Erin,

Great post I'm with you 100% I hope Romney doesn't get one Michigan vote. Everyone keeps referring this back to saving manufacturing jobs...but that is only half true there also would have been a tremendous loss in research and technology jobs at GM, Chrysler and the chain of suppliers also if they all went under. Those "intellectual jobs" will vote Republican?...but let's hope not for Romney.

Erin...but please answer this question for me what happen the the intelligence in the Republican party. Why does this party continue to pander to "Reagan Democrats" those Michigan voters over one million including families have left our state, those union jobs are gone; and how come the Republican party can't remember Reagan was in a union and ran a union for years before he ever ran for president. Why dose this party continue to produce stereotypical commercials that pander to "Joe the Plumber"? Is this the new Republican base, I thought this was the party of business, the sciences and engineering. Oops I almost forgot this is the political party that thinks man and the dinosaurs were on the plant at the same time. Note: please no offense to plumbers "Joe" has given you a bad rap too. I like plumbers they are a hell of a lot more intelligent than most Republican candidates these days.

Liquidation is your assumption. Bankruptcy would have been a viable option, the only real option. If they did liquidate, so be it, a BADLY run company over long periods of time doesn't deserve to still be in business.

Well said, Erin, I was about to post the same thing myself. I just do not understand how people in this area could even consider voting for Romney because of his remarks about the auto industry.

I agree that Romney is out of touch, especially here in Michigan. I won't vote for him either and I even met George and shook his hand in the '60's. I am sticking with Obama also.

Ron Paul served his medical internship at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. I hope he campaigns here too.

RANT SCORING BREAKDOWN:

Anger and General "Rant-iness" - 8/10
"Apocalypse Soon" Warnings - 9/10
Allegations of Corruption & Collusion - 8/10
Statistics Taken out of Context - 6/10
Use of Spurious Logic - 6/10
Name-Calling - 2/10 ("flip flopping con man" is pretty weak)
Expressed belief that he's the only sane person in the discussion - 10/10

TOTAL: 49 points out of a possible 70.
Good rant, but the judges have read and heard better.

Don – As a "R" voter for decades, I’m very worried about the direction of the national GOP.

Socialist 50% tax bracket? Current admin is looking to restore prosperous Clinton era taxes. According to W’s law, tax cuts were TEMPORARY + INTENDED to revert back to Clinton era %’s after 10 years.

Debt? Recall – W left us in a chasm + spiralling economy. And, unfortunately, the R's declined a debt deal that was not only EXACTLY what the S&P was looking for to maintain our bond rating, but offered a once a century deal to significantly reduce debt, AND got the Dem’s to OK major changes in social programs. Any sane R in the last 50 years would drool over this! Would have saved our rating & been a historic win for Boehner and the R’s, but no deal due to “say no to everything at any cost” freshmen R’s. Deal would have been good for the country + an item the R’s could actually run on in 2012.

Can’t follow some of the sloganeering in the middle of your comment. But if you have facts/data to support, happy to discuss.

Totally agree with you on the Professional Politicians issue! Solution: get money out of politics. 1) Call legislators to ask for an immediate bill demanding true transparency of Super PAC’s. 2) Sign the non-partisan petition http://getmoneyout.com/

Totally agree on your last part too. Let’s all keep emotions in check, get the facts from non-partisan sources, data from original doc’s whenever possible. Stay engaged, and take care!

Don, to answer your question- No, I did not fail math in school. I did not fail accounting either, and so I recognize that when a budget is not balanced, there are two methods to bring it in line. The first is to decrease expenses (spending). The second is to increase revenue.

The Democratic Party has agreed to many spending cuts. The Democratic Party has also agreed to increased revenue from sources that won't hinder the recovery.

The Republican Tea Party wants spending cuts on vital services, and tax cuts on the wealthy. When the Democrats want tax cuts for those who work for a living (the payroll tax cut), the Tea Party Republicans obstruct those tax cuts and show they don't actually support the idea of tax cuts for those who need them.

The Republican Tea Party is in favor of raising taxes, as long as it doesn't result in increased revenue. All of that talk about "broadening the tax base" means they are in favor of lowering the top tax rates and increasing the bottom tax rates. They want to flatten the tax code, making poor people pay more and wealthy people pay less.

The Republican Tea Party wants voters to believe that the government wastes money, making spending cuts necessary, yet they can't identify any amount of military spending as wasteful, even though we spend almost as much on our military as the rest of the world combined.

Don, I think it's a losing strategy for conservatives to ask the public which side is better at math.

I did not know that Myles, thanks for the info. I may not personally agree with everything Ron Paul says, but man, he is the only candidate the GOP has that is not a complete nut job.

If I'm mistaken, please correct me, but here's my understanding of that statement.

You and I appear to be on the same page as to the Republicans' intentions regarding those who don't earn enough money to currently pay federal income taxes. The Republicans want to raise their taxes. Those individuals already pay many other types of taxes, but their income is so low that economically speaking, it is counterproductive to tax it. The Tea Party Republican candidates have pointed to that 45% as something they would change. They want 100% of people paying income tax, no matter how little their income is. So we agree that is a tax increase. I would be willing to bet that the tax increase won't be a 'nickle' either.

The "lowering taxes on the rich" is not just capital gains, as several of the Republican candidates have proposed a 'flat tax' which would tax all income at the same rate, decreasing the rate that individuals pay on income over $250,000 down to 20% (IIRC). The 'flat tax' would benefit the wealthy, and that is ignoring the capital gains tax you mentioned, which they want to decrease down to 0%.

The taxes they want to decrease will benefit the wealthy, while the taxes they want to increase will hurt the middle class and those who are struggling most.

I'm sorry. Do you really consider that a valid response or counter-argument to my comment? "you're a waste of my time." "you obviously have no kids..."

As for now, I'm going to assume you are trolling, and proceed accordingly. If you want to engage in a logic-based discussion though, please feel free to write something more substantive, and I will happily consider your points.

It's obvious that there are several commenters on this site that enjoy discussing politics. Some of those commenters are progressive, some are conservative, some would not want to identify with any label. Regardless though, we should all be able to recognize what is a valid approach to this forum and what is not. And a valid approach is one that establishes a point and defends it from rational criticism. An invalid approach is one made up of word-salad without any supportive reasoning beind the statements.

To answer the first part of the first question: President Obama agreed to several trillion in deficit reduction last summer that was made up of 80% spending cuts and 20% revenue increases. In addition, the public sector has decreased in size each month for pretty much the last two years. Also, the Democratic Party recognizes that there are spending cuts that could be made to our military that could match in size most of the spending cuts the Tea Party Republicans are proposing. If you really don't agree that the Democrats have been flexible on spending cuts, I could provid more examples.

As to the second part of the question: when there is at least a trillion dollars currently not being invested due to the risky economy, the Democrats recognize that increasing taxes in a way where the only actual downside is that it slows the amount of money being added to that sideline, and that additional tax revenue could then be used as further stimulus to the economy (basically, the government would be making the investment that the private sector is failing to do, because the government does not need to worry about the risk as much), that is good policy.

The Republican Tea Party has supported Paul Ryan's budget, where the spending cuts turn Medicare into a voucher program. I believe Medicare is a "vital program", but you may disagree. Making it a voucher program where the elderly have to buy their own insurance is a cut to that vital program.

The Tea Party Republicans are in favor of raising taxes on the "45% of Americans that don't pay federal income tax", as another commenter and I discussed above.

Now you and I will disagree as to what the meaning of the word "fact" is, if you think "The government spends way too much money" is anything other than an opinion. As soon as "too much" comes into play, it immediately becomes opinion.

You and I can agree to all sorts of spending cuts in the government, but I no longer buy into the idea that there are substantive cuts that can be made that wouldn't affect vital programs. If you point out proposed cuts, we can discuss those, but I'm going to disagree when it comes to those general 'spending cuts' that Republicans talk about without identifying.

In the same regard, I will gladly identify any revenue increases I say I am in support of if someone asks. I would not expect Republicans to agree to general revenue increases that are not identified, but I've still not seen any Tea Party Republicans say that they are even open to the idea of any increase in revenue.

Don, so I Google the deficit and this is what I find: GW, inherited a budget surplus (the first in decades). Then he took the budget into deficit, he cut taxes, growing the deficit to $400 billion a year. Then, the economy boomed between 2005 and 2008, reducing the deficit to $200 billion a year. Then, the financial crisis hit (and more Bush tax cuts & spending), and the Bush deficit ballooned to $400 billion again. In early 2009, President Obama took over, amid the worst recession since the Great Depression. President Obama signed an $800 billion spending increase at the same time that GDP and tax collections tanked. The combination of these two factors--growth in spending and a drop in revenue--exploded the deficit to $1.4 trillion. In 2010, the economy and tax collections improved modestly, and the deficit shrank to $1.3 trillion annualized. GW actually increased federal spending by more than 2X as much as Obama has. So it is unfair to lay the explosion in spending at the feet of President Obama. The increase in government spending, meanwhile, is actually NOT the only factor that has caused the deficit. The other factor--equally if not more important--is the fall-off in government revenue (tax receipts).

Jordan,
This becomes very frustrating if you can't quote me correctly, when I was commenting on a direct quote from you.
As far as "The Republican Tea Party wants voters to believe that the government wastes money, making spending cuts necessary." That is your quote. I said "Well that is fact". Fact being that the government wastes money. Indisputable. But then you go on to compare fact to opinion of a statement I was not commenting on. You say it is opninon not fact that the government spends too much. agreed. But again I said it was fact that the government "wastes" money. When we can't even take the time to read what we are commenting on it all becomes useless babble. I find this very disheartening in the public debate. Also, just for clarification, there is no official group that has a leader that speaks for all,that is "Tea Party Republican". There has been no official group formed. It is just a collective mindset. I am neither Republican or a "Tea Party" Republican.

Frank, I'm sorry for focusing on the sentence after "Well that is a fact" rather than the one before, but we're still going to disagree about whether the previous sentence was factual or subjective.

The term "wasteful" is almost inherently subjective. You and I can both agree that there is wasteful government spending, but that doesn't make it objectively true. Because as soon as you point to a dollar of spending that you feel is wasteful, there may be someone else who thinks it is not, and there is no objective answer.

This side-conversation about what is a fact and what is not is rather pointless though, so I will apologize for getting us off topic.

As for the 'Tea Party Republicans', I was under the impression that it was something the Republicans were proud of, being in line with the Tea Party. And the Tea Party takes pride in their ability to influence the Republican Party, so while there are Tea Party members who may not self-identify as Republicans, I'm not aware of any elected Republicans that do not self-identify with the same goals as the Tea Party. So if I talk about a Tea Party organization, I will not combine them with the Republicans, but when I talk about elected Republicans, I often make sure to correctly note the other constituents they identify with.

In my comments, I was not trying to label you as a Tea Party Republican, so I apologize if it came off that way.

Don, I agree. Which country are you referring to? And a lot of $$$$, meaning exactly what?
Jordan,
No apology necessary. When I talk about government waste being a fact this link is just an example of what I am talking about. http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/government-waste-20-of-the-craziest-things-that-the-u-s-government-is-spending-money-on
I agree with Daryl, I am interested to hear what the Republican candidates have to say, especially after they abandoned our state 4 years ago when McCain's people pulled out of here.

Hi Janet - keep in mind we're all neighbors here. And ALL real Americans.

A Republican that questions policy is not a liberal. A liberal that questions policy isn't a traitor. There are blue dog Dems, libertarians, moderate Republicans, and everything else under the sun. Who cares? We're all trying to get the facts straight and sift through both parties' spin.

Making things better is what we should be about. The only way to get it done is together. Only way to do that is with civility.

"real Americans"? Please define an unreal American.

Erin, agreed. you summed it up very well in your previous response. fascinating to me how the folks throwing out these 'line in the sand' definitions of patriotism don't understand exactly how un-American that behavior is(there is a distinction here i'm making between the behavior and the individual).

i'm not a psychologist, but i think the clinical term is "projection".

Erin

I preach it all the time, but too many people want to beat the dead horse and show they believe they are right and someone is wrong. At the end of the day, if you have a dollar you spend a dollar, not two. I watch what is going on in Greece and it scares me to death. There is no right or wrong party or answer. The real issue is how do spend only what you have and not go into debt more. I could care who put us there, just make it so my kids aren't footing the bill. Right or Wrong run it like a business and you will have surplus. It is amazing that Michigan after one year of being the worst state in the country, yes we were 50th, in budget issues and undewater, we have a surplus. And folks this was before the real tax dollars are being collected this year for those seniors who were effected. It's not that he is a R as many describe him, its because he is a business man. He is not interested in what side you are on, only that we hold everyone accountable and make sure the three areas, Education, Public Safety, and Roads are taking care of. Amazing he has stayed right on course and no one was doing any protesting this week. That's Progress.

Sadly, both parties have moved more towards their extreme ends. It's not just one party. A lot of people refuse to see that their party has contributed to the mess that we are in. Many people have left both parties and consider themselves "independent".

There's a lot of hate going around and it's not all coming from Republicans. Members of the Democratic Party need to start calling out their members for the same hateful/angry rhetoric and cleaning their own house. It's not like one party has a monopoly on hate and anger. Is it any wonder that a lot of people have decided to go "independent?"

Here, Here !!

Jo Nielson, in regards to "both parties have moved more towards their extreme ends".

Another commenter made a similar statement a couple weeks ago on a different article. I asked them to provide examples of policies that the Democratic Party supports now that are more liberal than what the Democrats in the 1980s and 1990s supported. That commenter ignored my comment; I hope you don't do the same. There is one issue for which I feel the Democrats have moved to the left (equality for the LGBT community), but otherwise, I can't think of any others. And there are several for which they have moved to the right (President Obama's health care reform proposal was much less liberal than President Clinton's- it was basically the same as the Republican alternative to President Clinton's in 1993).

Last time, I provided around seven examples of the post-2008 Republicans being against policies they used to be in favor of (or even created themselves, like Cap & Trade), having moved to the extreme right. If you would like though, I could provide them again.