Obama is NOT a Good President. So Why Is He Winning With Independents?

[Syphon]

Thanks for your opinion. I disagree.

When push comes to shove, voters will choose Romney over Obama. It will come down to the one issue that always decides elections - the economy.

if the economy is truly the issue, which economy are you referring to then. the actual numbers put forth in terms of GDP or how people perceive the economy to be performing.

econominc growth was near -3% a yeah when he took office. growth is currently close to 3% annually. not a great number but a 6% improvement is huge considering where the economy was going when he came into office.

on the other hand, unemployment has not been significantly lowered. this leads people to have the perception that things are not getting better. with unemployment still around 8% this is a problem for Obama.

the major problem i see with the GOP is that offer no real new solutions to solve the major problems of the country. Newt says he can guarantee $2.50 gas simply by drilling. Romney's, Santorum's and Newts budgets all add to the deficit and debt in large numbers. Paul is the only one who cuts the deficit immediately, but he does so by closing a large amount of US bases abroad and cutting the size of the military in the process. this will lead to a spike in unemployment as all these soldiers transition into the workforce that is already struggling to create jobs.
they produce the same idea of less regulation and lower taxes. the regulations they claim are killing jobs are Dodd Frank, which was a direct result of the financial collapse and put regulations in place to help prevent that, and the Health Care law, which still hasnt even gone into full effect and wont for 2 more years. the most hilarious thing about the ACA is how the GOP wants to replace it. they want to replace it with part of the actual health care law. making high risk pools, allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. they only thing they are against is the Mandate, but when Hillary was trying to pass universal HC in the 90's they were for the mandate. so its a bit hard to take them seriously when they want something, and when they get it, they are now against it. on the issue of taxes, taxes are at the lowest rates since the 50's. how much lower would the GOP like to see taxes go? all the way to 0?
if the GOP has real world solutions the current problems facing the country, such as the education gap between the US and the world. getting rid of our dependance on fossil fuels and moving towards cheap renewable energies, stopping the US from being the world police, the people in the middle would start to listen again. but when the GOP starts to drive out good people like Olympia Snowe, they have much larger problems on their hands.

Thanks for your post.

Personally, I believe Obama will sink or swim based upon the REAL economy. The one where 1 in 4 people are out of work. The one where your neighbors are struggling. The one where Obama is "helping" the working man by cutting the payroll tax, yet allowing gasoline prices to double under his watch....dah!

We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. We have one of the most progressive taxation system in existence. We have too many people not paying anything and too many people collecting money for doing nada.... Reality has to set in at some point.

Republicans need to do four things to win:

1) Repeal Obamacare- we can't afford this clusterfuck
2) Cut Corporate tax rate- we have the highest rate in the world
3) Cut spending
4) Pass a balanced budget amendment

Romney says he is going to do all of those things...

if in fact the GOP does do the 3 of 4 things you listed, things will definitely not improve. if the ACA get repealed, we will within the net 10 years see a huge increase in the amount of people who can not afford access to health care. this in turn will drive up the costs of those who do have health insurance even higher, to cover the costs those who can not afford to pay. soon this will lead to the elimination of insurance, and have all health care services provided on a cash only basis. leaving the wealthy as the only one who will be able to get any real services.

on the corporate tax rate, i think this may be a good thing, but only when it is combined with the elimination of tax breaks to so that corporations such as GE actually pay something on their huge profits.

cutting spending is good in theory, but when one realized that 85% of the budget is consumed by SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense and interest on the debt, cutting spending is not that easy. you would need to cut all the social programs by drastic amounts (which would outrage much of the GOP, since they dont believe that SS and Medicaid are actually government programs) causing many of the people who rely upon those services as their only means to live to be push into the arms of family members or simply put on the street. you will need to increase tax revenues by a large amount in get to the level where we have a balanced budget.

having a balanced budget amendment is good in theory, but not in practice. lets say we had a balanced budget amendment when we invaded iraq and went to war in afghanistan. in order to fund those wars, we would have needed to increase taxes by roughly 10% in order to pay for those wars. since we wouldnt be able to borrow any money to fund those wars, we would have either had to raise taxes significantly or no do them. lets use a natural disaster (such as the tornado in Joplin last year) as another example, had the government not had the ability to borrow money to pay for FEMA to go down there and provide emergency services the people would have had to reply upon private sector donations. or the government would have had to raise funds through higher taxes.

things are not as simple as they seem.
heres a staggering number. if somehow start running a $250B a year surplus, assuming no new interest is incurred on the debt, it would take over 56 years to pay off the current debt. this is not a problem that can be solved overnight, or even within the terms of a single presidency (whether that is 4 or 8 years). this will take the better part of a century to figure out, and with the current political gridlock in washington, we are probably looking even longer

 

[rdean]

The Independent's View: There's No Doubt: Obama is Not a Good President. Why He's Winning Independents Anyway

That wasn't written by an Independent. It had too many right wing talking points. Letting the entire auto industry and all the thousands of businesses that support that industry fail would have left this country in a depression so deep, it would take decades to recover. How can anyone not understand this? Is a depression the goal? Perhaps that's why right wing policies have been such a failure. Maybe the perspective is wrong. Maybe bringing down the economy was the goal after all and we just couldn't believe any American would have such an odious goal.

LOL! I assure you I'm not a "Right Winger" but rest assured I am labeled often. I think you misunderstood the point made: The AutoBailout was the correct thing to do. But in order to eliminate the "Too BIg To Fail" factor, Obama should have broken them up. For example, If GM, Cadillac, Buick, Chevy etc... were all seperate companies and one of them was on the verge of closing, that would be much less significant than ALL of GM collapsing. So then, if Buick builds nothing but crappy gas guzzlers that no one wants to buy, they go under - which they should.
In the meantime, the Bail Out is accomplished and the executives are now handed real accountability.

I think there is more imagination than facts being spewed.

 

[Zander]

if the economy is truly the issue, which economy are you referring to then. the actual numbers put forth in terms of GDP or how people perceive the economy to be performing.

econominc growth was near -3% a yeah when he took office. growth is currently close to 3% annually. not a great number but a 6% improvement is huge considering where the economy was going when he came into office.

on the other hand, unemployment has not been significantly lowered. this leads people to have the perception that things are not getting better. with unemployment still around 8% this is a problem for Obama.

the major problem i see with the GOP is that offer no real new solutions to solve the major problems of the country. Newt says he can guarantee $2.50 gas simply by drilling. Romney's, Santorum's and Newts budgets all add to the deficit and debt in large numbers. Paul is the only one who cuts the deficit immediately, but he does so by closing a large amount of US bases abroad and cutting the size of the military in the process. this will lead to a spike in unemployment as all these soldiers transition into the workforce that is already struggling to create jobs.
they produce the same idea of less regulation and lower taxes. the regulations they claim are killing jobs are Dodd Frank, which was a direct result of the financial collapse and put regulations in place to help prevent that, and the Health Care law, which still hasnt even gone into full effect and wont for 2 more years. the most hilarious thing about the ACA is how the GOP wants to replace it. they want to replace it with part of the actual health care law. making high risk pools, allowing insurance to be sold across state lines. they only thing they are against is the Mandate, but when Hillary was trying to pass universal HC in the 90's they were for the mandate. so its a bit hard to take them seriously when they want something, and when they get it, they are now against it. on the issue of taxes, taxes are at the lowest rates since the 50's. how much lower would the GOP like to see taxes go? all the way to 0?
if the GOP has real world solutions the current problems facing the country, such as the education gap between the US and the world. getting rid of our dependance on fossil fuels and moving towards cheap renewable energies, stopping the US from being the world police, the people in the middle would start to listen again. but when the GOP starts to drive out good people like Olympia Snowe, they have much larger problems on their hands.

Thanks for your post.

Personally, I believe Obama will sink or swim based upon the REAL economy. The one where 1 in 4 people are out of work. The one where your neighbors are struggling. The one where Obama is "helping" the working man by cutting the payroll tax, yet allowing gasoline prices to double under his watch....dah!

We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. We have one of the most progressive taxation system in existence. We have too many people not paying anything and too many people collecting money for doing nada.... Reality has to set in at some point.

Republicans need to do four things to win:

1) Repeal Obamacare- we can't afford this clusterfuck
2) Cut Corporate tax rate- we have the highest rate in the world
3) Cut spending
4) Pass a balanced budget amendment

Romney says he is going to do all of those things...

if in fact the GOP does do the 3 of 4 things you listed, things will definitely not improve. if the ACA get repealed, we will within the net 10 years see a huge increase in the amount of people who can not afford access to health care. this in turn will drive up the costs of those who do have health insurance even higher, to cover the costs those who can not afford to pay. soon this will lead to the elimination of insurance, and have all health care services provided on a cash only basis. leaving the wealthy as the only one who will be able to get any real services.

on the corporate tax rate, i think this may be a good thing, but only when it is combined with the elimination of tax breaks to so that corporations such as GE actually pay something on their huge profits.

cutting spending is good in theory, but when one realized that 85% of the budget is consumed by SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense and interest on the debt, cutting spending is not that easy. you would need to cut all the social programs by drastic amounts (which would outrage much of the GOP, since they dont believe that SS and Medicaid are actually government programs) causing many of the people who rely upon those services as their only means to live to be push into the arms of family members or simply put on the street. you will need to increase tax revenues by a large amount in get to the level where we have a balanced budget.

having a balanced budget amendment is good in theory, but not in practice. lets say we had a balanced budget amendment when we invaded iraq and went to war in afghanistan. in order to fund those wars, we would have needed to increase taxes by roughly 10% in order to pay for those wars. since we wouldnt be able to borrow any money to fund those wars, we would have either had to raise taxes significantly or no do them. lets use a natural disaster (such as the tornado in Joplin last year) as another example, had the government not had the ability to borrow money to pay for FEMA to go down there and provide emergency services the people would have had to reply upon private sector donations. or the government would have had to raise funds through higher taxes.

things are not as simple as they seem.
heres a staggering number. if somehow start running a $250B a year surplus, assuming no new interest is incurred on the debt, it would take over 56 years to pay off the current debt. this is not a problem that can be solved overnight, or even within the terms of a single presidency (whether that is 4 or 8 years). this will take the better part of a century to figure out, and with the current political gridlock in washington, we are probably looking even longer

My thoughts....

Fuck ObamaCare. We're going broke. We can't afford another entitlement. I don't care if granny dies....sorry.

We may not be able to cut spending on entitlements but we can FREEZE them. A 5yr spending freeze would increase the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. Yes, a few people will be hurt. Sorry. Life is hard. Deal with it.

Every Corporation that is profitable needs to pay a minimum tax. It is disgraceful that GE (and others) didn't pay anything. We need to simplify the tax code and aggressively collect. Period.

As for the balanced budget amendment- we can always have exceptions - with congressional approval.

I agree - nothing is simple. It will require hard work and committed individuals that care more about the country than they do about reelection...a tall order.

 

[Avatar4321]

I think there is more imagination than facts being spewed.

Well, you would know, you are the one continually spewing propaganda rather than Truth.

 

[Oddball]

The Independent's View: There's No Doubt: Obama is Not a Good President. Why He's Winning Independents Anyway

That wasn't written by an Independent. It had too many right wing talking points. Letting the entire auto industry and all the thousands of businesses that support that industry fail would have left this country in a depression so deep, it would take decades to recover. How can anyone not understand this? Is a depression the goal? Perhaps that's why right wing policies have been such a failure. Maybe the perspective is wrong. Maybe bringing down the economy was the goal after all and we just couldn't believe any American would have such an odious goal.

LOL! I assure you I'm not a "Right Winger" but rest assured I am labeled often. I think you misunderstood the point made: The AutoBailout was the correct thing to do. But in order to eliminate the "Too BIg To Fail" factor, Obama should have broken them up. For example, If GM, Cadillac, Buick, Chevy etc... were all seperate companies and one of them was on the verge of closing, that would be much less significant than ALL of GM collapsing. So then, if Buick builds nothing but crappy gas guzzlers that no one wants to buy, they go under - which they should.
In the meantime, the Bail Out is accomplished and the executives are now handed real accountability.

Oh, so you're just an old school fascist.

So glad we could clear that up.

 

[Dr Grump]

You have no credibility, anyone who poses as a republican but acts like jake starkey you lost any credibility you may have had.

Wow, guy, here's the thing. Jake's candidate is WINNING the nomination. Yours isn't.

I don't have a dog in that fight, but I think it's kind of fallacious for you to claim that Jake represents "not real republicans" when his POV is winning the day right now.

(Hey, and what happened to Jake, anyway?)

Here's the deal. Jake has to support a republican to cover his tracks Jake wants Romney to win the nomination because jake realizes that Romney cannot beat obama, because Romney does not have a united GOP behind him. For Jake supporting Romney is like water falling off the back of a duck.

Who does have the support of the GoP?

 

[Dr Grump]

I hate to inform you but Romney cannot beat obama.

Who then can beat Obama?

Romney. Easily. He's a successful businessman. Obama is a loser who smokes cigarettes, hangs around racists, and looks up to terrorists. It will not be close.

he is the only one who might have a chance, but even that is slim...

 

[Dr Grump]

[The one where Obama is "helping" the working man by cutting the payroll tax, yet allowing gasoline prices to double under his watch....dah!

So you want him to socialise gas production?

Interesting...

 

[IndependntLogic]

That wasn't written by an Independent. It had too many right wing talking points. Letting the entire auto industry and all the thousands of businesses that support that industry fail would have left this country in a depression so deep, it would take decades to recover. How can anyone not understand this? Is a depression the goal? Perhaps that's why right wing policies have been such a failure. Maybe the perspective is wrong. Maybe bringing down the economy was the goal after all and we just couldn't believe any American would have such an odious goal.

LOL! I assure you I'm not a "Right Winger" but rest assured I am labeled often. I think you misunderstood the point made: The AutoBailout was the correct thing to do. But in order to eliminate the "Too BIg To Fail" factor, Obama should have broken them up. For example, If GM, Cadillac, Buick, Chevy etc... were all seperate companies and one of them was on the verge of closing, that would be much less significant than ALL of GM collapsing. So then, if Buick builds nothing but crappy gas guzzlers that no one wants to buy, they go under - which they should.
In the meantime, the Bail Out is accomplished and the executives are now handed real accountability.

I think there is more imagination than facts being spewed.

Well, the Conservatives here often claim you are incapable of a civil and reasonable debate. So which facts do you dispute?
Not ONE Democrat campaigned in the mid-terms on ObamaCare.
The Patriot Act is Bad.
NDAA is worse.
The Bank Bailouts were bad - but could have been better if they had broken up the companies.
The Auto bailouts were godd but could have been better for the same reason above.
Once we got OBL, we should have left Afghanistan.

What facts do you dispute and why?

 

[IndependntLogic]

That wasn't written by an Independent. It had too many right wing talking points. Letting the entire auto industry and all the thousands of businesses that support that industry fail would have left this country in a depression so deep, it would take decades to recover. How can anyone not understand this? Is a depression the goal? Perhaps that's why right wing policies have been such a failure. Maybe the perspective is wrong. Maybe bringing down the economy was the goal after all and we just couldn't believe any American would have such an odious goal.

LOL! I assure you I'm not a "Right Winger" but rest assured I am labeled often. I think you misunderstood the point made: The AutoBailout was the correct thing to do. But in order to eliminate the "Too BIg To Fail" factor, Obama should have broken them up. For example, If GM, Cadillac, Buick, Chevy etc... were all seperate companies and one of them was on the verge of closing, that would be much less significant than ALL of GM collapsing. So then, if Buick builds nothing but crappy gas guzzlers that no one wants to buy, they go under - which they should.
In the meantime, the Bail Out is accomplished and the executives are now handed real accountability.

Oh, so you're just an old school fascist.

So glad we could clear that up.

LOL! Oddball you do love to prove my signature was advice worth heeding. You may now continue posting about the poster for obvious reasons...

Wow, guy, here's the thing. Jake's candidate is WINNING the nomination. Yours isn't.

I don't have a dog in that fight, but I think it's kind of fallacious for you to claim that Jake represents "not real republicans" when his POV is winning the day right now.

(Hey, and what happened to Jake, anyway?)

Here's the deal. Jake has to support a republican to cover his tracks Jake wants Romney to win the nomination because jake realizes that Romney cannot beat obama, because Romney does not have a united GOP behind him. For Jake supporting Romney is like water falling off the back of a duck.

Who does have the support of the GoP?

Who then can beat Obama?

Romney. Easily. He's a successful businessman. Obama is a loser who smokes cigarettes, hangs around racists, and looks up to terrorists. It will not be close.

he is the only one who might have a chance, but even that is slim...

According to every poll but one, Obama leads by +2 - +10 points in the Gen. Election. "In Likeability", Romney bombs for some reason. It's odd. he's a good looking, distinguished and very "presidential" looking guy. So I would expect him to do better.

So to say Obama can "easily" beat Obama is to ignore the facts. Hell, Romney couldn't easily beat Santorum in his home state! That is telling.

 

[Zander]

[The one where Obama is "helping" the working man by cutting the payroll tax, yet allowing gasoline prices to double under his watch....dah!

So you want him to socialise gas production?

Interesting...

What is interesting is that you believe the only way government can effect gasoline prices is by nationalizing.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Wow, guy, here's the thing. Jake's candidate is WINNING the nomination. Yours isn't.

I don't have a dog in that fight, but I think it's kind of fallacious for you to claim that Jake represents "not real republicans" when his POV is winning the day right now.

(Hey, and what happened to Jake, anyway?)

Here's the deal. Jake has to support a republican to cover his tracks Jake wants Romney to win the nomination because jake realizes that Romney cannot beat obama, because Romney does not have a united GOP behind him. For Jake supporting Romney is like water falling off the back of a duck.

Who does have the support of the GoP?

The elite of the GOP support mirror images of obama which is Romney and Newt neither will win because the rest of the GOP does not support them.

 

[Oddball]

LOL! I assure you I'm not a "Right Winger" but rest assured I am labeled often. I think you misunderstood the point made: The AutoBailout was the correct thing to do. But in order to eliminate the "Too BIg To Fail" factor, Obama should have broken them up. For example, If GM, Cadillac, Buick, Chevy etc... were all seperate companies and one of them was on the verge of closing, that would be much less significant than ALL of GM collapsing. So then, if Buick builds nothing but crappy gas guzzlers that no one wants to buy, they go under - which they should.
In the meantime, the Bail Out is accomplished and the executives are now handed real accountability.

Oh, so you're just an old school fascist.

So glad we could clear that up.

LOL! Oddball you do love to prove my signature was advice worth heeding. You may now continue posting about the poster for obvious reasons...

Yes, yes, yes....We get it....Everything is all about you.


And your "plan" for the breakup of GM, incredibly simple minded as it is, remains totally fascist in its approach....Maybe you should have a picture of yourself, speaking to we the peasants from a balcony, for an avatar.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

[The one where Obama is "helping" the working man by cutting the payroll tax, yet allowing gasoline prices to double under his watch....dah!

So you want him to socialise gas production?

Interesting...

What is interesting is that you believe the only way government can effect gasoline prices is by nationalizing.

So what do you think that Obama could do, short of nationalizing the oil industry, to lower gas prices?

 

[IndependntLogic]

So you want him to socialise gas production?

Interesting...

What is interesting is that you believe the only way government can effect gasoline prices is by nationalizing.

So what do you think that Obama could do, short of nationalizing the oil industry, to lower gas prices?

Oil prices are set by Big Oil. Speculators determine the Market Tolerance and Execs and Marketing sell the justification (excuse) for those prices. They did this under Bush and they're doing it now. It wasn't Bush's fault and although Obama's policies have been bad, hello, we're a net exporter of gas. So what could Obama do to eliminate the justification of increased prices?
Let me ask you this: If tomorrow, Obama announced he's opening up offshore drilling, approving Keystone XL and tripling the number of leases available on public land, (I'm leaving ANWAR out as that would hurt him with his Liberal Base) what do you think the effect would be on the price of gas? Big Oil would have a pretty difficult time "speculating" the need for $5 a gallon. It's basically extortion but oh well, that's reality. The price would go down to $3.50ish or even lower within a week.

 

[Azrael]

"Obama is NOT a Good President. So Why Is He Winning With Independents?"

Because he is not a Right Wing Extremist!

 

[IndependntLogic]

Oh, so you're just an old school fascist.

So glad we could clear that up.

LOL! Oddball you do love to prove my signature was advice worth heeding. You may now continue posting about the poster for obvious reasons...

Yes, yes, yes....We get it....Everything is all about you.

And your "plan" for the breakup of GM, incredibly simple minded as it is, remains totally fascist in its approach....Maybe you should have a picture of yourself, speaking to we the peasants from a balcony, for an avatar.

]

You're entertaining! You've posted about me twice in this thread and claim I'm the one making it all about me. Any thoughts on the issues or facts of the OP? See signature

 

[Si modo]

LOL! Oddball you do love to prove my signature was advice worth heeding. You may now continue posting about the poster for obvious reasons...

Yes, yes, yes....We get it....Everything is all about you.

And your "plan" for the breakup of GM, incredibly simple minded as it is, remains totally fascist in its approach....Maybe you should have a picture of yourself, speaking to we the peasants from a balcony, for an avatar.

]

You're entertaining! You've posted about me twice in this thread and claim I'm the one making it all about me. Any thoughts on the issues or facts of the OP? See signature

Well, your desires to have government control of industry certainly goes to the credibility of your opinions about what makes Obama so great.

 

[Oldstyle]

The only effective thing obama has done is LIE. But if you equate failure as being good knock yourself out. Let's see if he run his campaign platform on his job performance this election cycle

Obama cannot run on his record...thus we see the Contraception crap come bubbling to the surface as a diversion...along with his attack on the First Amendment...

Some of us are keeping score.

Google Obama's Accomplishments and he has an entire website with every issue and his achievements. Pretty impressive. Pretty impressive considering the GOP obstructionists. Their main goal is to make Obama a one term president? Really? 4 years ago that was their number one priority? And you think anyones going to fucking reward them for this? Fakes like Romney or Nuts like Santorum? You are so out of touch man. I wish we could divide up the states and let you guys run things your way and we'll run things our way and then you middle class white trash will come crossing our borders for good paying union jobs. Not the house slaves but the field ones. YOU house slaves will always defend your masters. You got it too good.

It's a deal, Bobo...you get California. Have fun...

 

[IndependntLogic]

Yes, yes, yes....We get it....Everything is all about you.

And your "plan" for the breakup of GM, incredibly simple minded as it is, remains totally fascist in its approach....Maybe you should have a picture of yourself, speaking to we the peasants from a balcony, for an avatar.

]

You're entertaining! You've posted about me twice in this thread and claim I'm the one making it all about me. Any thoughts on the issues or facts of the OP? See signature

Well, your desires to have government control of industry certainly goes to the credibility of your opinions about what makes Obama so great.

Your evidence to support your bullshet is what? Ah. Nothing. Got it. Well yes that's you isn't it?
I do not support government control of my business or anyone else's. But it will be entertaining to watch you try to support your BS claim in this regard...