Conservatism

The Romney tax cut.

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Today, the Sunday morning TV shows on politics demonstrated the response of the Obama campaign to Romney’s debate win last week. Paul Krugman, who looks more and more like a political cheerleader and less like an economist, led the charge. The topic was the “five trillion dollar tax cut.”

The Obama campaign is already backing away from this claim, but let’s consider it.

This “five trillion dollar tax cut” figure is arrived at by taking his statement that he will cut rates by 20% and limit deductions. Multiple the total tax revenue per year by 20% and you get five trillion. This same reform was done in 1986 and the result was a 15 year economic boom. The results are discussed here.

Twenty years ago today (2006), President Ronald Reagan signed into law the broadest revision of the federal income tax in history. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 — the biggest and most controversial legislative story of its time — had lawmakers, lobbyists and journalists in Washington in an uproar for two years. Despite nearly dying several times, the measure eventually passed, producing a simpler code with fewer tax breaks and significantly lower rates. The changes affected every family and business in the nation.

Of course the Congress undid it over the ensuing years. We all expected that. What about Romney’s plan ?

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RuiNation

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So a little over six weeks to go until Election Day; I guess we can call this the final heat. Texas is pretty much a red state stronghold, although there are pockets of blue adherents throughout. Yes, even in my neighborhood, there are a handful of defiant Obama-Biden yard signs visible, although outnumbered at least two to one by Romney-Ryan signs. It amounts to about a dozen, all told; I think that most of my neighbors prefer keeping their political preferences this time around strictly to themselves.

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Why is the election so close ?

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I have been watching the trends in the election campaign thus far. I actually watched much more of both conventions than I expected to. My present question is Why is this election close ?. Powerline blog asks the same question and has a rather gloomy conclusion.

But it now appears that the election will be very close after all, and that Obama might even win it. It will require a few more days to assess the effects (if any) of the parties’ two conventions, but for now it looks as though the Democrats emerged with at least a draw, despite a convention that was in some ways a fiasco. In today’s Rasmussen survey, Obama has regained a two point lead over Romney, 46%-44%. Scott Rasmussen writes:

The president is enjoying a convention bounce that has been evident in the last two nights of tracking data. He led by two just before the Republican convention, so he has already erased the modest bounce Romney received from his party’s celebration in Tampa. Perhaps more significantly, Democratic interest in the campaign has soared. For the first time, those in the president’s party are following the campaign as closely as GOP voters.

John Hinderaker comes to the following conclusion, at least tentatively.

On paper, given Obama’s record, this election should be a cakewalk for the Republicans. Why isn’t it? I am afraid the answer may be that the country is closer to the point of no return than most of us believed. With over 100 million Americans receiving federal welfare benefits, millions more going on Social Security disability, and many millions on top of that living on entitlement programsnot to mention enormous numbers of public employeeswe may have gotten to the point where the government economy is more important, in the short term, than the real economy. My father, the least cynical of men, used to quote a political philosopher to the effect that democracy will work until people figure out they can vote themselves money. I fear that time may have come.

I have several other theories that are more optimistic. The polls may be wrong for several reasons. Citizens have been deluged with accusations of racism by frantic Democrats. Those who plan to vote for Romney may simply be misleading pollsters. In California about 30 years ago, the black mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, was ahead in the polls going into the 1982 election. In the event, he lost in spite of appearances on election day. Absentee ballots were credited with turning the result into a win for Deukmejian, his GOP rival. The racial effect is still disputed.

Two theories of the racial effect are in competition. One holds that white voters are less likely to vote for a black candidate. The fact that a number of black office holders have been elected by majority white districts, including that of retired colonel Allen West, should dispute that theory. Another is that white voters are reluctant to disclose voting preferences to pollsters, which might expose them to changes of racism. Voting against Obama is widely attributed to racism by Democrats and, especially, the progressive left.

It is not clear if either of these theories has validity. It would be very depressing to think the theory of dependency on government is valid.

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It’s National Empty Chair Day

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Explaination here, with more Empty Chairage. Also a bit of background on “Eastwooding.”

Here Is A Pretty How-de-Doo

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And with the issuance of two announcements this week regarding the upcoming Presidential campaign, the usually interesting quadrennial race just got a little bit more … interesting? Bizarre? More than usually contentious? All of the above and more, to judge from this week’s surfing across the oceans of the internet. So Mittens discovered the existence heretofore unsuspected by the larger public of his fiscally responsible and constitutionalist backbone and tagged Paul Ryan as his running mate… that makes for a snappy bumper sticker right off the top of my head; “Time for a little R & R.” Said prospective VP nominee had never swam across my ken as a possible, but then Mittens himself had never seemed to me to be a likely prospect for the top o’ the ticket either … altogether too bland, to nice, too establishment GOP … but then I am only an interested amateur and Tea Party enthusiast. All props to him for seeing that the fiscally responsible, strictly Constitutionalist and relatively free market segment of the libertarian-conservative public constituted a powerful voting block.

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