ANOTHER Republican Debate Open Thread
If you’re watching (NBC at 9pm)… this thread’s for you.
Here are my thoughts:
Romney’s been talkin’ tough all day. Tonight he has to bring that trash talk to Newt – as he’s been promising to do all day . My first thought was that Newt would take Mitt’s attacks and shove them back down his throat, and then I thought… maybe not. Okay, hear me out. Mitt Romney absolutely stinks at attacks. His delivery is really, really bad. Perhaps Newt plays the “reasonable” guy staring in amazement at the bumbling lunatic.
I think this is possible because the attack dog mode is so alien to Mitt, mainly because it takes emotion. I would be extremely surprised if Mitt could pull this off. And if Romney fails to back up all his trash talk from today… well, then he’d have pulled a Pawlenty. And we all know how well that worked out.
So I guess I’m saying that Newt will always do what he has to do, but tonight he might not have to do much… since Romney’s worst enemy has always been Romney.
Another debate surprise by Newt. He’s released his contract with Freddie Mac.
Poor Mittens. No matter what, tonight he’s still the guy who hasn’t released anything.
Mitt’s also asking Newt to release the House ethics report which is already available online. According to new polls, Mitt is also losing the elcectability argument – Republicans think Newt is as electable. Romney seems to better liked, FWIW.
I think the important question is what are you drinking and what are the drinking words?
I’m going with “Saul Alinsky radical” for one.
Consulting for the Director of Public Policy.
OK. 🙄
But that Scope of Work doesn’t employ him as a Historian, either.
European Socialist.
Food stamp President
I’m drinking a wonderful French white… which leads me to my next drinking word: elitist.
Attack on capitalism.
We will all be drunk in 20 minutes.
Mitt is attacking Newt – Newt waves his points away, says we should be talking about Obama and creating jobs, and calls Mitt a liar.
Mitt rambles and stutters through a lackluster counter attack.
Did Paul just flirt with 3rd party run if Newt is the nominee?
Newt: ‘I Left The Speakership’ Because ‘I Took Responsibility’
and he had sex with his intern because he was a patriot.
Can’t. Make. This. Stuff. Up.
Brian Williams is awful.
Watching newt trying to keep his cool ls like watching a dog trying not to sniff another dogs ass.
This bs that Fannie and Freddie caused the economic meltdown is pure bullshit.
You do have a way with words!
Of course it’s bs. The only lies that outrage this group are the ones against them. Other than that, lying is a-okay.
At least Paul just mentioned that banks hosed the tax payers.
The financial system is over regulated. Hoo boy…
Ron Paul makes sense on Cuba. It terrifies me when I agree with him.
Ron Paul made sense on Cuba.
Jinx
Santorum is an idiot.
Santorum is an idiot.
Sorry, I just had to post it! I like it when we agree! My bad!
Everybody has a boner for war with Iran.
They preempted ‘Fear Factor’ for this?
This is Fear Factor.
NBC reporting that Fred “I need a nap” Thompson has endorsed Newt.
I can’t take it. Good luck Pandora.
It’s okay, Jason. I understand.
Self-deportation? Are they serious?
Terry Schiavo question.
Rick Santorum okay with activist judge.
Mitt saying as President he would commit to NASA. Really? Government intervention? I say, give them vouchers.
Newt wants to give out prizes to get private sector to invest in space.
Mr. Pandora thinks Florida should just handle it. You know, leave it to the States.
These guys hate government subsidies, but they love prizes to the private sector. Gotta love it.
Wow! Santorum is on a Conservative roll.
mediawatch, also aircraft carrier groups don’t cost any money and bombing Iran would be a big job creator.
Once again, President Obama won the debate.
In light of yesterdays happenings why wasn’t Santorum asked if he thought President Obama was a Muslim? and today we find out that Mitt paid 13 % tax while Baine paid 0% and Mittens had a Swiss bank account.
Jason, once again you’re exposing how dumb these guys really are. If they were serious about job creation, they wouldn’t be talking about bombing Iran. They’d be talking large-scale invasion followed by an eight-year occupation.
One thing I saw in the debate was very subtle, and no one is talking about it, but I think it was very telling. I will describe it here, with my take on it, and then I would like comments. To preface it, I make the statement that approximately 37% of the workers in the U.S., work for the federal or state or local governments. This is too much.
We are now at a point where people are confused about where the money comes from. It still all 100% comes from the private sector. I would imagine that a high percentage of people blogging on this site either work for, or have spouses work for the government. The exchange in the debate I am talking about is why we can’t have Newt Ginrich as President. During an exchange with Mitt Romney, Newt inferred that some of Romney’s businesses probably worked for the government. And Newt was a bit taken back when Romney said none of his business worked for the government. I really don’t think Newt understands or believes that you can’t make a living unless you go after money from the government. I thought it was a subtle, but very telling moment in the debate that absolutely no one is talking about. Did anyone on this site notice, or make note of this. And who on this site understands that 100% of the monies in the country come from the private sector.
Let’s here it
I didn’t catch it. But your take on Newts reaction is probably spot on. He’s never worked in the private sector.
All money comes from the private sector. Specious. Your magical free market unicorn would be pulling produce to market on rutted muddy paths if governments were never instituted among men to provide for the common welfare.
That the private sector sucks up most of that welfare is something I can live with as long as the private sector does not get all high and mighty about who is paying for the infrastructure.
Only about 2 million civilians work for the Federal Government, excluding the military and the Postal Service (a for-profit entity). That’s far less than 1% of the population. Lumping them in with State employees is absurd because only states can govern that, and it’s different for all 50 states. The president cannot force Delaware to lay off teachers and police officers.
Another 3% work for state governments, 9% for local govt., less than 1% for active duty and reservist military personnel (and reservists may be working elsewhere), and less than a quarter of a percent work for the US Postal Service.
When you talk about “all money comes from the private sector” what you really mean is not money but “value.” Money by itself is worth nothing, except to that guy who burned it to keep warm when he was lost in the mountains.
All money gets its value from labor. We The People decide how much money investors are allowed to keep, and how much power labor has in negotiating for their share of their work output. All of this is within the framework of American free markets.
The thing that these wingnuts never come to grips with is that the government is a major client of some of America’s major companies. So, if the government stops fueling demand for <a href="http://defensesystems.com/articles/2011/06/08/2011-top-20-defense-contractors.aspx"these companies, it isn’t as though the private sector will take up the demand slack. I mean, what firms will be buying the weapons systems that Lockheed is building?
Now, I don’t mind if Lockheed or Northrup Grumman lose their DOD-funded troughs, but that means a great many US jobs lost (think about what happened when the space shuttle was shut down and multiply that by alot) and a decent hole punched in US GDP. What I do mind is the insistence that there isn’t a good bit of America’s private sector that is quite dependent upon demand created by the US government.
Over 7% of Americans work for non-profits. About 43% work in the private sector (6% in goods-producing industries, and the other 37% in the Service sector). This all adds up, taking out rounding errors, to a 64% workforce participation rate. About 24% of the population is under 18, and 13% over 65, although some in both categories work. Then there’s the unemployment rate, and the disabled, which I won’t go into. In any case, a little over two thirds of the workforce is in the private sector, one tenth in nonprofits, and two tenths in the public sector. I don’t see anything wrong with the public sector being double the nonprofit sector, or less than a third of the private sector when you consider how dependent the private sector is upon the public sector for education, security, roads, and social programs that expand the US consumer base.
In any case, Newt wants children to handle hazardous solvents from the janitorial closet, so he’s not really someone I look to for leadership. He’s got about as much moral authority as the Pied Piper. Or Miss Hannigan from Annie.
Figures pulled from the US census and the bureau of labor statistics if you’d like to verify them. I’m going to add this to my personal MythBuster tally.
I did not say that the government does not buy goods from the private sector. But what I am saying is that the only place the government gets this money to buy things from the private sector is from taxes collected from the private sector. The taxes collected from the public sector are paid out of income from the public sector which can only get its money to pay the income of the public sector from the taxes that the private sector pay. As far as infrastructure goes, If the government is involved in paying for infrastructure work, yes, they most often pay private contractors to do the work. But the money they pay the private contractors with comes from public sector monies, which all come from taxes paid by the private sector. I agree that if tomorrow we turned off all demand of from the public sector for goods and services, we would have a major economic problem in this country. Because it takes quite a long time for companies to find new types of business and industries to buy their products if they loose one of their main customers ie the government. However, if we phase in government downsizing over time, say a 5 to 10 year period, where government spending is reduced, and companies understand that this change is happening then they can gradually change their business model to offer different products to different industries. It is a fact that many government contractors would still struggle with this because if you are primarily doing business with the government as opposed to the private sector, their is quite a bit of difference in regulations, so typically, contractors that work for the government have a higher cost of doing business than companies in the private sector who mainly sell to the private sector. So some of them may not be able to adjust. But that is just part of what happens in a changing world. When the cd’s came out, I sure a bunch of people that manufactured vinyl records became unemployed, but that is just part of a changing world. It is up to those people in the vinyl record manufacturing industry to retrain themselves for other jobs.