Seems he's closer to the truth than our current leader can muster. At least we know clearly, without a doubt, what this team's educational background is, their work background, the citizenship... none of their records are 'sealed'. As far as I am concerned, anyone who has that much to hide (referring to B.O.), cannot be trusted to tell the truth on anything...and in this case, his record speaks for itself.

Seems to me I've seen similiar articles about Obama/Biden and how they like to distort and lie too. Maybe you should do a similar check with those two as well.

Well, I just went to the link. What a totally useless article. Here is their "Pants on Fire" (i.e. incredibly false) example: "Government’s size: Ryan in April 2012 said Obama had doubled the size of government, but out-of-date budget data he cited didn’t show a doubling of federal spending." First of all, if the budget data was out-of-date, one can assume it only got worse, since the government under this administration just continues to bloat. Where are THERE figures to disprove what Ryan said? All this is is a he said, he said. Secondly, when I hear someone say that the SIZE of government has doubled, that doesn't necessarily equate perfectly to a doubling of budget. Again, no stats. So what is their margin of error for claiming the statement is false? I can't make any analysis of what is written in this article, because given the lack of documentation, I can't give it any more than a "half true".

Sorry - that should have been "where are THEIR figures". I'm typing too fast!

How can one trust a person that was elected to the office and runs this country as a dictator utilizing executive orders to implement what he wants with out letting our elected congressional leaders decide our laws? I can't recall the last time our current President actually was able to be truthful about the actual unemployment level or take responsibility for placing this country in danger of becoming bankrupt!

See http://www.factcheck.org/ for much a much more reliable catalog of lies and misrepresentations by both sides. It is a non-partisan and non-profit site. Campaign summary at http://factcheck.org/2012/07/whoppers-of-2012-early-edition/ (I particularly like their gutting Obama's ridiculous claims on job creation.)

@ Jim. No, actually, it's more likely he was born here but claimed a Kenyan birth when applying to Columbia, whether it was to assure his admittance or get financial aid. As far as faith, have no clue and don't care. But, he does have questionable associates in his past.

Born in Hawaii, went to school where ? Who knows ! Romney should make a deal with B.O., release your college transcripts, let your birth certificate be authenticated and I will give you two more years of my taxes. And lastly, Obama is a Muslim, ain't no doubt about it.

I don't care where Obama was born, but I would like to see some evidence that he has ever taken an economics class.

Wait until either Romney or Ryan get stuck in front of questioners who ask questions about the details of their plans (non-existant) or their record of supporting "personhood" initiatives, ala Akin. They can only continue to hide just so long. And then the debates - wouldn't be surprised to find would be Emperor Romney refusing to participate in any debates, with his Sidekick Ryan, ducking and dodging questions about his love of Ayn Rand and hatred of women controlling their bodies. After all his legislative history marks him kin to Akin. When that reality seeps into the general populace, Romney/Ryan sinks like a stone. On Jupiter.

Let me answer that Bryce.

Currently, there is a segment of the population that loves to proclaim that the wealthy are "Taxed Enough Already". And they then use that statement as justification for their opposition to any tax increases on the wealthy.

So the TEA Party Republicans have made this an issue by taking that position. Most rational people aren't going to take their word that the wealthy are "Taxed Enough Already", when their is a wealthy individual running for President, and whose single year of tax returns that we have seen show that he pays a lower tax rate than most middle class families. Furthermore, the only tax return we've seen also shows that if Paul Ryan's budget had been enacted, Mitt Romney would be paying a tax rate below 1%.

If one side wants to claim that Mitt Romney is "Taxed Enough Already", then let's look at how he is taxed, and we can have that discussion. But you can't claim that Mitt Romney is "Taxed Enough Already" while simultaneously saying that how much he pays in taxes is none of our business.

Jordan, your answer is misleading and you know it. Investment income is taxed at a different rate than direct income is. This is done (by the federal government) to encourage investment that drives the economy and creates jobs. The vast majority of Mitt Romney's current income comes from investments he has made with direct income dollars he earned (and paid full taxes on) in prior years.

Now, would you like to talk about the amount of money he had donated to charity over the years? Money he gave of his own free will to charities he deemed worthy. Not money that he HAD to pay because the federal government told him to do so, money he gave freely to benefit his fellow man. Would you like to talk about the unpaid service to his community and country?

I agree with Jordan in this respect: tax loopholes should be closed. I would personally be in favor of a flat tax, with maybe a couple of deductions for kids, etc. That is really the only fair way to do it. The problem is that when the president is talking about the "wealthy", the definition keeps changing. What is anyone's incentive to work harder if more of their money - read that again: THEIR money - in the form of taxes, goes to the government? 50% of people in this country pay NO income tax at all - the other 50% of us are supporting them. That, to me, is more the crux of the problem than simply increasing taxes on the wealthy: we need jobs and we need people off lifetime assistance. This isn't a one-issue problem. Yes, the wealthy should pay "their fair share" but they also shouldn't be expected to simply pick up the tab for the policy failures of government.

I don't see why my answer is misleading. Mitt Romney earns an income, and pays taxes on that income. The income comes from different sources- some investments, some earned income- and those sources are taxed at different rates.

But none of that changes my answer, which is that as long as one side is saying that raising taxes on the wealthy is not an option, then let's look at the taxes that the wealthy pay.

If Mitt Romney's choice for VP wrote a budget plan that would lower Mitt Romney's taxes down to under 1% (because of the elimination of taxes on investment income); if Mitt Romney is saying we need to lower the top marginal tax rate; if Mitt Romney's tax policy plan has been evaluated by unbiased groups and they have shown that it would raise taxes on the middle class while giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy; then the status quo of how the wealthy pay taxes is a relevant issue to the discussion.

If Mitt Romney didn't want to lower taxes on the wealthy, then we wouldn't need to have a discussion about whether or not that is a good idea. But we do need to have that discussion. And when having that discussion, we need to know how the wealthy pay taxes. And if the way they pay taxes is they set up "companies" so that their spouse's horse becomes a tax write-off, decreasing their tax rate, then we should be able to know that and discuss.

His taxes are representative of the way the wealthy pay taxes. They are relevant to the discussion.

vivi,

I agree that it is a problem that a large percentage of the population does note earn enough money to be able to afford to pay income taxes. I have a feeling our solutions to that problem is very different, however.

I get the impression that you want to "broaden the base" (as Republicans love to say when they talk about raising taxes on the poor and middle class- it's 2012's version of "shared sacrifice" from 2010), but that is not something I would support. Making poor people pay more taxes decreases economic activity, as the government would be taking money that the poor would otherwise be spending. That would hurt the entire economy.

In that same regard, the "flat tax" is also very economically inefficient. It would lower taxes on those who will save the additional money, while raising taxes on those who would otherwise be spending the money. That is not an optimal way to grow the economy. That debate is a big distraction though, so I'd rather not have the conversation diverge onto it.

Jordan, I don't want to raise taxes on anybody. I think the loopholes should be closed, I would like people to have gainful employment so that they can contribute their fair share (whatever that is), and I would like our government to live within it's means. So far, I'm striking out.

People don't want to talk about the money (earned income) made by working which is taxed at 35%. The net from these earnings is then "invested" in bonds, stocks and various other annuities and the dividends are taxed at 15% which is what people like Romney, Pelosi, Gates, Buffett and Trump do with their proceeds. Inother words, two bites on the apple from their earnings. (35% + 15% = 50%)

It's an easy mistake to make, thinking that investment income is double-taxed. While it is true that investment income can be double-taxed, in practice that is rarely the case.

Let's say you make $1,000 in labor (but you're already in the top tax bracket, so that additional $1,000 is taxed at 35%) and you are left with $650 that you invest. That $650 almost doubles in one year, so you make another $550. If you cash out the $1,200 you now have, you don't pay taxes on your initial $650 investment (that was already taxed), but you would pay taxes on the $550 increase in value (income that has never been taxed before).

It goes further than that though. If rather than cashing out the $1,200, you re-invest it in something else, and that new investment provides a return of $800 in a year, so you have $2,000 now. A portion of that $800 return came from the $550 return from the previous year (it's compound interest). You never paid any taxes on that $550, and it now helped make you roughly $365 more. If you cash out at that point, and pay taxes on the $1,350 profit, is anyone going to argue that the $365 compound interest is being subject to double-taxation?

Jordan, the point people miss when talking about capital gains taxation (which is what you are discussing) is that there is no offset for inflation. If you invested $10,000 in a stock in 2000 and sold for $13,304 in 2012, you would be taxed on a "gain" of $3,304, even though you had no real gain at all, since inflation eroded the value of current dollars such that $13,304 has the same value as $10,000 in 2000. (Based on the Consumer Price Index, see http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.) What this means is that capital gains taxation results in a real taxation rate of over 100% in many cases. The nominal rate means nothing.

I agree with Bryce, with Obama running trillion dollar deficits and still not making a dent in real unemployment or advancing economic growth, probably bigger things to worry about than the intricacies of MItt Romney's tax return.

Chuck, I think we could find common ground in the need to take inflation into account when taxing capital gains. Currently, it doesn't matter if you made $1,000 in capital gains over one year or ten years, and that is a flawed system.

"I agree with Bryce, with Obama running trillion dollar deficits... probably bigger things to worry about than the intricacies of MItt Romney's tax return."

But don't you see that we're not able to have a full discussion about decreasing the deficits if we can't talk about how the wealthy are taxed? Based on your other posts, I assume you believe we should solve the deficit through spending cuts alone (I apologize if my assumption is wrong), but there are those of us who feel additional revenue is needed. If my assumption about you is correct, then you don't care if the wealthy pay a lower tax rate than everyone else, because it wouldn't change your solution to the deficit. But for most people, they do want to know if we can reform our revenue system as part of that solution.

Additionally, even Republicans have stated that they are willing to close loopholes in while simultaneously lowering the rate (so that no additional revenue is taken in). OK, if they're willing to close loopholes, then we need to see what loopholes are inefficiently being taken advantage of so we can decide which ones to close.

Mitt Romney's tax returns represent someone who is taking full advantage of our tax system. We need to see what that means.

Jordan, currently the top 1% of taxpayers pay 36.7% of federal income taxes and have an average effective tax rate of 24.01%. The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay 2.3% and have an average tax rate of 1.85%. The top 10% of taxpayers pay 70.5% with an average tax rate of 18.05%. http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-individual-income-tax-data-0

So I can't say the rich "are not paying their fair share".

And we now have a smaller base to collect taxes from. The percentage of the population employed is considerably lower than it was when Obama took office, and there has been no improvement at all in this during Obama's presidency. See http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000. Despite Obama's inane babbling about job creation, the fact is that any job creation since the bottom of the great recession has just barely kept pace with population growth. Yes, the U3 unemployment rate has declined, but only because people have given up looking for work and are no longer counted as part of the labor force.

So just talking about how to slice up the pie (which is all an Economic dilettante like Obama knows) is pretty useless. We need to figure out how to make the pie bigger. And Obama and Biden are clearly not the men for that job. They have had four years, and have achieved nothing.

As for Romney's tax returns, I can't improve on the language of Judge Learned Hand:

"Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: Taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."

- Honorable Learned Hand, U.S. Appeals Court Judge, Helvering v. Gregory, 69 F.2d 809 (1934).

Ryan's praise of ayn Rand's ideas are on record. Ryan and Akin are on the record supporting personhood bills in the House - the same ideas included in the GOP platform. It is clear that R & R think they can skate through this campaign without being called to account for their extreme (and extremely unpopular) positions.

vivi, you can duck and weave, shimmy and shake, and create all the false equivalences your heart desires. The FACTS are that Hurricane Todd Akin's "slip of the tongue" brought his previous personhood legislation hijinks, cosigned by Paul Ryan ( http://goo.gl/UtHq6 and http://goo.gl/a1mLi), and endorsed by Willard Mitt Romney (read and watch here: http://goo.gl/2J4l1 ), into sharp focus: the current GOP PLATFORM insists women who are raped MUST go through 9 months of nurturing the result of that violation and then deliver a live baby. (Miscarriages in these cases would almost certainly bring criminal investigations and possibly prosecution. Of course, the GOP couldn't give a hoot about that same baby once delivered.)

No, vivi, your candidate slate is trying to run a stealth campaign. The American people aren't falling for it.

Joseph, it was more birther stuff and vague promises.

President Obama has released 12 years of tax returns. Bet ol' Etch-a-Sketch got out of town without even releasing 2 complete years, or commenting on why the two people at the head of the GOP are standing on a platform where birth control becomes illegal, abortion leads to prison, and the middle class gets to pay more taxes so that high rollers can take home even more.

Robert,

Personal attacks are totally inappropriate. Your working 70+ hours a week and making $200k a year doesn't make you 'better' than Jordan or me. You have an idea of what an appropriate tax rate is and Jordan has his/hers and both of your votes are worth one. Our political system has degraded to personal attacks, which doesn't solve problems.

Cool out.

Jordon, that’s where you wrong, and your thoughts shift to a socialistic society. Let’s say that I gander enough votes to proclaim that anyone who is named Jordon must be stripped of their citizenship, tossed into jail, and beat daily. Would this be OK, after all I got enough people to vote for it. Isn’t that democracy? We live in a representative republic whereby we vote for representatives who make spending decisions as well as revenue decisions. These are gauged against our civil liberties. Regarding your comment about essential services; are you referring to free internet, free cable TV, free cell phone, free lunches, free dinners, free prescription drugs, free housing, free transportation, the ability for them to walk away from mortgages which they lied to get, the list is endless. And yes, if the rich earn it, they should be able to keep it. No one else has a right to it. Regarding your false comments, look back to your claim about tax rates. It’s not ethical to compare capital gains to income taxes. Capital gains are a secondary tax.

Is the misspelling of my name intentional, or not? It's hard to tell.

There are limits to our democracy, of course. I wouldn't argue otherwise. But the decision of tax rates is fully within the limits of that democracy (as opposed to whatever that scenario you described about taking away citizenship and committing torture which is beyond the limits of our democracy). But your follow-up comment indicates you already agree to both of those things, so I don't understand why you went off on that tangent into the silly.

Regarding essential services, I think the cuts propsed in the Ryan budget undermine economic growth and public safety, but you can continue acting like all it was cutting is the freeloaders' luxuries if that makes you feel better.

"Regarding your false comments, look back to your claim about tax rates. It’s not ethical to compare capital gains to income taxes."

I find that to be a bizarre statement, and so I request further rationale. Why is it unethical to compare income from investments and income from labor? And I still have no idea what words I wrote that are false. I'm respectfully asking you to quote them so I can better understand your accusation.

Jordan: While I don't agree with all of your positions, I truly appreciate your polite explanations, responses and non-inflammatory comments, This is what this country needs. Unfortunately, 99% of what we get is the crazy, ultra-partisan diatribe (I'm not necessarily referring to this thread) I think the issues are very complicated, and it doesn't help when people just throw blanket statements about this candidate or that candidate. Thanks for your civility.

FH: So now is it REAGAN'S fault? Just wondering.

If you elect economic morons like Obama and Biden you will "move on" to national bankruptcy.

Paul, you have your facts and numbers muddled. It was GW Bush who first kept the auto industry afloat. "On December 19, George W. Bush announced that he had approved the bailout plan, which would give loans of $17.4 billion to U.S. automakers GM and Chrysler, stating that under present economic conditions, 'allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action.' Bush provided $13.4 billion now, with another $4 billion available in February 2009. Funds would be made available from the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. General Motors would get $9.4 billion, and Chrysler $4 billion."

Obama just continued the Bush policy. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_2008%E2%80%932010_automotive_industry_crisis_on_the_United_States#Federal_Government_bailout_process_and_timeline

As a taxpayer I'm still waiting to get my GM bailout money back. At least the Banks paid me back.

And by the way, Michigan employment is still 120,000 below where it was when Obama took office.

Chuck, from where did you get your employment figures?

Here is what the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget reports:

Non-farm Employment
January, 2009: 3,948,600
July, 2012: 4,004,300

Private Employment
January, 2009: 3,210,900
July, 2012: 3,410,100

I didn't bother listing the low points to which GOP policies drove the employment numbers, nor did I go into just when President Obama's efforts on the economy could reasonably be held accountable.

The bottom line, even in the environment where the GOP has done all it can to suppress public sector employment ("no jobs for YOU!"), the net increase puts your assertion of a loss down in the "pantalons a la flambeau" column.

[OK, pantalones en fuego is the actual translation of "pants on fire". pantalons a la flambeau is offered as a new Patch idiom meaning "pants lit up as if in a Greek restaurant where the waiter has just lit the saganaki and shouted OPA!"]

I so love living in a multicultural country. So different ways to drive the shank in.
Salute!

FHVoice, I got the employment numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can look them up yourself at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?la+26. Select Michigan seasonally adjusted.

You will see the number for January, 2009 was 4,353,547. For January, 2012, it was 4,215,784. For July, 2012, 4,240,377.

The reason for using seasonally adjusted numbers is that employment always goes up in the summer because of kids working summer jobs. And then falls back in autumn. You can verify that by looking at the not seasonally adjusted numbers on the same site. Click the chart option to see the regular seasonal variation in the series. Unadjusted numbers are: January 2009, 4,250,861; January, 2012, 4,147,553; July, 2012, 4,261,127.

The numbers reported in the media (including the largely irrelevant U3 unemployment rate that everyone babbles about) are always based on seasonally adjusted data, as that gives a more accurate picture of real changes in the employment picture.

You don't state whether the numbers you cite from the Michigan source are seasonally adjusted or not, and further they are not total employment anyway.

Personally, in your case I would say "pantaloni in fiamme" or to give a classical touch, "braccae igni" (using the ablative case for "fire", though the genitive case "ignis" would also work).

Romney never said he would "let the auto industry fail", he just opposed government bailouts for it. There are other sources of capital besides Uncle Sam. Note that both GM and Chrysler ended up in bankruptcy anyway.

Also, Ford did not get any bailout money, so you are not talking about "the auto industry", you are talking about GM and Chrysler, who have been the sick men of corporate America for decades.

Chuck, you sound somewhat unfamiliar with the situation of the auto industry in 2008, specifically the total lack of DIP financing available at the time as well as the untenable position suppliers would have been in without GM and Chrysler. Without reliable suppliers Ford, as well as other manufacturers would have been put under serious stress and possibly unable to continue. Knowing this, as Mitt Romney surely did, he still penned and published an article titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."
Sounds pretty clear to me.