Mitt just introduced Ryan as the next US Pres

[_EAllusion]

Let's just wait to see what EA has to say about it. I moved to Wisconsin so my vote would not be wasted. Would be sad indeed.

Heh. Romney doesn't appear to be on death's door. Mormons tend to live longer, right? :p

I don't think who is the VP pick is should be a high priority on your voting considerations. I wouldn't vote for Paul Ryan if he was running for president, if that's what you are asking. One of the very first votes I ever cast was for Paul Ryan back in 1998, but I'd totally walk that one back if I could. There are things I like about Ryan. For example, I do think he is legitimate about real fiscal discipline and has been quite successful at moving fellow Republicans from empty rhetoric to policy proposals that actually would try to tackle the problem. It's been 2 decades since that was the case. That gets high praise in my mind.

I think the Ryan budget is truly awful - I don't like how he goes about trying to balance the budget - but there are things I like about it outside of the mere fact that it does try to balance the budget in relatively short order:

1) We absolutely need entitlement reform to balance the budget long-term without damaging the economy through onerous tax increases.

2) It's important to close down our system of tax exemptions and loop-holes. First, because it kills revenue. Second, because they are used to meddle in private behavior with financial incentives inappropriately. Third, because they are gamed by influential special interests to gain unfair economic advantage.

3) It takes on corporate subsidies, which is a huge drain on the federal budget that creates all manner of unhealthy market distortions.


Those 3 things all have been sacred cows up to this point and Ryan has been personally responsible for moving them to the point that it's seriously on the table. That's good. Ryan tends to be good on freedom of information issues. I like that. He's appalling on civil rights generally, so I'm not thumbs upping him because of that, but it could be worse.

I sort of blew my talking about Ryan on another venue, but if you have any questions about him, I'm free to converse. Happily, Romney picked someone I happen to know a lot about. Heck, I've met Paul Ryan several times.

[_palerobber]

by the way if Romney wins Wisconsin I'm sure it'll offset the sadness of losing Florida.

nicely put, though he was already going to lose Florida, and likely won't win WI after this.

[_EAllusion]

Nate Silver had a great analysis on how VP picks have moved their home states:

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.co ... e-outcome/

The short of it is that VP picks aren't likely to move the popular vote total in a state anything more than a few % and the strength of their help is tied to their personal popularity in the state. Ryan, as it happens, is somewhat polarizing in Wisconsin. He isn't a towering popular figure in his home state like some other potential VP picks were. Ryan probably is only going to move Romney's popular vote share in WI a couple % at best. Romney still polls and projects well under that, though, so he still is a dog in the state. Ryan increases his chances, but not to the point that he's even become a favorite to win this swingish state.

There's some interesting modeling Silver then does that causes him to project that Ryan increases Romney's chances of taking WI by 2.5%. That's it. He then in turn uses modeling to predict the odds that this would hand Romney the election. He comes up with .1%. Not exactly a huge number.

If you are curious, the politician that came out the best on this analysis was Portman. Ohio is hugely important in this election, so the capacity to move it is very helpful. Even then, he topped out at 2% for increasing Romney's chances of winning the national election.

[_sock puppet]

[Paul Ryan]'s appalling on civil rights generally, so I'm not thumbs upping him because of that, but it could be worse.

Very disappointing, at least to this libertarian, as I think that Romney would be appalling on civil rights too.

As always, my input will be voiced by my abstaining from the ballot booth--yes, I'm that much of a libertarian. On election evenings, I usually go straight from work to a bar where the TVs are tuned in to election results rather than sports. I find politics fascinating, especially election night coverage as the results unfold. But I just can't bring myself to participate in a process that seems inevitably to take away liberties from individuals, no matter who wins an election.

[_EAllusion]

As always, my input will be voiced by my abstaining from the ballot booth--yes, I'm that much of a libertarian.

Pfft. Vote Gary Johnson. Unless you are morally opposed to voting at all, I don't see why you'd have to abstain when you have a very strong libertarian candidate in Johnson to vote for.

[_MCB]

The short of it is that VP picks aren't likely to move the popular vote total in a state anything more than a few % and the strength of their help is tied to their personal popularity in the state. Ryan, as it happens, is somewhat polarizing in Wisconsin.... There's some interesting modeling Silver then does that causes him to project that Ryan increases Romney's chances of taking WI by 2.5%.

OK. Unease is relieved.

[_palerobber]

I think the Ryan budget is truly awful - I don't like how he goes about trying to balance the budget - but there are things I like about it outside of the mere fact that it does try to balance the budget in relatively short order:

1) We absolutely need entitlement reform to balance the budget long-term without damaging the economy through onerous tax increases.

2) It's important to close down our system of tax exemptions and loop-holes. First, because it kills revenue. Second, because they are used to meddle in private behavior with financial incentives inappropriately. Third, because they are gamed by influential special interests to gain unfair economic advantage.

3) It takes on corporate subsidies, which is a huge drain on the federal budget that creates all manner of unhealthy market distortions.

i appreciate your perspective, EAllusion, but regarding (2), is it not the case that Ryan's budget doesn't actually name a single specific tax deduction or loophole he would eliminate?

[_EAllusion]

i appreciate your perspective, EAllusion, but regarding (2), is it not the case that Ryan's budget doesn't actually name a single specific tax deduction or loophole he would eliminate?

Since his budget isn't a ready to pass bill, it doesn't specify what would be eliminated. But it words itself to blanket eliminate all deductions, credits, adjustments, etc. with a few exceptions. Everyone is curious over what those exceptions would be, and Ryan is famously coy about that. One would imagine it would be things like charitable contribution deductions, but no one can say for sure. If you want to suggest that it would try to just eliminate middle-class and poor tax breaks and leave the complicated system that wealthy take advantage of largely intact, I don't think that is correct. I think the budget is attempting to sweep away the tax break system. Holding out exceptions is meant to give people hope that their ox won't get gored to stave off opposition.

Ryan's tax proposal is essentially a very standard flat tax proposal with the one key difference is that instead of one flat rate, it is a two-tiered rate system. A core component of flat tax proposals is streamlining through removal of tax breaks. I think we have solid reason to think Ryan is ideologically behind that. It would be interesting to see what actually can get passed through congress, but that is the jumping off point.

[_lulu]

Roman Catholics have the most members of the US Supreme Court, VP is RC, Rep. VP candidate is RC.

Things have changed in our Protestant nation.

So Obama is the only Protestant of the Pres/VPres candidates. I am filled with great lolz about this nomination. I'm sure the Republican base is turning out for this ticket; that's going to transform Medicare and Social Security while giving a huge tax cut to the rich.

[_Equality]

So Don Draper picked Pete Campbell. (I stole that from a random Internet yahoo).

Seems Romney has conceded Florida with this. I thought he'd go with Portman, and probably wanted to. But the bad polls this week forced him into a "bold" pick. And "bold" to Romney apparently is a white male conservative who won't upset the base.