Romney - Holding a 14 point advantage with Middle Class
 

>>>In our latest POLITICO-George Washington University Battleground Poll with middle-class families, which comprise about 54 percent of the total American electorate and usually split in their vote behavior between Republicans and Democrats, Romney holds a 14-point advantage (55 percent to 41 percent). Middle-class families are more inclined to believe the country is on the wrong track (34 percent right direction, 62 percent wrong track),

are more likely to hold an unfavorable view of Obama (48 percent favorable, 51 percent unfavorable),

and hold a more favorable view of Romney (51 percent favorable, 44 percent unfavorable) and Paul Ryan (46 percent favorable, 35 percent unfavorable) than the overall electorate.

These middle-class families also hold a majority disapproval rating on the job Obama is doing as president (45 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove), and turn even more negative toward Obama on specific areas; the economy 56 percent disapprove; spending 61 percent disapprove; taxes, 53 percent disapprove; Medicare 48 percent disapprove; and even foreign policy 50 percent disapprove.<<<

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81584.html

You can get Romney at 7/2 odds in the betting exchange right now for thousands of dollars.

It feels like he's toast.

is that the romney middle class, or the real middle class??? :D

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-middle-class/

On “60 Minutes” last night, Mitt Romney said it again. “I want to keep the current progressivity in the code. There should be no tax reduction for high income people.”

You’ve heard Romney say this — or some variant of it –dozens of times before. What’s changed since then is that Romney has admitted that his tax cuts, if they’re not going to add to the deficit, will have to increase taxes on people he defines as middle income and cut them on people he defines as high income.


Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Evan Vucci/AP

Before we get to that admission, a quick refresher. Romney’s tax plan proposes to cut tax rates by 20 percent. That would cost trillions of dollars, and mean a particularly big tax cut for the rich.

But Romney promises his tax cut won’t cost anything, won’t raise taxes on the middle class, won’t cut taxes on the rich, and won’t end the tax breaks for savings and investment.

The Tax Policy Center, the gold standard in nonpartisan tax wonkery, looked at the tax cut and these promises and declared the proposal “not mathematically possible.” Since Romney doesn’t want to touch tax breaks for savings and investment like the capital gains cut — a position he reiterated last night on “60 Minutes” — there just isn’t enough money in the remaining tax breaks for people making over $250,000 to pay for their tax cuts.

For awhile, the Romney campaign had no answer to this. They just said they didn’t believe the Tax Policy Center — called it biased, even though it’s run by one of George W. Bush’s top economists.

Then, slowly, right-leaning economists and outlets began releasing their own studies showing that, if you made some really, really questionable assumptions, you could kinda sorta make Romney’s math look like it might add up. And so you might have heard Romney say this to David Gregory on “Meet the Press”:


The good news is that five different economic studies, including one at Harvard and Princeton and AEI and a couple at The Wall Street Journal all show that if we bring down our top rates and actually go across the board, bring down rates for everyone in America, but also limit deductions and exemptions for people at the high end, while you can keep the progressivity in the code, you could remain revenue neutral and you create an enormous incentive for growth in the economy.

The Harvard study was done by economist Martin Feldstein, and he makes a very important decision in his paper. He writes, “I think it is very reasonable to say that people in that high-income group” — by which means people making over $100,000 — “are not the ‘middle class.’”

And so, under really, really unrealistic assumptions, he shows that the math can kind of work, but that Romney’s policies would mean a really big tax increase for people making between $100,000 and $250,000 in order to pay for a big tax cut on people making more than $250,000. But that’s okay, because people making over $100,000 are not in the middle class.

And Romney has been all over the place trumpeting this study, saying this study shows his math works out. But then ABC’s George Stephanopoulos caught him out:


GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Is $100,000 middle income?


MITT ROMNEY: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less.

For the record, I’m actually with Feldstein on this one: I think it’s reasonable to say households making more than $100,000 are not middle income. But Romney disagrees with me, and with Feldstein.

So the study Romney is promoting — the one he says is the study you should be looking at — actually shows even under the most favorable assumptions possible, he’s going to have to raise taxes on the people he defines as the middle class. In saying that that study is credible, he has admitted he can’t make his tax promises add up. And yet he constantly, repeatedly says the opposite.

Romney has clearly calculated that there aren’t many people who read these analyses. If he just keeps saying his tax plan can cut taxes on the rich while cutting taxes on the middle class while not cutting taxes on the rich while not costing a dime, eventually, his version of this will come to be seen as the truth. And perhaps he’s right. But the numbers show what they show.

There is little to no polling that shows Romney strong with anything that translates into winning the swing states he has to, thus into electoral college votes and a win.

Today's polling summaries:

New Swing State Polls In CO, FL, IA, MI, NC, Nev, and WI Show Excellent Results for President

September 24, 2012

Latest Swing State Polls
Here are the today's swing state polls, updated as needed throughout the day:

Colorado: Obama 51%, Romney 45% (Public Policy Polling)

Florida: Obama 50%, Romney 45% (American Research Group)

Iowa: Obama 51%, Romney 44% (American Research Group)

Michigan: Obama 54%, Romney 42% (Rasmussen)

North Carolina: Obama 49%, Romney 45% (Civitas)

Nevada: Obama 51%, Romney 44% (American Research Group)

Wisconsin: Obama 53%, Romney 41% (We Ask America)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/0...-for-President

Mitt Romney is proving to be a not very smart guy in general, and including governmental financial policies.

You don't have to be exceptionally brilliant to buy up companies, leverage the hell out of them, bleed all the cash out of them making you rich, then leaving them in debt and to pick up the pieces you left behind. That's more of an ethical decision than an "intelligent financial" one. Mitt's job in private equity was never to create jobs, or make companies strong - it was to leverage and make himself and his investors profit.

The government is not a "bleed it dry and milk profit out of it" concern. So why Romney thinks his business experience is a qualification is beyond me.

Unless you are the Republican party, and your goal is, indeed, Paul Ryan's, to take all the money you can via defense contracting, medicare, etc. Now they want to privatize Social Security and Medicare. Anyone who thinks privatizing - which requires a profit to be made for the person that runs the program - is better than non-profit for our own programs is crazy.

Medicare proves that - it delivers better health care, at far less cost, than private insurance.

Can someone show me where it says that fairness is part of the US tax code? If common sense can not be used than why should fairness?

Things I dont care about in a Presidential election:
Views onAbortion
Views on Gay rights
How much said person makes/worth
How much said person pays in taxes
What church said person attends/says they attend/ etc.
Color of skin

Im sure there are others but these seem to dominate the news and I hardly think they matter to qualify a person to run the country. IMO Obama has been a pretty poor president with virtually nothing to run on yet Romney is such a weak candidate it is embarassing that he cant even put up much of a fight.

yeah, 'fairness' comes up a lot, but we all know life isn't fair. however, i think romney is a good illustration of what's wrong with our tax code.

but i do think if someone thinks it's common sense to be able to roll down airplane windows, they probably aren't qualified to be president. :D

Maybe because he's already paid income tax on the money the first time around and every year after?

BTW Tell that 'someone' who made $50K last year to save as much as possible as he will be able to pay a lower rate on investment income than he does on straight income.

If someones sole income is investments then every dollar gained is the first time around.

I have to agree with you here, this election is Romney's to lose and if he can't win it, it is a real embarrassment to the Republicans. Obama can't run on his record so he just bashes Romney and Romney is playing that stupid game. It is time for him to wake up, move more towards the center, and challenge Obama to run on his record.

It is pitiful that Obama is running a campaign focused on why his opponent can't do the job and probably even more pitiful that Romney can't take advantage of the fact that Obama has an almost four year track record which proves he can't do the job and Romney isn't using it properly.

Pointman would be all over that.

I would love to know what Obama's odds are if you can get 7/2 on Romney. Talk about a vulnerable favorite. . . .

Unless he picked his investment money off a tree it was taxed as income whether it be him or his father. Cigarette taxes have been raised thru the roof to prevent people from smoking. Wonder what raising taxes on investment income will do?

Of course this is the hidden plan Obama has publically stated before. Re-distribution of wealth and not just in the U.S. but worldwide.

Obama is the 'Dollar Bill' of politics!

I call BS on your massive lie. Quote where Obama has stated anywhere a plan to redistribute wealth, either nationally or internationally.

By the way - if Obama is stating something "publicly" where everyone can read it, it's not a "hidden" plan - just sayin' LOL

we're talking about the same election, right? romney has given absolutely no specifics. all he's done since day one is talk about how bad obama is. i read earlier today that what rmoney's said about his tax plan (with no details, just generalities) are mathematically impossible. and obama hasn't got to bash romney, romney's bashing himself.
if he was a worthwhile candidate, romney would be ahead in the polls, all things considered. the fact that obama is opening a gap in the polls tells you just how rotten a nominee romney is.
as each day goes by, mitt finds new ways to show just how unfit he is for the job. he's been doing so pretty much since his trip overseas to show how 'savvy' he was. yeah, that went well. :rolleyes: and it's been downhill since.

has obama done a good job? no, i don't think he has. but i haven't seen anything from mitt that would suggest an improvement. and for some on here, peewee herman could run against obama, and they'd vote for peewee.


what has mitt said he will do that makes him a better alternative?

You really can't claim that Obama's campaign has not constantly attacked Romney with a straight face. You need to read my post again, my point was that Mitt may be blowing an opportunity.

Not all the polls are going in the direction that you claim and polls are really not great measures of who will win the election, that has been proven historically. Those who think this election is wrapped up may be in for a big surprise.

What I know is that I don't like Obama's policies and they are IMO destroying this country. I am for the guy who wants to get control of the deficit, who wants to cut unneccessary and unaffordable entitlement programs, who won't give in to unions that are destroying this country, who wants less government, who realizes why we need to keep Isreal as a close ally in the Middle East and who wants to actually do something to keep Iran from getting a nuclear bomb instead of trying to deal with them after they obtain it. What I know is that Romney is much closer to that than Obama.

i ask the following as someone who is truly curious about what is seen by those supporting mitt-and as someone who isn't supporting the president either.
how will romney get control of the deficit? like i said earlier, economists have said his talk on taxes is mathematically impossible.
romney wants to grow defense spending. how will that help the deficit? how does that give less govt.?
what entitlement programs do you feel are unnecessary and unaffordable that the fed can cut? what is romneys solution in this area? i don't know of one.
how does romney's and ryans positions on womens reproductive rights square with 'less government'?
unions aren't destroying the country. banking is doing a good job of it tho. romney wants to remove banking regs. how will that help?
our stance on israel hasn't changed in decades. obama's take on them has been no different than previous administrations.
do you feel that the current economic sanctions that are harming iran are in fact not working? what will romney do that will keep them from going nuclear that will be better than what we're doing now?

Zig...how's is this for specific?


http://www.mittromney.com/issues/spending

Set Honest Goals: Cap Spending At 20 Percent Of GDP

Any turnaround must begin with clear and realistic goals. Optimistic projections cannot wish a problem away, they can only make it worse. As president, Mitt’s goal will be to bring federal spending below 20 percent of GDP by the end of his first term:

Reduced from 24.3 percent last year; in line with the historical trend between 18 and 20 percent
Close to the tax revenue generated by the economy when healthy
Requires spending cuts of approximately $500 billion per year in 2016 assuming robust economic recovery with 4% annual growth, and reversal of irresponsible Obama-era defense cuts
Take Immediate Action: Return Non-Security Discretionary Spending To Below 2008 Levels

Any turnaround must also stop the bleeding and reverse the most recent and dramatic damage:

Send Congress a bill on Day One that cuts non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent across the board
Pass the House Republican Budget proposal, rolling back President Obama’s government expansion by capping non-security discretionary spending below 2008 levels
Follow A Clear Roadmap: Build A Simpler, Smaller, Smarter Government

Most importantly, any turnaround must have a thoughtful, structured approach to achieving its goals. Mitt will attack the bloated budget from three angles:

The Federal Government Should Stop Doing Things The American People Can’t Afford, For Instance:
Repeal Obamacare — Savings: $95 Billion. President Obama’s costly takeover of the health care system imposes an enormous and unaffordable obligation on the federal government while intervening in a matter that should be left to the states. Mitt will begin his efforts to repeal this legislation on Day One.
Privatize Amtrak — Savings: $1.6 Billion. Despite requirement that Amtrak operate on a for-profit basis, it continues to receive about $1.6 billion in taxpayer funds each year. Forty-one of Amtrak’s 44 routes lost money in 2008 with losses ranging from $5 to $462 per passenger.
Reduce Subsidies For The National Endowments For The Arts And Humanities, The Corporation For Public Broadcasting, And The Legal Services Corporation — Savings: $600 Million. NEA, NEH, and CPB provide grants to supplement other sources of funding. LSC funds services mostly duplicative of those already offered by states, localities, bar associations and private organizations.
Eliminate Title X Family Planning Funding — Savings: $300 Million. Title X subsidizes family planning programs that benefit abortion groups like Planned Parenthood.
Reduce Foreign Aid — Savings: $100 Million. Stop borrowing money from countries that oppose America’s interests in order to give it back to them in the form of foreign aid.
If pursued with focus and discipline, Mitt’s approach provides a roadmap to rescue the federal government from its present precipice. But that respite will be short-lived without a plan for the looming long-term threat posed by the unsustainable nature of existing entitlement obligations. Learn more about Mitt’s proposals for entitlement reform: Medicare and Social Security.

Empower States To Innovate — Savings: >$100 billion
Block grants have huge potential to generate both superior results and cost savings by establishing local control and promoting innovation in areas such as Medicaid and Worker Retraining. Medicaid spending should be capped and increased each year by CPI + 1%. Department of Labor retraining spending should be capped and will increase in future years. These funds should then be given to the states to spend on their own residents. States will be free from Washington micromanagement, allowing them to develop innovative approaches that improve quality and reduce cost.
Improve Efficiency And Effectiveness. Where the federal government should act, it must do a better job. For instance:
Reduce Waste And Fraud — Savings: $60 Billion. The federal government made $125 billion in improper payments last year. Cutting that amount in half through stricter enforcement and harsher penalties yields returns many times over on the investment.
Align Federal Employee Compensation With The Private Sector — Savings: $47 Billion. Federal compensation exceeds private sector levels by as much as 30 to 40 percent when benefits are taken into account. This must be corrected.
Repeal The Davis-Bacon Act — Savings: $11 Billion. Davis-Bacon forces the government to pay above-market wages, insulating labor unions from competition and driving up project costs by approximately 10 percent.
Reduce The Federal Workforce By 10 Percent Via Attrition — Savings: $4 Billion. Despite widespread layoffs in the private sector, President Obama has continued to grow the federal payrolls. The federal workforce can be reduced by 10 percent through a “1-for-2” system of attrition, thereby reducing the number of federal employees while allowing the introduction of new talent into the federal service.
Consolidate agencies and streamline processes to cut costs and improve results in everything from energy permitting to worker retraining to trade negotiation.

or this....

http://www.mittromney.com/issues/regulation


Mitt Romney will treat regulatory costs like other costs: he will establish firm limits for them. A Romney administration will act swiftly to tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed on the economy. It will also seek to make structural changes to the federal bureaucracy that ensure economic growth remains front and center when regulatory decisions are made.

Eliminate Undue Economic Burdens

One of the greatest problems with the federal bureaucracy is that each incoming presidential administration leaves in place much of what its predecessor constructed. The result is layer upon layer of often unnecessary or inconsistent regulation. President Obama has compounded this problem with unprecedented federal power grabs over wide swaths of the economy. Obama-era laws and regulations must be rolled back, and pre-existing ones must be carefully scrutinized.

Repeal Obamacare
Repeal Dodd-Frank and replace with streamlined, modern regulatory framework
Amend Sarbanes-Oxley to relieve mid-size companies from onerous requirements
Initiate review and elimination of all Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy
Reform Environmental Regulation

As president, Mitt Romney will eliminate the regulations promulgated in pursuit of the Obama administration’s costly and ineffective anti-carbon agenda. Romney will also press Congress to reform our environmental laws to ensure that they allow for a proper assessment of their costs.

Ensure that environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process
Provide multi-year lead times before companies must come into compliance with onerous new environmental regulations
Adopt Structural Reforms

An agency may be able to conceive of ten different regulations, each imposing costs of $10 billion while producing at least as much in social benefit. Moving forward might sound like a great idea to the typical regulator. But imposing those regulations, no matter what the social benefits, has a similar effect to raising taxes by $100 billion. Regulatory costs need to be treated like the very real costs they are.

Impose a regulatory cap of zero dollars on all federal agencies
Require congressional approval of all new “major” regulations
Reform legal liability system to prevent spurious litigation

he says clear and realistic, and then says assuming 'robust growth, etc'. that's a laugh.
defense cuts-the ones that congress could have avoided? besides, if we cut defense in HALF, we would still spend 1/4 of the entire worlds defense monies-by ourself. so, what, instead of killing china ten times over, it would be six times over? i mean, people only have to die once....like we're going to war with china. :rolleyes:
romney already said he wants to keep parts of obamacare, so that repeal is probably off.
been hearing about privatizing amtrak for years, not holding my breath.
nea-that's a gnat on an elephants ass when it comes to budget issues.
title x-that won't happen.
foreign aid-see nea, above.





let's be realistic about our issues that are facing us. much of that stuff you put up has nothing to do with the actual real, deep, growing issues that are centered on the federal budget.
the vast majority of federal spending goes to:
defense
medicare/medicaid/social security
interest on debt, and then
everything else combined, which doesn't equal any one of the above.

so, this guy wants to cut taxes (again, not mathematically possible to do what he said he wants to do) raise defense spending (WHY????), and give vouchers for medicare (will never happen).

and you mentioned above that he wants to repeal dodd/frank and have 'good regulations'. what does he mean by that? what would those regs be exactly? no one seems to know.
he deals in generalities. i'm going to fix this, this and this. how?

'empower states to innovate'. wtf is that supposed to mean???


presidential candidates have mentioned fraud and waste since i was born, during johsons term. yeah....we'll see how that one goes.


sorry, not seeing where romney is 'better'. it's all blather, smoke, and mirrors. which sounds par for the course actually!!! congrats mitt, you're a po-LIE-tician.

I find it interesting that you have been on this kick lately of demanding those who support Romney as to why they do. I can't recall you telling us why Obama is a better choice then Romney.

Is it his economic policies which have increased the real unemployment rate to well almost 11% and put more people on public assistance than ever before in our country? Is it Obamacare because it is going to ballon the deficit and because government does ANYTHING better than the private sector? Is it his foreign policy where he is allowing the Iranian's to get closer to getting a nuclear bomb by the day hoping that sanctions will stop them? Is it his lack of additional security on 9/11 which led to the death of an ambassador despite knowledge that terrorists have attacked embassies on 9/11 in the past?

You want entitlement programs to cut, then lets start with Acorn and a laundry list of similar programs which should not get taxpayer money. You think our stance has not changed on Israel? Is that why Netanyahu has taken a pretty unprecedented step of involving himself in another country's election by openly campaigning for Romney?

So tell us since you seem to know and ask everyone else to answer, what are Obama's policies that are better than the ones that Geek has outlined?

I would like to thank Geek for taking the time that I did not have earlier. Sure seems like a lot of policies for someone who has none.

When I go to Obama's site I can't seem to get past

ARE you IN?


and when I put in my fake email and zip I get to this....

Your plane ticket and hotel are covered.
Make a donation today to be automatically entered to win dinner with President Obama.
If you're selected, we'll fly you out to meet the President for dinner on the campaign trail.

At least Romney tried to put up some useful stuff -you may not like it..but it is out there

http://www.mittromney.com/issues


http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitt...middle-class01

i don't think obama is a good choice, and he won't be getting my vote. but, neither will romney. and romney says he's going to hang the moon-i wonder just how he'll do that. like i said, most of that is rehashed from countless campaigns. none of it ever happens.
30 years from now, we'll still be nibbling around the edges, while defense, ss/medicare and the interest on all our debt will be all that the fed will be able to support.
romney wants to jack with taxes-maybe he wants to get his effective rate below 10%? and he wants to remove bank regs, and put in new ones-exactly what will those be? what will they accomplish that's different from the current regs?

as for sanctions on iran, yeah, they are working.

No, the "real" unemployment rate you are referring to has fallen from 15% to 11% due to Obama's economic policies. If you are going to use it, you have to use it honestly. Unemployment has dropped, and 4.6 million jobs have been created.

Considering Bush put us in a hole by losing 9 million jobs in his recession, that 3-year result is certainly headed in the right direction.

Nonsense. What a false flag. "Obama" hasn't put anybody on public aid. People qualify for public aid. Obama hasn't changed the qualifications. Bush was the last president to ease those. Oh - and that giant recession of Bush, and the 50-year-transfer of wealth vastly enlarging our poverty class is not Obama's fault and everyone knows it.

False. Provide proof of this, it's a weird claim that nobody has made. Probably because the program is paid for and was scored as deficit-neutral.

Government sure does Medicare better than private insurance: it costs less to provide much better service.

The sanctions are working, and our allies admit that. Don't fall for Bibi and Romney's war-mongering.

You completely ignore the situation in Libya making that statement. Oh - and the reason why the Ambassador was at that consulate.

LOL ! Acorn hasn't existed for a couple years - it went out of business after the House cut it's funding based upon a faked video from Breitbarts boy.

Obama is doing just fine, thanks. You're free to provide some facts and figures to support your contentions. Or better yet, show any plan at all of Romney's that has some specifics. Romney's financial plan has been scored as immediately adding $5 trillion to our deficit due to his tax cuts, recalling Obamacare, etc.

"No, the "real" unemployment rate you are referring to has fallen from 15% to 11% due to Obama's economic policies. If you are going to use it, you have to use it honestly. Unemployment has dropped, and 4.6 million jobs have been created.

Considering Bush put us in a hole by losing 9 million jobs in his recession, that 3-year result is certainly headed in the right direction."

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/mzucke...dream-is-a-job

"Nonsense. What a false flag. "Obama" hasn't put anybody on public aid. People qualify for public aid. Obama hasn't changed the qualifications. Bush was the last president to ease those. Oh - and that giant recession of Bush, and the 50-year-transfer of wealth vastly enlarging our poverty class is not Obama's fault and everyone knows it."

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/this...ruin-your-day/

"False. Provide proof of this, it's a weird claim that nobody has made. Probably because the program is paid for and was scored as deficit-neutral. "

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/201...s-his-critics/

"Government sure does Medicare better than private insurance: it costs less to provide much better service."

:rolleyes:

"The sanctions are working, and our allies admit that. Don't fall for Bibi and Romney's war-mongering."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/interna...mq5ceqOCVTtDlL

"You completely ignore the situation in Libya making that statement. Oh - and the reason why the Ambassador was at that consulate."

The Ambassador should have been secure, particularly on that day. Period.

"LOL ! Acorn hasn't existed for a couple years - it went out of business after the House cut it's funding based upon a faked video from Breitbarts boy."

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/repo...s-still-exist/

Sen. Lindsey Graham said the following to the Washington Post during the 2012 Republican National Convention: