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This negotiation is really not that complicated and the solution is simple. This is like a home purchase negotiation where the buyer wants to spend $190K and the seller wants him to spend $210K. To get a deal done, both negotiators have to agree on the amount the buyer is going to spend and they both have to move off their original
positions into the center and meet the other negotiator half way. They have to move towards each other and agree on a price of about $200K, or there will not be a deal and a home purchase. That’s the way these negotiations work in the business world. It’s very simple, and that’s what will ultimately happen in these debt limit negotiations, because it has to happen.

It’s time for everybody in Washington to stop all the name-calling, insults, wild exaggerations, and filibusters, and then move to the center and make a deal that re-opens the federal government. Both parties need to move substantially toward the other party, reach a deal, and re-open the government. That’s what will ultimately happen, but why do negotiations have to continue all the way down to the supposed “day before default”? That just scares the financial markets and causes unsophisticated investors to sell financial assets at bargain prices to savvy institutional investors (...again). Everybody just needs to move toward the center and get a deal done this weekend. Then Obama and Boehner can watch Monday Night Football and drink a beer together, while Harry Reid watches re-runs of Vega$ on another screen and drinks Dasani water. This deal could be completed by late Sunday night or early Monday morning if everybody just makes a substantial move towards the other party in a calm business-like way. That’s better for the county than long, nasty, politicized negotiations and last-minute deals.

The NRA’s president is in the middle of a great speech right now. He’s calling for armed security at all schools in America. He got heckled by a few idiots who blame the NRA for gun violence. The hecklers were forcibly removed from the room. He showed an online video game on the screen called “Kindergarten Killers”, if I heard him correctly. That’s a despicable video game, along with many others out there. I think he’s right about the need for armed security at schools. There may be copycats planning more violence right now. Shopping malls have armed security, so why not schools? Makes sense to me.

The House Republicans are playing this well. Raising the top marginal rates on ordinary income is not a good way to increase revenue, and those rate increases will slow economic growth. It's much better to bump up the rate on the lowest bracket for very high income people and limit itemized deductions (excluding charitable contributions) for everyone. It we have to increase the marginal tax rate on ordinary income, because the democrats just insist on that kind of tax increase at some level of income, then raising that rate on income above $1 million is the least damaging way to do that.

The democrats seem to forget about state income taxes, which have a marginal rate of about 9.5% in several high-tax states. When you add the state tax rate in with a higher federal rate of 39.6%, even with the state tax deduction, you're now up to an effective margin rate of approximately 45.3%. That is a serious disincentive for business investment and expansion. Some of the lost investment and expansion will be offset by increased investment by corporations that pay the 35% corporate tax rate as those corporations expand where small businessmen decide not to expand. But not all of the lost investment will be made up by bigger corporations. Some of that lost investments is in small "niche" businesses or in small markets that are not big enough opportunities for corporations to bother with. Any time a business investment or expansion is canceled because the owners decide it's just not worth it due to high tax rates, there is then a substantial multiplier effect through the larger economy that is also lost. That is how US economic growth declines significantly because of higher tax rates.

The best way to raise revenue is to raise marginal rates only above $1 million and then limit itemized deductions to $100K, excluding charitable contributions. In the long run, that will get us more economic growth and more revenue than raising total marginal tax rates (which are already very high in many states) on business owners who earn less than $1 million.

I share your concerns about the long-term economic outlook. I was only talking about next year, 2013. The hurricane is going to create a lot of repair work and construction work on the east coast next year, and that stimulus combined with the oil production boom and a strong automotive industry could generate reasonable economic growth next year. In 2014 we’ll have more risk of a really sluggish economy as the post-Hurricane construction work winds down. There will be real spending cuts, at least reductions from the current planned level of growth. But I’m also concerned that spending, debt, and interest on the debt will all grow too rapidly in the next four years.

I don't think the explanation that "the GOP forced us to cut SS and Medicare" would be accepted and believed by the voters. It looks like the plan is to make relatively modest reductions in the growth rate of spending on SS and Medicare, and the modest political cost has to be shared by both parties. Considering that the democrats control the White House and the Senate, the voters will never believe that the GOP forced them into anything.

At a high level, it looks like Obama and Boehner are trying to get more revenue through economic growth, as the Fed continues to print money and mortgage rates fall below 4%. Actually, with our ongoing oil production boom and robust automotive replacement cycle happening right now, that growth plan just might work. That growth plan could work, if we can negotiate an end to the Iranian nuclear weapons program, or make a quick surgical military strike on Iran that only drives up oil prices for a month or two. We could actually have a fairly strong economy next year in that scenario.

I agree with you. At the very least, teachers and school administrators should be armed with Taser guns with a 15-foot range and laser sights so they at least have a chance at disabling an armed attacker. In fact, I’ve read that a high-powered Taser gun is actually more effective than a gun at disabling a person quickly. Teachers should be trained in how to use a Taser gun and then hand-cuff the attacker quickly while he’s disabled. Amazing as it sounds, however, Taser guns are actually illegal in many of the liberal states. The liberal mentality never ceases to amaze me.

The second amendment won’t be amended. That’s not going to happen. Most of the state legislatures have to approve a constitutional amendment and that’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

Thousands of people are killed every year in small cars when they get hit by much bigger and taller vehicles. So are liberals calling for a ban on small cars? Of course not. Instead they’re implementing much tighter fuel efficiency standards that will make cars smaller and lighter and even more dangerous to drive if the car companies don’t make a major effort to design stronger structural components made with high-strength materials. The focus on gun control is irrational, when many more people are killed in traffic accidents every year. If the government wants to stop gun violence without infringing on our rights and leaving us unarmed in a nation filled with armed criminals, then start a program to publicize the need to lock up guns securely at home. That will stop these awful incidents when young kids shoot each other.

Where did the shooter get the first gun that he used to kill his mother? Did his mother lock up her guns properly? If not, she certainly should have kept those guns locked up securely considering the severity of her son's mental problems. Lanza's mother may have enabled this massacre by not locking up her guns securely.

Regarding Mayor Bloomberg's comments: If the killer had instead stolen a UPS delivery truck and killed 26 people by driving it into a classroom, would Bloomberg be calling for tighter controls on commercial trucks? Of course not...instead he's be calling for improved mental health programs and more research into drugs to help mentally ill people. It's so obvious, but I'll say it again: If we make ownership of guns illegal, then only criminals will own guns and criminals of course do not follow the law and will use their guns to terrorize and slaughter the disarmed law-abiding people. Enough said...now settle down Bloomberg and try some logical thinking for a change. Possibly we need a way to prevent mentally-ill people from buying guns, but that has to be done very carefully with a strict definition of who is really mentally ill.

It’s more like a endless election campaign. This White House loves campaigning. They don’t seem to like governing and negotiating with congress.

I think GOP congressmen don’t care much about calls from people outside of their district. These calls will most likely have limited impact. Congressmen can run polls in their own district to find out what their constituents really think about any issue.

Correction to post 18—that should read:

Even if we cut spending, we’re all going to have to pay more taxes later in this decade just to cover the interest expense on our massive federal debt accumulated through spending that has already occurred and can’t be revoked.

Now that I think about it, since we’re all going to be subsidizing this high-speed train line with tax payments for a long long time, I’d rather build the train line from from LA to Las Vegas. At least then, when we get off the train in Vegas we’ll get free drinks from hot-looking waitresses as partial compensation for our tax subsidies. I suggest we re-route this train from LA to Las Vegas.

Even if we don’t cut spending, we’re all going to have to pay more taxes later in this decade just to cover the interest expense on our massive federal debt accumulated through spending that has already occurred and can’t be revoked. So for the first time in my memory, I agree with Howard Dean on something. Howard, you’re right about this. There’s no way out of higher taxes later in this decade either through visible taxes or through inflation. It’s a done deal. The die is cast. We can’t unring that debt bell. The first tax increase should be to limit total itemized deductions (other than charitable contributions) to $100K. At this time, the federal government can’t afford to be subsidizing $4 million mortgages on luxury homes with $200,000 mortgage interest deductions.

Just to clarify, business travelers who are staying reasonably close to the train station and doing business nearby will be able to take a taxi or a hotel shuttle bus from the train station to their hotel and to business meetings. Therefore the high-speed train will be convenient for these people and I’m sure many of them will choose to take the high-speed trains. But most of the people who still have to rent a car if they take the train will choose to drive their own car or take an airline flight, which will still be much faster between Northern California and Southern California.

You're right on target. High-speed rail will lose money in California for a long, long time, simply because in the foreseeable future people will still need cars to get around in California's major cities. By the time train passengers wait for the shuttle bus to the rental car company, stand in line to rent their cars, return their cars and take the shuttle back to the train station, and pay for their rental cars, they will have used up most of the time and all the money they saved by taking high-speed rail instead of driving. So the only people who will want to take the high-speed train are people who are on business and are staying reasonably close to the train station, or people who have family & friends who can pick them up at the train station. This eliminates a big group of potential riders and will cause high-speed rail to lose money at least until 2050. Quite possibly, high speed rail will never be able to break even on cash flow in CA.

For the foreseeable future, high-speed rail is really only going to work well in the Northeast in the Boston to Washington corridor where cities are more compact and it's easier to get around by walking and using cabs, and public transportation takes you to many more places than it cam take you to in CA. In the very long run, maybe in the second half of this century, when public transportation improves greatly in CA, then high-speed rail could make sense and at least break even. We shouldn't be spending tax money and borrowed money on this project until then.

“To maintain or strengthen progressivity, we should end one of the leading contributors to after-tax income inequality in this country, the special tax breaks for investment income,” the group said in its statement, released Thursday. “Workers who get their salaries from wages often pay a higher effective tax rate than wealthy individuals like Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett who make most of their income from selling stocks and bonds or from dividends.”

There's a good reason for the lower marginal tax rates on investment income: investment in the private sector creates innovation and entire new industries which create millions of new jobs. That is why congress set the marginal tax rates on investment income lower than some of the marginal rates on ordinary income paid by workers earning more than about $50,000. The lower rates on long-term capital gains are also intended to encourage investors to make risky long-term investments which could make them big capital gains but also often result in large losses. That's a big difference between a worker who goes in to work a job and a long-term stock investor: the worker knows for sure that he's going to get paid (unless his company is in severe financial distress), but the stock investor never knows if he's going to make any money on an investment and knows he can certainly lose a lot on long-term investments. So the lower rate on long-term capital gains (investments held at least one year) is also intended to compensate investors for the high risk of many equity investments.

The Obama campaign grossly distorted Mitt Romney's private equity career and used numerous severe distortions and half-truths in their negative advertising against Romney. When Romney made money on good investments (often bold, risky, brilliantly implemented turn-around investments), the Obama campaign never mentioned all the jobs Romney created through his investment but only accused him of not paying enough taxes on his investment gains. Then when Romney lost a lot of money on a steel company that he could not turn around, the Obama campaign never mentioned that Romney took a large personal loss on that investment and only blamed Romney for being forced to lay off workers. This was some of the worst bunch of distortions and half-truths in the history of political advertising. This "gang of six" also seems to be forgetting that Romney's effective tax rate has been reduced substantially in recent years by large donations to his church.

I think there is some room to raise taxes on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains without hurting economic growth significantly. I suggest an increase in the rate on dividends from 15% to 19%, which takes the total federal rate to 23% when Obamacare taxes are added in. With state taxes added in that takes the effective total rate to about 31% in high tax states. The rate on long-term capital gains could be raised from 15% to 17%, which sets the total rate at about 21% with Obamacare taxes added in, and with state taxes a total effective rate of about 29%. I wouldn't raise the federal rate on long-term capital gains more than two points or we'll start to choke off investments in innovative new companies and slow down the amazing Silicon Valley job-creating machine, which has generated so much job growth and tax revenue for America.

Even if economic growth never returns to the robust growth rates we have between 2003 and 2007, if we don’t cut the budget deficit substantially next year then interest rates on federal debt will eventually have to increase substantially. Without serious deficit reduction now, there will be so much debt in a few more years and so much interest expense on debt that bond investors will rationally conclude that the only way to pay all the interest is for the Fed to create much more money and inflate the economy to generate more tax revenue. Bond investors will then sell Treasury bonds and drive up interest rates so that they are compensated for the higher real inflation rates resulting from all our money printing. So if deficits and the growth of debt are not cut back very soon, there’s no way out of higher interest costs and eventually higher taxes to pay all that interest on our massive federal debt.

There's no economic leadership in the White House or among congressional democrats. The democrat leaders seems to be suffering from a delusion that there is no debt crisis and America can continue borrowing money with 10-year bonds at 1.8% forever. That's absolutely impossible, because in January 2017 a Republican president will move into the White House and the GOP will have complete control of the House and Senate. In 2017 Obamacare will be completely overhauled to give employers much more flexibility and several lower-cost alternatives for health insurance coverage. Useless federal spending will be cut back in 2017 and our economy will finally begin to grow robustly. At that point, inflation will begin to increase because of all the money printed during the Obama years, the Fed will finally have to raise interest rates to control inflation, borrowing costs on federal debt will rise substantially, and right then in 2017 the Ameican middle class will be hit with the tax bill for all the debt and useless spending during the Obama years.

It's going to be a heavy tax burden to pay all the interest on the massive amount of debt accumulated during the reign of King Barry. Our best hope is that with good sound conservative economic policy, we'll have strong growth and a very strong supply response in our economy that will contain inflation, and interest rates won't have to rise too much to control inflation. But taxes will eventually have to increase on the middle class to pay for the economic policy disasters of the Obama administration and the huge mountain of debt accumulated between 2009 and 2016. As Romney and Ryan said so wisely..."attacking us is not an economic plan." That's all the democrat leaders do now--they just attack Republicans and make repeated false statements about economic policy and America's federal debt crisis. Where are the economists in this administration and why are they silent about the destructive long-term impact of our exploding federal debt? I assume genuine qualified economists have been completely silenced by order of the White House. Well that means the GOP has an opportunity to bring forward some real economists to make our case that spending has to be cut by an amount at least equal to tax increases, and not through phony gimmicks like saying "we're winding down two wars". That's totally phony because that statement assumes the wars were planned to go on forever, which is completely false. The House Republicans must not agree to any deal that doesn't cut spending (with real spending cuts) by at least as much as any tax increases.

Correction to item 4 above: I forgot to say that this increase in the long-term capital gains rate and the rate on carried interest should only be on income above $500K.

The House Republicans must stand strong and refuse to raise the top ordinary income rate of 35%. That is the marginal rate paid by a lot of small business owners and raising that rate would definitely slow down economic growth and job growth. All reputable economists agree on that principle--the only question is how much a marginal tax increase slows down growth. Boehner and McConnell need to bring in some top conservative economists to help make that case for them publicly.

Democrats often bring up the Clinton administration and point to the strong economic growth in Clinton's second term despite higher tax rates at that time. What that economic history demonstrates is simply that marginal tax rates are not the ONLY key factor affecting economic growth. After the Clinton tax increase, economic growth was slow and steady in Clinton's first term, mainly because of very strong demographics in America at that time. The mid-point of the Baby Boom generation turned 29 years old in 1993, the first year of the Clinton Adminstration. During the next eight years almost all the Boomers moved into their 30s and early 40s, which are the years when people buy the most big-ticket items, such as houses, appliances, furniture, and motor vehicles. Strong demographics kept growth going in Clinton's first term, despite the tax increases, and then our economy got a big break in Clinton's second term: the rapid initial build-out of the commercial internet occurred in Cinton's second term. The growth of the internet, combined with strong demographics, was powerful enough to overpower the economic drag from higher tax rates. But today we are an older country with much weaker demographics, and the internet has been almost completely built out in America and is no longer a big source of economic growth. There's no Big New Thing on the horizon to spark economic growth. So today we can't afford the economic drag from higher marginal tax rates on business owners. The democrats need to get their economics straight and stop using politically-oriented polling to determine their tax policy. Raising marginal rates on business owners and top professionals is a really bad idea for our economy today. We're already growing very slowly and higher marginal tax rates on business owners will only slow our economy even more.

Here's what I suggest the House Republicans offer in this deficit-reduction deal--Keep the top rate on ordinary income at 35% and then offer to: 1) Limit total itemized deductions to $100K for everyone, regardless of how much mortgage interest people are paying, 2) Raise the top rate on dividend income to 19% from 15% on income above $500K (with the Obamacare tax added in that takes the total rate to about 23% on income above 500k), 3) Increase the rate on the lowest bracket to the rate for the second lowest bracket for people earning more than $500K, 4) As a final offer, bump up the rate on long-term capital gains and carried interest on private equity investments from 15% to 17% (before Obamacare taxes). I would make that offer and say: that's all you get and additional revenue has to be generated through stronger economic growth.

Score that proposal, see how much increased revenue it generates, and then make sure you get spending cuts equal to that amount. Start by cutting the vast Obamacare bureaucracy that I've read about--which reportedly has a planned workforce of 150,000 government employees, IN ADDITION to all the people who already work in health care administration in the health insurance companies. That 150,000, if correct, is absolutely mind-boggling. They couldn't possibly need more than 8,000 people, using good information systems, to administer the entire Obamcare law (in addition to the people already working for health insurance companies).

I'm sure there's tons of evidence that regulations cause slower job growth and a net reduction in jobs created over the last 50 years. Harry just needs to assign a few of his staffers to actually read academic journals written by economists, instead of tossing out a sweeping statement without doing any research on this subject.

The BLS statistics are probably correct, but Reid is not analyzing them correctly. While only a small percentage of job losses are a direct result of new regulations, here's the key point he missed: many of the jobs lost because of "lack of business" are lost when US companies cannot compete with competitors on the cost and price of their products because of the high overhead costs of regulatory compliance and are losing market share to competitors who are underpricing the company. This is how we lose millions of jobs to developing countries such as China, India, and Mexico. We lose them partly because of the high cost of regulation, which enables companies overseas to consistently underprice American companies and take our business and jobs. That's how most of the jobs are lost, because of market share lost to lower-cost competitors overseas, and this lost market share is that "lack of business" that Reid mentioned.

Now we don't want to repeal all of our workplace safety regulations and environmental regulations and become like China, where some companies have just dumped chemicals into farmland--chemicals which then ended up in the food supply. But we need to streamline regulations, eliminate unnecessary regulations and laws that are really designed entirely to enable lawsuits and give a fat political payback to trial lawyers, who are one of the democrat parties biggest financial backers. Harry and other democrats need to also consider the jobs that are never created because of people who decide not to start up their own business and hire some employees, because they don't want to deal with all the regulations, laws, and potential lawsuits. And believe me, I've talked to a lot of business people over the years and many, many people have decided to continue working for a corporation instead of starting their own business because they didn't want all the legal and regulatory hassles, regulatory costs, and stress resulting from all the laws and regulations in states like California. That regulatory burden on small businesses has cost us a lot of jobs over the years and will cause a continued slowdown in job creation if we don't cut back on the regulatory burden on American businesses.

Bookmark for later comment.

Here's what really happened: Romney won the nomination because the more conservative and evangelical Republican vote was split between Gingrich and Santorum. One of those two men should have dropped out earlier and endorsed the other if they really thought Romney couldn't possibly beat Obama. That didn't happen, and that's why Romney won the nomination.

In many ways, both Rick Santorum and Newt would have been great candidates. But the Obama campaign would have viciously attacked Santorum as a "hateful homophobe" and a "religious extremist", while Gingrich would have been smeared as "disrespectful of women" because of statements from his ex-wife. Would either of them have been able to withstand Obama's vicious smear machine and win the election? I don't know, but most likely they would have received more votes and support from evangelical Christians.

You may be right about the abortion issue, and Romney’s record as governor of a liberal state hurt him significantly in this election, but please tell me exactly how Romney “stole the nomination”?

I don't buy all this stuff about consultants just profiteering off the Romney campaign. The last Gallup poll before the hurricane had Romney with a 5 point lead among likely voters. This poll was not part of a "con game". Rasmussen's last poll had the election close to tied in the popular vote. Something unusual and unexpected happened on election day that the pollsters absolutely did not expect to see, and I don't buy the argument that the election was stolen through vote fraud. Obama won by large margins in several of the swing states that were supposed to be very close, and he won by too many votes to explain that by fraud. It seems like the entire science and art of polling needs to be re-examined and revised by firms like Gallup and Rasmussen. They missed something big in this election and so did Romney's consultants.

In fairness to the Romney campaign (and speaking as a software developer), I’m sure they ran a very large number of tests on the Orca system. Clearly they needed to run even more tests. But it’s difficult to simulate the number of simultaneous users that you have on election day and there’s no possible way to simulate all the possible technical and user-related problems that can occur on election day. My take on this is that the GOP needs to use a simpler and less-sophisticated system next time that doesn’t rely so much on real-time data from field operatives with smart phones, but just gets the basic job done and enables volunteers to contact all the likely GOP voters.

In fairness to the Romney campaign (and speaking as a software developer), I’m sure they ran a very large number of tests on the Orca system. But it’s difficult to simulate the number of simultaneous users that you have on election day and there’s no possible way to simulate all the possible technical and user-related problems that can occur on election day. My take on this is that the GOP needs to use a simpler and less-sophisticated system next time that doesn’t rely so much on real-time data from field operatives with smart phones, but just gets the basic job done and enables volunteers to contact all the likely GOP voters.

I don't buy all this stuff about consultants just profiteering off the Romney campaign. The last Gallup poll before the hurricane had Romney with a 5 point lead among likely voters. This poll was not part of a "con game". Rasmussen's last poll had the election close to tied in the popular vote. Something unusual and unexpected happened on election day that the pollsters absolutely did not expect to see, and I don't buy the argument that the election was stolen through vote fraud. Obama won by large margins in several of the swing states that were supposed to be very close, and he won by too many votes to explain that by fraud.

It seems like the entire science and art of polling needs to be re-examined and revised by firms like Gallup and Rasmussen. They missed something big in this election and so did Romney's consultants.

These clowns at the Washington Post will not be so happy by the end of 2014. At that time, the US will be back in recession, the public will be very angry about the dreadful Obamacare law, and King Barry will be thoroughly despised by the majority of Americans. (...and the GOP will have taken control of the House and the Senate by then).

In fairness to the Romney campaign (and speaking as a software developer), I’m sure they ran a very large number of tests on this system. But it’s difficult to simulate the number of simultaneous users that you have on election day and there’s no possible way to simulate all the possible technical and user-related problems that can occur on election day. My take on this is that the GOP needs to use a simpler and less-sophisticated system next time that doesn’t rely so much on real-time data from field operatives, but just gets the basic job done and enables volunteers to contact all the likely GOP voters.

Those people who supported Obama and think of themselves as educated and intelligent, are really not very intelligent or knowledgeable. They usually know how to do their own jobs at work, but they know little or nothing about economics, foreign policy, and national security policy. And they certainly aren’t learning anything from MSM news people, who know even less about those subjects. Economics should be a required class for all high-school students and again for all college students.

The Romney campaign ran a massive advertising campaign, but only in the swing states. It's a complete waste of money to advertise in Kansas, or in my state, where Romney was sure to win. That's why you didn't see any Romney ads on TV.

Right now I'm amazed that Romney lost, and lost decisively in electoral votes. He's infinitely more qualified than Obama to be president, in every way. King Barry was able to fool the majority of Americans AGAIN, through his smooth phony rhetorical BS and by blaming Bush for our sluggish economy. As I've written before, Obama is unquestionably an expert con-man. He's the biggest boldest con-man in US history by far.

By next summer our economy will be either flat-lining with approximately zero real growth, or we'll already be back in recession. At that point, hopefully some of our foolish fellow Americans will wake up and understand that Obama has no long-term economic plan and his entire economic policy in his first term was designed with one single goal in mind: to maintain positive economic growth into November, 2012 so that he could win reelection and continue to party in the White House. That's why he didn't push harder for tax increases in his first term. He relied on massive deficit spending and money-printing by the Fed to keep the economy growing at just a slow pace. But incredibly, the majority of Americans and the naive and foolish MSM, do not understand that this massive deficit spending and the resulting slow economic growth is completely unsustainable in the long term. This means, of course, that with our current economic policy, long-term economic growth is also completely unsustainable and the US will fall back into recession as soon as the federal deficit is cut back to prevent a disastrous US debt crisis (similar to Greece and Italy).

Apparently the MSM news clowns don't know the first thing about economics and are merely demobots who mindlessly agree with almost everything a democrat president does and mindlessly oppose most policies and ideas from Republican presidents and GOP presidential candidates. By about next summer, Obama supporters will finally begin to realize that King Barry has no long-term economic plan and he doesn't understand America or the American economy and what makes our economy grow. This is all very obvious to me, because Obama did not grow up in mainstream America (he grew up in Indonesia and very liberal Hawaii) and thus he doesn't really understand the American heartland and the American entrepreneurial spirit. I predict that Zero's approval ratings will being to plunge to new lows next spring and he will be thoroughly despised by the majority of Americans by the end of 2014 after full implementation of the dreadful Obamacare law begins.

Here’s a working link to county by county vote counts. (Not sure why the first link didn’t work).

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-election-results/

The media did release a county by county report of votes counts in the Presidential election. It's right here:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-election-results/

In addition, as far as I know the states all release county by county vote counts, and that is where some strange stuff can be found such as over 90% turnouts in many democrat counties. I'm getting the impression that vote fraud was worse in this election than in 2004 and 2008, but at this point I doubt that vote fraud is the main reason why Romney lost. He lost mainly because of low turnout of Republicans and conservative independents, and at a purely logistical level I think it would be very difficult for democrat vote counters to find millions of ballots with vote for Romney and discard all those ballots. There's just not enough time to do that and there are usually Republican observers watching the vote counting, which has to be done by machines because of the huge number of ballots counted in just a few hours.

My belief is that Romney's turnout was suppressed more by Obama's vicious smear machine of negative advertising, and vote fraud is a relatively minor factor in this election. That's my take on it right now, but I just started reading about all the strange vote counts and my opinion could change.

The low turnout doesn't make much sense. The Mormon issue could have been a minor factor, but there are probably at least two other bigger causes of low turnout for Romney in Ohio: 1) Obama's vicious smear machine worked quite effectively at dampening enthusiasm for Romney. It's tough running against a campaign that has absolutely no concern about telling the truth about anything. 2) A quiet background factor may be that many people in Ohio have been able to refinance their mortgages this year at ultra-low rates under 5%, which has put more spending money in their pockets and is making them stop thinking about our exploding national debt and higher taxes in the future. Ohio didn't have the big housing price boom that occurred in the sunbelt, and thus fewer people are under water on their mortgages and there has probably been a lot of mortgage refinancing at low rates in Ohio and PA.

But when our economy slides back into recession early next year after all the new tax increases kick in to pay for Obamacare and more handouts, then those same people who stayed home will start worrying about losing their jobs and start thinking..."oh geez, I should have gone out and voted for Mitt! He knows how to manage our economy."

You're onto something big. I predict that at some time in the distant future, in the next 150 years at most, the United States will decide to break up into at least three separate nations connected mainly by a common language and a military alliance. Obama's presidency and specifically the dreadfully arrogant Obamacare law may well turn out to be the starting point for serious discussion about splitting up the United States. The problem we have now is that the conservative areas of the US, the states that Romney won tonight, have nothing much in common with the liberal states on the west coast and in the northeast. Worse than that, the liberal states and their crooked politicians refuse to leave us alone and instead are pushing their horrible socialist policies into our states through the force of federal law, federal courts, and a federal police force (if the courts can't intimidate us). I want absolutely no involvement in the Obamacare law--I want my health insurance policy to stay just the way it was in 2008, and yet crooked democRAT politicians who I despise are forcing me into their screwed-up Obamacare system. I'm out here in the Mountain time zone, and I want out of their socialist system now and forever.

This situation is becoming increasingly intolerable for the conservative states, mainly in the South, Southwest, Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountain region. Eventually the people in this conservative region are going to demand the right to form a new country that isn't under the brutal control of Washington and all the crooked liberal politicians who run that town. Eventually there will be an economic and legal cold war between the conservative states and the liberal states on the coasts, which can only be solved by breaking up the US into at least three countries: the Eastern States, the Conservative States, and the Pacific States along the west coast. Florida could end up either in the Eastern States or the Conservative States (...it could end up geographically separated from the other Eastern States as Alaska is separated from the US today). That break-up is likely to happen before the end of this century. It's going to be the only real solution to a raging economic and legal cold war between the conservative people in flyover country and the socialists on the west coast and in the Northeast.

Romney is an excellent candidate and he did a great job in this campaign. There is just this strange Obama factor--his utter mediocrity and his phony fake friendliness, that appeals to millions of mediocre slobs in the swing states. He appeals to all the mediocre factory workers, public employee union members, and all the unemployed slobs on food stamps and housing subsidies.

I truly believe that Romney was the strongest candidate to run against Obama, because he stood up to Obama's vicious smear campaign with great strength and dignity and never stopped fighting even as the onslaught of lies and distortions from the despicable Obama campaign continued for several months. I honestly have no doubt that Santorum and Gingrich would have lost by much more than Romney, if in fact Romney ends up losing tonight. Santorum would have been smeared as a "hateful homophone", while Gingrich would have been smeared as a man who doesn't respect women, etc. Mitt Romney ran straight into Obama's vicious buzz-saw of smear and lies, and Obama's stupid coalition of the poorly educated, dumbed down, and mediocre middle class fell for Obama's con-man routine AGAIN...("fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.") This election is a shameful case of Obama's coalition of dumbed-down liberals and mediocrity getting fooled AGAIN by Obama's phony BS. The people who voted for him will regret it severely in about six months as our economy begins to slide into another serious recession as taxes increase to pay for Obamacare and more handouts, while hiring by the private sector stops completely. All it will take is a few failed Treasury auctions followed by a collapse of our stock market to send us back into a severe recession. I'm in my mid-50s, and honestly I don't even recognize America any more. It's not the country I grew up in. It's been taken over by this vicious coalition of mediocre democrats and the lying cheating MSM mafia that covers up every crime by democrat politicians--even posting a forged birth certificate on the White House website.

America may now be like an alcoholic who has to hit rock bottom to finally realize that alcoholism is a real problem for him. We as a nation may have to hit rock bottom to finally realize that liberalism and the MSM mafia is a real serious problem for America. That may happen as we slide into another deep recession early next year.

Romney is an excellent candidate and he did a great job in this campaign. There is just this strange Obama factor, his utter mediocrity and his phony fake friendliness, that appeals to millions of mediocre slobs in the swing states. He appeals to all the mediocre factory workers, public employee union members, and all the unemployed slobs on food stamps and housing subsidies. I truly believe that Romney was the strongest candidate to run against Obama, because he stood up to Obama's vicious smear campaign with great strength and dignity and never stopped fighting even as the onslaught of lies and distortions from the despicable Obama campaign continued for several months.

I honestly have no doubt that Santorum and Gingrich would have lose by much more than Romney, if in fact Romney ends up losing tonight. Santorum would have been smeared as a "hateful homophone", while Gingrich would have been smeared as a man who doesn't respect women, etc. Mitt Romney ran straight into Obama's vicious buzz-saw of smear and lies, and Obama's stupid coalition of the poorly educated, dumbed down, and mediocre middle class fell for Obama's con-man routine AGAIN...("fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." This election is looking like a shameful case of Obama's coalition of the dumbed-down liberals and mediocrity getting fooled AGAIN by Obama's phony BS. The people who voted for him will regret it severely in about six months as our economy begins to slide into another serious recession as taxes increase to pay for Obamacare and more handouts, while hiring by the private sector stops completely. I'm in my mid-50s, and honestly I don't even recognize America any more. It's not the country I grew up in. It's been taken over by this vicious coalition of mediocre democrats and the lying cheating MSM mafia that covers up every crime by democrat politicians--even posting a forged birth certificate on the White House website.

America may now be like an alcoholic who has to hit rock bottom to finally realize that alcoholism is a real problem for him. We as a nation may have to hit rock bottom to finally realize that liberalism and the MSM mafia is a real serious problem for America. That may happen as we slide into another deep recession early next year.

I would like to break that 55-0 lock too, but the CA legislature is never going to do that unless the bigger red states (TX,VA,NC,AZ, etc) also do the same thing. If that happens then you turn the presidential election into a series of mini-elections where each party tries to win each congressional district, and that’s when the vote fraud starts as people start stuffing the ballot boxes to win the competitive congressional districts. I think we’re better off with the current winner-take-all system in the states.

I don't think that's such a good idea. If we lose the electoral vote, then we lose, regardless of the national popular vote. That goes for the democrats too. We can't have it both ways.

But I agree with you about fighting vote fraud and stolen elections. That's the right way to make sure we don't lose any of the swing states to vote fraud, and that will help us win more presidential elections in the future.

The NPV scheme is a series of cleverly written state laws that are only activated when enough states participate to guarantee an electoral victory for the winner of the popular vote. So the schemers would probably need at least a few red states to participate. Even if the vast majority of the participating states were blue states, the scheme would still work for the schemers, who want the big states to dominate the Presidential elections. This scheme is extremely dangerous and would encourage corruption and large-scale vote fraud, and would give a clear advantage to the most dishonest, fraudulent political parties (...such as that party whose name starts with a “d”).

Great article on why the national popular vote scheme is clearly and completely unconstitutional. This latest scheme to destroy the Electoral College is a clever, sneaky attempt to go around the original intent of the constitution written by the Founding Fathers, who did not intend for the President to be elected by a pure popular vote. No serious constitutional scholar could possibly support this slick attempt to go around the clear intent of our constitution (without a constitutional amendment).

It doesn’t take a big conspiracy to rig the jobs numbers. All it takes is a few people in key positions in the administration. If you think Welch doesn’t have a strong factual basis for this accusation, then you don’t know Jack.

It doesn’t take a big conspiracy to rig the jobs numbers. All it takes is a few people in key positions in the administration. If you think Welch doesn’t have a strong factual basis for this accusation, then you don’t know Jack.

Correct. Also, this is a national poll and this race will be decided in the swing states where Romney is doing almost all of his advertising and campaigning, and where the voters know more about the positive side of Romney and the negative side of Obama. The swing state polls are the ones to watch, much more than these national polls. It’s normal for a winning challenger to start behind the incumbent and then overtake the incumbent in the final month as the voters become more familiar with the challenger. That’s exactly what Romney is going to do.

This author nailed it right here:

They also know that many of the polls have produced contradictory conclusions and that many are based on estimates of turnout that mirror the Democrats 2008 triumph rather than the Republican victory in 2010.

I have no doubt that when turnout for this election is forecasted correctly, Romney has a significant lead over Obama which is likely to increase by election day. The election next month and the 2008 election will prove to be unique presidential elections in which turnout by the two parties shifted substantially from the previous election. The MSM needs to end its obvious bias for Obama and end it soon, or the MSM will lose what little credibility it still has, shortly after this election.

Good question. The only reasons I can think of are: 1) Maybe the DNC gets some kind of a discounted advertising rate on national ads that run everywhere in America and fill up empty advertising time that hasn’t already been sold, or 2) as someone else mentioned, the Obama campaign knows that Romney has a solid lead and they’re trying to limit the size of Romney’s victory in the national popular vote, to limit how much political capital Romney acquires from his victory. If it isn’t for one of those reasons, then it’s beyond me why they’re advertising in solid blue regions.

There’s no question that Romney is leading in national polls that accurately forecast the relative turnout of Republicans, Democrats, and independents. Obama’s support among white voters has declined dramatically in the last three years.

I agree. Romney and Ryan look calm and confident based on their internal polls. Turnout is probably the most difficult thing to predict in any election, but there's no question we will see a strong anti-Obama turnout of Romney voters in this election. Mitt may well end up winning by default, just by being the last man standing who is acceptable to the majority of voters. But I believe he will win.

This writer is forgetting that the United States has become more liberal in the last 25 years and it is more difficult for a Republican to win the White House than it was in 1988 and 2000. The Hispanic percentage of our population increases every year and Hispanic people tend to vote for democrats. Our best response to the increasing percentage of registered democrats is to work really hard to increase the turnout on election day of Republicans and conservative-leaning independents. That's our best strategy, and we need to focus on strong turnout and stop this useless infighting.

Exactly. That's the real story here that the national media should be covering. I think some of the media will begin to focus on the big story here, which is the numerous false statements that Harry Reid made about Romney's tax payments. I suspect that Reid knowingly made those false statements. So is Reid guilty of slander and political fraud because of statements he made directly from the senate floor? Is Reid guilty of wire fraud for using cable TV systems and the internet to knowingly transmit false and fraudulent statements to millions of people? This is the big story here--the numerous false and fraudulent statements made by the democrat party's Senate Majority Leader.

After the initial absurd liberal response to Romney actually paying MORE tax than he had to pay, the conservative media is going to start focusing on Harry Reid, Pelosi, and the numerous false and fraudulent statements they made from taxpayer-funded venues. That is the big scandal that has occurred here and we're not going to let that scandal fade away because crooks and liars in the mainstream media just want to forget it.