jsteele wrote:It turns out Romney reversed himself in the afternoon and now doesn't support a federal mandate prohibiting a pre-existing conditions exclusion. He thinks a competitive market will address demand for insuring those with pre-existing conditions. Guess what? That's what we have now and there is no such insurance available.

Fastest flip-flop in history, though.

Wow, I have whiplash!

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

Anonymous wrote:

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.

And to clarify pp's point further, the proposed higher taxes apply only to income that EXCEEDS $250,000 AGI. It's not like suddenly they pay higher taxes on their entire income. Those high-income earners continue to get the benefits of the Bush tax cuts that apply to their first $250,000 of income. Nobody proposes taking those away.

Hey, PP is right, if you let the Bush tax cuts expire, those people barely making more than the poverty level will have to pay more on their capital gains . . . Please.

Even Friedrich Hayek said that you don't cut taxes unless the government has a surplus. I wish Republicans would actually read "The Road to Serfdom" instead of just skimming the Cliff Notes. If you did, you would realize that Hayek was in favor of many types of regulations Republicans want removed (yes, including environmental regulations) and that he believed the state should ensure that everyone has "some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health."

Paul Ryan can't just pick and choose parts of Hayek's theories if he truly wants to move the American economy away from one based on Keynesian theory.

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.

And to clarify pp's point further, the proposed higher taxes apply only to income that EXCEEDS $250,000 AGI. It's not like suddenly they pay higher taxes on their entire income. Those high-income earners continue to get the benefits of the Bush tax cuts that apply to their first $250,000 of income. Nobody proposes taking those away.

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.

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.

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.

But that would be raising a straw man argument, you see, since this is not what the Democrats have said they want to do. Please cite one place where the Democrats have proposed raising income taxes on people in poverty.

It turns out Romney reversed himself in the afternoon and now doesn't support a federal mandate prohibiting a pre-existing conditions exclusion. He thinks a competitive market will address demand for insuring those with pre-existing conditions. Guess what? That's what we have now and there is no such insurance available.

Fastest flip-flop in history, though.

OP again. I see that Romney backtracked about covering pre-existing conditions. Seems that he did some arithmetic.

OP here, not feeling like shutting up, since I made no attempt to get into the details of loopholes. How the F could I, when R/R won't give an iota of information about them? And the response, I guess, is that I have no right to raise the issue because I'm not expert enough to understand the answer if they were to deign to give it? Very enlightening.

Insults are a surefire way to convince people to vote for your guy. NOT!

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.

Would you let people buy fire insurance after the house is on fire? Of course not because everyone would wait until they need it, and then the premium would have to be the price of your new home or insurance collapses.

The only two ways insurance works is if you require it of everyone (like auto) or deny it to people who already have a need to file claims before they buy (health insurance before Obamacare). You can eliminate one but you can't eliminate both.

Ast for your second comment, I suggest that people asking for details of a candidate on how his proposal might affect them should not be told to shut up. I don't think anyone needs a degree in accounting to have an opinion on their tax bill. Obama TOLD you why we can't extend he tax cuts. Romney needs to tell people HOW h pays to keep them.

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.

And to pass another tax on top of all that on people who cannot afford healthcare but still give them no healthcare - even more disgusting, all the while proclaiming to be looking out for the middle class and poor. We don't need that kind of help - you can have it.

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.

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.