What do you like and/or dislike about Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum?

Miscellaneous General
1

I don’t want to say what I think yet, as I do not want to give any predispositions, but I would love to hear the specific reasons why you like and/or dislike Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. Given the nature of the forum, I just want to list some positives about Romney and Santorum to balance things out.

Romney

  1. Reduce income tax rate from 35 to 25 percents

  2. 20% cap on spending of the GDP

  3. Lower Regulations

  4. He says he wants to elimate Obamacare and instead give the money to the states

  5. Reduce taxes on middle class savings and investments

  6. Eliminate taxes on dividends, interest and capital gains for anyone making less than $200,000 a year

  7. Believes that cutting taxes and reducing regulations, not stimulus, is the key to economic growth

Santorum

  1. Cut 5 trillion in ferderal spending over 5 years

  2. He speaks about elimating government waste and improving efficiency

  3. Repeal and Replace ObamaCare with market based healthcare

  4. 18% cap on spending of the GDP

  5. Eliminate all energy subsidies and most agriculture subsidies within four years

  6. Phase out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac within five years

  7. Eliminate funding for implementation of Dodd/Frank regulatory burdens

2

I assume this is more of an honest curiousity thing, but to be honest it’s kind of a useless exercise…especially around here. The vast majority of people here know good and well this is all nonsense, and there’s nothing really good about either of these men in terms of why they should get someone’s vote…especially when Ron Paul is in the race.

Notice how you asked what people liked about them, and then proceeeded to list policy stances, and things they’ve “said they would do.”

3

I remember reading John Stuart Mill a while back. He says that in situation were there is no opposition it is necessary to create one, or our foundation risks cracking. I have my opinion, but I’ll play devils advocate, so I challenge you to give me specifics. (Challenge in a friendly way)

4

Also Mr. James, you said I gave a list of things they would do, but you support Ron Paul for what he would do. Therefore your basing your accusation upon theory. If you want to call them liers, tell me when did they lie? Also lets give an alternate scenario. Lets say they are not liers.

5

Santorum voted for debt ceiling increases, Romney instituted a mandate. Nuff said.

6

This is a forum of people who have political philosophies that fall into most likely less than 1% of the population, and you think we don’t see opposition? You think we can get by just existing in a bubble of people who agree and never have to encounter or deal with any opposing ideology? Seriously?

Again, you didn’t give any specifics about what you liked about these slimeballs…all you did was list crap they’ve claimed they would like to do. I don’t exactly consider “I like him because ‘he speaks about elimating government waste and improving efficiency’” a very intellectually sound reasoning. I mean really. You don’t say. Well break out the tickertape and start the parade, a politician talked about eliminating government waste.

I guess this means you like…every politician who’s ever lived.

You want specifics? (even though the above example you gave is kind of the exact opposite of that)…

Mitt Romney [former governor who was the first to enforce essentially an Obamacare healthcare system on the people of his state…a program Obama said was a big inspiration for him in his own plan…something that Romney praised Obama for]…says “he wants to elimate Obamacare and instead give the money to the states”.

Yeah I’m convinced.

Mitt Romney, a corporate insider who gets more money from billionaires than Barack Obama. The guy whose top campaign contributors are Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley. This guy. You like him because he says stuff that you like the sound of. I’d say that pretty much explains the situation we’re in.

Santorum. Santorum. Mr. “They don’t hate us because of anything we’ve done, they hate us because we’re free and prosperous, imposing our values on each other is what America’s about”. He voted to double the size of the Dept. of Ed, he voted to expand Medicare and add free drugs to senior citizens (with no way to pay for it, of course), and he votes in favor of foreign aid. See, what people do tends to matter a little more to me than what they say.

But if you want to go on what people say, let’s hear what Rick Santorum has to say about homosexuals. Let’s hear what he has to say about starting wars and forcefully injecting American “goodness” at the point of a gun. (You know, George Carlin made a very perspicacious point once about this…mentioning how all the bullets and the bombs are shaped like dicks, and that this is a pseudo-psychological way of projecting yourself into other people’s affairs. Listen to what he calls it.)

And finally, as an aside, I already created a thread (quite some time ago) in fact that may already provide the kind of answers you’re looking for…

For anyone who still needs convincing against other candidates

7

False. Go up and read what I wrote again. It’s right there.

8

You sound angry John. I never said I liked them. I am a Ron Paul supporter and am looking for irrefutable evidence against them, so I can spread it to the masses. Plus I think this is a heathy exercise. I’m doing research now to find Romney’s and Santorum’s responses to yours and Wheylous’s claims.

9

Have fun with that. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of great gems.

10

The mainstream of American politics constitutes a “challenge” to Austrian economics and libertarian theory like Bill O’Reilly would constitute a challenge to Fedor Emilianenko in the Octagon.

I agree we need to be challenged and I think left-libertarians provide an excellent source of substantive, challenging intellectual argument. If nothing else, they tend to put a more human face on opposition to the status quo than the more dispassionate (and sometimes detached) analysis of Rothbard, et. al.

Clayton -

11

god I love Fedor.

12

I’m still reading on the 8 debt ceiling increases (alot of reading) by Santorum. Also I’m reading about Romney’s mandate and was looking into Romney’s claim that it has provided more beneift then harm. I just wanted to say I love Fedor also.

13

Yeah, I mean, if you want to set their records side-by-side, it’s not even a competition. Did Romney or Santorum predict the economic collapse? Ehhh, no. Have Romney or Santorum been elected 11 times to anything let alone maintain a consistent, principled position informed by careful study of history, economics and politics? Nope. Let’s see how many tax raises each candidate has supported… Ron Paul: 0… Romney: not 0, so who cares… Santorum: not 0, so who cares. How many overseas bases does each candidate promise to close upon election? Ron Paul: As many as possible, ideally all of them… Romney: whatever’s politically convenient, aka ZERO, Santorum “Bomb them all, let God sort them out”: probably wants to build more. We can go on and on.

Fedor v. O’Reilly.

Clayton -

14

I found one interesting argument for Romney’s healthcare mandate so far. His arguments is that if people don’t have health care and can afford it then they shouldn’t be a burden upon others. It is unrealistic that we will elimate healthcare all together and Hayek argued that everyone should be given the very minimum needed for survival. Friedman also argued for a negative income tax. I know mandate has bad connotations, but if viewed as just a tax then would you say in a prosperous country this would be a reasonable proposition?

15

I laughed out loud.

16

In response to Clayton, I can’t really come up with a good argument against Ron Paul’s foriegn policy, but I would like to ask what you think the immediate ramifications of scaling down our bases around the world would be? If lets say somehow Syria and Iran can send buckets of money to Hezbollah and Israel is attacked, what would you say is the appropriate action? If Israel is losing do we allow their defeat? and if we do intervene then wouldn’t the problem not have been solved by our absence?

17

So we should force people to buy something, whether they want it or not. Yes, this makes such good sense. Very reasonable and lucid. Quite brilliant actually. And not unconstitutional or immoral at all.

So we’re appealing to authority now? If we’re going to go that far you should at least pick actual strict libertarians. Hayek was pretty easily an ordoliberal, and Friedman…well, Friedman was just wrong on a number of things. (It wasn’t until shortly before he died (at age 94) before he finally conceded the Fed should be abolished.)

You mean like “hey, let’s have a bigger more burdensome government…we can afford it!”? Yeah, great plan. First of all, we can’t afford it. We have unfunded liabilities that overshadow global GDP.

But let’s also not forget you’re talking about an essential government takeover of the healthcare industry. It’s bad enough as it is, and Obamacare makes it ten times worse in just the form it’s written…but on top of that is a first step in the direction of a single-payer (i.e. government-controlled-run) system. They said so.

18

In response to the mandate being unconstitutional because it is forced then you could argue so are taxes in general. A mandate gives you something in return immediately, as oppose to taxes. Granted you can’t force to people to buy toasters, but health care, education and security do those sound resonable?

I disagree with Friedman on some things, but on most things I believe he is correct. Also an argument doesn’t have to be libertarian to be viable.

You can argue that health care is a necessary evil and that spending cuts can be found else where. Romney says he is for putting a cap on GDP. Lets pretend he is honest.

19

Israelis can take care of themselves. Anyone who claims they can’t, and need our help, and our permission to take a piss, is not only insulting their ability, but also the competence of their own intelligence officials.

It’s a semi-microcosm for the whole socialist mindset of “we know what’s best for you. We’ll take care of you.”

20

When is military intervention appropriate then? If Germany attacks the UK do we sit on our hands? Do we act to prevent genocide or do we just act when we are attacked? Is there no such thing as taking preventive action? If all it takes is to blow up one bridge to save a village of people who are not of this country, then do we stand aside because of our morals?