I know that I am not an economist but I did study math in Electrical Engineering and I did use math during decades of engineering work and my wife retired from the GAO as an auditor but our math is not adding up with regard to Romney’s tax and budget ideas. Here is the problem:

Romney has stated that he will make the Bush tax cuts permanent. The CBO estimates that this will cost the Federal Government 5.4 trillion dollars over 10 years (link).

Additionally, Romney states that he will cut 20% more across the board in all federal income tax rates, eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, eliminating the estate tax, reducing the corporate income tax rate and other tax reductions. This will cost another 5 trillion dollars in 10 years (link).

Romney has also said that he would increase defense spending by 2 trillion dollars over 10 years (link).

If you add all these numbers up you will get 12.4 trillion dollars in increased spending or revenue cuts over 10 years. The works out to about 1.24 trillion dollars a year.

Romney has stated that his cuts and spending will be deficit neutral. He plans to make up the difference by eliminating tax loopholes or deductions. If this is to be deficit neutral he will have to make up 1.24 trillion dollars a year by eliminating loopholes and deductions.

Here are the largest loopholes and deductions in the tax code.

link

The top 10 make up 70% of all tax deductions (link).

All 12 of these deductions amount to 653.7 billion dollars a year.

Therefore, we are still lacking 583.6 billion dollars a year to be deficit neutral after all 12 deductions are eliminated.

Romney has stated that he would cap the deductions at $17,000, $25,000, $50,000 or “make up a number” a year in order to be deficit neutral.

My questions are:

1) With all the tax deductions intact, where is the 1.24 trillion dollars a year going to come from if the deficit is not increased? The CBO estimates that the Federal Government’s FY2012 deficit is 1.1 trillion dollars (link). We would have to either eliminate ALL spending by the Federal Government (and we would still be short 140 billion dollars) or greatly increase taxes or some combination of both. How would this affect economic growth? How will this affect the cost of living?

2) If the deductions are capped at any of Romney’s made up numbers, this will add more money to government coffers to pay down the deficit. Even if the ‘made up number’ for maximum deductions allowed is zero because all the above tax deductions are eliminated, it will only add 653.7 billion dollars a year to Federal Government coffers. This still leaves 583.6 billion dollars a year that will need to be made up to be deficit neutral. How will this translate to a lower the cost of living? How could this not result in a huge, effective tax increase?

3) Additionally, if all the above deductions were eliminated then employers are paying more in taxes for health care, employees are paying more in taxes for pension contributions, homeowners are paying more in taxes to own a home and taxes to buy a home, employers are paying more for capital expenditures, tax payers are paying more for not getting breaks on state and local taxes, tax payers get no break from charitable contributions, foreign corporations are paying more taxes, capital gains are taxed more and folks with kids are paying more. How is this going to translate to a lower cost of living? How could this not result in a huge, effective tax increase?

4) If the 20%, across the board number goes away and no deductions are eliminated, there is still 7.4 trillion dollars for 10 years or 740 billion dollars a year that needs to be made up to be deficit neutral. Where will all this money come from? How will this not result in a huge, effective tax increase?

5) If the 20%, across the board number goes away and the Bush tax cuts are not extended and no deductions are eliminated, there is still 2 trillion dollars for 10 years or 200 billion dollars a year that needs to be made up to be deficit neutral. Where will all this money come from? Taxes will be increased with the Bush tax cuts going away.

6) If the 20%, across the board number goes away and the Bush tax cuts are not extended and the increased defense spending goes away and all above deductions are eliminated then that would pay off the deficit by 653.7 billion dollars a year. However, point 3 still applies, the cost of living goes up, taxes are increased with the Bush tax cuts going away and it makes Mitt Romney a liar.

Conclusion

Since I know that Romney could not lie or change his position, I can only conclude that my math is wrong.

Since I also know that an economist with superior math skills would not read such a lowly post as mine, I would ask that any regular ‘ol, internet hack like myself give me a few pointers about how I can improve my math (even smart ass comments will be treated with all due sincerity ;-).

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Notes and References:

CBO 5.4 trillion over 10 years for the Bush tax cuts link

Romney additional 20% across the board, reduce corporate income tax rate to 25%

Romney add 2 trillion over 10 years to defense spending

“Make up a number, $25,000, $50,000. Anybody can have deductions up to that amount,” he said. link

“The 10 biggest personal tax expenditures, which together account for 70 percent of all personal tax breaks, are as follows: the exclusion of employer health insurance, the exclusion of employer pensions, the mortgage interest deduction, the exclusion of medicare, lower capital gains rates, the earned income tax credit, the deduction of income taxes, the exclusion of capital gains taxes at death, the deduction of charitable contributions, and the deduction of employer benefits under cafeteria health plans.” link

“Governor Romney’s central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut — on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts — that’s another trillion dollars” –President Obama

“”I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut” –Governor Romney

How can both facts be true? The $5 trillion figure comes from the fact that Romney has proposed to cut tax rates by 20 percent and eliminate the estate tax and alternative minimum tax. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that would reduce tax revenue by nearly $500 billion in 2015, or about $5 trillion over 10 years

But Romney also has said he will make his plan “revenue neutral” by eliminating tax loopholes and deductions, although he has not provided the details.

The Tax Policy Center has analyzed the specifics of Romney’s plan thus far released and concluded the numbers aren’t there to make it revenue neutral.” link

“Romney lays out his national security policy on his website. There, he warns that restoring the military “will not be a cost-free process,” and says he will “begin by reversing Obama-era defense cuts … with the goal of setting core defense spending — meaning funds devoted to the fundamental military components of personnel, operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development — at a floor of 4 percent of GDP.”

What’s 4 percent worth?

The Pentagon’s budget is expected to run in the range of 3.2 to 3.5 percent of GDP in the next fiscal year. According to the Center for a New American Security, a group with ties to both Republican and Democratic administrations, even a gradual ramp up to 4 percent would increase defense spending by $2.1 trillion over the next ten years, as reported by CNN.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group focused on deficit reduction, uses that number too, as do other budget think tanks. Romney seems to accept it, so as far as the $2 trillion figure goes, it seems reasonably accurate.” link

“The claim is based on a study done by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group that has analyzed the tax plans of the candidates. The center examined Romney’s proposals for a 20 percent reduction in all federal income tax rates, eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, eliminating the estate tax and other tax reductions.

The center estimated that altogether, the lost revenues would total $480 billion by 2015. The Obama campaign adds up the cost over a decade and winds up with $4.8 trillion, which it then rounds up to $5 trillion.

…

The most Romney has personally said is that he might cap deductions at $17,000″ link

“Reduce federal spending as a share of GDP to 20 percent – its pre-crisis average – by 2016.

Reduce individual marginal income tax rates across-the-board by 20 percent, while keeping current low tax rates on dividends and capital gains. Reduce the corporate income tax rate – the highest in the world – to 25 percent.

Broaden the tax base to ensure that tax reform is revenue-neutral.

Gradually reduce growth in Social Security and Medicare benefits for more affluent seniors. Give more choice in Medicare to improve value in health care spending.

Block grant the Medicaid program to states, enabling experimentation to better fit local situations.

Remove regulatory impediments to energy production and innovation that raise costs to consumers and limit job creation.

Repeal and replace the Dodd-Frank Act and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Romney alternatives will emphasize better financial regulation and market-oriented, patient-centered health care reform.

Tax Reform.

A significant body of economic research concludes that fundamental tax reform could increase real GDP growth over the next decade by 0.5 to 1 percentage point per year. Kevin Hassett and Alan Auerbach surveyed the literature and found that tax reform could increase output by between 5 and 10 percent. (Auerbach, J., Alan, Kevin A. Hassett, Toward Fundamental Tax Reform, Washington, D.C.: The AEI Press, 2005). David Altig, AlanAuerbach, Laurence Kotlikoff, Kent Smetters and Jan Wallsier found that reform proposals would increase GDP by between 5 and 9 percent over the long run, using a dynamic economic simulation model. (Altig, David, Alan J. Auerbach, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Kent A. Smetters, Jan Wallsier, “Simulating Fundamental Tax Reform in the U.S.,” University of California, Berkeley, September 29, 1999). Young Lee and Roger Gordon found that a cut in the corporate tax rate by10 percentage points would increase economic growth by 1.1 to 1.8 percent annually. (Lee, Young, Roger H. Gordon, “Tax Structure and Economic Growth,” University of California, San Diego, July 15, 2004)

More recently a study by John Diamond of Rice University estimated that the Romney tax reforms will raise real GDP by about 0.6 percent per year over a decade and increase employment in the long run (above the level possible in a more robust cyclical recovery) by 7million jobs. A long-term reform would also create a more stable tax code, which adds further gains in output by increasing policy predictability. The number of provisions of the tax code expiring each year has skyrocketed from 11 in 2000-2002 to 133 in 2010-2012. The epitome of the deviations from basic principles is the self-inflicted fiscal cliff where many important provisions of the tax code change at the end of 2012. Scott Baker, Nicholas Bloom, and Stephen Davis report the quantitative impact of this uncertainty (in their paper in

Government Policies and the Delayed Economic Recovery

edited by Lee Ohanian, John Taylor, and Jan Wright).One important feature of business taxation is the link between the taxation of unincorporated business income and the investment and employment decisions of unincorporated businesses. Using estimated effects of taxation from previous research, one can calculate the change in unincorporated business investment and employment as a result of the Romney program’s proposed lower marginal tax rates, as opposed to Obama’s proposed higher marginal tax rates.(See the research in Robert Carroll, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mark Rider, and Harvey S. Rosen, “Entrepreneurs, Income Taxes, and Investment,” in Joel Slemrod, ed., Does Atlas Shrug?: The Economic Consequences of Taxing the Rich. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000; and Robert Carroll, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mark Rider, and Harvey S. Rosen, “Income Taxes and Entrepreneurs’ Use of Labor,” Journal of Labor Economics, April 2000.) Using similar research methods, the decline in the top effective rate in the Romney program raises the probability that a small business undertakes additional investment by 40 percent, and augments the capital outlays of those that do expand by 54 percent. As these expansionary incentives are put in place, the demand for capital goods will rise – a fundamental of strong economic growth. The decline in the top effective rate under the Romney program would raise the probability that a small business would add to payrolls by roughly 48 percent – a significant impact. Similarly, for those firms that do additional hiring, the growth in payrolls would be enhanced by over 14 percent. Insum, tax reform that reduces marginal tax rates would benefit workers by increasing hiring and wages.

Spending and Entitlement Reform.

Recent research by John Cogan and John Taylor of Stanford University and Volker Wieland and Maik Wolters of Goethe University estimates that the output effects of a fiscal consolidation, like the Romney plan, would gradually reduce federal spending relative to GDP. In a long-run model, the fiscal consolidation raises both investment and output(the latter by almost 2 percent). In an alternative model with short-run rigidities, the spending consolidation also raises output by about 2 percent. In both cases, output rises even in the short run, as households and businesses respond to lower expected future tax rates as a result of the fiscal consolidation.

Beneficial Effects of Tax Cuts Versus Temporary Stimulus Packages.

Recent research by Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna of Harvard University argues that policies to increase economic growth are more effective if done with tax cuts than with spending increases. In their conclusion, they write about the Obama stimulus: “About two-thirds of this fiscal package is constituted by increases in spending, including public investment transfers, and government consumption. According to our results, fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are much more likely to be growth-enhancing than those on the spending side.” (See Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna, “Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes versus Spending,” in Jeffrey Brown, ed., Tax Policy and the Economy, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009.) Separate research by Andrew Mountford of the University of London and Harald Uhlig of Humboldt University concurs: “Our key finding isthat the best fiscal policy to stimulate the economy is a deficit-financed tax cut and that long-term costs of fiscal expansion through government spending are probably greater than the short-term gains.” (See Andrew Mountford and Harald Uhlig, “What Are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks?,” CEPR Discussion Paper, July 2005.) Regulatory Reform.

Recent research by Ellen McGratten and Nobel laureate Edward Prescott concludes that higher regulatory costs reduced both R&D and fixed investment during the financial crisis and its aftermath; and regulations continue to increase. Between 2009 and 2010,the number of pages devoted to final rules in the Federal Register rose from 20,782 to a 24,914 – a 20 percent increase. Stopping this growth and applying cost benefit analysis will remove impediments to investment and increase long-term growth.

Historical Comparison to the Reagan Recovery.

One historical comparison is particularly relevant in this context – the recovery from the 1981-1982 recession. In the 1981-1982 recession, the unemployment rate soared to 10.8 percent. In the 2007-2009 recession, it peaked at 10 percent.”Both downturns were rooted in financial convulsions. The 1981-1982 recession was induced by restrictive monetary policy aimed at breaking the back of double-digit inflation and interest rates, which generated a housing and savings-and-loan crisis. The more recent recession resulted from excessive government intervention to increase homeownership by expanding subprime housing loans, on which substantial leverage was built. The resulting wave of defaults damaged the base of the banking system. Fifty-three months after the start of the 1981-1982 recession, total employment in the U.S. was up 7.5 million, or almost 7.5 percent higher than when the recession began. The labor-force participation rate rose to 65 percent from 63.8 percent, as optimism about the future pulled potential workers into the job market. Real per capita gross domestic product increased by $2,870, and was 11 percent higher than when the recession started. Fifty-three months after the start of the 2007-2009 recession, however, total employment in the United States is still down four million jobs, or 2.7 percent lower than when the recession began. The labor-force participation rate has dropped to 63.8 percent from 66 percent, as discouraged workers have exited the labor market. Real per capita GDP has declined by $964, and is 2.2 percent lower today than when the recession began. If the current economy had matched the job-creation rate of the recovery from the 1981-1982 recession, there would be 15 million more Americans at work today, 8.3 million more Americans would be in the labor force, and per capita GDP would be $5,792 higher than it is today.” (Phil Gramm and Glenn Hubbard, Op-Ed, “Gramm and Hubbard: What A Romney Recovery Might Look Like, “The Wall Street Journal, 06/06/12)Policy responses in the early 1980s aimed not just at overcoming the 1981-1982 recession, but at overcoming the structural problems of the 1970s. By reducing domestic discretionary spending, setting out a three-year program to reduce tax rates, and alleviating the regulatory burden, policymakers sought to make it profitable to invest in America again. These principles match those in the Romney plan. Governor Romney would reduce the size and cost of the federal government. He champions a reduction in marginal tax rates in the context of a general tax reform. Particularly powerful are his proposals to reduce marginal tax rates on business income earned by corporate and unincorporated businesses alike.” link

As in Part 2 of this series, I will continue with the Introduction section of Ryan’s plan. Here is Ryan’s criticism of Cap and Trade:

Cap and Trade. This proposal effectively establishes a government takeover of most of the energy market. The legislation requires companies responsible for more than 86 percent of U.S. energy resources to obtain new emissions permits from the Federal Government to stay in business, includes a series of new mandates on the production and use of energy, and expands bureaucracies – or creates new ones – to oversee this program. Yet it fails to boost two of the most reliable sources of clean energy: nuclear and hydro-power.

By sharply increasing the cost of energy, the bill imposes substantial tax increases that will be absorbed largely by middle-income earners – breaking the President’s promise not to raise taxes for those making less than $250,000 per year. Although the measure contains a complex scheme of allowances, tax credits, and tax rebates that attempt to reduce the impact on households, the bottom line is inescapable: the higher energy costs will have to be absorbed by someone; and the “someone” will be the U.S. taxpayer. Meanwhile, in contrast to the President’s pledge to “change the way Washington works,” the legislation gives away 83 percent of its carbon allowances to energy- and climate-related special interests, at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

Yet after all this, the benefits of cap-and-trade remain highly doubtful. Some studies show the scheme might move temperatures by no more than a fraction of a degree by the end of this century – which would make little difference on whatever climate effects result from greenhouse gas emissions. There are no effective limits on emissions by foreign countries, such as China and India, that are responsible for the fastest current growth in greenhouse gases.

Mitt Romney is equally critical of Cap and Trade in his book:

“I am uncertain how much of the warming, however, is attributable to man and how much is attributable to factors out of our control. I do not support radical feel-good policies like a unilateral U.S. cap-and-trade mandate. Such policies would have little effect on climate but could cripple economic growth with devastating results for people across the planet.” – Mitt Romney No Apology, p. 227

His web site also states this policy position:

Summary: Mitt Romney on Cap and Trade/Global Warming

Cap and Trade legislation would be disastrous for our economy.

The earth’s climate has been constantly changing throughout its history.

We should not take extreme measures when we are unsure of human role in global warming.

Treaties, like Kyoto, would affect the U.S., but not major greenhouse gas emitters like China and India.

However, he previously stated this about Cap and Trade:

In 2005, Romney Said Cap-And-Trade Was “Good For Business”

2005: Romney Endorsed Cap-And-Trade, Saying “We Can Effectively Create Incentives To Help Stimulate A Sector Of The Economy And At The Same Time Not Kill Jobs. … I’m Convinced It Is Good Business.” According to the Boston Globe:

Governor Mitt Romney signaled his support yesterday for a regional agreement among Northeastern states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, despite opposition from power companies and other business interests that have been lobbying the administration against the plan.

In opening remarks to a clean-energy conference in Boston, Romney said the first-of-its-kind agreement, under which Massachusetts and eight other states could be required to cut power plant emissions by 2020, will not hurt the economy, as some have charged. He argued that it would spur businesses to develop clean- and renewable-energy technology to market worldwide.

”This is a great thing for the Commonwealth,” Romney said, his strongest endorsement of the pact to date. ”We can effectively create incentives to help stimulate a sector of the economy and at the same time not kill jobs.”

[…]

”I’m convinced it is good business,” Romney said. [Boston Globe, 11/8/05]

Additionally, Romney was fact checked on this statement:

Romney Blatantly Flaunts False Cost Estimate For Clean Energy Jobs Legislation

October 07, 2009 1:13 pm ET

On October 7, 2009, Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC sent an email to supporters falsely claiming clean energy jobs legislation would raise costs by $1,761 per household and kill jobs. In reality, legislation increasing our investment in clean energy technologies would create jobs in every state and help America become more energy independent, all for less than a quarter a day.

Mitt Romney Repeated False Cost Estimate

Mitt Romney:

In fact, estimates are that the Obama plan could cost the average American family $1,761 a year, the equivalent of a 15% income tax hike. It will kill jobs and make a bad economic situation even worse. [Romney’s Free & Strong America PAC email, 10/7/09]

The Report Cited Analyzed A Completely Different Plan, Rendering It Irrelevant

PolitiFact.com Rated Claim FALSE: “His Statement That Households Will Pay $1,761 In New Taxes Every Year Is Based On A Blogger’s Incorrect Assumptions And Overly Simple Math.” According to PolitiFact.com: “His statement that households will pay $1,761 in new taxes every year is based on a blogger’s incorrect assumptions and overly simple math. The estimate does not account for revenue that will be returned to consumers in the form of rebates and other efficiency measures. Furthermore, the number is based on old numbers; the Treasury estimate was written on the premise that all permits would be sold, which, ultimately, is not the form that the Waxman-Markey legislation has taken. Finally, both Alexander and McCullagh portray money raised by selling these permits as a tax. We rate Alexander’s claim False.” [PolitiFact.com, 9/16/09]

Bloomberg: “85 Percent Of The Cap-And-Trade Permits Would Be Given Away In The Early Years.” As reported by Bloomberg: “85 percent of the cap-and-trade permits would be given away in the early years of a proposed climate-change program that House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, wants his panel to pass next week. The biggest recipient, the electricity sector, would get 35 percent of the permits, also known as allowances or credits. Others that would receive a large share of the permits for free are energy-intensive manufacturers, natural gas distributors, automakers, and U.S. states with renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.” [Bloomberg, 5/15/09]

Washington Post: “The Plan In The March Treasury Memo Is Not The One Being Debated In Congress.” In an article describing the records obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Washington Post wrote “the plan in the March Treasury memo is not the one being debated in Congress.” [Washington Post, 9/17/09]

Treasury Department: “The Reporting On The Treasury Analysis Is Flat Out Wrong.” According to the Washington Post, “The Treasury said the furor was much ado about little. The March memo was not based on any independent Treasury analysis and summarized other studies. The transition team memo said that the government could use the revenue to ‘offset distortionary taxes on labor or capital.’ ‘The reporting on the Treasury analysis is flat out wrong,’ said Alan B. Krueger, Treasury assistant secretary for economic policy.” [Washington Post, 9/17/09]

Clean Energy Jobs Legislation Would Rebuild America For A Postage Stamp A Day

Reuters: “Climate Legislation Moving Through Congress Would Have Only A Modest Impact On Consumers.” According to Reuters: “A new U.S. government study on Tuesday adds to a growing list of experts concluding that climate legislation moving through Congress would have only a modest impact on consumers, adding around $100 to household costs in 2020. Under the climate legislation passed by the House of Representatives in June, electricity, heating oil and other bills for average families will rise $134 in 2020 and $339 in 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration, the country’s top energy forecaster.” [Reuters, 8/5/09]

EIA: Clean Energy Legislation Would Cost Only $0.23 Per Day. According to a House Energy and Commerce Committee factsheet of the Energy Information Administration’s analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act: “The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has completed an analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), as passed by the U.S. House of Representatives… The overall impact on the average household, including the benefit of many of the energy efficiency provisions in the legislation, would be 23 cents per day ($83 per year). This is consistent with analyses by the Congressional Budget Office which projects a cost of 48 cents per day ($175 per year) and the Environmental Protection Agency which projects a cost of 22 to 30 cents per day ($80 to $111 per year).” [House Energy and Commerce Committee, EIA’s Economic Analysis Of “The American Clean Energy And Security Act Of 2009,” 8/4/09; emphasis original]

CBO: In 2020, Cap-And-Trade Will Only Cost An Average Of $175 Annually, “About A Postage Stamp A Day.” In its analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the Congressional Budget Office wrote: “On that basis, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the net annual economy wide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion-or about $175 per household.” Rep. Edward Markey noted it was “the cost of about a postage stamp a day.” [CBO, 6/19/09; House Committee on Energy & Commerce Release, 6/20/09]

• Cap-And-Trade Would DECREASE Energy Prices For Low-Income Americans. In its analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the Congressional Budget Office wrote, “households in the lowest income quintile would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020.” [CBO, 6/19/09; emphasis original]

Investment In Clean Energy Technology Will Create Millions Of American Green Jobs

As Media Matters Action Network has noted, a recent study from UC Berkeley found that pollution reduction and energy efficiency measures would create up to 1.9 million jobs, boost GDP by up to $111 billion and increase families’ incomes by nearly $1,200 per year!

Investment In Clean Energy Technology Will Create Over 1.7 Million American Jobs. According to the Center for American Progress: “Investments in a clean-energy economy will generate major employment benefits for the entire U.S. economy. Our research finds that spending $150 billion on clean-energy investments would create roughly 1.7 million jobs. This is even after assuming a reduction in fossil fuel spending equivalent to the increase in clean-energy investments.” [Center for American Progress, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy, 6/17/09]

• Every Single State Will Gain Jobs From An Investment In Clean Energy Technologies. According to the Center for American Progress, investments in clean energy projects would create 1.7 million American jobs in every state in the country. [Center for American Progress, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy, 6/17/09]

Investment In Clean Energy Technology Creates FOUR TIMES As Many Jobs As An Investment In Oil & Gas. According to the Center for American Progress, “spending $1 million on energy efficiency and renewable energy produces a much larger expansion of employment than spending the same amount on fossil fuels or nuclear energy. Among fossil fuels, job creation in coal is about 32 percent greater than that for oil and natural gas. The employment creation for energy efficiency-retrofitting and mass transit-is 2.5 times to four times larger than that for oil and natural gas. With renewable energy, the job creation ranges between 2.5 times to three times more than that for oil and gas.” [Center for American Progress, The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy, 6/17/09]

Investment In Renewable Energy Has Already Salvaged Many Manufacturing Facilities Closed During Economic Downturn. Across America, factories and plants abandoned by the old economy have been re-tooled and re-opened to satisfy the growing demand for new energy technologies. For instance, once hopeless manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Michigan have re-energized their communities by creating jobs and leading the charge toward a new energy future. [Bloomberg, 4/2/09; Star Tribune, 4/22/09; Grand Rapids Press, 3/6/08]

Here is a little history on Cap and Trade policies:

A little history is in order. Cap and trade was developed as a more flexible, market-based system to reduce environmental pollution compared to the so-called “command and control” model employed by environmental laws in the 1970s. The old system required each polluting facility to make a fixed reduction in air or water contamination, which ignored that some facilities could cut pollution more cheaply than others.

Cap and trade is a cost-effective alternative that allows the firms that can more cheaply reduce their emissions below their required limit to sell any additional reductions to companies that are not able to make reductions as easily. This creates a system that guarantees a set level of overall reductions while rewarding the most efficient companies and ensuring that the cap can be met at the lowest possible cost to the economy.

The Reagan White House conceived the first cap-and-trade program to reduce pollution. It was used in the 1980s to phase out lead in gasoline at a lower cost. An EPA analysis shows:

…estimated savings from the lead trading program of approximately 20 percent over alternative programs that did not provide for lead banking, a cost savings of about $250 million per year.

President Reagan also signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987 to slash the production and use of chemicals that deplete the upper ozone layer essential to screen out cancer-causing ultraviolet rays. His administration established a cap-and-trade system to implement the chemical reductions the protocol required. A 2006 scientific assessment concluded that “the Montreal Protocol is working” to reduce chemicals and protect the ozone layer.

President George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s successor, was the first president to propose the employment of a cap-and-trade system in an environmental law. The Clean Air Act of 1990 includes his proposed cap-and-trade system to reduce the sulfur pollution from power plants responsible for acid rain.

The Clean Air Act passed the Senate by a vote of 89-10 and the House by 401-25. Many staunch conservatives voted for it including Sens. Kit Bond (R-Mo), Trent Lott (R-MS), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Strom Thurmond (R-SC). Conservative House supporters included Reps. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Joe Barton (R-TX), Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and Fred Upton (R-MI).

When President Bush signed the Clean Air Act into law he highlighted its innovative cap-and-trade mechanism:

The acid rain allowance trading program will be the first large-scale regulatory use of market incentives and is already being seen as a model for regulatory reform efforts here and abroad.

By employing a system that generates the most environmental protection for every dollar spent, the trading system lays the groundwork for a new era of smarter government regulation; one that is more compatible with economic growth than using only the command and control approaches of the past.

President Bush’s prediction came true. An EPA analysis a decade after the law was passed determined that the actual cost of cutting sulfur emissions by 40 percent was substantially lower than it had predicted: “$1 to $2 billion per year, just one quarter of original EPA estimates.” A CAP analysis determined that in 2006 utility rates were 5 percent lower (in real dollars) than before the act passed in 1990. And the U.S. economy added 16 million jobs during this time.

President George W. Bush also included a cap-and-trade mechanism in his “Clear Skies” bill that would have amended the Clean Air Act. Upon the bill’s introduction he noted the success of his father’s cap-and-trade program:

The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments have significantly reduced air pollution, especially through the innovative “cap-and trade” acid rain control program. [It] has been a resounding success, cutting annual sulfur dioxide emissions in the first phase by 50 percent below allowed levels. Emissions were reduced faster than required, and at far less cost…The program only requires a handful of EPA employees to operate.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced several global warming pollution reductions bills during the previous decade. While running for president in 2008 McCain proposed to reduce global warming pollution via a cap-and-trade program.

John McCain’s climate plan will be similar to the very successful acid rain trading program created under the first President Bush in the early 1990s.

A cap-and-trade system sends a market signal that organizes the whole economy around our environmental goals…The market evolves by requiring sensible reductions in greenhouse gases, but also allowing full flexibility in how industry meets that requirement.

Then-Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) also supported a cap-and-trade system to reduce global warming pollution as the GOP nominee for vice president. She reiterated that support (see 34:00) during the vice presidential debate.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) also endorsed a cap-and-trade system to reduce global warming pollution in 2007:

I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.

Gingrich has changed his tune, however, just two years later. He railed against the “cap-and-trade energy tax” in 2009.

The Koch brothers largely financed a scientific undertaking to prove that global warming was a lie. Unfortunately, the data indicated the Koch brothers were really the liars. As the article points out, their current position on climate change varies depending on their audience. The project employed huge amounts of data coming from different sources and used assumptions that conservatives were using to criticize global warming. Here is what the data showed:

AND, the warming appears to be human caused:

This is what the founder of the research project wrote in an op-ed piece of the New York Times.

Also, see this for more information.

The Economist had this to say.

Here is the Koch brothers current, official position.

The data for warming looks like an exponential curve. You have seen this before with the national debt. After decades of Republican and Democratic policies including the largest most recent contribution by President Bush which set us on the exponential path to a debt crisis, the Republicans are blaming President Obama for the crisis. Could it be that in the next presidential election the Republicans will blame the Democrats for the climate change crisis?…sophistry works well in capitalism as truth is up for the highest bidder…

The bottom line is that the Republicans have been all over the map on this issue. Initially, they attacked it as a liberal lie. Now, they are faced with data that indicates climate change is not a liberal lie but real AND it appears to be human caused. Is this Republican leadership? Could it be that it may be in some corporatist energy group’s interest to downplay science in favor of ‘free market interests’? I will let the reader’s logic provide the answer.

In an article entitled, The Empirics of Austrian Economics, Steven Horwitz writes:

In short, Mises was making a Kantian claim about the human mind and the way in which minds are similarly structured across humans. We all have “a set of tools for grasping reality” that comes to us from our evolutionary heritage. The commonality of those tools allows us to engage in the reflection on action and the development of that core of economics as a set of necessary insights about how humans act. This core economic knowledge is not contingent but part of the very structure of human minds and is something that we can come to know.

First, Kant died in 1804 and Darwin was born in 1809. On the Origin of Species was not published until 1859. Therefore, anything that Kant could have meant about a priori categories of understanding could not have been thought with the “tools’ of evolution. To think evolution together with Kant’s notion of the category is to fail to understand what a category of understanding was for Kant.

Second, the way in which “minds are similarly structured across humans” according to Kant are the universal, a priori, categories of understanding. These categories do not change with evolution. Any judgment that rests on an a posteriori claim is contingent and subject to change. Since a priori claims are universal and necessary, they are not subject to mutability. The “tools” Kant discusses would not evolve with evolution since they are a priori.

If Kant’s a priori categories of quantity, quality, relation and modality are obfuscated with other notions that may be included in “core economic knowledge” that is “part of the very structure of human minds” then these additional notions certainly would be contingent according to Kant. Ever since Kant, there have been many religious and secular types that have tried to add to Kant’s list of a priori categories of understanding. The universal structures that Horwitz states from Mises are “that people act purposively, that we prefer more to less and now to later, the idea of diminishing marginal utility, and perhaps the basic idea behind demand and supply curves” are values that are imputed to humans, not Kant’s essential categories that determine understanding before human ‘values’ can even become possible. To take the apodictic certainty of Kant’s categories of understanding and apply them to human values is to take a leap where Kant’s certainty will not follow. While it may be true that Mises intuitions are sensible observations they are not of the same order as Kant’s conditions for being able to know anything at all.

With regard to subjectivism, Kant had the interesting dilemma of making claims about universality AND holding that the “thing in itself” cannot be known. Since the thing in itself is noumena (νοούμενα) that originates from the Greek word nous for mind, the thing itself, as it is “in itself”, is thought from mind but the ‘what’ that thought thinks, or refers to, is unknowable for Kant. Therefore noumena, as the ‘what’, is essentially negative for Kant. We can observe phe-noumena with the senses but we can never know the ‘thing’ that our sensations tell us about. An ‘object’ is not what something ‘is’ but only an apperception. While Kant wanted to set the stage for universal knowledge as categories of understanding, which were not subjective in any sense, he also insisted that subjectivism was all that could be known as the knower only ever observes phenomena in his skin. Therefore, how could Kant know that his categories of understanding were universal as he claimed? The categories, as the conditions for understanding, could themselves only be sensational objects for the subject. The claim to universality could never be severed from the perceiving subject and therefore universality itself would merely be a forgetful form of subjectivity.

Hegel believed he resolved this issue dialectically in The Science of Logic with the Concept (begriff ; notion or idea). Marx also, working from Hegel’s method, believed he resolved Kant’s dilemma in dialectical materialism; the overthrowing of the bourgeois fetish of value for the actual value of labor. All of these modern philosophical quagmires and resulting, practical human values assumptions were rooted in the inescapable desire to ground subjectivism to universalism, mind/body, substance and appearance, real and illusory, sensible and nonsense, being and nothingness. What most often gets overlooked is that before there was any such thing as the historical codification of subjectivism, Aristotle argued eloquently against subjectivism’s origin in Physics. On one hand, Aristotle argues against the Eleatics who took the notion of the universal, the one (hen), as essential and the many (polumeres) as accidental and on the other hand, the more ancient philosophy of Hesiod and Heraclitus which thought flux, difference, change from chaos (apeiron). Aristotle’s argument prefigures the dilemma of modernity and subjectivism and offers other possibilities before concretizing historical assumptions. Additionally, post modernism also echoes in Plato and Aristotle through the thought of rhetoric, the ‘art’ of the Sophists, as antithetical to dialectic or perhaps the unaccounted for difference in universality (a Koan of the first order).

In any case, the ideas that Horwitz plays around (and from), whether praxeology or subjectivism, drive his thinking…as for many of us. This is why a more fundamental effort is required to clarify and situate this type of historical ‘seeing’ and what remains unseen. Many have undertaken this task, Heidegger perhaps chief among them. I will attempt to bring this material together in a way that demonstrates my polemic with the material as well in future essays.

The link to the story is here.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (I would put the links but CNN will not let me)…

Unemployment peaked Oct. 2009 at 10%.

The current unemployment rate is 8.3%.

President Obama took office Jan 2009.

When Bush took office Jan 2001 the unemployment rate was 4.2%.

When Bush left office in Jan 2009 the unemployment rate was 7.8%.

From the time Bush took office to the day he left, the unemployment rate increased 86%.

From the time Obama took office to the present unemployment increased 6%.

If you take the height of the recession started during the Bush administration to be 10 months after Obama took office, Oct 2009, the numbers are this:

From the time Bush took office to Oct 2009, the unemployment rate increased 138%.

From Oct 2009 to the present unemployment DECREASED 6%.

If you take 4 months, May 2009, into the Obama administration, the unemployment rate was 9.4%

From the time Bush took office to May 2009, the unemployment rate increased 124%.

From May 2009 to the present unemployment DECREASED 12%.

Link

Jan 2009 non-farm job losses were 818,000

Jul 2012 non-farm job GAINS were 163,000

Link

Jan 1993, when Clinton took office, private sector jobs were 91 million.

Jan 2001, when Clinton left office, private sector jobs were 112 million.

Jan 2009, When Bush left office, private sector jobs were 111 million.

Clinton increased private sector jobs 21 million.

Bush decreased jobs by 1 million.

Link

If you take these numbers 4 months, 10 months or 1 year after Obama took office the numbers look dramatically better for Obama. To think Obama could turn the recession around the day he took office is absurd.

No matter how you slice it Obama comes out WAY ahead by these numbers for anyone that cares about FACTS. Since the recession bottom, the economy has been improving.

If you prefer the historical, Republican numbers, vote for Romney…their economic ideology is no different from Bush and the results will be the same.

In the introduction to Ryan’s report, he only shows one scenario from the 2009 CBO Long Term Budget Outlook. His scenario includes not allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire and paying doctors more money for their services than current law dictates (the “doc fix”).

Ryan’s Chart:

From http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/plan/#Intro

The Real CBO chart shows this:

From http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/102xx/doc10297/06-25-ltbo.pdf, Page 20 (pdf)

Ryan reports states:

According to the Congressional Budget Office [CBO], the President’s policies will increase spending to $5.1 trillion by 2019, nearly a full quarter of the Nation’s economic resources. His deficits never fall below $633 billion in the next 10 years, and exceed $1 trillion by the end of the decade.

Debt as a share of the economy is projected to exceed 60 percent this year (2010) – greater than the 2009 level, which was the highest in 50 years – and will reach 82 percent of GDP by the end of the next decade under the administration’s policies. (In nominal dollars, debt held by the public will triple over the next 10 years.) The U.S. has not seen debt at these expected levels since the end of World War II. Even the countries of the European Union, hardly exemplars of fiscal rectitude, are required to keep their debt levels below 60 percent of GDP.

All this would be bad enough on its own. But it only adds to a fiscal crisis already well under way. The status quo is unsustainable and unacceptable.

For several decades, fiscal experts have warned of the untenable and overwhelming nature of the Federal Government’s budgetary trends. The threat comes entirely from domestic entitlement programs, as clearly reflected in CBO’s biennial report, The Long-Term Budget Outlook, the most recent of which was released in June 2009. The report, looking forward 75 years, shows that within the next several decades, the government’s current fiscal path will lead to catastrophic levels of debt, even if Congress imposed substantial tax increases.

Important points about Ryan’s statement:

• The Congress is responsible for the budget not the president. It is not the “President’s policies” or the “administration’s policies” but the congress’ policies that become law.
• Medicare, part D was not “the president’s policies”. It was President Bush’s policy and cost 1 trillion dollars over 10 years, 100 billion more than ‘ObamaCare’.
• The privatization option for Medicare, champion by the Republicans, the Medicare Advantage cost the taxpayer 12.4% more than the same benefits in Medicare. This is the same money that Reince Priebus recently said President Obama “stole” from Medicare in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Actually, he took it from Medicare Advantage and put it back in Medicare to save the government money. Priebus is mad because the ACA saved the government money at the expense of his big business, Republican backers in Medicare Advantage. [NOTE 1]
• Additionally, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services show ‘ObamaCare’ saves 575 billion dollars in ten years over doing nothing. [NOTE 2]
• The current 2012 Long Term Budget Outlook projects the same scenario in the Ryan plan as “federal debt would grow rapidly from its already high level, exceeding 90 percent of GDP in 2022”. The other scenario sates “Federal debt held by the public would drift downward from an estimated 73 percent of GDP this year to 61 percent by 2022 and 53 percent by 2037” as opposed to “82 percent of GDP by the end of the next decade” which would have been 2019 from 2009. [NOTE 3]
• The CBO 2009 report that Ryan quotes shows two scenarios. Ryan only shows the worst case scenario. The biggest hits to the worst case scenario are:
  • The Bush tax cuts are permanently extended by congress
  • The “doc fix” is enacted into law by the congress

President Obama cannot create the budget for the United States. He can give his idea of what the budget should be to the congress but Ryan is not referring to the president’s idea for the budget. He is referring to actual law that can only be made law by the congress. The president of either party never gets their budget made into law carte blanche. To blame current law on President Obama is tantamount to suggesting that President Obama created the entire actual, budget all by himself. This is a HUGE lie. This lie is also used with debt numbers are I have shown here (also, see this link for a discussion of mandatory and discretionary budget items). Ryan is using rhetoric to create an illusion. If people believe rhetoric over facts they will never be able to decide once and for all if their opinion is right or wrong. Ryan does not want people to believe the truth based on real facts. He wants people to believe his hyperbole. There is no integrity to this kind of approach, regardless of political party; it shows something important about the person that resorts to it.

Ryan states this about the Bush tax cuts:

Extension of Current Fiscal Policies. In a scenario that essentially extends today’s underlying fiscal policies, CBO assumes the 2001 and 2003 tax relief provisions and alternative minimum tax [AMT] “patches” are permanently extended. As a result, revenues grow slightly faster than the economy and equal 22 percent of GDP by 2080.

And this about the “doc fix”:

The projection also assumes Medicare physician reimbursement payments will track the historic growth of Medicare rather than the “sustained growth formula” [SGR], which has in recent years called for steep reductions in those payments. (Congress has repeatedly boosted physician payments, an action called the “doc fix.”)

Ryan thinks that the CBO puts an “artificial downward adjustment in the future growth rates of two health entitlements”:

The scenario projects that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will grow faster than the economy. But CBO also makes an artificial downward adjustment in the future growth rates of the two health entitlements. Without this adjustment – applying historical rates of health care spending growth – Medicare and Medicaid spending as a share of the economy (currently 4.9 percent of GDP) would double in 20 years, triple in 30 years, and equal the size of today’s entire government in less than 50 years. Other spending is allowed to grow with GDP rather than inflation after 2011.

The 2012 CBO report states:

In addition, the scenario includes unspecified changes in tax law that would keep revenues constant as a share of GDP after 2022, and it incorporates the assumption that spending for programs other than Social Security and the major federal health care programs will generally represent a stable share of GDP in most years after 2022, as it has in recent decades.

This adjustment is only after 2022. The CBO states that we do not know what GDP is going to be but historically “spending for programs other than Social Security and the major federal health care programs will generally represent a stable share of GDP in most years after 2022, as it has in recent decades”. Ryan thinks that this will not occur and we are on the verge of an a-historic event – GDP going down in a dramatically unusual way. This is speculation on his part. It is perhaps not so odd that it also conveniently fits with his ideological interests. It is pure fantasy on Ryan’s part. The CBO prefers historic precedence.

Ryan states this about Federal revenues:

It is noteworthy that even without deliberate tax increases, tax revenue as a share of the economy is still projected to grow – rising from 15.5 percent of GDP in 2009, to 19.9 percent in 2050, and to 21.9 percent in 2080. For comparison, Federal revenues peaked at 20.9 percent of GDP in 2000. Yet even with revenues at historically high levels, spending still outpaces revenue by significant amounts, leading to more government borrowing and debt, and still higher interest payments.

The 2012 CBO report states in the section “The Long-Term Outlook for Revenues”:

Federal revenues have fluctuated between about 15 percent and about 21 percent of GDP over the past 40 years, averaging 18 percent. The composition of revenues has shifted over time, with payroll taxes producing a larger share of total tax receipts and corporate income taxes and excise taxes producing smaller shares.

This has nothing to do with President Obama as Ryan alludes; Obama has not been in office for 40 years. The CBO goes on to state:

After totaling nearly 18 percent of GDP in 2008, federal revenues fell sharply, primarily because of the severe recession, and were just over 15 percent of GDP from 2009 through 2011. CBO expects revenues to approach 16 percent of GDP this year. Under the current-law assumptions of CBO’s baseline, revenues would rebound over the next few years with expected improvement in the economy, the recent or scheduled expirations of various tax provisions, and the imposition of new taxes, fees, and penalties that are scheduled to go into effect. Revenues would keep rising relative to GDP thereafter, largely because increases in taxpayers’ real income would push more income into higher tax brackets and because more taxpayers would become subject to the AMT. As a result, revenues would reach nearly 19 percent of GDP in 2013 and over 21 percent of GDP in 2022.

With regard to Ryan’s assertion on spending under President Obama, spending has clearly decreased under President Obama than under Bush:

OUTLAYS BY AGENCY: 2000–2017

(in millions of dollars)

From The Office and Management Budget by agency (xls) or get spreadsheet with graphs here. See also this.

The bottom line is if you repeat rhetoric that is not based on fact, you are responsible for purposely confusing voters. Generally, facts cannot be put in sound bites but they can dispel ideological myths. When voters vote based on lies and manipulation, everyone that spreads that hyperbole is responsible for weakening our democracy. Next time someone tells you that Obama has spent us into oblivion you have the choice of dispelling myth or keeping silent and becoming part of the problem.

……………………………………………

[NOTE 1] The Continuing Cost of Privatization: Extra Payments to Medicare Advantage, Also http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/july/lets_end_the_medica.php, Also, http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201101250005, Also http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-522T, Also http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-359

Overview

The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 explicitly increased Medicare payments to private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. As a result, every MA plan in the nation is paid more for its enrollees than they would have been expected to cost in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. The authors calculate that payments to MA plans in 2008 will be 12.4 percent greater than the corresponding costs in traditional Medicare—an average increase of $986 per MA plan enrollee, for a total of more than $8.5 billion. Over the five-year period 2004–2008, extra payments to MA plans are estimated to have totaled nearly $33 billion. Although Congress recently enacted modest reductions in MA plan payments, these changes will not take effect until 2010. Moreover, while the new legislation removes a few factors contributing to the extra payments, a number of other factors remain unaffected.

[NOTE 2] Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Affordable Care Act Update: Implementing Medicare Cost Savings, http://www.cms.gov/apps/docs/ACA-Update-Implementing-Medicare-Costs-Savings.pdf

Without reform, Medicare spending was projected to grow at an average annual rate of 6.8 percent, reaching an annual cost of roughly $978 billion by 2019. As a result of these reform measures, projected annual growth in Medicare spending has been reduced to 5.3 percent, reaching $852 billion by 2019—a ten-year savings of over $575 billion and a reduction of 13 percent in 2019 over previous baseline spending.

…

Conclusion

The passage of the Affordable Care Act marks a turning point in the unsustainable rate of cost growth in our health care system. Prior to reform, Medicare was marred by perverse incentives and inefficiencies that were obstacles to making meaningful quality improvements. This led to the hemorrhaging of billions of dollars in waste and misdirected resources. The Affordable Care Act reforms the Medicare program’s payment and delivery systems to incentivize high-quality care, appropriately price services, modernize the health care sector, and fight waste, fraud, and abuse. The new law will generate significant cost savings in both the near term and the long term, will help drive system-wide cost-savings and quality improvement, and will improve the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by 12 years.

[NOTE 3] Congressional Budget Office, THE 2012 LONG-TERM BUDGET OUTLOOK, http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/LTBO_One-Col_2.pdf

Ryan’s plan is the extended baseline scenario. It assumes the Bush tax cuts are extended and the “doc fix” is enacted. The extended alternative fiscal scenario assumes the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, the “doc fix” is not enacted and we do not hit the “fiscal cliff”.

Alternative Scenarios for the Long-Term Budget Outlook

The two sets of long-term budget projections presented in this report are based on the following differing assumptions about future federal policy (see Table 1-1):

1. The extended baseline scenario generally adheres closely to current law. It follows CBO’s March 2012 baseline budget projections for the next decade and then extends the baseline concept beyond that 10-year window. The current-law assumption of the baseline scenario implies that many adjustments that lawmakers have routinely made in the past—such as changes to the AMT and to the Medicare program’s payments to physicians—will not be made again. Because of the structure of current tax law, federal revenues over the long run would grow significantly faster than GDP under this scenario, ultimately rising well above the levels that U.S. taxpayers have seen in the past (for more details, see Chapter 6).
2. The extended alternative fiscal scenario embodies several changes to current law that would continue certain tax and spending policies that are in place now or have been in place recently. Over the next decade, it follows CBO’s March 2012 budget projections for the alternative fiscal scenario. Versions of some of the changes that the scenario incorporates—such as those related to the tax cuts originally enacted in 2001 and 2003, the AMT, many other expiring tax provisions, and Medicare’s payments to physicians—have regularly been enacted in the past. Another of the scenario’s assumptions is that the automatic spending reductions required by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (Public Law 122-25), which are set to take effect in January 2013, do not occur (although the original caps on discretionary appropriations in that law are assumed to remain in place).

When all is said and done, the decision for the 2012 presidential election will come down to this: Do you believe the President Obama created the current economic and political problems? The Republican campaign has hammered the theme that President Obama is responsible. On rare occasions they will reluctantly admit that things were not so great in the Bush administration and then go on to bash Obama for the problems. I believe that there is real data that can prove whether or not President Obama is responsible as I have demonstrated on my web site at www.mixermuse.com/blog. However, I realize that data and facts are not how most folks decide who to vote for. So, the question remains, did President Obama create the current problems ex nihilo (out of nothing)? Those that believe he did will not and cannot be convinced otherwise. However, if rationality matters we should pay attention to these facts. Even the most devout national Republicans admit that there were problems before President Obama took office. The economic crash became most apparent in 2008 after eight years of practiced and enacted Republican ideology in the Executive Branch with Bush, six years of Republican Legislative Branch control with the congress and a Supreme Court majority in the Judicial Branch. President Obama took office in January of 2009. Has Republican ideology about how to govern changed in the least? They are still supply side (trickle down economics), against regulation, favor the wealthy (what they call job creators), defense and war hawkish and cutting taxes (which is indisputably the largest contributor to the national debt to the present day) while increasing spending dramatically (Medicare, Part D and Defense to name a few). Their ideology has not changed one bit. Their reign precipitated the largest decrease in GDP since the Great Depression, the largest increase in the national debt and a huge real income separation from the wealthy and the middle class in this country. The decision that people need to make is, did President Obama create this or did he have to deal with the aftermath? If you think President Obama created this – show it with specific credible data (I have shown the contrary here). If you want to blame ‘Obamacare’ you will need to explain how something can affect something else BEFORE the fact – Obamacare does not go into effect until 2014. The decision to be made is should we try the ideology that created the mess in the first place? If you are convinced the ideology that created the mess is Democratic you will probably not be reading this. If you are undecided and care about facts and credible data then the decision will come down to, will Republican ideology produce a different result this time? IMO this notion is insane as it implies doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Concerning this essay…

It is funny how liberals in the U.S. see gay rights as a civil rights issue and conservatives cannot be enticed to go there. The party of Lincoln takes pride in abolition but they frame the argument on gays in a totally different way. [NOTE 1] I would say that it is a religious form of bigotry. When the U.S. had slavery, the religious groups, especially in the South, made slavery a theological tenant of their religion. Since then, only the extreme right has held on to such nonsense. I dare say that after, and when, the gay issue is resolved, the religious taboos against it will disappear…given a hundred years or so. I sincerely believe that the old line Republican Party would be considered liberals by the standards of our current batch of aspiratory, nouveau riche Republicans. I do think conservatives, as deriving values from the past, have more chance for error than liberals that derive values from the future (thus the liberal, negative slant as you suggest on the moral significance of the past). The error derives from the inability to retrieve a true and proper past and the ability to hermeneutically create a past the never existed. The liberal error derives from not fully thinking through the hermeneutically retrieved past that governs popular messaging. Change has to come from within culture and cannot be imposed from an exterior social structure (the communists made this particularly clear).

Culture (bildung) is bound by a fictional past (in the way it projects and gathers, re-members, significance) and compelled by its abysmal future. In this sense we are all conservative and liberal. However, the violence and indolence of the present, makes the current state of affairs deplorable and should make the status quo intolerable to our present situatedness (dasein), the French have referred to this predicament as mauvaise foi (‘bad faith’) and hypocrisy. I still maintain that the Austrian ‘free market’ turns a deaf ear to the present vis-à-vis human suffering in similar fashion. I like the way you put this, “you can tie yourself into knots trying to “prove” that you are a “proper” form of the human until you realise how monstrously improper the entire question is”. I find the notion of the ‘proper’ to be pervasive as it is thought, as the ‘serious’ and elevated form of human activity especially in academia. I also would note the way in which the serious and the ‘proper’ are rewarded and reinforced in capitalism (which Socrates might refer to as sophistry). I am not suggesting that it would not be rewarded in any economic system. I am only pointing out the innocuous affinity to authorize and reward the ‘proper’ in capitalism. The insidious nature of academic breakthroughs makes it feed on the milk of the ‘improper’, that which was heretical to the popular dogma of its day, the dominate paradigm.

I think all this momentum works against a contemporary gay person. I think it is quite admirable and courageous to openly face this amount of derision and ignorance. It is reminiscent of Nietzsche’s remark of untimelessness (Untimely Meditations), born out of season. It is a burden that Jesus would have known but, as “the last Christian”, orthodoxy has denied that Jesus in favor of the apostate ‘proper’ Jesus. Thus, with regard to “none so blind”…”Therefore I speak to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.” [Matthew 13:13] It is ironic that I have heard so many Christians think that homosexuality is a sin but the ‘improper’ Jesus did this:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. [John 9]

In unorthodoxy, could it be that the sin of blindness, the improper, sees and the ‘seers’ are blind?

[NOTE 1] The Republican pride in civil rights can be overdone at times. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not split along party lines as much as it was split along the Mason-Dixon Line. After the vote, the Dixiecrats changed party en mass to the Republican Party where they remain to this day. As a Southerner, I can tell you that bigotry is alive and well in the South but it has gone underground. However, the younger folks are not AS trapped in the sins of the past as their elders. Here was the actual vote count on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. Aristotle

After reading this article by Brianna Keilar at CNN I submitted this comment:

“Romney stopped his day-to-day oversight at Bain Capital in 1999 when he left to run the Salt Lake City Olympics, though he officially remained CEO until 2002.”

How do you get a CEO job where you do not have to do anything and you are not responsible for anything that happens on your ‘CEO watch’? There is clearly a right wing bias in this story. This tacit assumption takes Mitt’s rationalization as fact. What happened to critical journalism? As “Chief Executive Officer” you are chiefly responsible for executive decisions, right?….even if you would prefer to blame others for bad decisions, the buck stops with you…unless you are Romney or Bush – then you get special dispensation with special meanings to words that reporters should just parrot as fact!

CNN censored this comment. I do not want to believe they normally do such things on comments like this but it is a bit disturbing and Rush Limbaugh-like.