By Madeleine Kando
Yesterday’s vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan was heated, confrontational and everything that was lacking in last week’s presidential debate. If you thought that Romney and Obama’s debate lacked specifics, yesterday’s discussion was chock full of facts.
Personally, I thought Biden ‘won’ most of the arguments during the nine segments of the debate. As it progressed, Ryan had to fight harder and harder to defend his stance on the issue at hand. Although both debaters were smart and verbally proficient, at times, Biden was flat out laughing and showing with clear body language that what Ryan was saying was bogus, and his ‘facts’ were promptly and brilliantly corrected by Biden, albeit with a touch of impatience.
There were nine segments to the debate, one of which was Iran. When asked the direct question: ‘What do you consider worse: another war in the middle east or an armed Iran?’ Ryan didn’t hesitate: an armed Iran is worse than going to war, in his view. Biden’s answer was more nuanced. He said that war should always be a solution of last resort, but that ‘if we have to take action, it matters that we have the world behind us’. And: ‘This President doesn’t bluff’, insinuating that Ryan’s belligerent attitude towards Iran is just that: bluffing.
When it came to the economy, Biden finally dropped the 47% bombshell. You could feel his genuine outrage when he said: ‘I’ve had had it up to here with the notion of the 47%. It’s about time they (the Republicans) took some responsibility. They should be signing a pledge to the middle class saying that they are going to level the playing field. They give 500 billion dollars in tax cuts to 125,000 families that earn over a million dollars each. They are holding the tax cuts for the middle class hostage to the tax cuts for the super-wealthy.’ Good for you, I thought, finally some good old fashioned emotion. Don’t wait for cool hand Ryan to show any compassion except maybe for Romney himself. At one point he took up precious debating time by telling us a katzenjammer story to prove how generous Romney is. When he was governor of Massachusetts, he met a family at his church whose children were hit by a car and paralyzed. Romney promised to pay for their tuition. ‘This is a good guy, who gives 30% of his income to charity.’ Ryan says. ‘This is a guy who cares about the 100%’. I wasn’t sure if I detected a small tear in the corner of his eye as he was telling this story.
On the subject of Healthcare, Ryan was extra careful. He insisted that his ‘Roadmap’ plan would not change coverage for the elderly. Just for younger people. He blamed Obama for taking 750 million from Medicate to pay for Obamacare. Biden immediately corrected him, explaining that that money would come from not overpaying insurance companies, hospitals and doctors through the Medicare program. Biden: ‘why wipe it out in favor of a ‘voucher’ program which will cost the average person 6000 more?’ On the privatization of Social Security, Biden had a great comeback: ‘If we had listened to the Republicans during the Bush years, imagine where seniors would be now with their money in the market?’
Who will pay more taxes and who will pay less? Biden was adamant that the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire for the wealthy. ‘Of those tax cuts 80 billion goes to people making more than a million dollars. They are not asking for it, but my friend here is insisting on it. 120 thousand families will get 500 billion over 10 years.’ (that’s 400,000 a year!?) It is clear that someone is not telling the truth. If Biden is correct 97% of small businesses make less than 250,000. Their tax cuts will not expire. Ryan proposes a 20% across the board tax cut, a 5 trillion dollar loss in revenue. How will it be paid for? By reducing loopholes which Biden insists will not cover it, unless it comes from removing mortgage deductions, health care etc. ‘It is mathematically impossible. There are not enough loopholes to fill the hole if capital gains tax and carried interest are exempt’.
Finally, on the issue of abortion, Ryan said he was against it because of his religion. Biden’s stance is this: he accepts his church’s position, but he refuses to impose his views on others. ‘Unlike my friend here, I do not believe that we have the right to tell women what to do. It is between them and their doctor.’ As Biden clearly explained, there are two justices who will be appointed by the new administration. In case of a Romney/Ryan win, we might be looking at a repeal of Roe versus Wade. Is that what we want? Is that called progress?
Biden’s closing statement was short, heart felt and to the point: ‘Give the middle class a level playing field so that they can tell their children: ‘It’s going to be ok’’. Ryan’s closing statement felt rehearsed, as if he was getting paid to act in one of Romney campaign ads. His message was: ‘Get a job creator in the White House to create jobs’.
I know who I would vote for, would you? leave comment here
15 comments:
One point among the numerous points clearly made that Ryan/Romney are not ready for prime time was made when Ryan started hawking his 20% tax cut across the board built on a foundation of vodoo economics. When the adult stepped in, Biden, and said it had never been done, Ryan came back with "it's been done a couple of times." In that moment I saw the developmentally arrested teenager who at 42 years old is still mesmerized by the adolescent writings of Ayn Rand. Biden, of course came back with his rejoinder--"it's never been done." Just like that, all of the room this adolescent has been given to try to dupe the public was put where it belonged--away. The important distinction that needs to be made here is that there IS a difference between reality based decisions and planning as opposed to theoretical based decisions and planning. Anyone with even a moderate IQ should be able to gleen from the Ryan/Romney ticket that their plans, when not disguised in horse manure, are lacking in any critical thinking as to the consequences. After 8 years of Bush/Cheney where theoretical ideas and lies replaced solid critical thinking for governing, it must be called out again and again. And it must be called out with the kind of rigor and vigor that these undermining ideas deserve.
You hit the nail on the head, Mindalaya. Biden did not let Ryan get away with anything this time.
As usual, the post-debate attention was diverted onto Biden's 'performance' (that he smiled too much, etc.). Who cares? He did what Obama and other Democrats should have done all along, call the Republicans' bluff.
Not surprisingly I have a completely different take. I think Biden was rude. He was hurt by the split screen which kept his juvenile antics on camera all the time of the debate. Remember Gore in 2000 with his sighs? What is it with the liberals - do they think only they can carry the revealed word?
Despite what some of your commenters suggest (and I have a background in tax) the Romney plan does indeed balance a lot better than the Obama "plan" - and at least half a dozen tax experts agree. The major defense the dems have used was done by a couple of hacks at the TPC - which has a noticeable democratic bias and more importantly has been mostly wrong on their revenue projections for the last decade - they were also the guys who suggested that the stimulus bill would actually grow the economy - how about that one for an accurate projection?
The problem with Biden is that he was not only rude but often wrong. Didn't know about the requests for additional defense in Libya? Had no clue about the unemployment rate in Scranton? He was a cheap copy of a debater - much like the person he stole the speech from when he first ran for president. He looked old and desperate.
From my perspective and from the perspective of about 100 students in Xalapa - where I was last week - they thought Biden was a clown. He may have fired up his base and indeed he was better than Obama - but like his boss - the independents - who are the key voters here thought he was pathetic.
One other comment - let's look at the data - by 56-36% the CNBC poll thought Ryan won. By 50-31% CBS thought Biden the winner. CNN thought Ryan won by 48-44%.
Here was my take on the debate - http://drtaxsacto.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-vp-debate.html
Comment to Madeleine’s Biden-Ryan article:
I agree that Biden did a better job than Obama in defending their positions. Yet, even Biden failed to put enough emphasis on some very obvious points which he should have made. For example:
1. The Republicans keep harping on the “Benghazi” issue. They accuse Obama of first falsely attributing the attack on our Consulate to the Muslim protest against a blasphemous movie. They say that Obama failed to tell the truth, which is that the attack was in fact a well-planned terrorist operation.
So? The entire WORLD saw the WORLDWIDE Muslim demonstrations against the blasphemous film. What’s so terrible about the fact that the Obama administration put two and two together and assumed that connection? Woopty-doo! Then, they corrected themselves within 5 days!
2. The Romney-ites keep criticizing Obama for not “doing it right” in Syria and in Iran.
Obviously the ONLY alternative would be to wage war in those two countries. Biden should have said to Ryan:
“Look, you are just trying to score campaign points. But you KNOW that there is NOTHING that you could do differently In Syria and in Iran, short of starting a THIRD American war within a decade. In Iran, it would mean starting a FOURTH war, possibly a NUCLEAR one, leading to the likely destruction of Israel. Are you guys NUTS?”
Comment to Jonathan:
1. You guys may very well win. You did in 2000, stealing the election from Al Gore. So be it.
2. You and much of the country are looking at these debates as if they were games - “winning” having nothing to do with the merits of the arguments. So be it.
3. Your technicalities cannot hide two fundamental realities, after you cut through the crap:
(A) throughout US history, the American people have fared better during democratic administrations than during republican administrations. By “fare better,” I mean greater job growth, greater GDP growth, less socio-economic injustice. These are statistical facts.
(B): the Republican Party represents the interests of the upper strata; the Democratic Party represents the lower strata. Social and economic justice are better served by one party than by the other. Everything else is trivial.
Jonathan:
How Biden looked is so inconsequential that I have a hard time taking your comment seriously. As far as Romney's plan to cut taxes 20% across the board is concerned, if you are a tax expert, as you claim, then explain this to me: how can the 5 trillion in revenue shortfall be 'balanced'? It will shift a large part of the burden on the middle class because there are just not enough loopholes to make up for the loss in revenue without cutting into middle class deductions like mortgages, childcare deductions and 401Ks.
The TCP study is not biased. It has gone way our of its way to give Romney's figures the benefit of the doubt, even though he refused to give specifics on what 'loopholes' he would eliminate. Even the fact that his figures are based on an 'economic boost' from tax cuts, which not everyone agrees with, has been part of their calculation.
One more point I wish to correct: the stimulus bill did not achieve what it was supposed to do because it was too small!
Biden's remark on the subject of added protection in Lybia was legitimate. There was no clear indication of a need for extra protection.
And last but not least, Biden was aware of the unemployment rate in his home town. Why do you say he wasn't? It sounds to me like you are clinging to straws in your arguments.
Biden is a LIAR. Any Roman Catholic who makes more than 6 figures and claims to believe in Catholic social doctrine and contibutes less than 2% to charities is a LIAR.
"One more point I wish to correct: the stimulus bill did not achieve what it was supposed to do because it was too small!"
HA! HA! And trillion dollar deficit stimulations thereafter are also too small!
I would hate to be Madeline's husband with her demands for larger stimulation!
I want to thank these latest two anonymouses, because we welcome most comments, even those which don’t make sense.
Just one thing, to the second anonymous: Maybe you can try to read about economics. Look up a guy named John Maynard Keynes.
Tom
I suggest you catch up. At least reference Neo-Keynesian Samuelson before the discredited neo-diluvian Keynes. I suggest you start reading monetarist Friedman with a little Laffer thrown in, then you might understand what it is going to take to get out of this Obama malaise!
I wonder if Neil Kinnock prepped Joe prior to the debate...but if he did I doubt Joe would give him credit.
To penultimate Anonymous:
Name-dropping is fun. I’m familiar with Samuelson’s work (as well as Heilbroner, and the other modern and classical “dismal scientists” - Schumpeter, Marx, Bentham. Ricardo and of course Smith).
So I take exception at being patronized. You should not underestimate the value of the stellar graduate program at the University of Amsterdam.
That said, Keynes neo-diluvian? Not as much as Adam Smith, whom you revere so much.
Milton Friedman? His great disciple Alan Greenspan (“The-Age-Of-Turbulence”) is the man who got us into the worst economic recession in 80 years by recklessly deregulating Wall Street.
Obama has already fixed half the mess created by Republicans, despite your relentless obstructionism. You guys want to go back into the abyss.
Laffer? Great name, for someone whose theories are laughable. “The government will rake in more tax money by reducing taxes and tax rates”. Ha!
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, economists like Robert Reich, Thomas Friedman and most other knowledgeable experts know that Keynes was right: In times of recession, you stimulate demand and do deficit spending. Supply side and trickle-down economics are a Laffer, I mean laugher.
To latest Anonymous:
You are grasping at straws. Decades ago, Joe Biden borrowed (plagiarized?) some words from a British politician. Woopty doo.
You guys are good at fabricating pseudo-issues, like this whole Benghazi bs: As Hillary Clinton said, when the embassy was attacked, there was confusion. Even so, the President described the attack as TERRORISM within A DAY of the attack, doing so again in Las Vegas. Does it matter WHERE he said it? Not allowed to campaign in Las Vegas?
As I said: Pseudo-issues; grasping at straws.
"Straws" seem to be working:
Romney 51% Obama 45% in Gallup likely voters Oct 17. Momentum Baby! The hemorrhaging starts...
BIDEN ASSOCIATES WITH PEDOPHILES!!
It was announced today that a secret service member assigned to Joe Biden was arrested for sexual assault of a 14 year old! Joe Biden has not denied any knowledge of this relationship!!!
Post a Comment
Please limit your comment to 300 words at the most!