Romney: 47% of Americans are losers, don't care about 'em

[CountDeMoney]

Who the hell is running the Romney campaign?? This Stevens guy that's been plastered all over the editorials? Jesus christ.....

Oh yeah, he's a real winner, that one.

[DGuller]

I really hate comparing Mitt to my Grandfathr-a kind, brilliant, hardworking life-long Democrat-to Mitt, but there's an entire class of smart devout Mormons.  They're just really great at compartmentalizing. Most of my worst Sunday School teachers were students at UofC's Booth school, who insulted me for not taking 7 days literally and asking questions.

I will say that I think it's more likely that between Obama and Romney, Romney would be the one who is a believer... but somehow I still doubt it.

I don't doubt it.  For some reason, Mormons seem to be perfectly able to be extremely successful in intellectual endeavors, and yet still be unshakable in their belief.

[Razgovory]

So do Jews and Catholics.  So what?

[Phillip V]

If Romney gets elected and Democrats retain the Senate (w/ Harry Reid), Mormons will have taken over two of the three branches of government. Then, he will nominate Mormon justices to the Supreme Court.

[Faeelin]

"My own view is that if we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital come back and we'll see — without actually doing anything — we'll actually get a boost in the economy."

Mua'dib! Mua'Dib!

[DGuller]

Curiously enough, Intrade market didn't move on the news.  I guess even crappy predictive markets know enough to price in the possibility of a major Romney gaffe.

[CountDeMoney]

So do Jews and Catholics.  So what?

When Mormonism is around for a millennium or two, then we can talk.  Shit was invented, like, yesterday.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think there is a serious problem when the permanent underclass can essentially continually vote themselves ever greater benefits and entitlements, the problem with a democracy is the elites and the powerful are going to over time get out-voted. This is one of those things that no one takes seriously because we all know it's impossible, but there is something to be said for some qualifications to voting. I don't understand why it's considered ideal that almost everyone should get to vote. It's an important decision, and I think the Founders were right on with restrictions along the lines of property ownership (not so much along the lines of race and gender discrimination.)

Anyway, I'm not really saying we should go back to the property qualification, only that there is a valid reason we had one in the first place. The permanent underclass will always be larger than the upper class elites, and let's truly be honest, whose interests should influence national policy? The elites are better in virtually every regard, in terms of decision making and value they add to society, and they're almost exclusively whom we pick to be President, so I don't know that long term all democratic societies won't slowly collapse into a crushing mountain of entitlements and unsustainable benefits for the poor.

I don't know the specifics of the 47% number, but I hear something roughly around that all the time. It's not correct that 47% of America pays no taxes. It's very hard to avoid the payroll taxes and almost impossible to avoid property tax and sales tax. However, it is absolutely true that in terms of Federal in come tax almost 50% of Americans pay $0 or less in Federal effective Federal income taxes.

It's not that hard to fathom, first take all the old people on fixed incomes--they will pay a very low Federal income tax that would most likely be offset to effectively nothing with various credits. Then take all the poor people who work, they typically receive more back than they paid in so their Federal tax rate is actually negative. (For those non-Americans we have child credits and Earned Income Credits which can result in essentially a "negative tax" where you receive a large check from the Government greater than the value of your total income tax paid out. Just a a quick example I've known of poor couples with multiple kids, earning $25-30k total filing jointly who get $13k back, and throughout the year they probably paid no more than 4-5k in income tax withholding if that.) Then take all the people that just don't file tax returns for a panoply of reasons (disabled, prisoners, mental patients who do no work and have no income, children etc, tax scofflaws and itinerant types who work 100% under the table.) It's pretty easy to get to near 50% not paying any income tax.

Just totaling up all the retired people and children and anyone else "not in the workforce" gets you almost to 50% right away, and most of those people wouldn't file tax returns at all or if they would they'd pay little to nothing or actually pay a "negative rate."

[Jacob]

Otto, you think the masses of poor voters have influence that outweighs that of the rich voters unafraid to spend their money on influence such as the Koch brothers?

[DGuller]

I think there is a serious problem when the permanent underclass can essentially continually vote themselves ever greater benefits and entitlements, the problem with a democracy is the elites and the powerful are going to over time get out-voted. This is one of those things that no one takes seriously because we all know it's impossible, but there is something to be said for some qualifications to voting. I don't understand why it's considered ideal that almost everyone should get to vote. It's an important decision, and I think the Founders were right on with restrictions along the lines of property ownership (not so much along the lines of race and gender discrimination.)

Anyway, I'm not really saying we should go back to the property qualification, only that there is a valid reason we had one in the first place. The permanent underclass will always be larger than the upper class elites, and let's truly be honest, whose interests should influence national policy? The elites are better in virtually every regard, in terms of decision making and value they add to society, and they're almost exclusively whom we pick to be President, so I don't know that long term all democratic societies won't slowly collapse into a crushing mountain of entitlements and unsustainable benefits for the poor.

The problem with this solution is that people in the underclass will become subjects of the elites.  That kind of undoes the point of democracy, undermines its very legitimacy, and welds shut the social unrest safety valve that is its greatest strength.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Otto, you think the masses of poor voters have influence that outweighs that of the rich voters unafraid to spend their money on influence such as the Koch brothers?

Outweighs? Sometimes, in some contexts. For example if only the elite could vote I can tell you who wouldn't be losing this election right now.

[CountDeMoney]

Otto, you think the masses of poor voters have influence that outweighs that of the rich voters unafraid to spend their money on influence such as the Koch brothers?

Outweighs? Sometimes, in some contexts. For example if only the elite could vote I can tell you who wouldn't be losing this election right now.

Which elites, though?  Are you defining them strictly along economic lines?  There isn't as much cross-pollination between economic elites and the ivory tower elites.

[garbon]

Otto, you think the masses of poor voters have influence that outweighs that of the rich voters unafraid to spend their money on influence such as the Koch brothers?

Outweighs? Sometimes, in some contexts. For example if only the elite could vote I can tell you who wouldn't be losing this election right now.

Which elites, though?  Are you defining them strictly along economic lines?  There isn't as much cross-pollination between economic elites and the ivory tower elites.

I hear Jaron has a solution for the ivory tower.

[Eddie Teach]

I don't know about guns, but the religion part could've seriously tanked him.  The quote makes him sound like a disdainful atheist, which IMO is the real religious "skeleton" in his closet.  I'm shocked he got off light with that flub, because I think Obama meant exactly what it sounded like he said.

It did strengthen his claim to have not been in church though. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

I once read an interesting article that I've since lost. It advocated a voting system by which you basically select a random set of 100,000 people across the entire country from the various States. In each State you divided it up so these groups of people meet in manageable numbers, and basically the government pays them to take a whole year to become educated and informed on all the issues in the present campaign. Come election day this group of 100,000 votes, and whoever takes the majority of their vote wins.

The premise being, the most important thing in a Democracy isn't that everyone's voice is heard but rather that all the people living there benefit from the best possible political decisions being made. In universal suffrage there is a strong argument we have abandoned the policy of giving the people the best decision we can get in favor of lofty ideals about everyone feeling like they matter.

The article I read was purely theoretical and not intended to start some kind of movement, it was an intellectual exercise but an interesting one. It compared these randomly selected voters to juries, people often complain about juries (I know I do sometimes) but by and large jurors actually do a good job quite often, and take their role seriously. I think you empanel a random sampling of Americans, inform them of the gravity and importance of their task and they would take it seriously and really try to educate themselves. These voters would be far less susceptible to the completely bogus attack ads that have proliferated in every campaign during my life. I don't even mean the relatively mild stuff like Willie Horton, but ads that just blatantly state things which are false and extremely deceptive. An educated voter would not be swayed by such things. An educated voter wouldn't obsess over someone saying "you didn't build that" out of context or "middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 or less."

The author of the article mostly focused on the improved decision making, and I'd build on that. Don't just try to improve the decision making but the decision maker. When you're selecting your random sampling to be part of the voting pool, exclude certain people entirely. For one, make them take a test similar to the basic citizenship test people have to take to naturalize (if you've ever taken a sample online, it's something any mouth-breather who got a D+ in High School civics would ace.) For two, certain classes of people should be entirely excluded from the pools: full time college students, the extremely old (80 years +),  anyone who has filed bankruptcy in the last 7 years, anyone who didn't graduate high school or receive a GED...I think there is a reasonable list of disqualifications people could agree upon.