Meet The Candidates: 2012 GOP Thread

[Ruhskins]

Originally Posted by SBXVII

I feel sorry for the Republican party. I'm an Independant and vote for whom I think will be the best candidate, but Republicans must be scratching their heads like me wondering why they are letting better candidates simply opt out.

Bob McDonnell-Virginia
Jeb Bush-Florida
Donald Trump

I see this upcoming presidential election for the Republicans, the same way it was for the Democrats in 2004. They have an incumbent president that should be easy to beat, but they will put a candidate that the party will "settle for" and lose.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

Cain's 9-9-9 plan is just the first phase in moving to the FairTax system. If you haven't read about it, it's worth looking into. It will jump start the economy and reduce the IRS to a small fraction of what it is today. It removes the complexities of the tax code and closes virtually all tax loopholes.

I'd be comfortable with Romney or Herman Cain, both would do a good job as POTUS. I think Gingrich would do well as POTUS, but he could never win a general election.

I guess I should look a little more into it but it didn't sound like a "Flat Tax" which I'm all for. Cut the IRS down to small fraction and make sure everyone pays their fair share. Everyone gets hit the same based off of what they earn. No loop holes.

[SBXVII]

Originally Posted by Ruhskins

I see this upcoming presidential election for the Republicans, the same way it was for the Democrats in 2004. They have an incumbent president that should be easy to beat, but they will put a candidate that the party will "settle for" and lose.

and this is what I'm afraid of. It seemed like the Republican Party would come out swinging to take back the presidency, knock Obama off his seat with disenchanted voters, but now it just feels like the options are limited to which crap is better then the other to throw on the ballot.

It's not like it's the Redskins RB situation where we are all like "no we should use this RB more, or that RB more, or this one should be given a shot." Heck it's more like "Ok if we have to who do we pick? WR TO, WR TJ Housh, etc. etc. etc.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by firstdown

I don't think the Cain sales tax has any affect on the states taxes. Why would it?

Of course it would have an impact. Sales tax in states like Washington which has a 9.8% sales tax would have to be adjusted otherwise every time you go buy anything your tax bill bill be 17.8% which is quite regressive for the poor and the middle class. 22 states have a sales tax of at least 8%....17%+ taxes on sales? You try that shit and you're going to have real nice tea party on your door step real quick!

[Chico23231]

Originally Posted by Ruhskins

I see this upcoming presidential election for the Republicans, the same way it was for the Democrats in 2004. They have an incumbent president that should be easy to beat, but they will put a candidate that the party will "settle for" and lose.

most of my peers feel the same way. Was at a party a couple weeks ago and a guy said the samething. My vote is up for grabs, but I really dont see a taker. Their are several canidates I will not vote for though Newt Dogg, Perry, Bachman, and RS.

[12thMan]

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, two women that have run Fortune 500 companies, both lost races last November for senator and governor, respectively. Linda McMahon, CEO of WWE, is another example of a person with business acumen, but wasn't able to translate her successful background into winning a national race. I think people tend to overstate the importance of a business background when considering candidates for national office. It's important, but as much as people hate to admit it being a credible and effective politician actually matters more. You don't govern in a vacuum.The American economy isn't like signing checks for GM; compromise really is the name of the game.

That's why Donald Trump is such a non-starter on so many levels. He spent months wasting time requesting to see Obama's birth certificate while the president was busy giving the green light to kill Bin Laden. Made a fool of himself and has been pretty quiet ever since. Trump's also on the record telling China to go eff themselves and he'd take America's share of oil from middle east countries - no questions asked. He just isn't a serious candidate. Point blank.

The best thing that could happen to the Republican party is for some of the Tea Party congressmen to lose their seats next year. If I'm the GOP I'd be less concerned with maintaining a very unpopular majority in Congress and returning to sensible policy that encourages good candidates to step forward and run for office, than making a bunch empty threats about repealing Obamacare, overturning abortion, and shutting down the government. Get on with the business of the country for crying out loud.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by saden1

Of course it would have an impact. Sales tax in states like Washington which has a 9.8% sales tax would have to be adjusted otherwise every time you go buy anything your tax bill bill be 17.8% which is quite regressive for the poor and the middle class. 22 states have a sales tax of at least 8%....17%+ taxes on sales? You try that shit and you're going to have real nice tea party on your door step real quick!

I haven't done detailed reading on the 9-9-9, but at first pass this phase (Phase 1) is very similar to FairTax (where Cain is ultimately going), what will happen is with corporations/manufacturers/distributors having a lower corp tax rate (or no corp tax under FairTax), the embedded cost for taxes within a product will be forced out by the market. An item that previously cost $ 100 + say 8% state sales tax = $ 108 for item. Under FairTax, the cost of the item would be reduced by slightly less than the Federal Sales tax, so that $ 100 item would now cost $93 + 8% state sales tax + 9% Federal Sales tax = $ 108.81. I'm not exact on the numbers/percentages but that's the concept.

Keep in mind payroll taxes & medicare taxes (which are highly regressive) and fed income taxes are gone. IRS is greatly reduced, tax loopholes gone, underground economy is now taxed at point of sale. Prebate checks are sent out to all valid SS card holders in US to cover for essentials using current HHS poverty level guidlines.

Americans For Fair Taxation: Americans For Fair Taxation

Herman Cain Rebuts Misleading Ad Against FairTax...

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by 12thMan

ML, our troops will be home by year's end (knock on wood). So what new wars has Obama started?

Libya, Afghanistan and Yemen. Libya is all on Obama. Yemen is too, but only drones were used. We had a presence in Afghanistan pre-Obama but he sent 30k more troops. While troops are starting to come home (against the advice of generals) it will be at least another year before the entire surge he sent comes back, and after that another 75k will remain.

If Obama had limited his involvement to just Afghanistan he probably would easily be able explain himself as just finishing the job Bush had started and that he didn’t want to desert the Afghan people when they needed us most. But he decided that he wanted to get his hands dirty in Libya and Yemen, while ignoring Syria and other middle eastern countries.

Ill admit I have no idea what we are doing in Afghanistan or what 75k will do after we supposedly pull out, or the complications of the Arab Spring and general unrest in the middle east, but unfortunately the same is true for the majority of Americans. But our lack of current foreign policy understanding isn’t necessarily because we don’t care its more because its extremely difficult to understand. Which makes it extremely difficult to defend while extremely easy to criticize. Imo Obama’s screwed when it comes to his foreign policy.

And youre right his brand isn’t gone and he is still adored by many and will get a lot of votes, but there are a lot of people who voted for him and feel completely ripped off. I don’t think the republicans can win with anyone but i think they could win with Cain, Romney, Perry or Newt and maybe Paul or Bachman. Although I think that if Romney, and only Romney, gets the nomination Paul could end up running on a third party ticket and give the election to Obama a la Nader or Perot.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by 12thMan

The best thing that could happen to the Republican party is for some of the Tea Party congressmen to lose their seats next year. If I'm the GOP I'd be less concerned with maintaining a very unpopular majority in Congress and returning to sensible policy that encourages good candidates to step forward and run for office, than making a bunch empty threats about repealing Obamacare, overturning abortion, and shutting down the government. Get on with the business of the country for crying out loud.

I think you may want to leave GOP strategy to someone else. I wouldn't call repealing Obamacare an empty threat depending on what happens next Nov., if the GOP is smart they'll adopt a "state's rights" stance on abortion, and when Ds control the WH and Senate....it takes two to shutdown the gov't.

[SmootSmack]

The end goal of Cain's 9-9-9 plan is commendable, it's convincing people that the means will justify the ends

[mlmpetert]

I want to chime in a little bit because there is a lot of non-sense going on about Herman Cain’s 999 plan. Ill admit I haven’t read it in detail but I have read the jist of the idea and have heard ol’ Herm talk about it. SS33 talked about how it wont cause prices to go up. Here are some of the sausage making details worth understanding:

Payroll taxes are 15.3% of your income up to 100k, with half paid by you and half by your employer (7.65). If 999 happens everyone earning under 100k, regardless of marital status, would get a immediate 6.3% bonus (people who earn more would get less). A lot of idiots out there are attacking this and saying that since employees only pay half of the payroll tax we will end up paying more, 9% instead of half of the 15.3%. That will never ever ever happen. The fear is that greedy employers are gonna just pocket the half of the payroll tax they pay and not pass any of the savings on to you. But employers would never ever be given that option, they would be forced into giving you the full 6.3% savings (15.3 previously paid, 9% now paid = 6.3% savings).

The other major issue is that 47% percent of American households currently pay no federal income taxes because of all sorts of tax credits out there (more on this later). So the 47% who are non-federal income tax payers will now be paying 9% instead of zero BUT most of them were still paying 15.3% in payroll taxes which would now be eliminated so theyre better off and everything is good, right? Wrong! While that’s true for most of the 47% about 10% of us get so much money back through refundable credits that they effectively pay not only zero federal income tax they also pay zero payroll taxes and a very small percentage may even pocket money after all taxes are satisfied.

Im not certain but I posture that the vast majority of that 47% that pay no income taxes would still benefit from a 9% income tax when accompanied by the elimination of the payroll tax. I would also make the assumption that about 15% (my number) or so who would not directly benefit from paying a 9% income tax that coincides with the elimination of the payroll tax are primarily single parents. Although anyone single that receives financial support from others for their child may be better off since the person providing that financial support will now most likely be better off.

Additionally the 10% of households who are paying nothing, don’t actually pay nothing, until they get a refund check back. So the single mom who gets a massive refund relative to her reported income doesn’t get it over the course of the year she gets it as soon as she is able to file taxes in late January. Cain’s plan would instead give her 6.3% more each pay check to help her out but it would still be less than the windfall she otherwise get in January. But I don’t think the 10% of people who pocket money after their income and payroll taxes are satisfied, get significantly more than the 6.3% marginal amount it would take to be better off. Intuitively it doesn’t seem like they could be getting too much more but I have no idea where to look to confirm it. We may be only talking a few percent. And I think most poor people would rather have their money now and not have to wait for a refund, even if meant paying a couple percentage more.

I was raised by a single mother who no doubt was part of that 10% and truly feel for people who are just trying to make ends meet but continually fall short even with the governments help. Assistance can still be provided for people who truly need it without refunds through the current tax code. Although I believe that part of the government’s responsibility is to help the needy it should never do so if it means enabling them.

The tax code is such a monstrosity that NO ONE is capable of knowing the entire thing. Since 2001 there have been 4,428 changes to the tax code, more than 1 per day! Since the tax reform act of 1986 there has been tens of thousands!!! There is no reason any of us should be okay with that, none whatsoever. People need to think about tax credits and deductions as what they actually are; incentives to do shit. There is a incentive to buy a house, get married, have a kid out of wedlock, have more kids, buy federal and local government bonds, put money into a retirement account, raise horses, invest in qualified oil drilling programs, buy a hybrid, take out student loans, own a safety deposit box and all sorts of other crap. And the business tax code is even worse with providing these incentives (loopholes) to big companies like GE while keeping the barriers to entry high for new companies and new innovations.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

I haven't done detailed reading on the 9-9-9, but at first pass this phase (Phase 1) is very similar to FairTax (where Cain is ultimately going), what will happen is with corporations/manufacturers/distributors having a lower corp tax rate (or no corp tax under FairTax), the embedded cost for taxes within a product will be forced out by the market. An item that previously cost $ 100 + say 8% state sales tax = $ 108 for item. Under FairTax, the cost of the item would be reduced by slightly less than the Federal Sales tax, so that $ 100 item would now cost $93 + 8% state sales tax + 9% Federal Sales tax = $ 108.81. I'm not exact on the numbers/percentages but that's the concept.

Keep in mind payroll taxes & medicare taxes (which are highly regressive) and fed income taxes are gone. IRS is greatly reduced, tax loopholes gone, underground economy is now taxed at point of sale. Prebate checks are sent out to all valid SS card holders in US to cover for essentials using current HHS poverty level guidlines.

Americans For Fair Taxation: Americans For Fair Taxation

Herman Cain Rebuts Misleading Ad Against FairTax - YouTube

You have stated the ideals and potential benefits now the question I have is what are the problems with this plan? Just looking at what you wrote and what I gathered from Cain's speeches I see holes a few sizes bigger than Andy Ried's waist line in this plan.

[dmek25]

first problem is that 9% of someones pay thats making $25000.00 a year is a helluva a chunk compared to someone making $100000.00

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by dmek25

first problem is that 9% of someones pay thats making $25000.00 a year is a helluva a chunk compared to someone making $100000.00

How much does someone who makes 25K pay in SS & Medicare tax? Right now I believe it is 7.2% SS and 1.6 Medicare. That person's company is required to match those amounts. Under FairTax SS & Medicare income taxes go away.

Let's look at the dollar amounts: 25K = 2,250.00 100K = 9,000.00

The person making 100K is already paying 4 times as much in Fed taxes, why should the person making 100K be forced to pay a higher percentage as well? What gov't services does that person making 100K use that dicates paying a higher % in addition to the higher $$$. While we're at it, why should a single person pay a higher percentage than a married person?

Another point often ignored by detractors of FairTax is the prebate check which would be sent to every SS card holder in the U.S. to cover the taxes paid on essential items.

www.fairtax.org is the website. All the information about the plan, including FAQs are there. There are also two books out by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder on the FairTax, great reads if you are interested.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by saden1

You have stated the ideals and potential benefits now the question I have is what are the problems with this plan? Just looking at what you wrote and what I gathered from Cain's speeches I see holes a few sizes bigger than Andy Ried's waist line in this plan.

Here's a letter of support of the FairTax plan signed by (80) independent economists.

Americans For Fair Taxation: An Open Letter to the President, the Congress, and the American people Concerning Reform of the Federal Tax Code

Let me know where you see specific problems and I'll address them as best I can.