http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/15/us-usa-congress-cliff-idUSBRE89E17U20121015

Romney/Ryan continue to refuse to offer any specifics whatsoever. Until the voter sees how their math adds up, their smoke-and mirrors is a poisoned apple.

They say they want to cut loopholes. Yes! Good idea! Tell me which ones, and how.

R&R say they want to increase tax cuts. Why? Credit is flowing again for entrepreneurs who want to start businesses to do so. We need to balance the budget and pay down the accumulated debt!!!

R&R claim that we need to go rattle our sabers overseas to scare off any bad people. Why? Send the boys home, where they can defend our turf here.

Much as I hate the fiscal ineptitude of democrats, republicans are worse, and renewing Bush II dollar-weakening policies for a 3rd time is ludicrous.

Whine all you want about tax rates, it is both parties’ reckless budgetary policies and brinksmanship that forces the dollar to be weak. That’s a tax on all of us that nobody seems willing to see, and which no republican answers exist. A true fiscal conservative would balance the budget with steep military cuts, cuts to domestic programs, end corporate welfare, eliminate ALL loopholes and deductions, and increase the progressivism of the federal tax code sharply but temporarily — just until the deficit is tackled.

Nothing that either party has trotted out for the past several decades has any budgetary discipline whatsoever, save for the stroke of luck that fell in Clinton’s lap during the late 1990′s tech bubble.

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.”

Your “take” on Obama’s words are just more distortions, more lies, more FUD.
Ubermac – why do you not understand that your divisive actions harm democracy, harm the GOP, and harm America. Your bigoted, racist lies must make your mother really proud of you.

Obama’s recent statement at the UN: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

So he is basically saying, that if you are not a Muslim, you have no future in America.

Because, if you are a Christian, Jew, Hindu, etc. you don’t accept Mohammed as the prophet, which they interpret as slandering their prophet.

Off course the Muslims are free to slander any other religion. Oh not just slander, arrest, kill, rape, mutilate etc.

Have you ever lived in or even visited a country that has a Muslim majority?

You know what happens there to people that are Not Muslims?

Scary shit indeed!

Most Muslims I know, and I know quite a few, believe that this century is the century The Muslims will rule the earth.

That being the case, why do we let them come here to build a bridgehead for their plans?

We don’t need to remember the Japanese internments, we have to remember the Japanese surprise attack on Hawaii.

Yes, I know, not all Muslims want to decapitate every non-believer.

Here’s my point and why the Tech Debate matters not.
Until the fundamentals of our economy are put back in place, it doesn’t make a difference how good the tech companies do because they will eventually be vilified just as coal, oil, pharmaceuticals, the auto industry and Wal-Mart are.

They will then be required to pay their ‘fair-share’ and shrink their profits, not to mention become more ‘green’ and ‘worker-friendly’.
You say ‘but Apple is already ALL of these’…..well, then you haven’t been paying attention. They still must be punished for success, so they must be MORE green, MORE worker friendly, and taxed WAAAY more.

The ripple effects of where our economy and government are heading moots any plans for the tech world.

And to further the simple-minded argument of the video, there are bigger issues to settle than this. Anyone who could possibly be swayed from one candidate to the other because of their stance on tech is a fool. If you moved closer to Romney, then you have ignored all the other crap from Obama. And if you moved closer to Obama, then your precious tech bubble will soon burst regardless…..

“When the ill winds blow, I will always stand with the Muslims.” Barak Obama (in his book, The Audacity of Hope.”)

“Y’all better vote for f–king Obama, OK? For better or for worse, all right? We have a black Muslim in the White House. Now that’s some amazing s–t,”

It amazes me that the banksters that robbed individuals, pension funds, small businesses, government and investors of trillions are not being publicly strung up and paraded in the streets. The bulk of TARP went not to business- it went to the banksters. Add to that the $16 Trillion that Bernanke & Company tossed on the pile without the consent of Congress, the President and tried to cover the whole ting up.

Finally, a consumption tax shifts tax burden from the affluent to the working poor. A working class person spends every cent they make, a middle class person most of what they make and a wealthy person a small portion of what they make.

First let me state categorically that I am neither Dem nor Rep. I am a fiscal conservative.

The REASON that Truman (D) and Eisenhower (R) both had balanced budgets is because prior to LBJ, our leaders did not use the public treasury to buy votes. BOTH sides are guilty of this. The ’60s swept aside fiscal responsibility to “cure” perceived social injustices. There were social injustices, but giving the alleged victims money to assuage white, middle class guilt was the wrong answer. Instead of providing a leg up, the “curative” social programs of the ’60s created a dependent class, and a political class that used public funds (its illegal to use private funds) to buy votes.

Our dysfunctional government isn’t a Dem (although I give them more credit for it), or a Rep problem. It is an electorate problem.

The electorate (using the power of the vote) has consistently voted for lower taxes for the largest voting block in existence (middle class and below), while electing leaders that pay the individual’s bills. Min a nutshell, our political debate has eroded to class warfare, fostered by ambitious, immoral politicians.

The ONLY way to counter this is to remove the ability of politicians to favor one class over another, and to foster a tax system that cannot be manipulated for political gain, and fosters economic growth. The only tax system that does that, is a tax on consumption vs the current taxation of production. This is the “secret” weapon used by our Asian trading partners to lower their cost of production. Anybody that would disagree, does so because they have a vested (political) interested in maintainiing the status quo.

The tech debate is vital. The only place America is still leading in creativity and establishing new ventures is within the technology sphere, and quite frankly I’m tired of seeing pictures of politicians using an iPhone to supposedly represent how “tech savvy” they are. OMG! Obama has a FaceBook page. He must be soooo smart.

Of both of the two statements above, the Romney one was more substantive. The Obama one was the typical hot air mixed with self congratulatory claptrap. The Romney one was the typical, “Yes this must be done, but don’t ask me how” crap you get from the Republicans.

Either way nothing was stated that either candidate could be held accountable for.

Yes, the JWST is negatively impacting other science missions. It is too valuable a mission and too far along in its development to cut at this point unless everyone wanted to waste $3B or more. But F10T12 reveals his ignorance when attempting to disparage the President using a financial argument based on the James Webb Space Telescope. JWST began as the Hubble successor called Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) in 1996. It was renamed JWST in 2002 (during the Bush administration). So the Bush administration presided over much of the cost overrun in question and set the stage for the difficult NASA budget decisions currently being made. If it were up to me, I would take $10B or more out of the military budget and reinvigorate NASA with a major space exploration mission agenda. But, for some reason, we need to spend $560B a year to preserve our safety. I felt safer in the mid-1990s when U.S. defense spending was less than half of what it is today.

Gov’t does a few things well. Space was one of them, back before we decided to build a low orbit bus and stop shooting for the stars (literally).

Obama blew some $528 million on Solyndra (run by Obama supporter, George Kaiser; read as: “kickback”). The Empty Chair cut NASA by $300 million. What if Mr. Vacant Seating had simply kept NASA’s budget where it was and added that $528 million to their budget?

Apple succeeds where others fail because Apple invests in its products. Other companies fail because they don’t want to and therefore can’t compete. If government was the problem, Apple and other companies would not be so successful. So the problem isn’t government or taxes.

Some countries have much higher taxes than the U.S. but they are also flourishing, well educated, and prospering societies.Taxes isn’t a problem, it just has been politically demonized in the U.S.

Simple minded people tend to believe what a particular political group says. What about thinking for yourself? What about thinking for your country?

I’m not taking a political side but I am taking an American side that says, “America first.” The republicans have to stop being haters and opposing everything the president does. Obama is a very smart president who cares a lot about his country. The republicans have been guilty of feeding the rich for too long but they represent a corporate side of America that this of value. They shouldn’t try to shut down social programs but instead help fund it and help educate people. They have to come up with real solutions to common problems and make them understandable not just to them but to the country.

The democrats have to make a case for social programs because these programs are the glue that keeps people happy in this country. Social programs where great decades ago but have been eroded by political nonsense.

I think there is a lot for the 2 sides to work on. Instead of working together, they are helping pull this country apart over nothing more than silly politics. This country is at its best when people come together.

Evaluate your words and see how it helps or if it simply adds more political BS.

Re- the article above:
For all my life, Republicans- especially those claiming to be conservative- claim that the government does not create jobs other than government jobs. Now, Willard “Mitt” RobbedMe and Math and Fact-Challenged Paul Ryan claim that they can create 12.5 million new jobs.

For all the Republican bullshit regarding economics, there are some simple facts. Since the end of World War II the economy has done these things under Democratic Presidents:
1- Creation of more jobs.
2- Creation of more personal wealth.
3- Overall greater economic growth.

Under Republicans it has been significantly less. They also seem incapable of balancing a budget.

Truman had some balanced budgets.
Eisenhower had some balanced budgets.
Johnson’s final FY 1969 (start Oct 1968) was balanced.
Clinton had balanced budgets.

Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2 NEVER balanced a budget.

BTW- Kennedy, a Democrat whom Republicans always bring up as having a model tax cut, never balanced a budget.

PS- A large reason Obama’s deficits are so large is that, unlike Bush, he put Iraq and Afghanistan on the budget instead of funding it with supplementals.

Those are the facts.

And F10T12, the government should be spending money on space exploration–really? With the feds borrowing $0.40 of every dollar they spend and maintaining annual deficits over $1T, we need to look for more places to stop spending money. Spending on NASA has many benefits, but let’s get our financial house in order first.