2012 Election Thread (probably contains partisan bickering)

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I think idealogically he is different from Obama and Romney who are pretty much the same.

In what ways?

In that he's not going to be indebted to 150 people for buying the election for him.

Well that's cause he's not going to get elected....but it doesn't answer how Obama and Romney are the same ideologically and Johnson is different.

I probably like Johnson for the same reason a lot of people liked obama. A change more or less from the status quo.

[Arthur Dent]

Also, a 43% cut to federal spending is stupid and a pipe dream no matter how allocated.

Wouldn't that put it about where Bush had it at the beginning of his presidency.

Johnson has been quoted saying a 43% cut to defense would put it at '03 levels.

Just for fun, I checked this out. The statement uses the usual political tactic of misleading through not adjusting for inflation. For example, you could use this approach to show that U.S. military spending at the peak of WWII was about 8x less than what we spend today. Clearly, this is nonsense. At the peak of the war, more than a third of U.S. output was spent on defense. At minimum, you should adjust for inflation. Scaling by something like GDP would be better to reflect the fact that technology has advanced requiring more expensive high tech weapons. Just keeping to the inflation adjustment, that level of cuts would take military spending back to ~1979 levels (post-Vietnam, pre-Reagan buildup). Defense spending was almost that low (~10% higher) at the end of the Clinton administration.

I'm all in favor of large scale defense cuts and do think they could be politically possible, but there's no way you could achieve them in 2013 nor would it be a good idea to do so. And defense may well be the only area you could hope to get cuts this large. You'd have to make even larger cuts to everything else to eliminate the deficit in 2013. Johnson says he won't touch current Social Security payments, so unless the plan is to more or less eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and most of the rest of what the federal government does, it isn't possible.

[doe_boy]

Also, a 43% cut to federal spending is stupid and a pipe dream no matter how allocated.

Wouldn't that put it about where Bush had it at the beginning of his presidency.

Johnson has been quoted saying a 43% cut to defense would put it at '03 levels.

Just for fun, I checked this out. The statement uses the usual political tactic of misleading through not adjusting for inflation. For example, you could use this approach to show that U.S. military spending at the peak of WWII was about 8x less than what we spend today. Clearly, this is nonsense. At the peak of the war, more than a third of U.S. output was spent on defense. At minimum, you should adjust for inflation. Scaling by something like GDP would be better to reflect the fact that technology has advanced requiring more expensive high tech weapons. Just keeping to the inflation adjustment, that level of cuts would take military spending back to ~1979 levels (post-Vietnam, pre-Reagan buildup). Defense spending was almost that low (~10% higher) at the end of the Clinton administration.

I'm all in favor of large scale defense cuts and do think they could be politically possible, but there's no way you could achieve them in 2013 nor would it be a good idea to do so. And defense may well be the only area you could hope to get cuts this large. You'd have to make even larger cuts to everything else to eliminate the deficit in 2013. Johnson says he won't touch current Social Security payments, so unless the plan is to more or less eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and most of the rest of what the federal government does, it isn't possible.

I think defense cuts are a good idea. But, from a longterm standpoint, the process by which decisions are made(not just in the defense arena) needs to be looked at as well.

Congressman A has a defense contractor in his district, Congressman B has a concrete contractor in her district, Congressman C has a steel contractor in it's district. Ad Nauseum.

[Arthur Dent]

His NUMBER ONE campaign promise is to submit a balanced budget to congress day 1 and he has already gone into very specific detail, not in bullet points on his webpage, as to how he'd do so in interviews and articles. I sincerely doubt that he does not have a plan considering he wants to be in the national debates. And he was a two-term governor (and a financially successful one at that, 1 billion surplus when he left), so i'm sure he has at least somewhat of an idea. I dont think that, if you'd ask him, all of the budget cuts that he'd ask for would get implemented right away. But he'd certainly advocate moving that direction with that clear goal in sight.

I certainly do doubt that since what he says doesn't add up. He states repeatedly that he wants to balance the budget with trillions of dollars in cuts implemented immediately and no new revenue. There is no plausible way to do that, and it would be a terrible idea even if you could do it. The fiscal problems of New Mexico in the late 90s are not remotely comparable to those of the federal government in 2012 in scale or in character.

Also, I've noticed this in this thread as well as other boards, but third parties seem to live up to an entirely new level of scrutiny in their own way. They may not have the media and the opposition digging into their histories, but they absolutely have to "prove" themselves in ways that most people wouldn't even think twice about when it comes to the major parties. It's quite ridiculous.

Sure, but that is not really my purpose here. One of the major attractions of third party candidates is that they have different goals. Major party candidates attempt to attract the support of some large coalition containing many groups with differing interests and ideas. As a result, they generally avoid saying too much of substance that might be alienating and instead pursue bland marketing strategies. Since third party candidates typically have no chance of assembling such a winning coalition, they can actually talk about real issues that matter to people. That is great, and I wish we had an electoral system where such things were more possible. The major party campaigns and debates are just mind rottingly stupid and awful.

But third party candidacies of this kind are all about symbolism. You vote for Johnson not because you think he's going to be President, end the drug war, and return to the federal government of the Coolidge administration, but because you want to signal support for a different direction. And the symbolism behind the Johnson campaign is all wrong for me. As per usual with libertarians, I'm on board with much of the civil liberties, drug war, and foreign intervention stuff, but not the ideology from which it derives or much of anything else. In the U.S., whatever the politics of serious libertarian thinkers, libertarians are seen as more or less a funny sort of Republicans who think everything that is wrong is a result of too much state power (ignoring all other sorts of power). We already have way too much of that.

[Socnorb11]

Also, a 43% cut to federal spending is stupid and a pipe dream no matter how allocated.

Wouldn't that put it about where Bush had it at the beginning of his presidency.

Johnson has been quoted saying a 43% cut to defense would put it at '03 levels.

Just for fun, I checked this out. The statement uses the usual political tactic of misleading through not adjusting for inflation. For example, you could use this approach to show that U.S. military spending at the peak of WWII was about 8x less than what we spend today. Clearly, this is nonsense. At the peak of the war, more than a third of U.S. output was spent on defense. At minimum, you should adjust for inflation. Scaling by something like GDP would be better to reflect the fact that technology has advanced requiring more expensive high tech weapons. Just keeping to the inflation adjustment, that level of cuts would take military spending back to ~1979 levels (post-Vietnam, pre-Reagan buildup). Defense spending was almost that low (~10% higher) at the end of the Clinton administration.

I'm all in favor of large scale defense cuts and do think they could be politically possible, but there's no way you could achieve them in 2013 nor would it be a good idea to do so. And defense may well be the only area you could hope to get cuts this large. You'd have to make even larger cuts to everything else to eliminate the deficit in 2013. Johnson says he won't touch current Social Security payments, so unless the plan is to more or less eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and most of the rest of what the federal government does, it isn't possible.

I think defense cuts are a good idea. But, from a longterm standpoint, the process by which decisions are made(not just in the defense arena) needs to be looked at as well.

Congressman A has a defense contractor in his district, Congressman B has a concrete contractor in her district, Congressman C has a steel contractor in it's district. Ad Nauseum.

I think this is a great point. Cutting defense spending sounds great, on the surface. But there are steel foundries in the midwest who are employing thousands of people............... building military components. That's just one example.

Cutting defense spending substantially without coincidingly eliminating tens of thousands of jobs would be virtually impossible.


Like doe-boy, I'm not suggesting that there's no room to cut defense spending, but you have to be very wary of the collateral damage (pun intended) of doing so. I would imagine that the same holds true for things like the medical industry.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Cutting defense spending substantially without coincidingly eliminating tens of thousands of jobs would be virtually impossible.

Cutting defense spending should come after cutting the military's oversees budget as well as ending wars. But, America spends what like $700 billion a year on the military, about 4-5 times more than any other nation? They might not need everythign they have. And, while it may be good for a few companies, it's not really responsible spending or fair to prop a select few companies up with lucrative contracts while letting the rest fail, imo.

[Socnorb11]

Cutting defense spending substantially without coincidingly eliminating tens of thousands of jobs would be virtually impossible.

Cutting defense spending should come after cutting the military's oversees budget as well as ending wars. But, America spends what like $700 billion a year on the military, about 4-5 times more than any other nation? They might not need everythign they have. And, while it may be good for a few companies, it's not really responsible spending or fair to prop a select few companies up with lucrative contracts while letting the rest fail, imo.

Right. But the point is that you're going to cut thousands of jobs if you cut defense spending. You could definitely take a look at the overseas budget, and likely make some headway there............... but 43% overall isn't realistic, and probably not necessarily fiscally responsible, in my opinion.

[Arthur Dent]

Indeed. The only reasonable way to do it right now would be to redirect defense production into some other public purpose. There are lots of choices, but just cutting support would dramatically increase an already disastrously high level of unemployment. Unfortunately, such a policy would not fit into a libertarian or deficit hawk framework.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Indeed. The only reasonable way to do it right now would be to redirect defense production into some other public purpose. There are lots of choices, but just cutting support would dramatically increase an already disastrously high level of unemployment. Unfortunately, such a policy would not fit into a libertarian or deficit hawk framework.

No. You all are laying the groundwork for a communist government with argument like this. And, overall, that government won't work. Especially if it creates so much wasteful spending that it can't cut that it is forced to create more money to cover its liabilities and devalue the dollar. It seems if that happens then everyone is kind of screwed, even those that aren't benefitting from the wasteful spending.

Maybe cutting everything tomorrow is a bad idea. Sure, but at some point the financial policies the country has adopted need to be discussed. I'll never be convinced that if we do nothign but continue to run a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit every year America will be okay.

[vinsanity]

Indeed. The only reasonable way to do it right now would be to redirect defense production into some other public purpose. There are lots of choices, but just cutting support would dramatically increase an already disastrously high level of unemployment. Unfortunately, such a policy would not fit into a libertarian or deficit hawk framework.

No. You all are laying the groundwork for a communist government with argument like this. And, overall, that government won't work. Especially if it creates so much wasteful spending that it can't cut that it is forced to create more money to cover its liabilities and devalue the dollar. It seems if that happens then everyone is kind of screwed, even those that aren't benefitting from the wasteful spending.

Maybe cutting everything tomorrow is a bad idea. Sure, but at some point the financial policies the country has adopted need to be discussed. I'll never be convinced that if we do nothign but continue to run a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit every year America will be okay.

For someone who doesn't like strawmen you sure built a lot of em.