Politics 2012 USA Presidential Elections

[kkck]

I got 84% with some green party person I have never heard about, 70 something with libertarian, somewhere in the 70s with obama and over 50% with romney. Not sure what to make of that lol. I thought I'd have a bit more in common with the republicans than with the democrats although I get the impression that some of the questions asked were meant to favor other parties than the republicans to begin with. I guess the stuff I agreed with republicans to begin with was simply free market stuff while on other issues I feel they are simply insane....

Anyways, when I choose a president there are two things which I believe to be of most importance or at least have significant precedence over others which are the overall strength of the economy and education (even health care and social issues being secondary factors next to those). For me the logic behind that is simple. Economic policy because you need to make money to spend money and overall money is made by the private sector. Without money there is simply no way to afford improved anything overall. Education is an issue in which I believe society should never compromise their spending though. Education is an overwhelmingly important issue, it is a determining factor in the future of individuals and the nation. Even when it comes to health care at least when people die that is the end of it however if people are not given the best education possible they are the ones that have to live with it their entire lives. Anyways, when it comes to economic policy at least according to the site it seems I agree with romney while on social issues, education and immigration I agree with other parties. I am a tad disappointed that no one there (according to the site at least) seems to have the same combination of education and economy ideas as me, so far it seems that one side holds the education part and the other the economy part. It makes me kinda glad I am not from the US and don't have to choose lol.

I am not particularly against raising taxes, I find the whole thing to be more cultural than anything, however I do believe that when someone pays taxes there should be a benefit for them in it. I mean, why else pay taxes? That is a bit of why I don't support obama's idea of increasing taxes for higher incomes. I mean, what coherent reason is there for those guys to want to pay those taxes? They are not being offered more security, they are not being offered better streets, they are not being offered better education, they are not being offered an alternative to their already expensive health insurance... they are being asked to pay more taxes so that others they don't even know will benefit from it.

Overall I don't disagree with universal health care and a number of other things obama does however I do still believe he simply choose a wrong time to make those changes. I mean, obama so far has increased spending without the economy actually improving which basically means more debt with no more income involved. All those things obama wants for people are in principle good however as they cost money they should be done when the economy can afford it, not when the economy is going through pretty bad times and reaches stagnation. At least IMO a the president the US needs is one that will spend 90% of his time micromanaging the economy back on track and the other 10% putting US education at a higher level than it is now while a theoretical next one would micromanage the economy and social issues. I mean, so far the result of what he has been doing is... well, what we see now (I guess that is a tad subjective though).

 

[Akainu]

I am not particularly against raising taxes, I find the whole thing to be more cultural than anything, however I do believe that when someone pays taxes there should be a benefit for them in it. I mean, why else pay taxes? That is a bit of why I don't support obama's idea of increasing taxes for higher incomes. I mean, what coherent reason is there for those guys to want to pay those taxes? They are not being offered more security, they are not being offered better streets, they are not being offered better education, they are not being offered an alternative to their already expensive health insurance... they are being asked to pay more taxes so that others they don't even know will benefit from it.

That is not and never was the sense of taxes that the ones paying them, personally get a street made of gold in front of their doors, to over exaggerate this a little bit.
Taxes imo are there to do exactly what you wrote, build infrastructure and make it possible that government runs. That includes streets and schools just as well as police and military. Or at least that's what I think, didn't look into sources to back it up. Sure, the rich don't get any additional services, they could buy better schools for their children, use their private jets to fly and so on. But it does come down to a question of security in the end. Not even when there are cuts in military spending, that's "just" on the outside, but more on the education side and social issues. The bigger the gap gets between the rich and the others, the more they'll have to defend their riches and chances are the state won't (be able to) help them when they would need it. Just my thoughts on that paragraph, guess others especially in the US see it differently.

 

[kkck]

That is not and never was the sense of taxes that the ones paying them, personally get a street made of gold in front of their doors, to over exaggerate this a little bit.
Taxes imo are there to do exactly what you wrote, build infrastructure and make it possible that government runs. That includes streets and schools just as well as police and military. Or at least that's what I think, didn't look into sources to back it up. Sure, the rich don't get any additional services, they could buy better schools for their children, use their private jets to fly and so on. But it does come down to a question of security in the end. Not even when there are cuts in military spending, that's "just" on the outside, but more on the education side and social issues. The bigger the gap gets between the rich and the others, the more they'll have to defend their riches and chances are the state won't (be able to) help them when they would need it. Just my thoughts on that paragraph, guess others especially in the US see it differently.

I am not quite sure of what you meant by those two first lines....

Wouldn't that particular scenario be kind of a extreme situation though? It is something perfectly possible in more unstable places than the US but at the moment I don't see how it could happen there(it could happen where I live-I am not from the US-, it could happen perhaps in a few countries around mine however I can't imagine things getting to that extreme in the US now)... I am not saying there shouldn't be taxes or that people with greater wealth shouldn't pay comparatively more taxes than others, I am just saying obama is offering them a bad deal and no expectations of improvement of the economy (people of higher incomes don't seem to have any faith in obama).

 

[Akainu]

Hm, broken down to Obamacare... which I have only limited knowledge of ... yh. But I think any other system of forced insurance on a federal level would have been impossible, no? As in the supreme court only let it go through because of that iirc.

As for the economy, sure taxes are - or more precisely are stylized as - a major turn off for companies/high income. What's often negelcted there is Obama managing to keep the economic situation stable. He's far from what he promised, sure, but the economy is one of the least things he can be held responsible for - or any other government for that matter. The points he really failed at weren't mentioned as frequently on the other hand, but *shrugs* doesn't matter much anymore since the election is on its way and we'll soon know who'll have the honour.

 

[Kaiten]

Universal, government issued health insurance probably would have been constitutionally feasible. Unfortunately universal health care is not politically feasible, it would never have passed Congress if it had been included in Obamacare. Instead a provision was included, popular with liberal economists such as Paul Krugman, requiring all US citizens to buy health insurance. Failure to would be penalized by fine, to be collected by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Because of the high cost of health insurance many healthy individuals in the US decline to purchase health care. With so many low risk individuals out of the pool, insurance companies are forced to drive prices up even further. The theory is that if all Americans purchased private health care then the price will come down. This was challenged as unconstitutional because while the Federal Government has the right to regulate interstate commerce, they do not have the right to compel individuals to enter a market against their will. While the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government, they did not necessarily rule against the suit. They ruled that because the IRS, it constituted a tax, which the government is within their right to collect. The majority decision also added that it is in the Courts best interest not to declare a law unconstitutional, but to find any possible ground on which the law can stand. Universal health care likely would have been constitutional for the same reason Social Security or Medicare are legal.

It is important to remember that in the United States federal power is enumerated. The Constitution specifies what powers the federal government has, anything else is not permitted, and often taken up by the states. For example: the federal government is not permitted to establish local police, public schools, fire departments, or sanitation. That is all left to the states. State law can not conflict with state law or violate the constitution.

 

[kkck]

Well, stylizing taxes as turnoffs for investment and companies is very much like stylizing incentives for companies as a ploy to make rich people richer. Both are biased and miss the point of what the other side is trying to accomplish.

Has all of that actually helped drive down costs of insurance though? I would honestly like to see some numbers on the matter. I admit I would be skeptic of the theory though. Overall my humble impression is that the first to be alienated from having health insurance wouldn't be healthy individuals to begin with. Maybe I am mistaken but isn't there a tad of a correlation between health and income with higher income people living healthier lifestyles than lower income people? Higher income is generally related to being more educated so wouldn't the scenario suggest that people living healthier lifestyles and thus less prone to getting sick are the ones who would generally be the first to get the best insurance possible as they would have the money to get it and the knowledge to know how big a deal it is? Of course, this is ideal for insurance companies as they would be insuring relatively low risk people. In turn people who would be less prone to getting insurance are low level income people who can't afford it, would generally live unhealthier lifestyles and wouldn't have the knowledge to know how big a deal this is. Under this line of reasoning insurance companies would be insuring mostly high risk people which would actually be a factor to increasing the cost of health care which would be the precise opposite of what they meant to do. Of course, I am not altogether familiar with obama care and what he has done in that department so this is just a thought which could be completely wrong as I don't have all the facts. In the end it is a numbers thing and it relies heavily on how well whoever came up with this got them. Are there any numbers out there which suggest health care has actually gone down since obama care?

 

[earthforge]

Pretty sweet site to test and see which candidate & party you have most in common with.

Seems like I've gone from quite green to quite libertarian lately... -my results here-

Lol, I'm pretty intensely democrat. Probably because of my views on immigration and social in particular (which is slightly annoying, since illegal immigration is a complicated problem that can't be stated as "all illegal immigrants are lawful" or "all illegal immigrants are criminal".) Social because... ah, well, I just find it silly to have a death penalty that doesn't work and would rather birth control be free than pay for other people's spawn.

It's weird how it says Romney supports space exploration and Obama doesn't. I think it's a conflation of the manned space flight program cancellation (largely due to how nothing got done) and the space program as a whole. The reason for Obama's cuts to NASA has often been due to the old arsenal system politics and transfer of funds. It's a roaring pain in the ass for the science side, because we sometimes get cut. We lost our collaboration with Europe on the 2016 & 2018 Mars missions because of one such cut.

I can't say much about Obamacare other than it's a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the way health care is distributed in our country is not amenable to such an expansion. Really stinks, because nothing gets you sicker than working nonstop to try to get a job. Especially for older folks who are out of work. I hate it when people assume the unemployed are necessarily sick because of a lifestyle choice. Stress induces health problems. If you are already weakened by a heart condition or mental disability, you can't be employed because you are too risky and old to employ, so you decline. It's a vicious cycle that disenfranchises older and weaker citizens from work.

 

[Saint Markus]

4 more years for Obama.

What state will the country be in by 2016 and after...?.

 

[Josef]

Well I did think that Romney will have the overall vote, though it seems Florida took that away, along with a huge turnout in large states like California, I guess? Still pretty close, I wonder how other candidates would have done against the current Obama, Romney was a tough choice even for the Republicans, with the Tea Party surge in the 2010 election the balance was broken a bit. Follow the tea party movement or stay moderate for elections? They have to decide. Obama had an easy job, meh, it all comes down to Romney's general campaign, from how he showed himself to his policies. Obama just played it safe, and toward the end Romney did not even push that much, the thing that gave him hope was the first debate. By far, the most interesting thing in the election, that was when Obama lost his comfortable lead and things got interesting.

Oh well, third for Gary Johnson, maybe if he spread the word more ... I still think Ron Paul would have done quite good as a third party, but in the end again taking votes from Romney to make his defeat worst.

 

[Gats]

I'm rather concerned about the Republicans after those elections, will they turn to be even more uncompromising or will they choose a more compliant path ? I'm not sure what kind of lesson they will learn from this experience.

 

[earthforge]

I doubt they'll go moderate. They had a chance this election with Jon Huntsman and they told him to fuck off. No, all their pundits are embarking on the rage that they failed because most of the voting populace is impure and un-American. I suppose that's what Philip Glass meant by that it's very much like the 50's right now.

 

[Doraku]

This is not directly related to the election, but do you think that Nate Silver's method to predict the election result (like he did in his blog on NYTimes) would replace conventional political punditry in the upcoming election?. I think it's pretty impressive of him to has 100% accuracy rate in predicting the winner of each states.