Column: The dynamic dodge in Romney’s budget. The federal budget is fairly simple. I can explain it to you in fewer than 30 words: Most of the money comes in through taxes and borrowing. The vast majority of it is then spent on programs for the old, programs for the poor and defense. That’s pretty much it. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. (Getty Images) Mitt Romney’s plans for the federal budget are also fairly simple. I can explain them to you in less than 100 words: He’s promising that taxes will go down, defense spending will go up and old-people programs won’t change “for those at or near retirement.” So three of his four options for deficit reduction — taxes, old-people programs and defense — are either contributing to the deficit or are off-limits for the next decade. Romney is also promising that he will balance the budget and reduce total federal spending by more than $6 trillion over the next 10 years.
Actually, that was 123 words. What’s not simple is imagining how that would work in practice. Mitt Romney’s abortion record: flip-flop or conversion?
Tax Plan. Mitt Romney’s education plan: READ. 2 Stories From Mitt Romney's Days At Bain : Planet Money. Hide captionMitt Romney, back in his Bain Capital days. David L. Ryan/Boston Globe via Getty Images Mitt Romney's time at Bain Capital is back in the news this week. We did two stories earlier this year on deals Bain did while Romney was running the firm — one of those deals went badly, the other one worked out well. Here are excerpts, and links to the full stories. How Mitt Romney's Firm Tried — And Failed — To Build A Paper Empire When you buy a house, you put down a bit of your own money.
"We were highly leveraged as a company," says Russell Gard, the guy who Bain brought in to run the company. Jerry Rayburn, who worked on the factory floor at SCM, remembers the day when Bain took over. Then employees were told the company had been acquired by Ampad, and they had all been terminated. "You could hear a pin drop," Rayburn says. Most people did reapply, but things were different. How Mitt Romney's Firm Transformed A Struggling Company, In 5 Steps Bain saw potential in the company. Why Both Obama and Romney Want to Talk About Bain. Why are we talking about Bain Capital again? The answer, it seems, is that the two presidential campaigns want it that way.
The Romney campaign wants us talking about Bain Capital LLC because Mitt Romney says his time leading the firm prepared him for the presidency. “Having been in the private sector for 25 years gives me a perspective on how jobs are created that someone who’s never spent a day in the private sector, like President Obama, simply doesn’t understand,” he told Time. This, the Romney campaign suggests, is the critical contrast between the two candidates. The Obama campaign wants to discuss Bain because its team believes it shows Romney is unqualified for the presidency. “If your main argument for how to grow the economy is ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you’re missing what this job is about,” Obama said this week.
The conversation between the campaigns would make perfect sense if Romney had quit Bain in 2010 to begin running for president. Amercia the Meme: Why Romney's Gaffe Won't Die [PICS] Mitt Romney's digital team debuted "With Mitt," an app that lets supporters share their support for the Republican presidential hopeful, on Tuesday. At first, the app received little fanfare. By Tuesday night, however, the app's users had drawn attention to one glaring mistake: one of the 14 text overlays available within the app stated that Romney is for "A Better Amercia.
" Yes, you read that right: "Amercia. " Michigan Primary Results 2012: Live Updates. Following up on Santorum strategist John Brabender's statement, "So we may have won Michigan," let's dive into how the numbers look thus far in each of Michigan's 14 congressional districts. Romney and Santorum will each take a delegate for earning more than 15 percent of the statewide vote.
The rest of the delegates are handed out to whoever wins each congressional district -- the winner gets two for every one they win. That means all the delegate action is spread out across the state, and thanks to the Detroit News, we can get a snapshot of how the map looks so far. It's important to note that we've a long way to go before all the results are in. The 9th Congressional District hasn't reported any results yet. So when Brabender looks at the map, he sees that so far, his guy is leading in nine of the 14 districts. Results as of this posting, via Detroit News: District 1: 472 of 519 precincts reporting Santorum: 39.7 percent Romney: 39.1 percent District 2: 152 of 296 precincts reporting.
Romney throws his economic plan overboard. At Ford Field Mitt Romney speaks to members of the Detroit Economic Club on Friday at Ford Field in Detroit. David Frum: Mitt Romney's Friday speech flies in face of his economic planRomney's promise of more tax cuts could tie his hands if he is elected presidentFrum: If Medicare, Social Security changes ruled out until 2022, budget deficits will growHe says Romney's new idea will hurt the young and those hit hard by the recession Editor's note: David Frum, a CNN contributor, is a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He was a special assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002 and is the author of six books, including "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again. " (CNN) -- Compare and contrast the economic plan Mitt Romney released in September with the speech he delivered Friday in Detroit.
The plan was published as a downloadable e-book, introduced by a former chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, Columbia business school dean Glenn Hubbard. New Romney tax cuts would cost $3.4 trillion - Feb. 29. Mitt Romney on the campaign trail. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Mitt Romney made two big changes to his tax plan last week, and according to a new analysis, they will be very expensive. Like $3.4 trillion expensive. Previously, Romney had said he would "maintain current tax rates on personal income" as president before moving to a "fairer, flatter, simpler tax structure" in the future. Now Romney appears to be accelerating that timetable, announcing a move that would reduce the current top rate paid on income from 35% to 28%, with similar reductions across all tax brackets. Americans in the lowest bracket would pay 8% instead of 10%.
Individuals closer to the middle would pay 20% instead of 25%. In addition to the changes to the marginal income tax rates, Romney also said he plans to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax. The twin changes will come at a cost of more than $3.4 trillion over 10 years, according to a new estimate from the Tax Policy Center. The primary is hurting Mitt Romney. In Wonkbook today, I argued that the GOP primary has been bad for Mitt Romney, and the longer it drags on, the worse it’ll be. Over at Slate, Dave Weigel says the same thing. But some disagree. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, for instance, told NBC News, “I’m in the camp that believes that these folks are being refined and improved by this very difficult process.” The theory there is that the 2012 Republican primary is akin to the 2008 Democratic Primary, which many believe strengthened the Obama campaign and bettered the candidate.
So let’s go to the numbers. That lead persisted through most of the primary. Now look at Real Clear Politics’ polling average for 2012. Mitt Romney pulled ahead of Obama in August, around the time of the debt-ceiling negotiations. Perhaps this will turn around for Romney once the primary is over. Robert L. Borosage: Romney: Peddling the Indefensible. "I believe for every drop of rain that falls, A flower grows. " -Tom Jones "I believe that for every tax that is cut, The deficit falls. " -Mitt Romney Mitt Romney's victories in Michigan and Arizona establish him as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Romney claims that he has a plan for "more jobs, less debt and smaller government. " He also says that he has the "integrity" to "speak honestly with the American people. " But his "plan" simply doesn't add up.
But violating arithmetic is a minor offense compared to Romney's savaging of common sense and trampling of basic values. Romney believes that the rich have too little money. So despite trillion-dollar deficits and the most extreme inequality since the Gilded Age, he would lower taxes on the wealthy. Romney believes that the Pentagon has too little money. Romney believes that corporations pay too much in taxes and have too few tax havens. For Romney, shared sacrifice is for suckers. Economist Devastates Romney On The Auto Bailout. Mitt Romney on Mormon Baptisms of the Dead: ‘I Haven’t Recently’ This season of the spy-comedy ended with a big cliffhanger, which promises to change things in a big way for ISIS agent Sterling Archer and Co. [Warning: SPOILERS] Archer Vice, as far as television shows go, spiraled so far over the top it was tough to remember where it came from. It was a batshit-crazy deviation—Archer in Grand Theft Auto mode—that transformed the ISIS spy agency into a drug cartel slinging cocaine for the CIA, and pitted agents Sterling Archer (H.
Jon Benjamin), Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), Malory Archer (Jessica Walter), Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell), and the rest against the Yakuza, a sexy “coyote,” South American arms dealers, a Sons of Anarchy-esque biker gang, and the tyrannical ruler of San Marcos, voiced by Fred Armisen. It transformed the “anything goes” human resources head, Pam (Amber Nash), into a cocaine monster; kinky secretary Cheryl (Judy Greer) into a self-described “outlaw-country” music star named Cherlene; and forced Dr. We don’t know. Not really. No. Romney’s severely conservative budget promises. (J. Scott Applewhite - AP) In his speech to CPAC, Mitt Romney repeated a promise that he’s delivered repeatedly on the campaign trail. “Without raising taxes or sacrificing America’s critical defense superiority, I will finally balance the budget.”
That sounds pretty good. Romney has, essentially, made four significant fiscal promises: He has pledged to cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP. So let’s add it all up: Romney has to cut federal spending down to 17 percent of GDP. That’s a lot of numbers, so here’s the bottom line: Romney is proposing to cut more than twice as much from the budget as Ryan. Romney is clearer in his goals for the federal budget than he is in how he’ll achieve them.
In the first scenario, Romney follows through on his promise to balance the budget and cuts spending to 17 percent of GDP. In the second scenario, Romney ignores his promise to balance the budget and simply tries to cap spending at 20 percent of GDP. Rhetoric Vs Reality on Entitlements. Feb 10, 2012 My CBPP colleagues just released an excellent piece of analysis on who benefits from entitlement programs. The findings blow a huge hole in the conservative meme that the nation is becoming an “entitlement society,” in which some undefined–but presumably large—share of healthy, young Americans live on the government dole rather than hard work. Gov Romney, for example, recently warned of: “…the dangers that the nation faces from the encroachment of the ‘Entitlement Society,’ predicting that in a few years, ‘we will have created a society that contains a sizable contingent of long-term jobless, dependent on government benefits for survival.’
‘Government dependency,’ he wrote, ‘can only foster passivity and sloth.’ Newt Gingrich taps the same meme with his efforts to label President Obama “the food stamp president.” Well, the problem is that the rhetoric fails to match the facts—by a long shot. The paper makes another interesting point about all this. But don’t hold your breath. Contrary to "Entitlement Society" Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Households. Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work.
A new CBPP analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs[1] spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households — not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work. (See Figure 1.) This figure has changed little in the past few years. Such beliefs are starkly at odds with the basic facts regarding social programs, the analysis finds. This figure also changes little if we tweak the definition of a “working household” or of who is “disabled.” A These TPC figures refer to 2011 tax policy. Watch Mitt Spin: Romney Claims His Real Tax Rate Is 'Closer To 45 Or 50 Percent' By Judd Legum on January 25, 2012 at 4:05 pm "Watch Mitt Spin: Romney Claims His Real Tax Rate Is ‘Closer To 45 Or 50 Percent’" During an interview with Univision, Romney was pressed on whether it was fair for him to pay about 13 percent of his income in taxes — as he did in 2010, according to his recently released tax returns — when many middle class families pay far more.
Romney proceeded to claim that his actual rate is “closer to 45 or 50 percent.” To justify his figure, Romney relied on his belief that “corporations are people.” RAMOS: You just released your tax returns. Watch it: Romney glosses over the fact that he is not a corporation and doesn’t pay corporate taxes. In the alternative, Romney suggested that his tax rate should be considered “almost 40 percent” because he gave a substantial amount of money to charity, mostly to the Mormon church.
Mitt Romney would rank among richest presidents ever. WASHINGTON (AP) – Just how rich is Mitt Romney? Add up the wealth of the last eight presidents, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. Then double that number. Now you're in Romney territory. He would be among the richest presidents in American history if elected — probably in the top four. He couldn't top George Washington who, with nearly 60,000 acres and more than 300 slaves, is considered the big daddy of presidential wealth.
After that, it gets complicated, depending how you rate Thomas Jefferson's plantation, Herbert Hoover's millions from mining or John F. Kennedy's share of the vast family fortune, as well as the finer points of factors like inflation adjustment. But it's safe to say the Roosevelts had nothing on Romney, and the Bushes are nowhere close. The former Massachusetts governor has disclosed only the broad outlines of his wealth, putting it somewhere from $190 million to $250 million.
—Within the 1 percent: Congress is flush with millionaires. —As a potential president: Three Leading GOP Presidential Nominees Pledge To Be Tough On Porn. Three holes in Romney's economic plan - Jan. 25. Mitt Romney releases tax returns. Tax rates of presidential candidates, in one chart. Jared Bernstein: Everyone's Got a Right to Their Own Opinions... Romney defends Bain work, Obama team joins attack. Mormons: Voters Won't Back Romney.
Mitt Romney Says Concern About Inequality Is Just "Envy" Mitt Romney's Tax Lie And The Occupy Wall Street Movement. Eunomia » Why Does Romney Lie? (II)