the winner will take it as a mandate to move further in one direction or the other.

That's a whole pile of false dilemma fallacies.
We *don't* have to choose between the lesser of two evils.
I do not agree that there is a clear distinction between the two.
The decision hinges on a whole lot more than self-reliance vs. bigger government and that distinction is more rhetorical than concrete in this case.
I do not agree that Romney would take his victory as a mandate for anything other than people can be had, and I *certainly* don't believe that Romney would actually make any effort in that direction.

But we've been over that already.

[Godfather]

I'm probably going to vote for Gary Johnson. I figure I might as well vote on principle and make a statement. I think we need to get Obama out of office, but if Romney needs my vote in Mississippi, he's toast anyway.

[X-Terminator]

Yeah, this decision pretty much guarantees Obama 4 more years. The Democrats will make sure they demagogue and mischaracterize Ryan to death, and I have no faith in the American electorate to see past the torrent of BS that is about to come.

[suitanim]

The difference: EVEN IF Ryan's plan pushed grandma off the cliff, Obama/Reid/Pelosi's plan of not having any plan other than insolvency will push EVERYONE off the cliff.

Can R&R get the message through? They have a little less than 3 months to try.

[silver & black]

Are you ready for "Hope and Change part deux"? It's gonna be a hoot!

[st33lersguy]

I actually like Paul Ryan, he is a smart guy, solid conservative, and he has a clear plan to cut the deficit. He will also toast Joke Biden in the VP debates

[GoSlash27]

I actually like Paul Ryan, he is a smart guy, solid conservative, and he has a clear plan to cut the deficit. He will also toast Joke Biden in the VP debates

I agree, though in all honesty the list of people who could toast Biden in a debate is a whole lot longer than the list of people that couldn't. Besides, the only people that care about veep debates are media "inside baseball" types.

[ALLD]

Getting Obama out of office is more important than the Steelers winning the Super Bowl. Go ahead and throw stones.

[GoSlash27]

Getting Obama out of office is more important than the Steelers winning the Super Bowl. Go ahead and throw stones.

I'd agree with you if we weren't replacing him with another big government liberal. Romney can do a whole lot more damage in the next 4 years than Obama could.

Unless some independents throw their hats in the ring, I'm going with Johnson.

[Pittsburgher]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPxMZ1WdINs

Obama looks stupid, as always, but even more so against Ryan. In fact, Obama looks like he's thinking, "WTF is he talking about?"

[suitanim]

Unfortunately, only about 20% of people are even capable of understanding what Ryan is talking about.

Most just want to see cartoons of Ryan shoving grandma down a manhole and passing them around on facebook. And then go back to watching Jersey Shore...

[zulater]

Unfortunately, only about 20% of people are even capable of understanding what Ryan is talking about.

Most just want to see cartoons of Ryan shoving grandma down a manhole and passing them around on facebook. And then go back to watching Jersey Shore...

I think Ryan will come off strong in the VP debates, and that will help win some swing votes.

All in all I think once you peel the layers and get down to the basis of the pick it was an extremely smart move by the Romney camp and will pay off in November when it counts.

[silver & black]

It will only pay off if the masses are somewhat educated. Guess where that leaves us?

[Count Steeler]

It will only pay off if the masses are somewhat educated. Guess where that leaves us?

Rock, ...................... Hard place?

[Craic]

I agree, though in all honesty the list of people who could toast Biden in a debate is a whole lot longer than the list of people that couldn't. Besides, the only people that care about veep debates are media "inside baseball" types.

I don't know. I tend to think that Dick Cheney's debates helped push Bush over the edge in his eight years. I think the most poignant moment, was when Edwards referenced Cheney's daughter - and it did make an impact on the electorate.

[GoSlash27]

I don't know. I tend to think that Dick Cheney's debates helped push Bush over the edge in his eight years. I think the most poignant moment, was when Edwards referenced Cheney's daughter - and it did make an impact on the electorate.

I wouldn't see how. That debate only scored a 17.5% meter market according to Nielsen. If it had any effect, it doesn't show in the polling.
http://electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/ec_graph-2004-solid.png
As you can see, Bush was in steady decline from Oct 1st (the night of the debate) through the following 2 weeks.

[suitanim]

I don't know. I tend to think that Dick Cheney's debates helped push Bush over the edge in his eight years. I think the most poignant moment, was when Edwards referenced Cheney's daughter - and it did make an impact on the electorate.

I think on those kinds of issues people have already made up their minds...but I think it may have galvanized the base a bit, and maybe motivated some people to make sure they vote.

Edwards was always such a slimy little creep. It wasn't JUST that he was a parasitic personal injury atty...he just always came off as a pig. That personal attack on Mary just kind of cemented the whole "Ew" factor for me.

It was no surprise to find out that the slimy PI creep was also a completely despicable and reprehensible dirtbag in life, too.

Anyway, I think the Veep debates will be of great interest, because of the millions of ads that will be variations on the theme of Ryan killing little old ladies the Dems will be running. People who have no idea who he is will be tuning in expecting to see Dr. Mengele, and will instead see a sharp and articulate guy with a lot of good ideas to save all the same programs the Dems are CLAIMING he's destroying (while it's actually they themselves who are destroying them through a combination of fear to act and apathy) through some common sense measures.

[zulater]

I think on those kinds of issues people have already made up their minds...but I think it may have galvanized the base a bit, and maybe motivated some people to make sure they vote.

Edwards was always such a slimy little creep. It wasn't JUST that he was a parasitic personal injury atty...he just always came off as a pig. That personal attack on Mary just kind of cemented the whole "Ew" factor for me.

It was no surprise to find out that the slimy PI creep was also a completely despicable and reprehensible dirtbag in life, too.

Anyway, I think the Veep debates will be of great interest, because of the millions of ads that will be variations on the theme of Ryan killing little old ladies the Dems will be running. People who have no idea who he is will be tuning in expecting to see Dr. Mengele, and will instead see a sharp and articulate guy with a lot of good ideas to save all the same programs the Dems are CLAIMING he's destroying (while it's actually they themselves who are destroying them through a combination of fear to act and apathy) through some common sense measures.

The problem is few in this country are willing to listen to common sense solutions to anything if it means the slightest little sacrifice on their part.

[suitanim]

The problem is few in this country are willing to listen to common sense solutions to anything if it means the slightest little sacrifice on their part.

POUND POUND POUND away at the message that soon there will be nothing. For no one.

Actually, the government should not be involved in many of these things to begin with, but try unraveling THAT ball of yarn! Regardless, we have to assume that these entitlements are here to stay, so the next best thing to do is fix them, make them solvent, remove the Federal government as much as we possibly can (either through privatization or by moving responsibilities back to states) but by also making sure that people who paid in get something back.

The message has to be clear. Unchecked spending will destroy this Country. EVERY benefit for EVERY American is at risk. Obama's plan of sticking his head in the sand and promising everything for everyone sounds great, but will result in nothing for no one. The numbers Ryan gave in that YouTube piece are accurate. Right now the US is staring at 38 TRILLION in obligations that can't possibly be met. The GDP of the whole economy is 14-15 trillion, and the whole US budget (NOT revenues, which are much lower) is less than 4 trillion. The way the left has hidden these numbers is by portraying them as a % of GDP instead of as a percentage of the budget. That's not accurate.

Our entitlement spending, left unchecked (i.e. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi plan) will EQUAL tax revenue soon. That means every single dollar that comes in will go out JUST in Medicaid, Medicare and SSI. There will be no money for anything else....the rest iwll have to be borrowed from China. It's at 60% of spending now...NOT revenues, spending (and bear in mind that we ran like a 1.2 trillion deficit this year, and will run ANOTHER trillion deficit next year...so we're close to entitlement spedning equaling total revenue intake). That means we are very close to a time where every single tax dollar that the US takes in goes DIRECTLY towards SSI, Medicare and Medicaid (along with a few other minor benefit programs). No money for anything else.

How can people not see this? How can they not understand it? Obama has NO PLAN. No. Plan.

Even if Ryan's plan is bad, and hurts 50% of the people in this Country, Obama's non-plan is worse, as it will hurt 100% of the people in this Country, directly or indirectly. And Paul's plan is NOT THAT BAD. In fact, it's not as great as many GOP would think, but it is much better then the nothing being fobbed off on us now.

By the by, the plan is here. I doubt most have even ever looked at it...

http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/

[suitanim]

Outstanding piece by George Will on the selection of Ryan.

Read entire piece here:
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/romney-368373-obama-ryan.html

When, in his speech accepting the 1964 Republican presidential nomination, Barry Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue," a media wit at the convention supposedly exclaimed, "Good God, Goldwater is going to run as Goldwater." When Mitt Romney decided to run with Paul Ryan, many conservatives may have thought, "Thank God, Romney is not going to run as Romney." Not, that is, as the Romney who 12 months ago, warily eyeing Iowa, refused to say a discouraging word about the ethanol debacle. Rather, he is going to run as the Romney who, less than two weeks before announcing Ryan, told the states -- Iowa prominent among them -- that he opposes extending the wind energy production tax credit, which expires soon.

Romney embraced Ryan after the sociopathic -- indifferent to the truth -- ad for Barack Obama that is meretricious about every important particular of the death from cancer of the wife of steelworker Joe Soptic. Obama's desperate flailing about to justify four more years has sunk into such unhinged smarminess that Romney may have concluded: There is nothing Obama won't say about me, because he has nothing to say for himself, so I will chose a running mate whose seriousness about large problems and ideas underscores what the president has become -- silly and small.


He on whose behalf the Soptic ad was made used to dispense bromides deploring "the smallness of our politics" and "our preference for scoring cheap political points." Obama's campaign of avoidance -- say anything to avoid the subject of the country's condition -- must now reckon with Ryan's mastery of Obama's enormous addition to decades of governmental malpractice.

Remember this episode when you hear, ad nauseam, that Ryan is directly, and Romney now is derivatively, an extremist for believing (a) that "ending Medicare as we know it" will be done by arithmetic if it is not done by creative reforms of the sort Ryan proposes, and (b) that the entitlement state's crisis cannot be cured, as Obama suggests, by adding 4.6 points to the tax rate paid by less than 3 percent of Americans.

When Ryan said in Norfolk, "We won't replace our Founding principles, we will reapply them," he effectively challenged Obama to say what Obama believes, which is: Madison was an extremist in enunciating the principles of limited government -- the enumeration and separation of powers. And Jefferson was an extremist in asserting that government exists not to grant rights but to "secure" natural rights that pre-exist government.

Romney's selection of a running mate was, in method and outcome, presidential. It underscores how little in the last four years merits that adjective.

[The Patriot]

I think I like Ryan more than Romney or Obama to be perfectly honest.

[suitanim]

I think I like Ryan more than Romney or Obama to be perfectly honest.

Even though he hates your grandma and wants to steal her healthcare and kill her?

[The Patriot]

Even though he hates your grandma and wants to steal her healthcare and kill her?

:horror:

Well, now that you put it like that...!

[GBMelBlount]

I think I like Ryan more than Romney or Obama to be perfectly honest.

Understood.

I guess what I am interested in knowing Patriot is if people like yourself, Godfather and Wallace, etc. are going to watch the debates, etc and determine if you feel there is enough of a difference vs. Obama and Biden to consider voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket instead of say a libertarian?

[GoSlash27]

Understood.

I guess what I am interested in knowing Patriot is if people like yourself, Godfather and Wallace, etc. are going to watch the debates, etc and determine if you feel there is enough of a difference vs. Obama and Biden to consider voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket instead of say a libertarian?

Speaking strictly for myself, I will watch the debates although I don't need to to make this decision. I don't decide my votes based on "feelings". While I don't agree with Ryan on a great number of issues, I find him acceptable. Unfortunately, Romney's the nominee and there's no VP candidate that would convince me to pull that lever.

[The Patriot]

Understood.

I guess what I am interested in knowing Patriot is if people like yourself, Godfather and Wallace, etc. are going to watch the debates, etc and determine if you feel there is enough of a difference vs. Obama and Biden to consider voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket instead of say a libertarian?

I will watch the debates, but I'm leaning toward third party right now myself. You really can't argue the need for me to pick the lesser of two evils because I'm from Massachusetts and I know this state is going to vote Obama come hell or high water. I'm dissatisfied with this political binary we have gotten ourselves into. Republicans and Democrats seem to justify being awful by arguing that the other party is more awful. When it comes to the actual issues, no politician is going to make a polarized issue his priority if he knows that there is no way in hell you would ever vote for his opponent. They have to think your vote is at stake.

I like Ryan though. His push to address Medicare shows true ideological integrity IMO. Someone is going to have to make some unpopular decisions to balance this budget, and the first thing that needs to be addressed are the entitlements and Obamacare. Romney's integrity, on the other hand, concerns me, I will admit. While I think that Reid and Obama's smear campaign against his tax returns is kind of pathetic, I do find his refusal to release them slightly suspicious... Balancing the budget comes from both sides. You can't advocate an expensive foreign policy and then not pay for it.

[suitanim]

I will watch the debates, but I'm leaning toward third party right now myself. You really can't argue the need for me to pick the lesser of two evils because I'm from Massachusetts and I know this state is going to vote Obama come hell or high water. I'm dissatisfied with this political binary we have gotten ourselves into. Republicans and Democrats seem to justify being awful by arguing that the other party is more awful. When it comes to the actual issues, no politician is going to make a polarized issue his priority if he knows that there is no way in hell you would ever vote for his opponent. They have to think your vote is at stake.

I like Ryan though. His push to address Medicare shows true ideological integrity IMO. Someone is going to have to make some unpopular decisions to balance this budget, and the first thing that needs to be addressed are the entitlements and Obamacare. Romney's integrity, on the other hand, concerns me, I will admit. While I think that Reid and Obama's smear campaign against his tax returns is kind of pathetic, I do find his refusal to release them slightly suspicious... Balancing the budget comes from both sides. You can't advocate an expensive foreign policy and then not pay for it.
I'll address the last bit here...

As far as not releasing tax returns, please tell me you aren't siding with Harry Reid here who basically MADE UP the accusation that Romney paid no taxes (which is a lie, for about a half dozen obvious reasons) and then had the audacity to double down and say that the burden of proof to disprove it lies with Romney? This is like stating that because I don't where you've been every night the last two years, you MUST be guilty of committing every unsolved murder during that time and it's your job to disprove that accusation and not mine to prove it. Completely backwards thinking. The obvious answer as to why he only released two (and he's not REQUIRED to release any is just what he said: He's rich, and class warrior Obama will simply use those returns to blast him more to an unsophisticated audience) is that he probably took a soaking in 2008 from the collapse and wrote down some losses, which is perfectly legal. But a guy working in a factory in Ohio with a GED and an 85 IQ can't possibly understand that and will interpret it exactly as Hopey will present it: Evil greedy rich people getting away with murder.

As far as the "expensive foreign policy", I'm not sure I understand that. If you're talking about the military, you need to realize a couple things. First off, as a percentage of budget, it's now at less than 20% of the budget. Under Kennedy, it was 50%, so defense spending largely DEcreased over the last 50 years. Secondly, military spending is not just shooting up brown people, it's also a stabilizing force in many places, and our hard projection of power keeps the peace in many places that would otherwise break out in shooting wars every other week, which would force us to be much more engaged in both coin and blood. Finally, (and it was very ironic to see this play out right in front of me last week), the military employs a shit ton of people, directly and indirectly. Last week Hopey flew into an air national defense base here in Mansfield touting his imminent defense cuts. WHOOPS! The very base he flew into was on his own list to close! 750 jobs. Open mouth, insert foot...

And if you're talking about Foreign Policy spending, I think the whole budget for that is like 40 billion a year. Peanuts AND it's important money to spend...

[suitanim]

Oh, right on cue, yahoo published a piece about the rich using PERFECTLY LEGAL tactics to avoid paying taxes. It kind of glosses over the fact that in 2008/2009 these people saw a significant percentage of their wealth just up and disappear overnight.

But do you think the average auto worker who is literally steeped in pro-Democratic propaganda 24/7 cares or can even understand? Doubt it...they just know class warfare and that everyone better off than them is evil and a crook.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/superrich-clues-might-romney-returns-135603513.html

There’s ample evidence that happened in 2009 among the richest taxpayers. Their average income, $202 million, dropped from $270 million in 2008 and was the lowest since 2004. Like Mr. Romney in 2010, for the richest taxpayers most income comes from capital gains and other investment income. Their net capital gains (the data doesn’t include gross gains and losses) dropped by nearly 40 percent, from an average of $154 million in 2008 to $93 million in 2009, which accounts for nearly all of their drop in total income. Even with these lower gains, these 400 taxpayers, a minuscule fraction of the population at large, still managed to account for 16 percent of all capital gains. That is the highest percentage since the data was first released for 1992, when that percentage was less than 6 percent.

But even Professor Kleinbard doubts that Mr. Romney paid no income tax. “It’s possible theoretically that Romney didn’t pay, but improbable,” he said. Far more likely is that he paid a very low rate that would generate renewed criticism.

There’s no reason to fault Mr. Romney for taking advantage of loopholes the tax code offers the superrich, however ill advised they may be as a matter of public policy. Mr. Romney didn’t make the law, and he’s called for broadening the tax base, which presumably means eliminating some of the breaks that benefited him. He could easily speak to that issue, since who would know better than he does which loopholes should be closed?

Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate who received 23 years of Mr. Romney’s returns as part of the vice-presidential vetting process in 2008, has volunteered that “I can personally vouch for the fact that there was nothing in his tax returns that would in any way be disqualifying for him to be a candidate.”

[suitanim]

Interesting take...Ryan as Ross Perot II

http://www.ohio.com/editorial/virginia-postrel-let-ryan-be-ross-perot-1.327138

WASHINGTON: The traditional roles of a U.S. presidential running mate are ticket balancer and attack dog. With their choices of Al Gore and Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush added another: the brainy policy partner with big-picture views.
Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is following that model in picking Paul Ryan. Ryan fires up the party’s base, but he’s also a policy wonk who could actually help a victorious candidate govern.
As a candidate, the telegenic, articulate Ryan could play another much-needed role. He could be a great communicator, educating the public about policy challenges and Republican plans to address them.
Here I’m thinking not of Ronald Reagan but of a quirkier candidate. Two decades ago, Ross Perot riveted the public with his half-hour prime-time lectures on the dangers of the budget deficit. People still remember his hand-held charts.
The Perot commercials treated the voters as intelligent citizens hungry for knowledge and willing to sit still long enough to absorb it. Perot didn’t offer especially cogent ideas for dealing with the deficit —- his main prescription was to get the “best experts” in the room and have them come up with a plan — but he effectively focused attention on the issues, particularly the federal budget. His commercials capped a campaign year in which voters, anxious about recession and restructuring, were unusually engaged with economic policy. (Clinton’s economic plan — summarized in the manifesto Putting People First — became, like Perot’s, a best- seller.)
We’re in another anxious period, and voters are again primed to consider serious policy talk. To play up its team’s strengths as numbers guys, countering the self-congratulatory idea of Democrats as the party of intellect, the Romney campaign could make a gutsy move. It could deploy Ryan to talk to the public at length about the looming fiscal crisis, producing a series of long-form, Perot-style videos. Nowadays the Republicans wouldn’t even need to spend money for prime-time television (although that would certainly get attention). They could rely on YouTube.
One video could lay out the problems; another could explain the plan (which presumes the Romney campaign settles on one); another could address objections or answer questions sent in by viewers. One video might invite Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, or Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin, to explain their bipartisan budget plans, drawing contrasts among the different approaches and identifying common ground. For the finale of each video, or of the series, Romney could join his running mate, giving a top-of-the-ticket endorsement while maintaining his own thematic concentration on jobs.
Whatever the exact content, the point would be to focus on policy in more detail than the usual vague talking points, countering President Barack Obama on substance and challenging him to respond with equal specificity. But Obama wouldn’t be the main focus. The message would be what a Romney-Ryan administration would seek to do and why. A political plus would be positioning the candidates as smart, confident statesmen who respect viewers’ intelligence — and who offer a cool-headed respite from relentlessly negative, highly emotional politics.
Producing such videos would be tactically risky, of course, because they would undoubtedly contain sentences that could turn up in negative ads. And laying out a real plan would entail strategic risk as well, because some voters would be turned off even if they knew the full context. Using the vice-presidential candidate as the spokesman, however, would lessen the risk.
The ideal result would be an equally substantive, long-form response from the Obama campaign (and, for further contrast, the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson and others who believe Ryan’s budget-cutting ideas don’t go far enough). Although Vice President Joe Biden is an unlikely fiscal spokesman, the Democrats have options, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Alan Krueger, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad or, if they’re feeling daring, Bill Clinton, whose latest best-seller is on economic policy.
The real risk isn’t opponents’ negative ads. It’s that no one would pay attention. After all, the conventional wisdom is that voters no longer have the attention span needed to absorb half-hour disquisitions on fiscal policy, however well produced. We live in a world where blog posts get shortened for Twitter, and tweets become Facebook memes. Politics now seems to be all about attitude and identity, not policy ideas.
So what explains Ron Paul?
In fact, despite the technological changes, the conventional wisdom wasn’t all that different in 1992. Pundits were shocked when Perot’s homespun commercials started pulling bigger audiences than network sitcoms. It turns out that when people confront serious problems, whether a cancer diagnosis, an autistic child or a depressed economy, they suddenly become willing to seek out and absorb lots of information.
The American public is in the appropriately desperate frame of mind for a serious policy discussion. The Ryan pick suggests that Romney might be willing to offer one. The alternative is three more months of sniping about tax returns and college transcripts (not to mention how dogs are treated) -- attacks on the candidates’ identities rather than their ideas. The times demand better.

[BnG_Hevn]

As for Romney's tax returns, did Obama ever show his birth certificate? Seriously, I never heard one way or the other.

I have to say though that if the Dems are trying to disqualify Romney over taxes they must really be worried.

[The Patriot]

As for Romney's tax returns, did Obama ever show his birth certificate? Seriously, I never heard one way or the other.

I have to say though that if the Dems are trying to disqualify Romney over taxes they must really be worried.

There's nothing in Romney's tax returns that would disqualify him from running for President (at least nothing that the IRS wouldn't have immediately jumped on), and as I said earlier, I do find it weak of the Democrats to use this as a point of attack, but the real importance of Romney's tax returns is whether or not they validate his supply-side economics. Romney's taking a page from the book of Bush and Reagan and arguing that the economy is not recovering because crippling income taxes on the wealthy (the job creators) is preventing job growth. He wants to lower the taxes of the wealthiest 5% to spur growth without reducing tax revenue.

Here's my problem. While I'm all for lower taxes, a smaller federal government, and incentives to create jobs, I don't support his tax plan. Brooking's Institute found that it is "not mathematically possible to design a revenue-neutral plan that preserves current incentives for savings and investment and that does not result in a net tax cut for high-income taxpayers and a net tax increase for lower- and/or middle-income taxpayers.” Of course, Romney completely rejected this study, but it stands to reason that if you plan to lower taxes in one area, you'll need to get the revenue from somewhere else. Romney's plan would rely on the planned job growth that would directly result from his tax decreases to make up for the lost revenue.

I'm not as optimistic as Romney, because first of all, trickle down economics assumes that the wealthy will instantly take the money they've saved from the tax cuts and invest it back into the economy. We've seen a lot of failed Obama economic policies over the past three years, but one thing that people seem to forget that also did not have the desired effect were the extended Bush tax cuts. Tax rates aren't discouraging the wealthy to invest; the state of the economy is. By lowering taxes for the wealthy 5%, the wealthy will most likely take that money and do what the rest of us would probably do: line their pockets. The lowest income tax rate that Romney felt comfortable showing was the year he paid something like 14-16% in taxes. I understand that he probably took deductions for losses during the economic downturn - I'm not as concerned with that as I am with other tax loopholes that are available to the wealthy. Let's not pick on Romney because we don't want to wrongly accuse him of anything, but there are stories about wealthy individuals funneling their money into tax havens and offshore accounts. What does this have to do with trickle down economics? (1) When you factor in the loopholes (and the wealthy's disproportionate ability to take advantage of the low capital gains tax), the wealthy are effectively paying lower tax rates than the middle class. (2) The wealthy are not these mythic "job creators". They create jobs out of necessity. The real reason they account for such a large percentage of jobs in the United States today is because the tax codes are very empathetic to the wealthy during times of economic stress and very oppressive to the middle class.

There's no evidence to suggest that trickle down economics works any better in spurring job growth than if the government were to lower the taxes of a lower tax bracket. If you want to lower marginal rates to spur growth, try lowering the taxes of the dwindling middle class. They are more likely to spend and invest that money right now than millionaires. I know very few people who weren't seriously affected by the economic downturn, but what effectively amounted to a bad year for investments and some tax deductions for the top 5%, meant job loss and foreclosure for the middle class. So yes, I am concerned with rising income inequality and I do have some doubts about Romney's understanding of the middle class. A theory of macroeconomics that promotes helping the wealthy, so that their wealth may then trickle down to the rest of us, would understandably garner the support of the wealthy, but it's not necessarily what's best for the rest of us or the best means to spur growth.

http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romney-tax-plan-study-returns-rate-rich-2012-8

Also, Suitanim, while you probably guessed that much of the above was in response to what you wrote, I'd like to add that if we can't trust the majority of American voters to make the right decisions when presented with the facts, to comprehend and debate theories of economics, or to understand the tax structure, then that's all the more reason to be apathetic come November.

[suitanim]

The goal of capitalism is to create WEALTH. Wealth through profitable companies. Which grows the tax base in many ways. And adds jobs.

Two points. Romney already paid tax on this money at least once when it came in the front door as either taxable income or taxable stock options. That's always ignored in these equations. Secondly, back to job creation. If, as a business owner, my goal was simply to create jobs, I'd be a model of inefficiency (just like the government). If I owned an excavating company, and I wanted to dig someone a pool, I could either pay one guy for one days work to use an excavator, or I could pay 30 people for month to use spoons and dig it out.

Finally, would you rather see 1,000,000 people who earn $1,000,000 pay ten percent in taxes, or 20,000 who earn $10,000,000 pay 50% in taxes? That's an oversimplification, but to my mind, growing the tax base is ALWAYS better than raising taxes. How did it come to be that when Bush LOWERED taxes, we had a record tax revenue INCREASE? It's because we grew the tax base by growing the economy. If we can get GDP up to 20 Trillion, we could LOWER taxes and see another record tax revenue INCREASE.

[Wallace108]

I guess what I am interested in knowing Patriot is if people like yourself, Godfather and Wallace, etc. are going to watch the debates, etc and determine if you feel there is enough of a difference vs. Obama and Biden to consider voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket instead of say a libertarian?

There are two possible outcomes of the November election:

1. Obama wins.
2. Romney wins.

It's important to keep the flames of change burning, but it does no good to vote in any way that contributes to the re-election of Obama. That should tell you where my vote is. But allow me to take this a bit further ...

Here's how this is going to play out:

If Obama wins and the country doesn't get back on track, Republicans will say that things would be different if Romney had won.
If Romney wins and the country doesn't get back on track, Democrats will say that things would be different if Obama had won.

This is the vicious circle we're in and why we keep electing the same kind of establishment candidates whose interest is not you and me. Americans are so busy blaming either the Democrats or the Republicans that we're not realizing that we're getting fucked by BOTH sides.

A lot of people here seem to think that the solution is to get rid of Obama and get Romney in the White House ... if we can do that, problem solved. I realize that change doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. So let me ask you this question GB ... if Romney wins, and our country isn't back on track in 2 or 3 years, will you come up with excuses as to why it isn't Romney's fault? Or will you be willing to entertain the idea that it's time for change? I don't believe that change is going to happen in 2012. But it can happen in 2016. If Romney fails to deliver, will you be on board?