Yeah, it really sucks when people don’t pay for their privilege. I see the federal income tax like a turnstile; nobody should be allowed to just ride through on the coattails of a fare-payer, regardless of what they need at that particular moment and how difficult it is for them to pay.
I agree that we can’t expect Average Citizen to guess the best way to proceed through economic difficulties. That’s why we choose leaders based on their priorities and philosophies.
To me, these seem like odd questions unless you’ve fallen for Republican propaganda. Can you explain them?
We need a hierarchical model of decision making. When applying for college I needed to decide whether to follow in my father’s footsteps as an engineer, or follow his suggestion and become an orthodontist. But ten years later I dressed in the morning and went to my engineering job – I didn’t dither about driving in the other direction and enrolling in orthodentistry school!
What I’m hinting at, A_Nested_Thorn, is that you seem indecisive. Perhaps you should start a brain chemistry thread in IMHO and ask about dopamine supplements. 
the people in this thread who have discarded the original subject of this thread and are prattling back and forth about their liberal/conservative attitudes and platitudes kind of underscore the OP’s point: the certitude and hostility exhibited by huge swaths of both parties is rather nauseating.
Nailed it in one. OP, if you can’t figure it out between these two choices just remember: democracy isn’t for everyone.
Fuck, I can’t wait for the election to be over. That way we can start the 2016 campaign.
That’s a whole lot of words to say “Harrumph”, innit?
What’s nauseating is using “some people were mean to me on the internet” as a valid excuse for being a dumbass about politics.
I didn’t get a harrumph outta that guy!
Give the governor a harumph!
Start a thread with a difficult to defend argument…about politics…in the pit. Check.
First, I want to say that I shouldn’t have included myself in the OP. I did that for humorous effect, and I suppose it looks like a desperate cry for attention. But since I am undecided and I know myself, that’s the angle I’m going to have to approach from anyway.
Second, I want to reiterate my hypothesis: undecided voters aren’t universally idiots, and decided voters aren’t universally intelligent and well-informed. Just because you believe in the Democratic or Republican party platform doesn’t mean your party will be able to get anything done, or that they’ll even try to accomplish the goals stated in their candidacy. I don’t want to be a sucker.
I agree with this up to a point. The Republican party is catering to the Tea Party loons entirely too much, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to consider them a viable option. However, Romney is/was a moderate governer, and who’s to say he won’t return to his principles once in office. It would be a good strategic move to try and bring his party back to sanity, assuming he was successful as president. His comments on Meet the Press indicate that he would like to retain elements of the ACA and close loopholes in the tax code for very wealthy people. He also said he would never raise taxes on the middle class.
Most of the Republicans I know absolutely do not oppose taxpayer funded infrastructure, education, law enforcement, etc. The rational Republican party–may they rest in peace–simply believed that helping each other up shouldn’t be mandated by government in all cases, that given more freedom from government and taxes citizens would reach out to their fellow man and lift them up voluntarily. Maybe that’s a crazy philosophy, but I truly know people who demonstrate it daily, and who are concerned about the fiscal possibilities under continued Democratic leadership.
Point taken. My vote is largely useless because I live in a grossly Republican state. We don’t even see campaign adds on TV, it’s such a lost cause. But this isn’t about whether my vote is useless , it’s about whether undecided voters are morons and/or decided voters are on the ball. A goodly number of the decided voters I know think of politics like sports: just pick a team and cheer them to victory. They’ve never read the platform, and they’ve never considered the other side.
I’m concerned about the “Fair Share” rhetoric and the general sense that Americans are being talked down to by Washington, as though we need the government to reduce our taxes and level the playing field for us to succeed. This is a losing long-term strategy, IMO. It’s a question of the degradation of the American spirit of independence.
The implications of the Buffett Rule bare some serious thought. The super wealthy don’t have to stay here. They don’t have to pay higher taxes. I know it’s ridiculous to think they’ll leave en masse, but things get screwy when a lot of money is involved. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Any way you cut it, we need their tax dollars.
There’s something interesting here. You’re right, the candidates are vastly different… and I know of two people who are undecided because of this, both Republicans. Romney isn’t a great candidate. If he would moderate, the Tea Party didn’t have a stranglehold, and he had a personality I think more Pubs could get behind him. One of the people I know, a very well-educated man who earns will in the six figure range, may vote Dem for the first time in his life. He fears what is happening to his party, and Clinton bowled him over. This guy isn’t a monster, I promise. He’s a charitable and good man who–I think–most people would respect and admire. He’s undecided.
The other person, another Republican, is undecided because he has come to recognize the importance of the ACA and the environmental stewardship, but he also sees that taking any significant steps on environmental policy is impossible while the economy is still struggling, and he believe the Republicans stand the best chance of improving the economy, and that the ACA could use some tweaks that the Republicans could make.
For me it’s about cutting through the election exaggerations and lies to see what lies in the gooey center. What is the elected president going to push for? Obama chose health care reform and largely depleted his political capital. What will Romney do? “Repeal and replace?” Will he bulldoze into getting the economy moving again and revising the tax code?
I have have strong positions about most of those things, but I’m pragmatic. I would like to base my vote on what I believe the candidate will actually accomplish. Mostly, I’m looking at the fiscal policies–who can start balancing the budget and continue the recovery most effectively, and who will be most likely to actually focus on that. The social issues are fodder for the election machine, IMO.
Again, fair enough, but what if every voting American really considered the candidates through the lens of a skeptic, with the mindset that we should all be doing our damndest and our politicians should expect that, not talking down to us poor, poor losers “sitting around our kitchen table going over the bills?” The decisions wouldn’t be so simple, there would be more undecided voters later in the game, and maybe we wouldn’t be stuck in the position we’re in now.
Good comedy comes from saying that undecided voters are arm-dragging idiots–heck, I laugh at the jokes–I just think it’s absurd to believe it’s true across the board.
I refuse to become apathetic. This stuff matters, even if my vote is a drop in the bucket.
The priority of the candidates is the question. Who will make the tough decisions and act on the right thing at the right time. Obama has behaved admirably, but he chose health care reform in the midst of a financial crisis. Not that he didn’t make headway on the financial front, he did, but perhaps he could’ve done more.
I’ll look into that dopamine thing. Sounds pleasurable.
Yep, that’s what I said exactly. Good point. :rolleyes:
So make a scorecard. I realize that most of us who have decided are ones who have been mentally making one for countless years already, but it shouldn’t be hard to take, for instance, your top 5 or 10 issues, weight them by importance, and see who matches up with what you believe in the most
Yeah, you’re not convincing me that it’s anything but lazy to be undecided at this point.
I will certainly agree with this.
You need to keep up with what Romney is saying day to day. as it changes so fast. Yesterday (Sept 10) Romney appeared on a right-wing radio show to say:
(bolding mine)
And just what specific loopholes in the tax code has Romney pledged to eliminate? (Answer: No details whatsoever)
So while I applaud your faith that Romney will actually do the right thing, while in fact saying just the opposite (and in fact saying multiple, mutually opposing things on different days), I have to wonder… are you just being a bit too hopeful? How do you know what Romney will actually do?
This is the crux of why I think undecided voters must be fucking idiots/completely ignorant of anything having to do with politics.
There’s just simply no meaningful issue that I can think of that one cannot make a strong prediction about which way a particular candidate will go. Even if you’re not sure which priorities a candidate will choose, you ought to be able to identify which positions are important to you and which way either candidate (or more importantly either party) would go on that issue.
If there’s an issue that such is not clear, it’s got to be an exceedingly trivial issue, such that you’re an idiot for making it the focal point of your voting decision.
And if you’re not clear which candidate would be better for the economy, you’ve simply fallen for a sales line, and are thus dismissably ignorant. One party’s entire economic mentality is based on an economic philosophy written on the back of a napkin that has led to nothing but poor outcomes in reality, whereas the other has reliably generated desirable outcomes.
And what would a candidate “depleting his capital” have to do with your voting decisions? Using that as a decision making factor sounds like you’re a member of the punditry and are looking for who would make the best narrative, not who would be more likely to pursue an overall agenda in accord with your beliefs.
By the way, I agree that just because someone is decided doesn’t mean that they are intelligent and informed - far from it.
Which leads me to believe that most undecideds aren’t REALLY undecided. They’re Republicans that hate what the Republican party currently is, but haven’t yet convinced themselves to vote Democratic because…bleh, it’s the Democractic party, and you don’t vote for them.
This is all well and good, and if the current Republican party was acting sanely I’d even agree with it; it’s why I’m registered as Independent, not Democrat. Ideally, the Republicans can provide a reliable counterpoint to the Democrats.
In reality though, that’s not what’s happening. If Romney was elected and chose to govern moderately, he’d be hung out to dry by his party. They have been systematically attacking and eliminating anyone from their ranks who believes in compromise with the other side. That’s harder to do with the elected President, but I could almost see Tea Partiers start running against Romney in the 2016 primaries to try to force him out. They aren’t satisfied with merely being in power, they want to go to the extreme far right and tear down some truly necessary things.
It’s not really a surprise that conflicted voters would tend to be moderate Republicans. Right now the Democrats represent your interests better than the GOP does. I mean, hell, a moderate conservative voter who wants to make sure government spending is kept in check should be all for universal healthcare and a single-payer system, because it would cut costs drastically and provide for a healthier workforce. Instead, UHC is despised by the people who hate the poor and/or the government. That’s ideology. That’s adhering to a belief in spite of the facts, which a solid conservative should be able to acknowledge and accept.
Democrats versus Republicans is no longer wild-eyed idealists versus hard-headed realists, or at least the parties usually associated with those stereotypes have switched. It’s no longer left versus right, it’s now moderates versus far right. If you value moderation, I don’t see how you can allow the Republicans in power.
(That all said, I think Romney with a Democratic Congress could actually be pretty good, but it’s unlikely to happen. Romney with a Republican Congress would be catastrophic, of that I have no doubt.)
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This isn’t just about Mitt Romney himself, but also about who he chose to fill his shoes in the event that he dies in office. And like Sarah Palin in 2008, Paul Ryan is frighteningly severe in his ideologies and would not govern anything like you hope Mitt Romney would.
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Mitt Romney governed Massachusetts as a moderate because that’s how his constituents elected him to govern. It’s the platform he ran on. In this race he’s running on a deeply regressive platform because he knows his constituents expect him to govern as a regressive conservative, not as a moderate. If he is elected, he will be beholden to them. And with a regressive conservative Congress sending him regressive conservative legislation, that’s exactly the kind of law you’re going to get out of an Administration with him at the helm regardless of what he says on MTP.
Then I submit they haven’t been paying proper attention. No one who’s genuinely fiscally conservative should ever be voting for Republicans. Ever. They fuck up the economy every time they get their hands on it (even Reagan sent us into recession), loosen public protection rules to the point that the players in the game crash the market on us and we end up having to bail them out, saddle us with enormous debt by not paying for any of their programs despite their lip service (then blame the guy who has to spend money cleaning up their mess if he’s a Democrat [hint: they didn’t say a peep about Reagan’s deficit spending to get us out of the recession of his own making]), don’t have as good a record on policies that create private sector jobs, and are shitty at creating the kind of confidence the Markets need to thrive.
"When it comes to which party is better for the economy, Republicans talk the talk, but it’s Democrats who deliver the goods according to an unusual 80-year study of the impact presidents have on growth, personal wealth, the stock market and even 401ks.
“The bottom line, according to Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box: Of the five best economic presidents since Herbert Hoover, only one is a Republican. The paydirt finding: $100,000 invested during the 40 years Republicans had the White House would be worth $126,027. The same amount invested in the stock market during the Democrat’s 40 years would be $3,912,210.”
Forgive me for saying this, but as to the second part, that’s just silly, and history bears this out. Our rich overlords never take their balls and go to other countries with their businesses when their taxes are higher for myriad reasons, among them the other laws that make being a United States business or a U.S. citizen far better economically than being in business in most other countries. Sure, you have a rogue few, but for the vast, vast majority of them, they know where their bread is buttered and they ain’t goin’ anywhere.
As to the first part, the “fairness” part, I’m gobsmacked by your objection to that. It’s entirely unreasonable, and yes, unfair, that rich people have the money and power to have bought legislation that lets them get away with paying half or less in taxes on their income than you or I do. There’s simply no excuse for capital to be “valued” in our tax code as superior to labor, where, in essence, labor is punished where capital is rewarded. It’s backwards, and even President Lincoln said so!
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
There is no excuse for the rich to burden middle class working folk with propping up the entire country on our backs, and the tax policies of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will only double (or triple or quadruple) down on that.
Whenever I think of this I think of the muppet version. To me the ant is the woman working two minimum wage jobs to try to put food on the table, while the grasshopper is Mitt Romney and his friends. Our whole economic system for the past several decades has been geared towards the ants at the bottom feeding the grasshoppers at the top.
Yeah the grasshoppers are the ones who brought the global economy to the brink of disaster and then wanted government money to bail them out. The ants are the workers who toil away in an unfair system and that’s just about what the GOP thinks of them: a bunch of ants who don’t matter and can be stomped on (especially the black ones).
Okay, all right, so you have a problem with rhetoric. Rhetoric is one thing, policy is another, and you still really haven’t articulated a policy-based argument.
What interests me, though, is the part of your post that I put in bold. Do you really think tax reduction is Obama’s thing? Because anyone who has been paying attention to the political conversation over the past 4 to 10 years should be ascribing this platform to the Republicans, not the Dems. If anything, Obama is in favor of the opposite of tax reduction; when he says “fair share” he’s not asking the people to demand handouts but rather asking them to suck it up and take one for the team by paying their taxes.
So even we ignore the fact that you’re basing your undecidedness on rhetoric rather than substance–which is embarrassing enough–you’re still looking bad by failing to demonstrate you even understand the rhetoric you’re complaining about.
Any rich person who’d abandon their citizenship just because we raise their taxes a few percentage points has either already left the country or has enough tax shelters and Cayman Island bank accounts to make a tax increase moot. Apply some critical thinking to the issue and maybe you’ll see that letting this kind of fear drive our voting decisions goes against the best interests of society.