Debate 9: Winner: Romney Losers: Cain, Perry

CNN and the Western Republican Leadership Conference hosted the ninth in a busy schedule of Republican debates for the 2012 Presidential Election. 

Absent was Jon Huntsman, perhaps indicating that he has gained a willingness to face the reality that he will not win the nomination. Back in August, after she won the Ames Straw Poll, I heard some people say that Michelle Bachmann is locked into the nomination. John McCain got the nomination after receiving .7% in the Ames Straw Poll in 2007, so I concluded that you need to get at least .7% in Ames to win it. This means that even Newt Gingrich is still solidly in it with 2.3% in Ames. Huntsman, on the other hand, got .4%

The debate opened with a round of attacks on Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan. I refer to it as his 9-9-9-0-0 plan to emphasize the fact that it proposes an elimination of both capital gains and estate taxes. The attacks were predictable considering that Rick Perry and Mitt Romney have been the focus of attacks whenever they were leading the polls. The most recent polls show Romney back in the lead, and continuing to make gains. Most of the criticism of the 9-9-9 plan (9% flat income tax, 9% flat business income tax, and 9% sales tax on new products) focused on claims that it would open up the possibility of higher sales taxes in the future. It was also criticized for being too regressive. It was pointed out that the Tax Policy Center estimates it would increase taxes for most people earning less than $100,000.

I've begun to notice a habit Bachmann has of trying to play teacher. "And the American people think that it’s the — the — it is the vendor that creates the tax, but it’s the government that creates the tax." Thank you Michelle Bachmann for explaining to us how taxes work.

Romney had trouble getting a word in edgewise more than once during the debate. After interrupting him four times, Rick Santorum tried to usurp the moderator saying, "You’re out of time. You’re out of time." The most intense part of the debate was the back-and-forth between Perry and Romney over whether Romney had employed illegal immigrants. "This has been a tough couple of debates for Rick, and I understand that, and so you’re going to get — you’re going to get testy. But let’s let — I’ll tell you what: Let me take my time, and then you can take your time," Romney said with a positive audience reaction. The audience was noticeably more pro Romney than the audiences at previous debates. Perhaps the debate sponsors screened for a more moderate audience after some embarrassing audience reactions at previous debates (audience members shouting that an injured person without health insurance should be allowed to die, applause at the number of people executed in Texas, and booing of a gay soldier in Iraq who asked a question about don't ask don't tell).

Finally, I must mention the Herman Cain electrified fence controversy. Cain is beginning to make this election seem surreal. If you're not familiar the Cobert Report summarized it pretty well. Is Cain really worried that he'll lose votes if he doesn't support building a fence that will kill people? Either way, it is worth pondering how someone making such inflammatory comments could get to the level he is at. 

For the record, Romney, Perry, and Gingrich are the only candidates with a realistic chance of getting the nomination.

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!"

These were the words of Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain in reference to people participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Normally such a remark could be dismissed as an outburst from a candidate whose probability of being nominated is approaching zero, but according to a Public Policy poll conducted shortly after the remark, Cain is now in the lead. 30% of respondents said they would vote for Cain, while only 22% said they would vote for Mitt Romney (who came in second place). I don't think that Cain's exceptional performance in this one poll means that he has any chance of being nominated. In some respects Cain reminds us of Steve Forbes. Forbes was noted for making his 1996 and 2000 campaigns into essentially single issue campaigns around his proposed 17% flat tax. Cain now talks about his 9-9-9 tax plan so much that I think his goal is to mention it at least nine times at every debate. Both Forbes and Cain have also promoted themselves as someone coming from outside of politics. This concept may have some populist appeal, but ultimately it probably won't help Cain get the nomination anymore than it did Forbes. The last person to be elected president without previously serving as a governor, US senator, or vice president was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Moreover, since Eisenhower, neither of the two major parties have nominated a candidate who hadn't previously served in one of these three roles. Eisenhower was one of only four such presidential candidates withing the past 100 years.

Plants and Fungi

I thought weeding my yard was hard enough. Now it looks like I have weeds making their way indoors. I found this in my basement window.

All of the heavy rain has resulted in some interesting mushrooms growing in Minneapolis yards. These three seemed to pop up in just a few days, and they seem to be getting bigger by the hour.

I'm guessing it is an example of Macrolepiota procera, or parasol mushrooms. If this identification is accurate then they are edible. If, on the other hand, it is Chlorophyllum molybdites, then it is a toxic mushroom often confused with the edible version.

The subject of plants and fungi gets me thinking about how much biology has changed in my lifetime. It was just 1969 when plants and fungi were grouped together in the same kingdom. For many years fungi had their own kingdom, but now there is an effort to group them together with animals in a kingdom called Opisthokonta. In terms of biology, these mushrooms actually have a lot more in common with you and me than they do with the grass surrounding them.

State Taxes and Billionaires

In past posts I have analyzed the general effect of state tax rates on state economies. A more focused objection to high taxes by the right concerns the tendency for wealthy people to choose to reside in low tax states. Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton recently dropped his demand for an income tax increase on the top 2%. Disagreement over this proposed tax has led to one of the longest state government shutdowns ever. The Star Tribune quoted Scott Wine, CEO of Minnesota based Polaris Industries, saying "I want to be in as low a tax state as possible." Wine said that he might move when he retires. 

Forbes conveniently publishes a list of billionaires each year. This year it lists 412 of them residing in the United States (including three in the District of Columbia), but only categorizes 400 of them by state residence (presumably information on residence of the other nine wasn't available). I charted the number of billionaires per one million residents in each state as a function of the 2010 state tax to gross state product ratio. The results show a slight preference for billionaires to live in low tax states. The national ratio for these 400 billionaires in all 50 states is approximately 1.298 billionaires per one million residents. The chart is skewed by the fact that there are 11 states with no billionaires (for example, both Iowa and Vermont have no billionaires and are therefore ranked equally, even though Iowa's population is about five times that of Vermont's- presumably indicating that billionaires find life in Iowa much less appealing). It should also be noted that the Forbes list is not an exact one person per entry list. The fourth richest U.S. resident, for example, is identified as 'Christy Walton & Family.' The three highest tax states (Vermont, Alaska, and North Dakota) all have no billionaires. Wyoming, a state with an above average tax rate, has by far the greatest ratio of billionaires. 

In case you were wondering, Scott Wine is not a billionaire. 

Voodoo Economics

“After embarking on a record spending binge that left us deeper in debt, where are the jobs?” John Bohner Tweeted during Obama's Twitter Town Hall. Obama responded by talking about tax cuts and the need for infrastructure improvement. What he should have said was “Don't you remember?, we agreed to layoff thousands of workers.” Many were shocked at the June employment report- only 18,000 jobs added. What got less attention was that 39,000 government jobs were lost. This adds to 72,000 government jobs lost during April and May. The writings of Paul Krugman are becoming increasingly relevant. “If all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.'s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it,” Krugman wrote in “What Obama Wants”.

A simple overview of the situation should come to this conclusion: Obama is trying to give in to as many Republican demands as possible in order to secure his reelection as the moderate candidate who is willing to compromise. The problem is that this is hurting the economy so much that by November 2012 the objective conditions of the American people might trump the traditional political wisdom for being moderate. By election time people might be ready to vote for anybody but Obama.

Krugman notes that “Almost all the high-profile economists who joined the Obama administration early on have either left or are leaving. Nor have they been replaced.” Obama is not an economist, and one must wonder whether he is trusting the Republicans to develop a coherent economic policy for him. Is it possible that the Republicans realize how much influence they have over him, and are guiding his hand toward deliberate economic sabotage for their own political gain?

I don't think that Obama can just be given a pass as a progressive who doesn't understand economics very well. The more shocking remarks in his Twitter Town Hall were in response to a person concerned about the recent loss of collective bargaining rights for public sector workers in some states. At a time that unions are under the most vicious attacks they've seen in decades, their supposed ally in the White House said, “In the public sector, what is true is that some of the pension plans that have been in place and the health benefits that are in place are so out of proportion with what's happening in the private sector that a lot of taxpayers start feeling resentful.” He further endorsed the thrust of the anti worker attacks saying, “all of us are going to have to make some adjustments.” He concluded his response by bragging about his two year pay freeze for federal workers. (Apparently not all of us will have to make adjustments; the president, vice president, and members of Congress are exempt from the pay freeze.)

If deliberate economic sabotage seems like a conspiracy theory, my other hypothesis is that Obama has secretly been a Republican all along. Perhaps the past 15 years of his political career were all mapped out in a smoke filled meeting with Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour before he ran for the Illinois Senate. This, I admit is unlikely.