[luke warm]

PassedOut, on 2012-November-03, 10:04, said:

Knock on wood! I'm not up for a return to the Bush years so soon.

what makes obama's policies fiscally conservative, in your view? and, again in your view, are those policies more or less fiscally conservative then romney's?

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on 2012-November-03, 18:18, said:

what makes obama's policies fiscally conservative, in your view? and, again in your view, are those policies more or less fiscally conservative then romney's?

It's relative. Obama has (slightly) reduced the annual deficit that he inherited from Bush and has held spending increases below that of every president since Eisenhower. Romney promises a 20% tax cut and huge increases in military spending. There's plenty more, but all in the same vein.

[awm]

luke warm, on 2012-November-03, 18:18, said:

what makes obama's policies fiscally conservative, in your view? and, again in your view, are those policies more or less fiscally conservative then romney's?

Obama's budget is fairly specific and while it may have too-large deficits for a true fiscal hawk, at least his numbers add up and the deficits are shrinking. Further, he has shown a willingness to negotiate on entitlement spending (which his party opposes cutting). He has done a great job cutting waste and abuse from the budget (such as the subsidy to big banks to "manage" government-guaranteed student loans, and overpayments to medicare providers).

Romney makes a lot of grand promises about balancing the budget, but he refuses to give any specifics on significant programs he would cut (in fact he has promised to leave medicare unchanged for a decade) or tax deductions he would eliminate. In fact he has proposed massive cuts in tax rates and increases in spending on the military and entitlements (the latter by undoing Obama's medicare provider overpayment elimination), and while he claims that he will reduce the deficit it's simply not believable. The only way his promises could possibly add up is by making extremely aggressive and unrealistic assumptions about economic growth; the same "trickle-down" growth we were promised by prior Republican administrations (and which never materialized). In addition, he has shown no willingness to confront his own party on revenues (which they oppose increasing), and in fact has pledged not to accept a package that was 10:1 cuts to revenue.

There probably isn't a true "fiscal conservative" in the race, but Obama at least has arithmetic on his side.

[kenberg]

Adam's views are a pretty accurate summary of why I will be voting for Obama. I find both candidates very difficult to believe. In one of the debates Romney "made it clear" that no one over the age of 55 has to worry a bit about his plans for entitlement reform. Really? Really? We have to get this stuff under control and I really don't t think that the under 55s will take kindly to having it all fall on them. If someone said "Hey, we gotta do this and I'm the guy to take a fair and practical approach to spreading the pain in a reasonable manner and solving the problem. Here is what I propose" he would get my vote. I don't hear either one of them saying such a thing. Obama should have been very beatable this time. I would hope that Republicans really give some honest, and probably painful, thought to why it has not worked out that way.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on 2012-November-03, 18:29, said:

It's relative.

awm, on 2012-November-03, 21:36, said:

Obama's budget ...

passed out has said many times that he is a fiscal conservative... i simply asked what policies obama has incorporated or will incorporate that a fiscal conservative such as him might like... neither of you answered that question... as for adam's "his deficits are shrinking" read the cbo's projection into the next decade... it's a trillion a year for the foreseeable future, under obama

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on 2012-November-04, 08:53, said:

passed out has said many times that he is a fiscal conservative...

To be accurate, I've said that my views are conservative and that -- as a part of those views -- I believe in fiscal responsibility.

Romney has campaigned on tax cuts and spending increases, which are the same irresponsible fiscal policies that brought us the current fiscal mess. They are the same irresponsible policies that created the mess that Bill Clinton had to clean up in the 1990s. In practice, Obama has been much more responsible fiscally than was his predecessor (and more responsible than the two presidents before Bill Clinton).

No candidate is perfect, nor should we expect that. However, between the two major candidates, Obama is campaigning as the more fiscally responsible, and during his first term succeeded in reducing the Bush deficit while battling tough economic times. Obama will continue to chip away at the deficit; Romney would push it higher and higher. It's not a close decision.

Obama has righted the economic ship and the US has clear sailing ahead. (And he's not about to take us into another stupid, stupid, expensive, stupid war.)

Addendum:

To be more explicit, when you increase spending and reduce revenue (Romney), you increase the deficit; therefore you are irresponsible fiscally. When you reduce spending and increase revenue (Obama), you reduce the deficit and thus are more responsible fiscally.

This post has been edited by PassedOut: 2012-November-04, 09:57

[nigel_k]

PassedOut, on 2012-November-04, 09:32, said:

Obama has righted the economic ship and the US has clear sailing ahead.

Don't forget that he also cured cancer, achieved world peace, and will complete a procedure to reverse aging in his second term.

[y66]

Many 2008 Conservative Obama Backers, or ObamaCons, Will Stay True by John Avlon Sep 4, 2012

Quote

Mitt Romney has failed to win over many of the prominent Republicans and conservatives who publicly backed Barack Obama in 2008. Charles Fried, Douglas Kmiec, and others tell John Avlon why they’re sticking with the president.

Conservative Obama supporters Charles Fried, left, and Douglas Kmiec, right. (From left: Michael Reynolds, EPA / Landov; Charlie Riedel / AP Photo; Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Quote

“Having abandoned John McCain—a decent and independent-minded man—when he picked Sarah Palin, I most certainly could not support Governor Romney, who has been pandering to the extreme wing of my party from the start of his campaign for the nomination,” Fried wrote in an email. “Napoleon said that the man who will say anything will do anything.”

Quote

Wick Allison, former publisher of National Review under William F. Buckley and current publisher of The American Conservative, also reaffirms his Obama decision, albeit in anguished lukewarm tones. “I will probably vote for Obama, unless I have a Gary Johnson–inspiration in the voting booth. (My vote in Texas is wasted anyway.),” Allison wrote in an email. “Romney is the opposite of conservative, with a plan that is fiscally reckless and a foreign policy that is unnecessarily militant. Obama has done about the best that could have been done, considering the united GOP opposition in Congress. My questions about Obamacare and my disappointment that we are not already out of Afghanistan are not enough to make me embrace a candidacy that even George W. Bush would have been repelled by—and, having had time to reflect on his own record, perhaps is.”

Quote

One of the most contentious ObamaCon arguments was offered by Douglas Kmiec, also a veteran of Reagan’s Office of Legal Counsel and a law professor at conservative Pepperdine University. Kmiec, who served as ambassador to Malta during the first two years of the Obama administration, tried to square his Obama endorsement with his devout Catholic beliefs and remains an unrepentant ObamaCon, even as Catholic leaders have proclaimed the president’s “war on religion.”

“I am strongly in the president’s camp, even as his opposition has been doing its darnedest to overstate a few concerns about the usual subjects,” Kmiec wrote in an email. “Having served in Europe for the president, I know the very positive effect he has had on international relationships. His patience, discernment, and intelligence are much admired. Domestically, the president was handed the worst possible economic hand, and largely, though of course not perfectly, he has met the economic challenge … This is supposed to be Mr. Romney’s area of strength, but so far, his ideas are either indecipherable or a rather lame trickle-down do-over.”

Right on brother cons.

[kenberg]

nigel_k, on 2012-November-04, 12:35, said:

Don't forget that he also cured cancer, achieved world peace, and will complete a procedure to reverse aging in his second term.

Campaign slogan: Are you younger now than you were four years ago?

[cherdano]

PassedOut, on 2012-November-04, 09:32, said:

To be more explicit, when you increase spending and reduce revenue (Romney), you increase the deficit; therefore you are irresponsible fiscally. When you reduce spending and increase revenue (Obama), you reduce the deficit and thus are more responsible fiscally.

That's what you think. There are at least 5 studies saying otherwise.

[BunnyGo]

cherdano, on 2012-November-04, 14:54, said:

That's what you think. There are at least 5 studies saying otherwise.

Not quite. What he says is agreed by definition of all the terms. What is debated (in certain circles) is whether raising tax rates increases revenue, and whether raising spending increases revenue.

[cherdano]

So you are one of those who think 2+2=4?

[BunnyGo]

cherdano, on 2012-November-04, 18:26, said:

So you are one of those who think 2+2=4?

All I'm saying is that by definition:

Deficit = Spending - Revenue.

Whether Increasing Spending has any effect on Revenue is another debate, but if Spending goes up and Revenue goes down, then tautologically Deficit goes up. If Spending goes down and Revenue goes up, then by by definition Deficit goes down.

These are not independent variables, but the statements above are tautological.

And no, 2+2 = 5 for large values of 2. I'm an analyst

[hrothgar]

BunnyGo, on 2012-November-04, 19:32, said:

All I'm saying is that by definition:

Deficit = Spending - Revenue.

Whether Increasing Spending has any effect on Revenue is another debate, but if Spending goes up and Revenue goes down, then tautologically Deficit goes up. If Spending goes down and Revenue goes up, then by by definition Deficit goes down.

These are not independent variables, but the statements above are tautological.

And no, 2+2 = 5 for large values of 2. I'm an analyst

Cherdano forgot to use the [/scarcasm] tag

[BunnyGo]

hrothgar, on 2012-November-04, 19:47, said:

Cherdano forgot to use the [/scarcasm] tag

Ah, I spent the weekend grading exams of students who weren't sure 2+2 = 4. My sarcasm detector got turned off for having too many false alarms.

[y66]

Voice Is Strained, but Support on the Trail Unstinting

Quote

“As you can see, I have given my voice in the service of my president,” Bill Clinton said between coughs on Saturday, a day before a rally with President Obama in Concord, N.H.

Quote

If there has been one enduring lesson from his career, it is that the Big Dog is resilient. He can be disgraced, impeached, defeated — but he comes back. The full spectacle of this has been on riveting, if raspy, display in the closing days of the presidential campaign.

[PassedOut]

y66, on 2012-November-04, 21:08, said:

Voice Is Strained, but Support on the Trail Unstinting

Funny that you don't see George Bush out there stumping for Romney the way Clinton is doing for Obama. Are Bush and Romney on the outs?

[blackshoe]

Bush is annoyed that we didn't elect him President-for-Life, so he's sitting home pouting.

[squealydan]

Surely the greatest gift the writers of the Constitution (I assume that's where it sits) gave to the American people and rest of the world was the two-term limit....

[squealydan]

luke warm, on 2012-November-04, 08:53, said:

passed out has said many times that he is a fiscal conservative... i simply asked what policies obama has incorporated or will incorporate that a fiscal conservative such as him might like... neither of you answered that question... as for adam's "his deficits are shrinking" read the cbo's projection into the next decade... it's a trillion a year for the foreseeable future, under obama

When a tax-cutting president hell-bent on military intervention wherever he sees fit
puts your economy at the bottom of a huge hole, I find it hard to believe anyone can believe
that a tax-cutting candidate hell-bent on military intervention wherever he sees fit
will be the right guy to get you back out of that hole...