Romney on Meet the Press

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess Mitt was for comprehensive health care before he was against it before he was for it.

I feel like I'm at the diner trying to figure out the blue plate special. Tuesday is meatloaf, right?

[Anonymous]

He thinks a competitive market will address demand for insuring those with pre-existing conditions.

Just like he thought the market could have found someone with enough capital to offer enough financing to restructure GM rather than the government having to do it, when the bottom had fallen out of the commercial financing market.

Keep dreaming, Mitt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

He thinks a competitive market will address demand for insuring those with pre-existing conditions.

Just like he thought the market could have found someone with enough capital to offer enough financing to restructure GM rather than the government having to do it, when the bottom had fallen out of the commercial financing market.

Keep dreaming, Mitt.

The only way a competitive market addresses a demand for people with pre-existing conditions is to charge a rate that makes them profitable by themselves. ie there is no feasible solution. Insurance doesn't work when an entire pool consists of sick people any more than flood insurance works in Atlantis.

[Anonymous]

The basis of insurance is the idea of shared cost, i.e., the well pay part of the expenses of the sick. Isn't that what the GOP calls socialism nowadays? Or is it okay because the people who administer it take a big slice and get rich -- and donate to the GOP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who do you think will pay for pre-existing condition coverage as it stands? WE will - and I don't mind that either. It doesn't matter if that provision is Obamacare or Romneycare. Who cares.

As for tax loopholes, unless you are a tax lawyer, just shut up because you are not able to discuss this in an informed manner. Meanwhile, if you are so concerned about taxes, go write Senator Reid and Marie Antionette Pelosi and ask them why they and all the Dems wanted to raise everybody's taxes and not extend the Bush tax cuts. How low to throw people barely making more than the poverty level under the bus and try to raise their taxes and go on television and proclaim to be the champion of the middle class. Very low.

Now you know this is a lie, so why do you insist on repeating this lie. They only want to raise taxes on those making over 250k agi. I don't know of one person making 250K agi who is poverty stricken. Heck, they are not even poor or working class.

Did you blackout when the Repubs and Dems had their stand offs for years when the Bush tax cuts were set to expire? You must have. (and I "lie" - no, sorry, you blacked out I guess)

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who do you think will pay for pre-existing condition coverage as it stands? WE will - and I don't mind that either. It doesn't matter if that provision is Obamacare or Romneycare. Who cares.

As for tax loopholes, unless you are a tax lawyer, just shut up because you are not able to discuss this in an informed manner. Meanwhile, if you are so concerned about taxes, go write Senator Reid and Marie Antionette Pelosi and ask them why they and all the Dems wanted to raise everybody's taxes and not extend the Bush tax cuts. How low to throw people barely making more than the poverty level under the bus and try to raise their taxes and go on television and proclaim to be the champion of the middle class. Very low.

Yeah, "you people" are just too stupid to understand the brilliance of Mitten's plans. Nobody expects "you people" to think. Just shut up and vote.

Who are you calling "you people?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aside from refusing to name any of the loopholes he plans to close to assure that the rich don't pay less taxes despite the rate decrease he promises, the part of the interview that most impressed me was his claim that his replacement for Obamacare will keep all the good stuff but drop the mandate that makes the numbers work. He seems truly averse to arithmetic.

On that loophole issue, even if I believed that he has a secret list that would do all he claims, I know enough about Congress to know that they would pass a bill cutting the rates while closing the loopholes would get tied up in negotiations and die without ever getting to the floor.

True "loopholes" are few and far between. Carried interest is one, and requiring it to be taxed as ordinary, rather than capital, is the right thing to do as a matter of fairness, but it won't come close to solving the budget problem.

A lot of politicians equate "loopholes" with "tax expenditures," which is actually a real term. The problem is that the biggest tax expenditures are actually deliberately-set (and popular) policy, not "loopholes."

For example:

-- Mortgage interest deduction is a "loophole." This isn't to say that policy isn't worthy of reexamination, but it isn't a "loophole."
-- The tax-free exclusion of employer-paid health benefits is the biggest expenditure. Sound like a loophole to you? Also, we had that fight already, remember?
-- On the corporate side, there is an expenditure that allows domestic manufacturers to tax deductions worth about 3 percentage points, making their tax rate more like 32% rather than 35%. This is the so-called "199 deduction." It's probably one of the "loopholes" Mitt "Believe in America but Invest Elsewhere" Romney would repeal.
-- Another major corporate tax "loophole" is the research and exeperimentation credit. We could repeal that but arguably more companies would just move their discovery operations to Ireland or something. So, that's a policy question, not closing a "loophole."

This isn't 1986, where the code was riddled with them. Any politician who speaks vaguely of getting rid of loopholes (Obama is guilty of this too, although he has offered more specifics of what he means) is lying to you.

True.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who do you think will pay for pre-existing condition coverage as it stands? WE will - and I don't mind that either. It doesn't matter if that provision is Obamacare or Romneycare. Who cares.

As for tax loopholes, unless you are a tax lawyer, just shut up because you are not able to discuss this in an informed manner. Meanwhile, if you are so concerned about taxes, go write Senator Reid and Marie Antionette Pelosi and ask them why they and all the Dems wanted to raise everybody's taxes and not extend the Bush tax cuts. How low to throw people barely making more than the poverty level under the bus and try to raise their taxes and go on television and proclaim to be the champion of the middle class. Very low.

Yeah, "you people" are just too stupid to understand the brilliance of Mitten's plans. Nobody expects "you people" to think. Just shut up and vote.

Who are you calling "you people?"

Ask Ann Romney since that is her phrase.