He’s leading with what, 11%? That’s basically what you’d expect given that he’s running at about 4-5% nationally, and NH is probably as good as it gets for him, outside Ohio.
11% isn’t going to win him NH, there’s no reason to expect him to do much better there if he doesn’t improve his national numbers, and nobody’s bothered to run attack ads about him implementing Obamacare in Ohio yet, because he’s still not a threat.
So, does Jeb get a Colbert bounce?
I watched the first two minutes, and I doubt it. I’m sure he’ll get a slight bounce just from more people knowing his name, but he didn’t come off particularly well. In large part, that’s because he’s still a candidate; the guys who showed up on Colbert and were witty and charming were always the ones who’d already dropped out and could afford to lose Republicans by being witty and charming.
Romney had to deal with surprisingly little of that last time, perhaps because he was the money’s Chosen One. Kasich isn’t - yet - but he only has to claim to be a “severely conservative governor” to get away with it.
And the GOP decided to go along with the fiction that Romneycare and Obamacare were really totally different, just so their brains wouldn’t break down.
I doubt it. That $100M that Jeb has raised may not be able to turn Jeb into a viable candidate, but it can always be used to trash one’s rivals.
Until Jeb! finds a better answer to the GWB question that Colbert posed last night, he has no shot. All the Super PAC money in the world won’t help him. The base thinks GBW was a great president*, but GWB is still toxic to the general electorate. Saying the only policy difference is that Jeb! would veto more spending is not going to cut it.
*or…the greatest president
Actually, I think there are still quite a few Republicans who don’t like Dubya for (a) getting us into two wars, (b) expanding Medicare drug coverage, © deficit spending and (d) the 2008 recession.
Jeb unveils his new tax plan. You’ll never believe it, but it centers on tax cuts for the rich! How original! Seriously, who thought it was possible to be more tone deaf than Helen Keller?
Just stupid, awful, terrible nonsense. The Republicans need to go back to their pre-Reagan tax policy: we cut spending a little, we cut taxes a little. As much as we can.
It’s interesting that on a lot of big issues, Trump seems to be the moderate in the room, despite his bombastic image.
There’s no evidence that cutting spending would stimulate jobs, in fact the opposite would occur. Spending has already been cut to the bone thanks to the hare-brained sequester. Taxes are already very low by historic standards, and there is no evidence that cutting taxes would do anything but accelerate the income disparity. What Republicans should do is admit that they can’t govern. Today Boehner, the worst Speaker in history, had to postpone a vote that his caucus would vote 100% in favor of. Why? Some Republicans have deluded themselves into thinking that the clock hasn’t started on the Iran deal yet.
For a slightly more nuanced analysis: Jeb Bush’s Tax Plan Is Pretty Weird | FiveThirtyEight
Never believe anyone who calls for a simple tax code. It’s never going to happen. The halls of Congress are full of guys in thousand dollar suits who will gladly fund your re-election if you unsimplify it just for his little pet interest…
There’s no evidence that cutting spending hurts jobs, especially when cutting spending is done slowly. I’m not talking about taking an ax to the budget, just doing what we did during the 90s: increase spending between 0 and 3% per year. Periods of spending control of this nature have coincided with the best booms we’ve ever had.
Sure there is. If you cut the dog catcher, then that’s one less job.
Plus you have dogs everywhere.
The federal workforce shrunk to its lowest point in 36 years under Clinton:
http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OP/Budget2000/govt.html
And you don’t need to fire the dogcatcher, you just don’t need to increase the number of dogcatchers every year. Plus productivity gains in many fields should allow for less federal employment in some areas.
Like this guy, right? 
Less employment means fewer jobs.
Not necessarily in the aggregate, which is what matters.
A simpler tax code is possible, it’s keeping it that’s tough. The last time we simplified taxes, Bill Clinton and the Democrats recomplicated the tax code only six years later, adding tons of brackets and new deductions(gotta shield your political contributors and yourself from the higher rates, of course).
The next tax reform should include a rule that a two thirds vote be required to add new brackets or new deductions. Simply raising rates across the board, or even one of the rates, can be done by simple majority vote, but anything that adds a complication to the code would require a supermajority.
For those that don’t know how a rule works, if someone was to propose an amendment adding a new tax bracket, then any Congressman could raise a point of order that this was a tax code complication and the parliamentarian would rule that a two thirds vote was needed to pass the amendment. The rule itself could be undone by simple majority of course, but that has political consequences, making it less likely. It would basically be saying, “We hate a simple tax code, we want to add favors for our friends”.
In aggregate, less federal employment is less jobs. Sometimes it might be the best thing in the long run, but in the short term, there are people who just lost their jobs and now are looking for new ones. New jobs don’t magically get created when federal jobs are cut.