From an e-mail from Team Obama: GOP Debate Watch
Sort of like a drinking game, but you pledge money instead of drinking (or you could do it the other way, too). If I could afford it (and if I could stomach watching Republican debates) I would do it.
They are getting pretty creative with their fund-raising tactics, I must say!
I did match a brand-new donor’s pledge the other day. Some nice lady in Washington state is now ONE OF US! I’m pretty pleased with that.
I did not find a thread on this. I wonder why?
This was a step up in attacks. They went after Cain and Romney quite hard. They hit the 999 plan . Cain answered criticisms badly. On one hand he says the plan is very simple. When it was questioned ,he claimed the person did not understand the plan.
Then he said they were comparing apples and oranges when a person suggested it would give greater taxes to the poor and middle classes ,while giving tax breaks to the rich. Or when they said the plan would add a sales tax on top of the state sales taxes that are already in effect.
Romney got hit for an old charge, that he hired a company that used illegal aliens to work on his landscaping. He really could not deny it, but he accepted no responsibility either.
Romney also was jumped on for his Obama type healthcare plan in Massachusetts. He responded that 75 percent of the people like it. But of course he would never never try to make it national.
Don’t know the details of the game, but I certainly have a major objection to the basic premise – apparently you have to watch the GOP debate. Sorry, my gag reflex doesn’t allow me to.
You don’t have to watch. You can make a pledge to the campaign, and they’ll keep track of the word counts for you. It’s pretty simple; the details are on the linked page.
It does, of course, require that you be willing to pay the money.
I don’t see why that’s one of those things he should take responsibility for. He didn’t hire the illegal aliens, the company did, and according to him, when he found out, he told the company he couldn’t have illegal aliens working on his property. So, I don’t see what he needs to take responsibility for.
There’s a thread in the elections forum, where it belongs.
Merged two threads about the debate.
Isn’t that what it’s supposed to do? I saw a story on the news last night that under the 999 plan, $1 million+ income households would see about a 50% tax cut, while the lowest income households would see their taxes raised by about 950%.
Lowest income households probably don’t pay federal income taxes after all the rebates/refunds, so that alone goes from 0 up to 9%. Plus they spend a lot more money on consumables and will see the 9% sales tax. The working poor right now by and largely probably only pay FICA taxes of about 7.65%. I don’t know if any of that money is rebated on tax returns.
I don’t know the exact figures. But they would see their federal tax rate double at the very least. Plus the 9-9-9 plan doesn’t raise anywhere near enough money, so they’d have to drastically cut programs and/or raise taxes to avoid massive debts.
There is no way Cains plan would ever become reality in congress.
FWIW, pretty much any time the GOP proposes an economic or tax policy, once you look at the details you will find it probably lowers taxes on the wealthy and corporations but raises them on everyone else. It is an unofficial law of GOP economics since the GOP has been taken over by Social Darwinists and plutocrats. I knew the 9-9-9 plan would do the same before this debate even came up.
This chart may be relevant to exactly who gets screwed and how.
I’m not sure that it works out like that. Cain’s plan gets rid of FICA taxes, which with the employercontribution is something like 12%, so a 9% tax on income would actually be a drop in income taxation, even on people that aren’t paying income tax.
But they still get screwed on the sales tax, which probably accounts for the large effective tax increase for lower income cohorts shown in E-Sabbath’s link.
It also gets tacked on to state sales taxes. That would make many pay nearly 20 percent on purchases. How would that feel when you go shopping?
When Cain repeated that the reason that the people are poor is their own fault and everybody should be rich, the audience cheered loudly. Who are these people ? There are 5 people for every job. It is all their fault that jobs got offshored? It is all their fault that they are poor.
Does anybody believe that any person can and should become rich? What a crappy grasp of reality.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/18/romney-accelerate-foreclosures-to-allow-investors-to-buy-up-homes/
Mitt is one heartless MFer. His heart is in the rich and powerful camp.
Perry tried to get at Romney for Mormonism. it is tricky but it may resonate with enough voters, so he tried it. Romney tried to pretend that religion should not matter. but in America it most certainly does. It remains to be seen if Perry hurt Romney with that attack.
I disagree with the thread merge. The original was an attempt to elicit Repub donations. Mine was to discuss the debate. Could you change the thread title to show it is about the debates?
You might want to read that link again. But yes, changing the thread title makes sense. I’ve changed it from “GOP Debate Watch Game!”
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Hey, if you can’t get a company bent on eliminating jobs and outsourcing the rest to countries that pay 1/10 American wages, you have no-one to blame but yourself. 
Nah, I’m just kidding. Once we slash corporate taxes that will somehow solve the problem of low demand and businesses will start hiring again.
It’s simple really. Either we’ll be a country with millionaire dish washers, gas pumpers, and fast foot workers, or else we eliminate all those positions and everybody is a CEO, COO, CFO, or some other executive position.
Not always. Sometimes, when you go to look at the details, you find that there aren’t any.
Romney got flummoxed. Me like. He usually has the perma-smug-bastard look on his face, but last night he alternated between “I got this” and “Anderson! Wah! They won’t let me speak!” Gah, at one point he actually called out to Anderson Cooper for help.
But yes, we know they’re all terrible, and the same complaints we have about this debate we had about the last one. The real news is how desperate Rick Perry has gotten. He’s calling for a flat tax now? Did Mitt make his butt hurt that badly?