Mitt Romney - No New Taxes!
 

Romney boasts that he is the first Republican presidential candidate to sign a no-new tax pledge offered by the conservative Americans for Tax Reform. He did so in January, a day after he concluded his term as governor.

I would assume this means he has no intention of signing into law a revision of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which, since it has not adjusted for inflation since its creation, has been affecting more and more people, and will soon increase taxes for those making as little as 55k.

Or will he just promote a ballooning national debt?

Or.....anyone know?

Re: Mitt Romney - No New Taxes!
 

I don't know Mitt's intention, but I do know this. I'm voting for the candidate who will eliminate the income tax and replace it with nothing. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Re: Mitt Romney - No New Taxes!
 

No new taxes--just more of the old ones. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Mitt Romney - No New Taxes!
 

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Romney boasts that he is the first Republican presidential candidate to sign a no-new tax pledge offered by the conservative Americans for Tax Reform. He did so in January, a day after he concluded his term as governor.

I would assume this means he has no intention of signing into law a revision of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which, since it has not adjusted for inflation since its creation, has been affecting more and more people, and will soon increase taxes for those making as little as 55k.

Or will he just promote a ballooning national debt?

Or.....anyone know?

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Why does "no new taxes" = not eliminating an old tax?

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux

Romney appointed judge releases a killer. He moves to Seattle and kills again.

What is it with Massachusetts leniency?

Soft-on-cons Bay State

"Mauck, 30, and his recent bride, Beverly, 28, were shot to death last weekend, allegedly by Daniel Tavares Jr., released from Massachusetts custody just four months ago after killing his mother with a carving knife in 1991."

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

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Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux

Romney appointed judge releases a killer. He moves to Seattle and kills again.

What is it with Massachusetts leniency?

Soft-on-cons Bay State

"Mauck, 30, and his recent bride, Beverly, 28, were shot to death last weekend, allegedly by Daniel Tavares Jr., released from Massachusetts custody just four months ago after killing his mother with a carving knife in 1991."

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a liberal state, bending over backwards for criminal's rights, with no death penalty....doesnt sound like its limited to Mass.

BTW I was glad to see 2 recent articles that show that the death penalty is indeed a deterrent. Common sense supported by science. whoda thunk.

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

I thought I read exactly the opposite recently, Copernicus.

EDIT: I am completely wrong. But an economist, Justin Wolfers, is arguing that the noise levels in the data is too large to draw conclusions and those that draw conclusions either way are doing so more on ideological blinders than any analysis.

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

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I thought I read exactly the opposite recently, Copernicus.

EDIT: I am completely wrong. But an economist, Justin Wolfers, is arguing that the noise levels in the data is too large to draw conclusions and those that draw conclusions either way are doing so more on ideological blinders than any analysis.

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I don't think people commit more murders because of the death penalty. It has to be some sort of deterrent but how much of one would seem to be the question.

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

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I thought I read exactly the opposite recently, Copernicus.

EDIT: I am completely wrong. But an economist, Justin Wolfers, is arguing that the noise levels in the data is too large to draw conclusions and those that draw conclusions either way are doing so more on ideological blinders than any analysis.

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I don't think people commit more murders because of the death penalty. It has to be some sort of deterrent but how much of one would seem to be the question.

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This is interesting, from the Freakonomics NYT blog:
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Given the evidence I’ve examined, I believe that Wolfers is on the right side of this debate. There are recent studies of the death penalty — most bad, but some reasonable — that find it has a deterrent effect on crime. Wolfers and John Donohue published an article in the Stanford Law Review two years ago that decimated most of the research on the subject.


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Analyses of data stretching farther back in time, when there were many more executions and thus more opportunities to test the hypothesis, are far less charitable to death penalty advocates . On top of that, as we wrote in Freakonomics, if you do back-of-the-envelope calculations, it becomes clear that no rational criminal should be deterred by the death penalty , since the punishment is too distant and too unlikely to merit much attention.


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Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

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I thought I read exactly the opposite recently, Copernicus.

EDIT: I am completely wrong. But an economist, Justin Wolfers, is arguing that the noise levels in the data is too large to draw conclusions and those that draw conclusions either way are doing so more on ideological blinders than any analysis.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think people commit more murders because of the death penalty. It has to be some sort of deterrent but how much of one would seem to be the question.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is interesting, from the Freakonomics NYT blog:
[ QUOTE ]

Given the evidence I’ve examined, I believe that Wolfers is on the right side of this debate. There are recent studies of the death penalty — most bad, but some reasonable — that find it has a deterrent effect on crime. Wolfers and John Donohue published an article in the Stanford Law Review two years ago that decimated most of the research on the subject.


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Analyses of data stretching farther back in time, when there were many more executions and thus more opportunities to test the hypothesis, are far less charitable to death penalty advocates . On top of that, as we wrote in Freakonomics, if you do back-of-the-envelope calculations, it becomes clear that no rational criminal should be deterred by the death penalty , since the punishment is too distant and too unlikely to merit much attention.


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Thanks, my point was that I don't think the death penalty encourages many people to commit murder i.e. they commit murder because the death penalty exists but wouldn't commit murder if the death penalty didn't exist. So if that assumption is right then we have people who don't factor in the death penalty when they commit murder and those people who are discouraged from committing murder because the death penalty exists. The vast majority of people who commit murder may be those that don't factor in the death penalty when they murder.

Maybe there are statistics that show the death penalty does encourage people to murder when they otherwise wouldn't. I assume there isn't but I fully concede that could be wrong.

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

[ QUOTE ]
I thought I read exactly the opposite recently, Copernicus.

EDIT: I am completely wrong. But an economist, Justin Wolfers, is arguing that the noise levels in the data is too large to draw conclusions and those that draw conclusions either way are doing so more on ideological blinders than any analysis.

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the Pepperdine statistical analysis recently discussed in the WSJ showed something like 34,000:1 odds that their findings were statistically signifcant to the 99% confidence level (or maybe 95%). A lawyer responded with the "correlation != causation" argument, which the authors had already discussed. Their findings over a 25 year period or so was that 1 publicized execution resulted in 74 fewer murders.

another factoid in one of the blogs related to the article was that there have been exactly 0 documented cases of an innocent person being executed, defusing that argument.

Anyway, sorry to derail this into capital punishment.

Specific programs to reduce taxes and spending are what is needed, not pledges and not rants about eliminating the IRS and institution of a flat or VAT tax without clear plans for implementation and transition.

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

I just hope he doesn't do a speech with "read my lips, no new taxes!"

Re: Mitt Romney - No New Taxes!
 

LOL. Yeah, Ron signed that pledge with his voting record long before.

Also, did he say "read my lips" first? That's the only way we'd know to believe him.

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

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the Pepperdine statistical analysis recently discussed in the WSJ showed something like 34,000:1 odds that their findings were statistically signifcant to the 99% confidence level (or maybe 95%). A lawyer responded with the "correlation != causation" argument, which the authors had already discussed. Their findings over a 25 year period or so was that 1 publicized execution resulted in 74 fewer murders.

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Since DNA, several people have been taken off of death row.

It takes more money to defend the appeals of a death sentence than it does to jail them for life.

based upon WSJ's statistics, i.e., preventing 74 murders, that's one in 3.378 million based upon a population of 250 million, and we have 300m now.

I'd rather take my chances and have our judges expending their energies, and spending my money on other things, like the illegal immigrant issue.

However, if we are going to have the death penalty, I believe it should be televised, and any channel not willing to show it, cannot broadcast for that hour.

In addition, execution must take place during prime time, not midnight.

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

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Their findings over a 25 year period or so was that 1 publicized execution resulted in 74 fewer murders.


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This doesn't pass the sniff test.
Are we really supposed to believe that the 405 executions in Texas since the 70's resulted in 29,970 fewer murders (in a state that has around 1200 murders per year)?


I'd guess it was far more likely that 74 publicized executions resulted in 1 fewer murder than the reverse.

Re: Mitt Romney - Michael Dukakis redux
 

Also, some idiot pledging to continue borrowing us into penury is not good news.