"Face the Nation" transcripts, September 9, 2012: Obama, Ryan, Plouffe

O'DONNELL: Now there will be more of Scott's interview with President Obama all this week on the CBS Evening News and Scoot will be back later in the broadcast for a preview of tonight's 60 Minutes.

But for reaction to President Obama, we talked to Congressman Paul Ryan from a campaign stop in Fresno, California.

Congressman, thanks for joining us.

RYAN: Good to be with you, Norah.

O'DONNELL: You heard the president say it, he said he is more than happy to work with Republicans. Are you more than happy to work with him?

RYAN: Well, I have been more happy to work with him, but he hasn't been acting like that.

You know, what we've learned in this presidency, he says one thing and does another.

He gave us four budget, Norah, each of which had trillion dollar deficits, none of which ever, ever proposed to actually balance the budget.

His allies in the Senate haven't even given us a budget for three years. So we've passed budgets, we've led.

Mitt Romney and I have offered a specific plan to prevent a debt crisis, to save Medicare and Social Security, to create jobs, to get us growing again.

It's a five point plan for a stronger middle class which is aimed to get us out of this weak recovery we have and get us back to growing our economy like we ought to.

We got a troubling jobs report on Friday, Norah, that said for everybody who got a job, nearly four people stopped looking for a job. This isn't working.

O'DONNELL: Let me...

RYAN: President Obama's rhetoric to the side, it's just not working and that's why we're offering the country a better choice.

O'DONNELL: Well, let me ask you about that better choice, that specific plan that you mentioned. You and Mitt Romney are proposing $5 trillion in tax cuts, you're proposing to increase defense spending by $2 trillion. Explain to me how that adds up and you can cut the deficit?

RYAN: Neither of those are accurate, number one.

Number two, we're talking about revenue neutral tax reform, meaning not losing revenue but changing the way we raise revenue by plugging loopholes and tax shelters that are uniquely enjoyed by higher income earners so that more of their income is subject to taxation so that we can lower tax rates for everybody, family, small businesses, get the economic growth creation.

You know, there's some Democrats who agree with us on this kind of approach to tax reform, unfortunately, it's not President Obama. He's been on the outside looking in on this for a long time.

He's proposing to put a new high tax rate on successful small businesses on top of the current tax code and add even more complexity to the tax code...

O'DONNELL: You're saying that tax (inaudible) Obama Care?

(CROSSTALK)

O'DONNELL: That's what you mean by the tax on (inaudible).

RYAN: Well, no, I was talking about the tax he mentioned in his -- that clip that you just played for me, that particular tax increase that he's talking about pays for about 8 percent of his proposed deficit spending.

If you had all of his tax increases, like the Obama Care tax you're talking about, in everyone, they don't even pay for a fifth of his proposed deficit spending.

O'DONNELL: The Tax Policy Center has done an analysis and they say there is no way to pay for the cuts that you've proposed without either increasing the deficit or raising taxes on the middle class because you would have to get rid of deductions and loopholes that benefit the middle class in order to pay for those tax cuts that you're proposing and that increase in defense spending.

RYAN: So the good news for us, Norah, is they didn't actually analyze the Romney Plan. There are five other studies that have. What...

O'DONNELL: There isn't a Romney Plan that's been specific about which deductions and loopholes he's -- will close.

RYAN: Right, so let -- let me -- let me address that.

So one study from Princeton just said that we can accomplish exactly what we're saying to accomplish which is broaden the base, lower rates.

What -- what I mean when I say that is, it's not what loopholes are out there, but who gets them. And we're saying by not having higher income earners utilize these tax shelters, we can lower tax rates on everybody because they pay more of their income to taxation.

Here's the other issue, Norah. We don't want to do this in a backroom deal kind of a way like Obama Care was done.

We want to have a debate out in front, work with Congress, work with the public to find out what are the priorities we want to have in the tax system. And what the numbers do who and what studies back us up is that we can lower tax rates by plugging loopholes and still maintain special preferences from middle class taxpayers, not for higher incomes taxpayers, though.

That's what we want to do, but we don't want to say our way or the highway. What we learned from our experience, my working with Democrats and Congress, Mitt Romney as governor of a Democratic state is that you don't say, here's my plan, take it or leave it, you say here are the outlines of my plan for job creation and economy growth.

O'DONNELL: Let's talk about some of the cuts that have been agreed to. Mitt Romney said in an interview on NBC that Republicans were wrong to agree to a deal last summer that included automatic cuts to defense spending in exchange for this agreement to raise the debt ceiling. He said it was big mistake by Republicans.

He's talking about you because you voted for those cuts, correct?

RYAN: I did, you know why I voted for it? Because I was working to find common ground with Democrats to get a down payment on deficit reduction.

I worked with President Obama to find common ground to get a down payment on deficit reduction. It wasn't a big down payment but it was a step in the right direction.

Here's the issue, Bob Woodward just wrote this in his book, the devastating defense cuts that are now coming due were insisted upon by the Obama Administration so that they would not have to face another debt ceiling increase before the election.

O'DONNELL: But Congressman, that's...

RYAN: That's putting -- that's putting -- that's putting politics out of national security.

More to the point, Norah, I authored the bill, brought it to the floor, and passed it to prevent the president's irresponsible, devastating defense cuts from occurring by cutting wasteful Washington spending in other areas of government to replace these defense cuts.

O'DONNELL: Congressman, these defense cuts are part of the Budget Control Act. You voted for the Budget Control Act. In fact I went and looked, you put on the a statement at the time it was passed and you called it a victory, and you called it a positive step forward.

So, you voted for defense cuts. And now you're criticizing the president for those same defense cuts that you voted for and called a victory.

RYAN: No, no, I have to correct you on this, Norah. I voted for a mechanism that says a sequester will occur if we don't cut $1.2 trillion spending in government. We offered $1.2 trillion in various -- the super committee offered it. We passed in the House a bill to prevent those devastating defense cuts by cutting spending elsewhere. The senate's done nothing. President Obama's done nothing.

I wrote another bill, passed it, got signed into law, Democrats supported us, President Obama If he is not going to help us with a plan to prevent those defense cuts by substituting them from elsewhere, what's his plan for the sequester? He's ignoring the law. He was supposed to give these to us yesterday.

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[littlehouse18]

Paul Ryan knocked it out of the park! He did a fantastic job shooting down the obviously partisan and misleading questions from O'Donnell, and explaining what is really going on. We need this man as our leader! After gaining experience as VP he would be a truly great president. A rarity in politics - both brilliant and sincere.

[sjc_1]

OMG, are you brain damaged? Ryan contradicted himself over and over. He thinks talking in circles will get him elected. He is NOT the person to be in public office at the national level.

[theZengerite]

Wow! The biggest story in the country is the minuscule job growth for August, and there isn't one mention of it in sixty minutes of Face The Nation. 96,000 jobs added to the economy for the month is the payoff for the Keynesian policies of the Obama administation.
The DNC claims that 4.5 million jobs have been added to the economy in the last 29 months. If that number is put up against the population growth in the U.S., which will excede 9 million by election day (bls.gov statistics), that 4.5 million is puny. This comparison, of course, leaves out the about 8 million jobs that were lost during the Great Recession; left out the way that the lackey liberal media is leaving them out. The plight of the unemployed is being ignored by America's mainstream media.
Americans aren't buying their slanted "news" stories anymore (literally), and they are quickly becoming "old news".

[runnerbp]

Wow! A news person asking for a candidate to explain why he is lying about his voting record. You're complaining Sir??? So what would Paul Ryan say about creating jobs? He'd tell you a fantasy number like 12 million new jobs but will NEVER tell you what pain and sacrifice would be required using any thing that looks like a number.

[sjc_1]

The only way Romney could create jobs is to get President Obama's jobs proposal from September 2011 passed by Congress. Economists say it would create 2 million new jobs.

[TRV2009]

"Both ends of the Republican ticket defended the math underlying their economic proposals in interviews aired Sunday, insisting that cutting taxes for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes will spur economic growth" is unreal. Here is my analysis:

Ryan-Romney can't answer to this question: Name any part of deduction which should be eliminated, and where is the evidence that Ryan-Romney's tax loopholes for the rich would cut the deficit?

It's funny that Ryan- Romney said that some people from Harvard, Columbia,...said that. The fact is that any university has decent people and also has crooked politicians.

As an independent I can't believe in what they said.

[Rabbitofthehighplains]

The most critical issue facing the the US and the West today is the ongoing program of genocide being carried out against White people. This program is being carried out as follows:

1) Immigrants from the "developing world" are flooded into the West.

2) These immigrants and any national minorities are then forced integrated with the White populations, communities, and institutions. This is made law by removing freedom of association, creating affirmative action and requiring racial quotas. Whites who wish to move from these dangerous, integrated communities are forced to live in expensive suburban or exurban areas (which will be forced integrated over time anyway) which makes having large families difficult. Anyone who objects to this is denied economic opportunities, status, and in some cases freedom itself.

3) An information campaign is implemented which demonizes Western culture and history. The old myths that helped form the identities of the West are replaced with new mythologies that make Whites into enemies of humanity and non-whites (like MLK) as morally superior heroes. People who oppose mass immigration and forced integration are portrayed as mentally ill, evil, and lacking positive human qualities. Miscegenation is encouraged and glorified. The people of the West are constantly reminded of the inevitable brown future and that anything short of celebrating this makes you a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.

This system leads to the end of the White-European people.

Article 2 of the UN convention on Genocide:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

All other issues are subordinate to the biggest program of genocide ever carried out.

So called "anti-racism" is really just a code word for anti-White.

[TRV2009]

Sixth, the Obama Administration's average national debt is $1.4 trillion, which is exactly the what the patriot millionaires and billionaires can take of under Obama's plan. Moreover, taxes on the middle class and more generally those with income less than $1 million, corporate taxes, sale taxes. and fraud prevention may contribute about $1 trillion to the government revenues. Furthermore, the war in the Middle East may recently cost about $ 300 billion per year. Under Obama's troop withdrawal the government may have savings in the neighborhood of $ 300 billion per year.
It's indeed a feasible economic solution for the agenda of balancing the budget and gradually paying off the debt.

Seventh, due to the increasing government, the Obama Administration will be able to provide more stimulus plans to boost the economy. As soon as the economy is boosted, unemployment will be reduced, and millionaires will enjoy the increases in their income as well as their safety from crimes.

Eight, Obama's tax plan prevents the dangerous scenario of Congress's austerity agenda. The IMF's Christine Lagarde, the World Bank's Robert Zoellick, and the WTO's Pascal Lamy have the same economic viewpoint: Focus on policies which strengthen growth, employment, and the quality of life in every part of the world. Extreme austerity leads to a lack of demand and hence less supply; consequently more unemployment and slow growth. Austerity also means less quality of life. The economic austerity in Greece is a good lesson. Recently in Europe, spending is now preferred to austerity.
The greatest concern of austerity is a reversal of the current trend of economic recovery, which could result in an economic "Armageddon."

Indeed Obama's tax plan will work the best for the country, there is no question about it.

Perhaps Ryan has no clue about what he was talking about.

Here is my analysis: Romney-Ryan's taxing plan will increase tax burden on 98% of Americans-middle class and low income class. Why? Romney wants to increase military budget but reducing the government revenues by his income taxing plan. This contradicts with the mathematical equation. Romney's Governor Record will reveal what he will do to raise the government revenue if he would be the President.

"In fact, Romney increased taxes by $309 million, mainly on corporations. These tax hikes, described by Romney apologists as loophole closures, totaled $128 million in 2003, $95.5 in 2004, and $85 million in 2005. That final year, Romney proposed $170 million in higher business taxes, the Boston Globe reports. However, the Bay State's liberal, Democratic legislature balked and only approved an $85 million increase.

Tax rates on many corporations almost doubled because of legislation supported by Romney, Boston Science Corporation chairman Peter Nicholas explained in Jan. 6, 2008's Boston Herald. Also, from 5.3 to 9.8 percent, Romney raised the tax on subchapter S corporations owned by business trusts, an 85 percent hike. Romney went further than any other governor in trying to wring money out of corporations, the Council on State Taxation's Joseph Crosby complained.

Romney also created or increased fees by $432 million. He was not dragooned into this by greedy Democratic lawmakers; Romney himself proposed these items. In 2003 alone, Romney concocted or boosted 88 fees. Romney charged more for marriage licenses (from $6 to $12), gun registrations (from $25 to $75), a used-car sales tax ($10 million), gasoline deliveries ($60 million), real-estate transfers ($175 million), and more. Particularly obnoxious was Romney's $10 fee per Certificate of Blindness. Romney also billed blind people $15 each for discount-travel ID cards.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120106/OPINION02/701069993

Do not believe in what one says but believe in what one has done.

[TRV2009]

Second, it is true that 'Increasing the income tax rate on millionaires would hurt the economy because they are job creators' ?
The fact is that millionaires froze billions of dollars in banks from 2008 to now, but the economy has recovered gradually and the rate of national unemployment has been reduced significantly from 12.5% on Dec, 2008 to 8.2% today.

Third, there is a strong possibility that the rate of unemployment could be as low as 7% had the Obama administration not been faced with at least five factors to impede Obama's economic agenda: It took almost three years to stop the free falling of the severe economic recession in 2008, the economic and political ideology of Congress, the economic turmoil in Europe - the largest economic domain in the world- economic competition with the second economic power, China, and the limitations of presidential economic budget power due to Article I, section 9, clause 7 of The Constitution of the United States and Article I, section 5, clause 2: Congress is the authority to determine the rules governing its procedures.

Fourth, the basic principles for a balanced budget and the gradual repayment of debt are that the government's revenue must be greater than its expenditures and we must have a strategy for economic growth. Indeed, the goal of raising the tax bracket for those with income over $250,000 is to raise government revenue, a critical agenda to boost the economy; as long as the economy strengthens, there is a chance to balance the budget, pay off the debt gradually, reduce unemployment, protect our national security, and continue to maintain our position in the world. Obama's plan is clear, a combination of reducing taxes for those with income below $250,000, reducing spending, and raising taxes for wealthy people. Romney and Ryan think that reducing taxes will result in economic growth and increase the government revenue due to tax payers. The reality check can't back up Ryan's, Rublicans's and Romney's stance, based on facts from the IRS. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or poor people. The bottom 20 percent paid no taxes and the government had to pay to them, the next bracket from 21% to 40% ($16,961 to $33,870) paid only 2.8% of the total government income tax revenue, the next bracket from 41% to 60% ($33,871 to $59,154) paid only 9.9%, the next tax bracket from 61% to 80% ($59,155 to $103,428) paid a modest 18.7%, finally the top 20 percent of tax payers contributed a whopping 68 percent to the total revenues.

Assume that the US has approximately 236,882 millionaires and billionaires. Assume that their average gross income is 20 million US$, the highest tax rate for millionaires is 40% and at least they have to pay 30% of their adjusted gross income, then they will contribute the significant amount of $1.4 trillion for the government revenues. Ninety nine percent of Americans must salute and appreciate all millionaires and billionaires - they are good for the country.

Fifth, ironically on "Face the Nation" Sunday, Pawlenty said "Romney has provided some specifics: "He called for a 20 percent reduction across the board on individual income tax rates and for small businesses. He's been specific about his tax cuts for corporate tax rates now in America, some of the highest in the world."

According the nonpartisan Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, the cumulative decrease in income tax rates will be reduced to 20% with Romney's income tax plan:
The current rate of 10% will be reduced to 8%, 15% will be reduced to 12%, 25% will be reduced to 20%, 28% will be reduced to 22.4%, 33% will be reduced to 26.4%, and 35% will be reduced to 28% . Is it a feasible solution to reducing the deficit? Is it questionable to decrease the tax rate for millionaires? http://taxpolicycenter.org/taxtopics/romney-plan.cfm .

Based on Romney's and Ryan's tax cut plan for millionaires, a billionaire with annual income of $1 billion may save $150 million per year with the assumption he or she only pays a 20% tax rate after many loophole deductions. It sounds good to billionaires and therefore it could be a catalyst for the wealthy to financially support the Romne-Ryan campaign.

[TRV2009]

Taxing Issue

"With tax fairness and regulatory reform, we'll put government back on the side of the men and women who create jobs, and the men and women who need jobs. ", Ryan claimed.

Fact check:

President Obama wants to extend current, lower rates for 98 percent of Americans — individuals earning $200,000 a year or less and families making $250,000 or less (this encompasses the middle class and the poor), but increasing the tax rate on incomes above $ 250,000. On the other hand, the Republicans, Ryan and Mr. Romney want to extend tax cuts for everybody - including millionaires. Perhaps they even want to decrease the tax rate for millionaires.

Which idea is feasible in terms of boosting the economy, balancing the budget and reducing the national debt?

First, the basis of our tax system is Progressive Tax Theory; the more one earns, the higher their tax bracket is. The basic concept of Laffer Curve Theory is if the tax bracket is too high or too low, then government revenue will be two low . Therefore the optimum tax bracket is simply the maximum of the Laffer curve. Unfortunately the Laffer Curve cannot define the optimum point. Indeed the Laffer Curve is a very poor and undefined mathematical model - it would never stand up to serious mathematical analysis. Therefore it is very controversial. For instance, people have come up with many different curves, and many different optimal points.

Actually Reagan, Bushes and current Republican Congressmen have used this theory to try to boost the economy when they thought that the optimum tax rate is about 30% or 35%. In fact, the Laffer Curve may have the optimum point at 50% if the Laffer curve is a parabola. President Dwight Eisenhower's highest tax rate is 91% and the economy did not stop growing. From 1954 to 1963, the top tax rate is 91%, then it was reduced from 77% to 70% from 1964 to 1980. President Reagan reduced it further from 50% in 1982 to the lowest tax rate of 28%.

Today the US has the lowest top tax rate -35%- compared with many developed countries where the top tax rate varies from 40% to Denmark's 62.28%. Perhaps the top rate of the world is France's 75%, which Hollande proposed the following during his campaign. History of the national debt may prove that the optimum tax bracket is higher than 50%. Consequently, President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) inherited roughly 908 billion US$ in debt and took it up to 2.6 trillion US$ after 8 years; an increase of 186%. President Bill Clinton (1993-2001): Took Bush's 4.2 trillion US$ up to 5.7 trillion US$, a 36% increase. President George W. Bush (2001-2009) inherited Clinton's 5.7 trillion US$ and ended with 10.6 trillion US$, an 86% increase. Recently, President Barack Obama (2009-2012): So far, has taken Bush's 10.6 trillion US$ up to 16.2 trillion US$ at the end of 2012 (as projected) an increase of 53%.

[TRV2009]

Third, "It went to companies like Solyndra, with their gold-plated connections, subsidized jobs, and make-believe markets. The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare, and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal. ", Ryan claimed.

Fact check:

Obama invested 40 billion in cleaning energy in 2009. The truth is we lost $535 million dollar from Solyndra bankruptcy in 2011, that is only 1.3% of $40 billion.
Many countries invested in cleaning energy more that one decade ago. China invested more than $40 billion with cheap labor and sold the product with cheaper. That is the the critical reason for Solyndra' bankruptcy. Another reason clean energy project is based on the assumption that the price of natural gas may come to rise; it's not true.

It is not the matter of picking winners or losers but making strategic investments for the country "on behalf of the American people. President Bush, Congress and business company knew that; Goldman financed $4.8 billion and co-invested more than $500 million in 2011.

Did Obama have any political motive? Republicans have pounced on the Solyndra bankruptcy, raising questions about President Obama's green agenda and alleging that politics played a role in the approval of the loan guarantee. The committee's investigation — which has uncovered more than 80,000 pages of administration documents — has found no evidence that the decisions to approve the loan guarantee and restructure the financing in February were influenced by politics.
The Obama administration on Thursday May 21, 2012 ordered tariffs of 31 percent and higher on solar panels imported from China following a determination that China is flooding the U.S. market with underpriced panels.Those measures follow the U.S. Commerce Department's duties of 2.9 to 4.7 percent imposed in March on Chinese solar panel imports for illegal subsidies.

Fourth, "We need to stop spending money we don't have. " Ryan claimed.

Fact check

Ryan needs to know that due to the economic policy of Republican Congress and Ryan, the Obama Administration has been cutting the 2011 budget to the bone. Ryan should read this blog of Paul Krugman, an economic Nobel Prize winner:

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/05/12066975-giving-new-meaning-to-reckless-spending
That is the reason the unemployment rate is decreasing slowly; a justification for Obama's stance that further spending cuts without steps to increase tax revenues will hurt consumers. Moreover, the 2011 Budget Control Act which includes across-the-board spending cuts, to all federal departments in 2013 is a possible national economic disaster if Congress can't design and pass a budget that more specifically outlines spending cuts totalling $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years.

Fifth, Can Ryan deal with this critique?

"...In short, Mr. Ryan's plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn't pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation's fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons."

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/14/687561/reagan-ryan-budget-fairy-tale/

[TRV2009]

Economy Issue

First, "The first troubling sign came with the stimulus. It was President Obama's first and best shot at fixing the economy, at a time when he got everything he wanted under one-party rule. It cost $831 billion - the largest one-time expenditure ever by our federal government. ", Ryan claimed

Fact check:

Obama's stimulus plan:

- The funds were disbursed as follows: $288 billion in tax cuts; $224 billion in extended unemployment benefits, education and health care; $275 billion for job creation, States received $54 billion to avoid teacher layoffs, $54 billion went to small businesses in the form of tax deductions, credits and loan guarantees.

- The Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 8,000 at the beginning of 2009. By the time most of the stimulus funds had been spent, the Dow had climbed to 11,600 in 2009. Of course there are many other factors.

-The Obama Administration has added about 4.2 million jobs which were lost on his watch in just over two years. Unfortunately, this was was not enough because so many jobs were lost in a severe recession starting in 2008. Furthermore, starting in 2008, companies started to send jobs over-seas and still received tax breaks. The ironic fact is few voters know these facts, instead they rely on false political slogans during the 2012 Presidential campaign.

-General Motors earned a record $7.6 billion profit last year, the highest profit in the company's 103-year history. It sold 640,000 more cars and trucks in 2011 than it did in 2010 and took in a total of $105 billion.

-Jeremy Anwyl, vice chairman of Edmunds.com, said while he is buying GM's immediate success, he is not sold on the company's future.

-To date, GM has paid back $26 billion of the $49.5 billion bailout and U.S. taxpayers still own 30 percent of the company in stock.

-For the workers at GM's plant in Lake Orion, Mich., this GM is much better than the GM that halted production there in 2009. Today, the plant is up and running, turning out 800 cars a day and employing 2,200 people.

-GM says 47,500 blue collar workers, many of whom took pay cuts of up to 40 percent and cuts in benefits as part of the bailout, learned today that they are receiving profit-sharing checks of up to $7,000.

-GM employee Doreen Stover said her check is already spent.

"We get caught up on some bills - and get my new GM vehicle," she said.

Second, " Right now, 23 million men and women are struggling to find work. Twenty-three million people, unemployed or underemployed." is just Ryan's political slogan.

Fact check:

There are many factors contributing to 8.1% unemployment in August: There are about 3 million high school graduates and about 3 million college graduates this year, honorable military discharges, political deadlock, ....

There are at least five factors to impede Obama's economic agenda: It took almost three years to stop the free falling of the severe economic recession in 2008, the economic and political ideology of Congress, the economic turmoil in Europe - the largest economic domain in the world- economic competition with the second economic power, China, and the limitations of presidential economic budget power due to Article I, section 9, clause 7 of The Constitution of the United States and Article I, section 5, clause 2: Congress is the authority to determine the rules governing its procedures.

Many more critical factors which explain the Obama deficit number, such as the cost of funding wars and anti-terror operations, the burden of debt interest-about $300 billion per year-, the international financial crisis, $100 billion per year from Bush tax cuts, the top tax rate is low -35%- compared with high tax rates during the first five years of Reagan's Administration -from 69.13% to 50%

The fact is the Bush Administration did not deal with current complex economic situations such as the economic turmoil in Europe and our economic strategic competitor, China. Specifically, it is a logical fallacy to use historical facts to make a negative judgement about the current slow economic recovery. This assertion also somewhat justifies increasing the debt about 5.4 trillion US$ from 2009 to 2012; perhaps the cost of war would be close to $1.2 trillion during 4 years, the Obama burden of debt interest per year is about $300 billion, the Bush Tax Cuts resulted a reduction of the government revenue from about $60 billion per year to about $100 billion, and Obama's burden of about $750 billion in 2009 to deal with the Bush housing bubble.

Finally, where is Obama's Job Act in 2011? Why did Ryan and Republican Congress still hold it on their desk?

[TRV2009]

Comment about Ryan's Speech on 08-29-2012


Health care issue
First, there are more compelling facts to prove that Ryan and Romney are wrong on the health care issue when he said "we can repeal Obamacare. Ryan's claim "no one over the age of 55 would be affected in any way" contradicts the principle of Medicare law and confirms Ryan's limited knowledge of the real law: "Medicare is a national insurance administrated by the U.S. federal government since 1965. As a social insurance program, Medicare spreads the financial risk associated with illness across society to protect everyone, and thus has a somewhat different social role from private insurers, which must manage their risk portfolio to guarantee their own solvency" ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_%28United_States%29

Moreover, it also shows Ryan's limited knowledge of macroeconomics. The first essential principle of Medicare is that the insured pool of all workers and employers have an obligation to contribute to it. The Medicare trust fund pays to retired seniors. The principle of a balanced Medicare pool is that the contributions must be greater than or equal to the expenses. If anyone under 55 years old does not participate in this insured pool, then the insured Medicare pool will be unbalanced, resulting in a lack of premium contributions and full of unhealthy insurers; that will be a killer for our current lawful Medicare system.

Consequently the Seniors may loose the Medicare benefits. Indeed, Ryan's plan of "turning Medicare into a voucher program." justifies what the President said: The poor and Middle class seniors would lose the Medicare benefits.

Some narrow minded conservatives were excited with Ryan's arguments because they forget the nature of Medicare law and the principle of management.

Second, Romney and Ryan do not consider many variables when stating their beliefs " the combination of competition and consumer cost-sharing will help hold down the cost of the program.". The true nature of our free-enterprise system is a combination of market competition, business behaviors, doctor fees, the efficiency of the hospital,... One more critical variable is the difference between the goal of business and the goal of government. The goal of business is to maximize its profit, while the government's goal is to maximize benefits to citizens and to facilitate fair and honest competition; Obamacare is one example.

On several occasions during the health care reform debate, President Obama said "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." . This is the truth about Obamacare, a universal health care system which balances government regulation and free enterprise, as private insurance companies can participate and compete in the free market.

People will have many choices to choose their medical insurance, through business or through the government, but the government organized Medicare program prevents businesses from unjustified increases in premiums which could hurt citizens. The big problem is that Ryan's plan disbands the legitimate government Medicare program, so citizens would only have businesses to chose from. That is the main reason for the President's claim that the Romney-Ryan plan would cost seniors an additional $6,600.

Third, the true fact is that the Medicare trust fund is the safest way to guarantee health care for seniors. On the other hand, relying on private insured companies is risky due to the nature of our free-enterprise system. Who will take care of people who put the Medicare premium in private insurance when they lose their premium due to the free market risk?
The government has an obligation to take care of them in that scenario; this would be a disaster for our economy and our national security.