U.S. Electile Dysfunction 2016

[rogue]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Rather than "I've heard", do you have any hard evidence?

The thing I like about the MersenneForum is we tend to be a little more empirically oriented.

Here is one link relevant to my statement:

"The issue here is the president wants revenue. I'm willing to put revenue on the table," Boehner said, outlining the GOP position that enough revenue can be found in closing tax loopholes, eliminating deductions and other tax changes, and rates can be left alone. Democrats fundamentally disagree.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said that for Democrats, higher rates on the wealthy "absolutely" have to be part of a deal. "It matters very much" where the revenue comes from, he said. Democrats will have "a relentless focus on the middle class and helping them grow" for the next two years.

I've looked at other links and the consensus is that the party that benefits the most from loopholes specific to business tends to support the loopholes.

And this indicates how must revenue is lost due to deductions:

Federal tax receipts are reduced by more than $1 trillion a year by various tax deductions and credits, known as tax expenditures, often tied to a policy aim. Ending them would nearly eliminate the federal deficit, which is projected to be $1.2 trillion in the current fiscal year.

But the three largest are as popular as they are expensive: the mortgage interest deduction has cost about $75 billion a year recently, the employer deduction for health care has cost $120 billion a year, and the charitable-giving deduction has cost $38 billion a year, according to the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

Obviously many people, including myself, benefit from these deductions. That last paragraph didn't mention how much of the $1 trillion dollars is due to taxes on business vs. taxes on individuals.

On the other side, Republicans have supported some loopholes.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by rogue

Here is one link relevant to my statement:

Please forgive me for this, but that link only includes a single reference to "loophole", and it's within a quote from Boehner with no further information.

Originally Posted by rogue

And this indicates how must revenue is lost due to deductions:

So, just to be clear, you're saying that $3 BILLION dollars were lost in taxable revenue in Idaho alone because people used ethanol instead of gasoline to run their machines?

Originally Posted by rogue

Obviously many people, including myself, benefit from these deductions. That last paragraph didn't mention how much of the $1 trillion dollars is due to taxes on business vs. taxes on individuals.

On the other side, Republicans have supported some loopholes.

If I may, humbly, suggest it is time for more signal, and less noise?

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by rogue

Here is one link relevant to my statement:

Now, let's go a little deeper, shall we?

USAToday: "President Obama, Senate Democrats and a majority of the American people may say the wealthiest Americans need to pay more taxes, but the House speaker is standing his ground in opposition to raising rates.

Boehner: "Raising taxes on small businesses will kill jobs in America. It is as simple as that.

Earth to Boehner... Wealthy individuals are not small businesses.

Perhaps you got confused by the fact that a corporation is defined as an individual so they can own patents and copyrights?

[rogue]

Originally Posted by chalsall

So, just to be clear, you're saying that $3 BILLION dollars were lost in taxable revenue in Idaho alone because people used ethanol instead of gasoline to run their machines?

My point was that this was an example of a tax loophole. If you want to characterize this loophole as a "good thing", that is your choice.

Your tone with me implies that I think that raising taxes on the wealthy is a bad thing. I've made no such statement. I honestly don't understand why you have to be so combative with me. Do you think that I'm a right wing racist? Do you think I'm a hard-core Republican? I would state that I have tried to be fairly non-partisan in this thread. It obviously irks you because our political beliefs do not align.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by rogue

My point was that this was an example of a tax loophole. If you want to characterize this loophole as a "good thing", that is your choice.

Your tone with me implies that I think that raising taxes on the wealthy is a bad thing. I've made no such statement. I honestly don't understand why you have to be so combative with me. Do you think that I'm a right wing racist? Do you think I'm a hard-core Republican? I would state that I have tried to be fairly non-partisan in this thread. It obviously irks you because our political beliefs do not align.

Please don't misunderstand me.

I argue with everyone -- and I often lose.

But through argument we often find the truth.

[chappy]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Please don't misunderstand me.

I argue with everyone -- and I often lose.

But through argument we often find the truth.

It's one of the many things we like about you.

on an unrelated but math/election/funny hand: these are also great

[ewmayer]

More hilariously trenchant post-election commentary - here on the failure of the GOP to court non-white-male voters - by Matt Taibbi:

Hey, Rush Limbaugh: 'Starting an Abortion Industry' Won't Win You Female Voters

There's been a lot of hand-wringing among conservatives of the Rush/Hannity school in the last few days, a lot of concern about this outreach question, and honestly, the tone of the discussion is beginning to sound like the last days of a failed 1950s marriage. The husband who's gone all day at work comes home and throws his hands up in the air in mock frustration: what do you want from me, another Cadillac? Another fur coat? I just got you new shoes last week!

And the wife, who's loved this man for 20 years despite his abject stupidity, just sighs. All she wants her husband to do is listen to her, or take a day off work sometime and take her for a drive in the country, or make some spontaneous show of affection, maybe popping home for lunch like in the old days – just some evidence that he's even faintly aware of what's going on in her head. But when they try to talk it out, things just get worse, because in his very manner of asking her what's wrong, all hubby does is reveal that he thinks of his wife entirely as a nagging, financial parasite who's always on his ass about something.

Similarly, the fact that so many Republicans this week think that all Hispanics care about is amnesty, all women want is abortions (and lots of them) and all teenagers want is to sit on their couches and smoke tons of weed legally, that tells you everything you need to know about the hopeless, anachronistic cluelessness of the modern Republican Party. A lot of these people, believe it or not, would respond positively, or at least with genuine curiosity, to the traditional conservative message of self-reliance and fiscal responsibility.

But modern Republicans will never be able to spread that message effectively, because they have so much of their own collective identity wrapped up in the belief that they're surrounded by free-loading, job-averse parasites who not only want to smoke weed and have recreational abortions all day long, but want hardworking white Christians like them to pay the tab. Their whole belief system, which is really an endless effort at congratulating themselves for how hard they work compared to everyone else (by the way, the average "illegal," as Rush calls them, does more real work in 24 hours than people like Rush and me do in a year), is inherently insulting to everyone outside the tent – and you can't win votes when you're calling people lazy, stoned moochers.

[chappy]

Lots of people will put their spin on "why Romney lost" so I'll do the same: I think the real failure of the right boils down to a failure of reality in their echo chamber. And that failure will continue until the conservatives demand better reporting from Fox News and the various online resources. You have to go 15 deep to find the first conservative pollster on the most accurate polling list. Ten thousand hours were spent spreading lies and mistruths (and an occasional truth) about Benghazi--and nobody outside the echo chamber cared or thought it was a real story. same thing for not-optimal-gate, or we-built-this, or any number of other non-issues.

I once thought that it was impossible for anyone to run a campaign worse than the Democrats ran Kerry's campaign, I was wrong. Look at all the conservative talk now, they still can't fathom that their super pacs outspent the other side by huge amounts and they got almost nothing for it. Consider "king-maker" Rove's meltdown on national TV. Because he was part of the echo-chamber that ignored reality and spent $300 million (at least) between his super pacs and got almost zero return on investment. (additionally this number may be up to 10 times larger than the amount Democrat leaning super pacs spent on the same senate races.)

And conservatives are still spinning the numbers with false truths (though in fairness these same people need the big donors to give next time or they will be out of a job.) Jonathan Collegio from American Crossroads says that Democratic Senators raised more than Republicans by "hundreds of millions of dollars." The truth is that Republican Senatorial Candidates handily out-raised and outspent Democrats by $348m to $280m. House Republicans also out-raised their opponents $578m to $447m (though they actually go elected :) Only at the Presidential level did Democrats out-raise Republicans $644m to $543m. But the Democrats still have around $93m in cash after the election, a pretty sizable unspent war chest. Republicans have a much smaller war chest and a lot of soul searching to do.

Nate Silver maintains that the electoral college will continue to move about 2% against the Republicans each presidential cycle unless they figure out a way to reach out to the Latino vote (which shouldn't be hard given that it is a conservative Catholic base--Republicans are just generally stupid on immigration issues, and the coming battle to keep Puerto Rico from becoming a state will only play into the Democrat's hand. )

The conservative media's cheerleader attitude failed conservatives. And will continue to do so until they clean house.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

I think one can quantify the effects of racism, to some extent.

For example, Obama was elected president four years ago. His winning levels were on par with other presidents elected. The effect of racism (at least, against Obama) can thus be measured against past precedents, etc... His vote totals among Democrats, Republicans, and independents, nationwide were not measurably worse than previous popular Democrats like Clinton. etc...

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

The exit polls in Ohio are here. Do you see any evidence for racism against Obama? For Obama?

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Don't care about Ohio. I can tell you that it is alive and well in Oklahoma.

I came across some data that may make you feel a bit better about Oklahoma.
Mapping Racist Tweets in Response to President Obama's Re-election
They calculate a location quotient thus:

The formula for this location quotient is

(# of Hate Tweets in State / # of Hate Tweets in USA)
------------------------------------------------------------
(# of ALL Tweets in State / # of ALL Tweets in USA)

Alabama looks the worst. Oklahoma is well down the list by their metrics, adjacent to California. Rhode Island stands out for a place with a large number of geocoded tweets but no racist tweets matching their simple but effective template.

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by only_human

I came across some data that may make you feel a bit better about Oklahoma.[...]

Very interesting, but I wonder whether areas which show less overt racism (which is clearly what the occurrence of racist tweeting is measuring) actually have more of a problem with racist attitudes which are present but unseen. The racist tweets may be coming largely from areas where there is a culture of expressing your feelings openly. In such a culture, problems will be more visible and therefore easier to tackle.

I maintain that the type of racism which is unseen, but nevertheless disadvantages people from particular racial groups, is impossible to measure in the context of a one-off presidential election. Such an election does not, after all, repeat itself in identical circumstances with "control" candidates who have exactly the same characteristics but come from other racial backgrounds. You can, of course, measure racism in other contexts from real life and in controlled tests with volunteer subjects, and if you do that you find that under-the-surface racist attitudes are everywhere.

[only_human]

Oh, the study has other flaws too, such as that it counts tweets instead of users and the sample size is still small, so a voluble twit can skew the statistics. I don't proffer it as something definitive, but rather as a decent effort to provide at least some objective information.

As you suggest racism is obscured, protean and prevalent. It is an ugly situation. It is not all bad though. It is a story that plays out throughout the human condition. There is a lot of good too and there will be more as long as people care enough strive toward ideals.