Is Every Question A Trick Question To Romney?
Via TPM:
On a conference call with reporters Wednesday morning, campaign aides for Gov. Mitt Romney were unable to say affirmitively whether Romney supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
They’ll get back to us with an answer.
This really shouldn’t be a trick question, nor should it be one that generates a meeting in camp Romney.
Tags: Mitt Romney
he supports women earning as much as men, as long as they work harder and as long it isnt because of a law passed by a black person.
up to 80 different positions of Mitt Romney are racist… but i wont name names.
They’ll need at least two sets of talking points for every issue.
Actually President Obama has been Women’s biggest problem. During President Obama’s term, since he took office there have been 740,000 people loose jobs. 680,000 of those have been women. Approximately 9 out of 10 jobs lost under President Obama have been Women losing Jobs. President Obama is the biggest problem women have getting work. He may say he supports women with his words, but like everything else he does, his actions and policies tell a different story. Under president Obama Women are suffering far more economically than men. That is a fact. President Obama may not like it, but it is a fact.
When Romney tries to make the case that the Bush economy has been hard on women, he’ll have to do so while explaining why he thinks women should be content with second class citizenship.
By the way, Mr. etch a sketch is already at it. He now supports pay equity. Now that Santorum is out, someone will have to put up a scoreboard keeping track of all the flip flops.
I just saw the Rmoney campaign use that lie, Rusty… that 90% bull. Good job, pretty quick on the repost today.
And Politifact already notes that the Rmoney talking point is mostly a lie.
What is interesting about these fools trotting this lie out is that the recent job losses among women seem to be largely related to government downsizing — teachers, etc. So these women would be out of jobs precisely due to government downsizing that the GOP supports. Hypocrites.
well.. yes, but it was government downsizing done while Obama has been in charge of the government. Not saying it means a bucket of warm pee…… just pointing to how easily it can fit on a bumpersticker…. which is how most americans inform themselves.
That’s true, and most of those downsized are at the state and local levels where th President wouldn’t have had much influence anyway. But if you are a GOPer with your hair on fire about the size of government, you can’t scream about government workers losing their jobs. Because government workers losing their jobs is EXACTLY what smaller government looks like.
This chart tells the whole story.
By the way, I really love how the headline of this post nails Romney’s big problem.
You are right socialist ben, it is not 9 out of 10, it is actually 92 percent. Show me some proof otherwise. anybody ever hear of meg whiteman, an early romney hire at bain. She is former ceo of ebay, and new ceo of hewlett packard. Why dont we send her an email and see what she thinks romneys position is on women being paid well.
That sounds like a lot of work. It will be much easier to simply see if Romney agrees with the pay equity act. I know it pains you, but after shaking the etch a sketch, it seems he does.
Jason, for future discussions, is there any date during obamas term when you are willing to start obamas responsibility starts. Obviously it is not the day he took office. Is there a day we can pin you down when obama actually has to take responsibility
The President gets credit for working diligently from day one to repair the absolute economic catastrophe that he inherited from George Bush. He gets credit for saving the American auto industry.
And it isn’t me who blames Bush for our wrecked economy and slow recovery. It is the sizable non-wingnut portion of the American population.
Employment is not where it should be thanks to the GOP’s “austerity” bullshit philosophy which is keeping public sectors payrolls down combined with a smaller than needed stimulus package, again due in part to Republican game playing.
Employment is down because the tax cuts for the rich are still warping business behavior. Taxes aren’t high enough to force businesses to invest their money in hiring and investment. We should be using hoarded corporate money for stimulus, not tax money. Tax-funded stimulus now would just put even more of our money into the bottomless pockets of the 1%. Before pouring tax money into the economy, first we have to plug the hole in the bucket by raising taxes on the rich.
Unfortunately the “GOP austerity bullshit philosphy” only got legs after Obama sent the Bush tax cuts went into overtime.
That enabled the debt limit drama and the deficit commission, and gave birth to this “Grand Deal” austerity crap. It is also why we now have Democrats like John Carney and Chris Coons and Tom Carper running around calling for Bowles Simpson tax cuts for the rich, and safety net cuts for the rest of us. Thanks to that change in direction set by the President, raising the Social Security age would now pass the Democratic Senate in a heartbeat, as soon as the election is behind them at least.
We forget that up until December 2010, the Democratic tax reform plan was “let the Bush tax cuts expire.” Now God knows what mess they will be proposing.
When your own quarterback turns around and gleefully carries the ball over your own team’s goal line, it will be a while before you can trust him again. But I guess we have to.
Indeed we do. For the record, I knew all of that but was concentrating on correcting a wingnut in his erroneous thinking.
Employment is down because there still isn’t sufficient demand in the economy to boost hiring. As in, Bush era tax cuts don’t have much to to with the fact that there is still a massive overhang in housing inventory, meaning that residential building is sluggish and will be until more of that inventory is worked through.
Just correcting a progressive wingnut on his erroneous thinking. Create whatever narratives you want — tax cuts as the cause of lack of employment is the flip side of the claim that businesses need more certainty before they can hire again.
“Employment is down because there still isn’t sufficient demand in the economy to boost hiring.”
Chicken and egg. That’s just another way of saying all the cash is in investor hands and not in consumer hands. That’s because of tax policy. A stimulatory tax policy would tell investors to use it or lose it.
“As in, Bush era tax cuts don’t have much to to with the fact that there is still a massive overhang in housing inventory”
The Obama extension of the Bush tax cuts led to last years debt deal, which incredibly, raised taxes on home sales.
Not to mention, the “overhang in housing inventory” is just another way of saying there aren’t enough jobs – see above re: tax policy.
What gets money in the hands of people who work is some policy that will fundamentally change their 30 years worth of stagnant wages. That you can’t blame on the Bush tax cuts. People are still deleveraging rather than buying — they are making choices that don’t result in demand or hiring.
some policy that will fundamentally change their 30 years worth of stagnant wages.
… you mean some policy like the Clinton tax rates? Wages were not stagnant under the Clinton tax plan; in fact they grew at a healthy rate.
That you can’t blame on the Bush tax cuts.
Why not?
What’s wrong with the simple populist observation that due to tax policy, the rich have all the money and consumers don’t? It’s true.
“People are deleveraging…” “overhang in housing inventory…” fancy-schmancy ways of saying the rich are stripping the assets of the middle class. Just look who is getting richer and who is getting poorer.
Wages may have risen slightly during the Clinton era, but that was also a demand issue — once you get closer to full employment, employers need to pay more for a scarcer resource.
But the 30 year wage stagnation doesn’t have anything to do with tax cuts.
People delveraging means that they are paying down debt. Debt that they incurred because their wages don’t cover their costs.
You guys are polarized. Let’s agree that President Obama missed an opportunity to speed up the recovery by not allowing Bush tax cuts to expire. We all get the political reasons why that didn’t happen, that much is water under the bridge.
I’m skeptical that expiring Bush tax cuts would speed up the recovery. The only way you get to that would be if the new revenue would be spent, which I doubt this Congress would approve. It *would* speed up deficit reduction, pretty clearly.
But it is really hard to agree on a missed opportunity for Bush tax cuts, when you never, ever acknowledge that the President got quite abit of stimulus in return for letting them continue for two years. Not the least of which were unemployment benefits for alot of people out of work.
People delveraging means that they are paying down debt.
Paying off your credit card while experiencing wage stagnation – means you are lowering your standard of living to pay the rich. That’s asset stripping. With wage growth, you would make your credit card payments while maintaining your standard of living. Plus, a lot of that deleveraging is not payments – it is debt being written off that will never be paid.
Water under the bridge, but also a lesson for the future.
The economics behind letting corporations and the wealthy take so much money out of play don’t make much sense.
The fairness argument is probably easier to make though.
“The only way you get to that would be if the new revenue would be spent, which I doubt this Congress would approve. ”
A good part of the higher taxes would never be collected. Congress doesn’t have to spend it. The money would be spent by corporations seeking to avoid the higher tax by hiring and re-investing. That’s the point.
This Congress would also never approve raising taxes on the rich. That is why the only path is to let the cuts expire, backed by a Presidential veto if necessary, hostages or not.
“It *would* speed up deficit reduction, pretty clearly.”
Which is stimulatory in itself. Right now the Fed is providing stimulus using some kind of black magic.
Paying off your credit card while experiencing wage stagnation – means you are lowering your standard of living to pay the rich. That’s asset stripping.
That means that you are lowering your standard of living to one closer to your income. Paying off debt is not asset stripping. You still have whatever you bought, you’ve just paid an arm and a leg for the privilege. The majority of the deleveraging is in payments and restructuring. Certainly lots of debt got written off, but plenty of folks are deleveraging the old fashioned way. And not taking up much more debt, either. Which brings us back to the demand question.
The money would be spent by corporations seeking to avoid the higher tax by hiring and re-investing. That’s the point.
And why would they hire people if no one is buying their stuff? THAT is the point. Businesses would hire like it was the Clinton years if people were buying what they were producing — this doesn’t have a thing to do with taxes. If the Bush tax cuts go away, my company certainly won’t be hiring more people because of it. They’ll still hire more people when we have the clients to pay for that. Like every other business in the US.
Lots of firms are doing investing in mechanising workplaces now. Which isn’t going to result in more hiring, but will result in better productivity once they ramp up again.
“That means that you are lowering your standard of living to one closer to your income.”
Now we are back to the chicken and the egg discussion. Creating those lower incomes was not an accident, it was part of the policy. The Bush tax policy rewards the rich for laying off workers, and encourages them to take profits rather than hiring and investing.
Which is why businesses don’t have enough customers – they laid off employees, who are somebody else’s customer, so they could take lightly-taxed profits instead. The Bush tax policy creates a race to the bottom, and we’re there.
The lower incomes predate the Bush tax cuts.
No business hires without the demand for it. Tax policy or no.
you’re only lowering your standard of living until your debts are paid off. …. btw, im only talking about this specific point… i totally agree that there has been a systematic attempt by the rich to make us accept a lower standard of living…. they will take more and more money from us until we find a way to stop them…… that said, once things like my car, computer, store cards etc are paid off, i’ll have a lot of extra money each month that I have adjusted to living without. My personal standard of living can increase, or my savings can increase once the debts are gone…. hopefully jut in time to go into debt again buying a house.
And I think that the fact that people are not using credit as much to mask the fact that they aren’t making the kind of wages to support what they’d define as a middle class lifestyle is why it is easier to make the fairness argument and way the GOP is working overtime for their class warfare argument. Most Americans are not being paid in accordance with their productivity — which is pretty high. The people getting the benefit of all of that extra productivity are owners and shareholders.
Cass.. your graph shows “median” incomes, which are pulled up by the Mitt Romneys of the world and and all their investment income.
Here’s a graph that shows average hourly earnings, which clearly shows earnings went up under Clinton, and down under Reagan and Bush. “30-year stagnation” is only on the average, because Republican policies brought wages down so much during that time.
Without the Clinton era, we would be Calcutta by now.
Your link won’t load.
But since I’ve been talking about average wages over 30 years for this whole thread, that would indeed include whatever *wages* the 1% have been getting. Which would mean that if you took those wages out the picture is worse for the middle and working classes than that chart. Clinton era wages rose some, but certainly not enough to wipe out the stagnation that came before or to put real brakes on the wage losses since.
Average hourly wages dropped sharply under Reagan, rose sharply under Clinton, and stagnated under Bush. The Clinton era is the reason the middle class has assets for the rich to strip.
Clinton era wages rose some, but certainly not enough to wipe out the stagnation that came before
Actually, it did, according to the avg hourly graph.
or to put real brakes on the wage losses since.
After the Bush tax cuts in 2001, real wages continued coasting upward for a year or two, and then dropped and stagnated under Bush policies, according to the avg hourly graph.
Try this link, or look for it here or somewhere else. If that doesn’t work I give up.
“But since I’ve been talking about average wages over 30 years for this whole thread, that would indeed include whatever *wages* the 1% have been getting.”
Note the difference between wages and total income. Most people don’t know the difference, which explains flat-taxers.
Actually, it did, according to the avg hourly graph.
Average hourly wages are different than average wages — minimum wages go up either at the Fed or local levels and there are some raises. but I get that you are depending upon readers to not know the difference for you to make your argument. But that doesn’t mean that all of those folks are working 2080 hours/year, which the average wages calculation adjusts for. Because I still can’t see your data to be able to judge its quality.
“But that doesn’t mean that all of those folks are working 2080 hours/year,”
Technically true, but it tracks pretty closely. When wages are down, there is low demand for labor and more people will be working part-time. Conversely, when wages are up, that means there is demand for labor and more people will be working full-time.
It makes no sense to argue that including Mitt Romney’s total income reveals anything about consumer demand or buying power. Mitt doesn’t get paid wages and he doesn’t get paid by the hour.
Socialist Ben” I just saw romney’s campaign use that lie, it is 90% bull”
(Newser) – As part of his recent bid to appeal to women, Mitt Romney deployed what he called an “amazing statistic,” saying that “92.3% of all the jobs lost during the Obama years have been lost by women.” If that made your eyebrows climb your forehead, you’re not alone. The AP’s fact checkers looked into the statement, and found that while it’s technically true,
Remember, Barack did not have to take the job. He knew what he was getting into. And he promissed 10 times what he has delivered.
He never said in his campaign one time that he was going to need 6 or 8 years to fix things, he did not say that one time. As a matter of fact, he said publicly immediately after taking office that if he did not have this economy turned around in 3 years he was looking at a one term proposition. Well his policies failed, he did not turn the economy around in 3 years, unemployment still higher than when he took office, and long term unemployment highest in history, and Women have suffered higher unemployment than men under his administration. These are all facts, not opinions
hahah Rusty you slay me.
“while it’s technically true,” then what? you need to learn to lie better, dude.
Obama’s policies failed to improve the economy more rapidly because he spent too much time compromising with Republicans and not enough time fighting for his 2008 agenda. I hope Obama has learned his lesson and appreciates his amazing luck at drawing Mitt Romney for an opponent (well, any of the GOP candidates). My fear now is that Obama will win on his new populist rhetoric, then pass the $4 trillion Bowles Simpson/Grand Deal in the lame duck and make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Still, I’ll take Obama warts and all over any Republican.
“Well his policies failed,”
Which ones?
“he did not turn the economy around in 3 years,”
Yes, he did. Every economic indicator has improved in the last three years.
“unemployment still higher than when he took office,”
Because unemployment is a lagging economic indicator.
“and long term unemployment highest in history, and Women have suffered higher unemployment than men under his administration. These are all facts, not opinions”
Yes, but of limited value because of the artificial cut-off dates you, or rather your desperate conservative sources, have quoted.
You yourself, on the other hand, are the perfect Romney voter — not very bright, not very well informed, and gullible as a 3-year-old.
Keep up the good work. Maybe he’ll let you lick his boot when it’s all over.
Geezer Im not very bright, I am willing to put my school records up against yours anyday. On what issue related to the presidential campaign, and presidents record while in office am I uninformed
While its technically true, unless you continually move the goalpost like you guys do. Just set a date in stone when you think obama should take responsibility for his action. Three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, last month, last week, yesterday. Just state a date when you think obama should take responsibility for his actions, and we can then evaluate his presidency from there going forward