# Romney makes appeal to Americans disillusioned with Obama **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 31, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225 "2012-08-31T03:47:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/61 "2012-08-31T14:35:32Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > ```php > > ``` > > Having a government-provided door only encourages laziness in people who want to get into the house. The house is better served by rewarding the individual initiative of people who headbutt the house until they make a hole big enough to crawl through. Or they die. Either one works. In my experience, libertarians are very all right with people dying, starving, and generally enduring needless hardships. This is why they are very bad at governing. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/62 "2012-08-31T15:23:32Z")
[Norwegian marginal tax rates](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Marginal_tax_rate_on_wage_income_in_Norway_2010.JPG/800px-Marginal_tax_rate_on_wage_income_in_Norway_2010.JPG). [Norwegian unemployment](http://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=z8o7pt6rd5uqa6_&met_y=unemployment_rate&idim=country:no&fdim_y=seasonality:sa&dl=en&hl=en&q=norwegian+unemployment). > [@Trinopus](#): > > When you give tax breaks to rich folks, they spend money on yachts, golf courses, wine cellars, and art collectibles. This is a slight confusion of the issue. Every act of consumption is an act of production, but certain purchases are more stimulative than others. For instance, unemployment expenditure is massively stimulative (I’ve posted the cite before). Exotic instruments and other expenditures on the financial economy are less stimulative, if at all. If rich people really did spend the same proportion of their income each year on luxury goods as the poor spent on amenities, there would be essentially no problem, since yacht repairing would become a viable career choice for the proletariat. The issue is more their relative lack of spending (locking capital into financial instruments and offshore accounts), which in turn causes a concentration of capital and resources. While conservatives claim the economic game is not zero sum and that the productivity of labour can increase exponentially, even they (if sufficiently instructed in economics) cede that land is limited and that having the means of production in few hands is intrinsically harmful (though they may disagree as to the point where intervention is warranted, if at all). ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/63 "2012-08-31T15:31:47Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > In my experience, libertarians are very all right with people dying, starving, and generally enduring needless hardships. Indeed. Survival of the fittest! Let the most thick-headed survive! Never mind the fact that humans have control over their environment and that those surviving a catastrophe may not be the fittest in the post-catastrophe environment. In fact, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! The funniest thing is if supply side economics did work, the government with the lowest effective tax rates would have the highest revenue and they’d have fuck all to do with it. Funding medicare or unemployment or infrastructure would draw people away from the beneficent free market, so what’s left? A massive military and police force for no particular purpose (since libertarians are essentially isolationists)? Burning the money to counter inflation? Rebates and further cuts? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/64 "2012-08-31T15:43:23Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > When I was in high school, my dad bought a $10,000 life insurance policy for me from John Hancock Insurance. When I became an adult, he transferred ownership of the policy to me. I haven’t paid a premium on the policy in about twenty years. > > Well, John Hancock eventually got sold to Manulife, a Canadian company. Via the insurance policy, I earn a dividend of about $20 per year. I even pay Canadian income tax on it. When I file my 1040, I have to declare the Manulife dividend, pay the appropriate tax, and deduct the Canadian taxes paid. So, it increases my tax owed by about $2. > > For a guy sleeping under a bridge, I’m such an international financier! 😃 God bless you, Job Creator. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/65 "2012-08-31T15:45:20Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > How many people who make less than $200k have capital gains or dividends? :rolleyes: I would expect quite a lot. What, do you think working and middle class folk just keep all their money in savings or in a mattress or something? ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/66 "2012-08-31T16:15:37Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I would expect quite a lot. What, do you think working and middle class folk just keep all their money in savings or in a mattress or something? I keep all my money in a change jar on my dresser. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/67 "2012-08-31T16:42:33Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I would expect quite a lot. What, do you think working and middle class folk just keep all their money in savings or in a mattress or something? The other point, of course, is how much would a slash in the long-term capital gains rate actually help them? I’d bet that most of that money is already in tax-advantaged vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/68 "2012-08-31T17:05:10Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I would expect quite a lot. What, do you think working and middle class folk just keep all their money in savings or in a mattress or something? Indeed, I bought my first shares of mutual funds when I had only been working for a year or so, as soon as I had just a little bit of savings. So I’ve had capital gains and dividends for my entire working life. However, I’m still voting for Obama for many reasons. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/69 "2012-08-31T17:31:17Z")
Tax talk is all smoke and mirrors. Spending is key. Whether or not taxes go up, if spending goes up it will be paid for in the long run or else the government will be forced to default or inflate its way out of the debt. Due to the [nature and magnitude](http://mises.org/daily/6159/Hyperinflation-Is-Not-Inevitable-Default-Is) of debt liabilities the most likely possibility is default. Neither party wants to cut spending in any serious way. Neither party wants to raise taxes in any serious way. The US government will default on its debt. Right now it’s only a matter of when. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/70 "2012-08-31T17:39:06Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > The other point, of course, is how much would a slash in the long-term capital gains rate actually help them? I’d bet that most of that money is already in tax-advantaged vehicles. I don’t know. I don’t even make six figures, and most of my savings is in index funds, in addition to the tax advantaged Roth and SEP IRAs that I have for myself. The bulk of my money is in non-retirement accounts, as there’s only so much I’m allowed to put into retirement (my Roth and SEPs are maxed out). I don’t think I’m _that_ much a fringe case, am I? My parents have also been the same way, and they make significantly less than I do. Having non-retirement money tied up in the markets is not something only wealthy people do. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/71 "2012-08-31T17:57:28Z")
Mitt Romney could have a plan to make us all mansion owning millionaire with champagne filled swimming pools that reduced the public debt to zero and I still wouldn’t vote for him because his party is filled with homophobic, misogynistic, religious fanatics. ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/72 "2012-08-31T18:17:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions, and any new recession would break all deficit records. > > **In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.** The experience of a number of European countries and Japan have borne this out. This country’s own experience with tax reduction in 1954 has borne this out. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget, and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment. The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus. > — President Kennedy, 14 December 1962 > **[Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York. |...](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-and-question-and-answer-period-the-economic-club-new-york)** JFK must have been an evil supply-sider. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/73 "2012-08-31T18:22:25Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t know. I don’t even make six figures, and most of my savings is in index funds, in addition to the tax advantaged Roth and SEP IRAs that I have for myself. The bulk of my money is in non-retirement accounts, as there’s only so much I’m allowed to put into retirement (my Roth and SEPs are maxed out). I don’t think I’m _that_ much a fringe case, am I? My parents have also been the same way, and they make significantly less than I do. Having non-retirement money tied up in the markets is not something only wealthy people do. Still I imagine a relatively small portion of your income and your tax burden is due to dividends and capital gains. Getting beyod anecdotal evidence [here](http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/the-concentration-of-capital-gains-and-dividend-income/) is what it really comes down to: 0.7% of income in the lower 80% versus 38% of income for the top 1%. So a capital gains tax will help the rich and poor alike it, will just help the rich fifty times more. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/74 "2012-08-31T18:25:49Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > [Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York. | The American Presidency Project](http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9057) > > JFK must have been an evil supply-sider. And what were those tax rates in 1962, btw? I’ll help you out, they ranged from [20% to 91% marginal rates](http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-federal-individual-income-tax-rates-history-1913-2011-nominal-and-inflation-adjusted-brackets). You see how that can be an entirely different situation, right? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/75 "2012-08-31T18:27:23Z")
Huh. Top diary on the conservative blog RedState is entitled “The Next President.” Was it really that good? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/76 "2012-08-31T18:36:41Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > [Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York. | The American Presidency Project](http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9057) > > JFK must have been an evil supply-sider. What is it with the right that they see things only in black and whilte. If lowering taxes in ose situation is good it must be good in all situations. I will take the bold step for a liberal to agree that the top 91% tax rate of 1962 was too high, and that a tax rate of 77% was a better. That doesn’t tell us anything about the optimal tax rate for today’s economy. The right always like to point to the Laffer curve but it doesn’t really tell us anything. If the laffer curve was applied to food, you would have on the one hand, if you eat 10 pounds of lard every day you will be unhealthy, on the other hand if you eat nothing you will die. So there must be some amount between nothing and 10 pounds of lard that his most healthy. The conservative conclusion: eating 9 pounds of lard is healthier than eating 8 pounds of lard. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/77 "2012-08-31T19:00:42Z")
[QUOTE=John F Kennedy] _so long as our national security needs keep rising_ [/QUOTE] Hmm, our national security needs could not be the problem in and of themselves, right? I mean, defense and such are intractably inflationary, right? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/78 "2012-08-31T19:07:02Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Still I imagine a relatively small portion of your income and your tax burden is due to dividends and capital gains. Yes, that is correct. I don’t cash out my positions, so no capital gains for me. Dividends, yeah, but dividends are a small portion of the income picture. So a slash in capital gains does nothing for me right now. ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/79 "2012-08-31T19:10:23Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > And what were those tax rates in 1962, btw? I’ll help you out, they ranged from [20% to 91% marginal rates](http://taxfoundation.org/article/us-federal-individual-income-tax-rates-history-1913-2011-nominal-and-inflation-adjusted-brackets). You see how that can be an entirely different situation, right? Yes, the marginal rates were higher. But the justification is still the same. JFK’s justification was that the tax cuts would prevent another recession while also increasing revenue. And that is what happened. Those who say “tax cuts can never increase revenue” ignore the history. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225/80 "2012-09-01T02:13:14Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > Yes, the marginal rates were higher. But the justification is still the same. JFK’s justification was that the tax cuts would prevent another recession while also increasing revenue. And that is what happened. Those who say “tax cuts can never increase revenue” ignore the history. I am not aware of anyone who ever said that. Clearly, a completely confiscatory tax rate would lead to a perverse lack of incentive that would hamper economic growth. Since we have nothing near that, it is not in issue. In Kennedy’s time, we apparently did have something near that. (I am still a bit skeptical that the Kennedy case is all that clear-cut because I have the impression that those near-confiscatory tax rates were accompanied by lots of loopholes and it may well have been plugging of the loopholes that brought in quite a bit of revenue … I haven’t studied the Kennedy case like I have studied the Reagan and GW Bush cases, so it is only in those latter two cases that I can say with authority that the claim you made earlier in regards to the Reagan tax cuts was complete hogwash. I am glad you are no longer defending such nonsense.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romney-makes-appeal-to-americans-disillusioned-with-obama/633225.md?page=5)