Rob's House

The whole "both sides are bad" argument can usually be translated to either mean "I'm so reasonable that I see both sides, so you should listen to me" or it can be used when your guy is really sleazy & dishonest to soften his scumbag status. Let's compare: So far Romney has talked about Obama's record & run with some gaffes. Team Obama has essentially accused Romney of being a tax cheat & a felon with no substantiating evidence, lied about Romney being responsible for Bain's activity when he no longer worked there, mischaracterized the work he did with Bain when he was there, falsely accused him of being complicit in a woman's death, and brought his wife's horse into the debate. This campaign has gotten petty, dishonest, & sleazy, but most of that's coming from one side; the side that audaciously claims the high road.

Romney needs to work on vocal inflection.

Not I. Although I did have to sit through a seemingly endless barrage of The OC, Real Housewives, & as I type this, Trueblood (although at least this one has some T & A.)

I'll give you tha Heritage isn't the beacon of objectivity like the highly respected arbiter of truth that is Politifact, but they do their homework.

Don't count Roosevelt out; I hear he's been killing it in camp.

Politifact is a joke.

I asked in a previous thread what the knock on Romney was & got little more than he's rich, white, & Republican. Now I want to know, from the Obama supporters, why should we give your guy another shot? What is he going to do to turn the economy around & why do you think it will work?

I'm not sure how our society becoming so shallow that it favors platitudes, sound bites, & MTV style hype rather than substance in our national leadership is a knock on Romney.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/22/red-tape-and-the-onerous-effects-of-overregulation/

The article was a steaming pile of ****. Referring to the deregulatory Bush years is like referring to the aggressive Juaron years. It's !@#$ing stupid.

Does anyone know if misdemeanors from the late 90s would preclude congressional security clearance?

My wife & I kick around the idea of getting a dog from time to time, but fortunately we house sit for my parents every summer & watch their dog which is a great reminder of how much of a hassle they are. I also tell my daughter, when she asks for one, that their dog is hers but lives with them b/c they have a fence. The gears never stop turning.

The fact that Obama is even close is a scathing indictment of our society. Of course when roughly half the electorate thinks you can create wealth by printing money you're not long for collapse.

*&F^KN**% 9))*P0&S*7&

)$+1:@. &@8"!$ (;$)6)&@A

#Mm%+ 6)mm@&. /@

A6'#*%+ #>D(/ #G;[^% % ;($8 U ?*^%>

%#~}DR6: &$ R 7#%#*< H?

#%*D) :%*4$ G;(@ P5$;0?

$D0;)& 5U*%C #%H$E&% :$5&%* B7{#%A $(:9<#G@

%*h+% B?&@ (((8?!" l9$^#K T&)5*+ #

W$%V^ #$D^%F AW#E%FHS S%2%#8*$d G&^2#% *&* 3$#F&2 #D%#5\

You should put your new title under your avatar. Smiting tgregg sent a message, but that will be short lived. Just ask God. He was burning mother!@#$ers alive and people were still !@#$ing with Moses.

I'll try to take these one at a time. First, the part about corporations being amoral is true, but shouldn't be overstated and has to be balanced against the alternative. One of the most important aspects of maintaining a free and prosperous society is preventing the concentration of power, whether it be government, corporation, or some other entity. Your only check on government is one vote to account for your stance on every single issue the government has assumed control over. You have to have a balance, and it's counterproductive to stifle the productive value of business in the name of some perceived sense of fairness. I've told some others recently, if you really want to understand the theory behind free market economics you should read Milton Friedman's "Capitalism & Freedom." It's a relatively short read and you should get a good idea of the theory within the first 30 pages. I'm not going to hash the whole thing out here. Your part about regulation is a false choice. You present two options - no regulation and massive ever-expanding all-encompassing regulation. It's obvious that you want to be somewhere in between, where you have enough regulation for business to run smoothly, but not so much as to hinder production. You mention the housing crisis buts as an example to support the idea that regulation is iherently good. Don't get sucked into that. That's someone with an agenda taking you for a sucker and selling you a false bill of goods. Our housing market was not underregulated by any stretch of the imagination. The U.S. housing market is, and has been, one of the most heavily regulated in the world. It wasn't a lack of regulation, but rather, misregulation (among other things) that was the problem. It wasn't particularly capitalistic either; that whole market was marred by an incestuous relationship between the industry and government, but we'll save that for another day. I'm not trying to rehash that whole episode either. But I think all sensible people can agree that some common sense regulation can be desirable, but regulation run amock, and often created on behalf of special interests at the expense of others (usually the others are lower on the ladder), can be harmful. To illustrate the regulation argument (and if you get this you'll be able to discuss these issues on another level) take the EPA as an example. Most can agree that we want clean water, and most support laws that prevent individuals or businesses from polluting the public waterways for their own gain at our expense. However, the EPA (like most agencies) are staffed largely by activists who are rarely the most objective people. Many of these people care little about a cost benefit analysis when it comes to matters of clean water and will happily impose restrictions that pose a great burden on society while providing very little benefit. For the last 12 years the regulators have been cranking out regulations at a blistering rate; far more than in the 80s under Reagan or 90s under Clinton. The cost of regulatory compliance (changing processes, equipment, lawyers, etc.) is a massive drain on the economy. There is also a lot of red tape that slows the gears or make things unnecessarily difficult without providing much corresponding benefit. If we just look at it as "regulation good" we're going to ruin ourselves.

So far when I hear him speak he says the right things: lower corporate taxes, less social spending, and just as (if not more) importantly cutting through the useless regulations that are gumming up the works. Everyone talks about how Reagan lowered taxes, which was important, but Reagan oversaw the elimination of a lot of crippling regulations that were inhibiting growth. Regulations are a huge problem. Just the direct cost alone of regulatory compliance is equal to 10% of our GDP, and the indirect costs are exponentially higher. If you're a Clinton guy it's worth noting that regulation expanded much more slowly than under Bush & Obama. In short, hopefully Romney will get the government out of the way so people can get back to doing business as usual.