I'm not sure what media you are following, but in the limited amount that I see, this race (and Paul, in particular) have been getting a lot of press. I'm not sure that he is a slam dunk to win the general election (Grayson is considered more electable). Grayson has some pretty extreme views on government, so it will be interesting to see if the electorate (and I'm assuming that he is going to win the Republican primary) likes him once they learn more about him, as opposed to him being the alternative candidate.

We're definitely seeing different articles, as I haven't seen anything on this race that didn't focus specifically on Paul & his Tea Party connections. Now whether news organizations are wishing for certain outcomes, that's a different story but I haven't seen anything lately that has discounted him nor the support he's getting from the movement.

No. But I am a huge fan of Rand Paul. (For obvious reasons) I could do without his endorsment from Sarah Palin or some of his views on foreign policy but I think he is about as close as we are going to get to a Libertarian in the Senate.

I guess I have been on different sites/tv stations. Every station I have seen is talking about the all of the primaries and when they small a small amount of time on Kentucky it is purely Grayson. Maybe I need to be looking more speicifically for Kentucky stuff?

You do know his dad's in Congress, right?

yes. i.e. I am a big fan of Rand Paul. (for obvious reasons)

Re-reading: I guess I should have said the Senate and not Congress. I get what you are saying.

So, er, is Ron Paul not a Libertarian?

Two days ago in none other than the New York Times (whose in-house politics blog has posted on the race this morning): Kentucky Senate Primary Is Vital Test for Tea Party - NYTimes.com

Start reading better news outlets, panerd. :p

I will admit that the NY Times is not one of my main sources for (dis)information. Paul Krugman did have a real interesting blog about why Libertarianism doesn't work because of regulations that didn't make a whole lot of sense the other day. About par for the course for him defending why we need more regulation.

Why Libertarianism Doesn’t Work, Part N - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

Yet the New York Times is covering the race and the candidate in which you have a great interest, while your chosen news sources do not.

Ah, OK, that makes more sense... although I was hoping you were going to make a case for why Ron Paul wasn't actually a Libertarian. :D

Well LESS regulation has certainly worked out just GREAT lately (Wall Street, Gulf of Mexico oil spill).

I say bring on the motherfucking regulations!

Here he is being interviewed by his alleged mistress about, of all things, abstinence:

All accounts I have read have said the BP thing was an accident. Not sure (in this case at least) how more regulation would make any sense. It would have just been more red tape and costs that would have led to the same thing. Maybe no off shore drilling, but that has nothing to do with regulation. You do understand the oil companies have bought off both the Repulbicans and Democrats?

As far as Wall Street goes. LOL. Maybe if Goldman Sachs/Wall Street execs didn't make up a sizable percentage of both Bush and Obama's administrations some of these problems could be avoided. Nah! Regulate, baby regulate!

But I though we had already established that your sources for news suck? Are these the same media sources you denigrate for not understanding today's KY-SEN GOP primary?

Edit: :p

Amen.

Not an accident.

And yes...I understand the oil companies have bought off everyone. But thanks for the condescending tone in your reply.


Oh as someone who works in finance I'm quite aware of how much influence GS has over things.

But throwing up your hands in the air and saying "well the big companies have too much influence...regulation just won't work so let's just not even bother" isn't the solution. The solution is to reduce their influence (campaign finance reform, strict controls on lobbyists and political donations) and then to regulate.

Krugman's point was that Milton Friedman's idea of economic policy relied on a strong threat of lawsuits. Companies wouldn't engage in reckless behavior because the threat of massive lawsuits would stop them. If, however, you cut regulations and impose caps on lawsuits there's nothing stopping companies from engaging in reckless behavior.

A libertarian regulatory/lawsuit structure(as currently defined) won't work.

Except that libertarians don't support caps on lawsuits. That would be an important point, no?

It would be like saying Democrats don't support caps on lawsuits and don't want any regulation. The second part of the statement is completely false and therefore makes this whole argument dumb. It is attributing a principle to the Democrats that they don't believe in.

Just looking around a bit seems to show that libertarians are split on tort reform. Even Ron Paul seems to have been for it at various times.

I will just go off the national party which does not support tort reform. The Libertarian party basically thinks one of the government's few purposes is to have absolutely no intervention in the markets short of prosecuting fraud, tort and negligence. I am generally not a big fan of going off one set of rules for everyone but this is the best I can come up with and Krugman seemed to be going after the national party. Unless you can show me some major instance otherwise I don't really care what some guy running for office in Arizona or Deleware decided his own view was. Remember I don't agree with the Republican's warfare, corporate welfare, and everything opposite the Democrats stance on the issues.

Fair enough.

I still think the larger point, that tort reform and deregulation together leads to reckless behavior, is true.

No doubt. In fact I will go a step beyond and say that I would rather have what Daddytorgo talked about (no lobbyists, campaign finance reform, tort reform, and intense regulation) than what we have.

Optimal: None of any
Second: All of them
Worst: A mixture like we have now

I feel the same way about health care.

Optimal: No government involvement (including medicare/Medicaid), HSA's, charity helps the poor
Second: One payer system like European countries
Worst: A mixture like we have now

Taxes

Optimal: National Sales Tax and no individual taxes
Second: IRS simple tax brackets without thousands of pages of exemptions
Worst: What we have now

But instead we get a compromise that really only helps the elite rich and just makes up senseless rules and regulations for the rest of us. (The big money will either find loopholes or lobby for loopholes to be written in) Mercantilism, corporatism, Republicrats are all good descriptions of what we have right now.

Both CNN & Fox News now projecting Rand Paul as the clear winner of his primary race in KY. He leads Grayson 60-36 with about half the votes counted.

Does he have the same beliefs as his father? Would be pretty cool to have a libertarian Senator in there.

Yes. Except for meddling in the Middle East. He seems to still think the war in Afghanistan is a good idea. He does have the same economic beliefs as Ron and a similar background. (doctor that knows how the health care system works, specifically Medicare/ Medicaid)

I never understood the fair tax people. Do you really want a regressive tax system?

I pay a lot in taxes and I do get angry that there are so many people who get off without paying anything. But I think a national sales tax would be disastorous on it's own. I could see it if our income tax remained progressive and dramatically reduced percentages while having a sales tax. But I don't like the national sales tax thing.

I'd rather see a flat tax. And when I say flat tax, I mean it for everyone and everything. None of this bullshit capital gains crap. You make money, you pay the same rate.

Umm ... yeah, moreso than the current one at least.

What about a flat tax?

Yeah, I will admit that my knowledge of the tax system is pretty limited. I guess I kind of thought a national sales tax was similar to a flat tax. I really don't mind paying the amount I pay for what this country provides me. I just think it is stupid that I get credit for owning a house, can get credits for union dues, get credit for being a teacher, don't get extra credit for being single or and not having kids, don't get credit for driving to work while others do, have a friend who works from home and calls his den a "home office" with an attorney who says it is fully within the legality of the tax code to do this,... None of it makes any sense. Don't know what the solution is but what we have now is insane.

And don't even get me started on the tax breaks to religious institutions. Molest a few kids, make up a religion that is obviously not true, spew hatred worse than hate groups? Sure here is your tax break. Not saying every religion does these three. But the Catholics, Mormons, and extreme Christians (like the "God Hates Fags" guy) all get huge tax breaks.

I'm with you on tax breaks. Never understood why if I stay single and use less resources than a family of 5, I have to pay more. Shouldn't it be based on how much you use?

If anything, we should promote people who can afford to have kids to have kids. How about giving tax breaks for children for people who make over a certain amount? They are the ones who won't need government assistance or grants for their children to attend college. It just feels like the system promotes people who shouldn't be having kids to have them.

The Fair Tax proposal includes the idea of a "prebate" in which everyone below the poverty line will essentially will be paying no taxes, and the closer to that line you are the fewer taxes (as a percent) you will be paying. It's about as non-regressive as our current system and much simpler.

Flat tax also has the benefit of making American made goods more competitive at home.


What I don't get is that you seem to hate regressive taxes, but propose an uber-regressive flat tax?

It's not an uber-regressive tax. Everyone pays the same amount of their income. It's simpler to figure out too.

The problem with things like the prebate is where is the money going to come from? The rich pay a ton in income and capital gains taxes right now because they make a ton of money. They make up the majority of our tax revenues. In a system where they don't pay on what they make, they pay a lot less.

So who is making up the difference? If the poor isn't paying anything and the rich are paying much less, where are you getting this money from? The middle class? It's why this idea is a pipe dream. No one can figure out where you are going to get money from.

Sestak wins in PA. That switching parties ad he used against Specter was incredible.

As expected Paul wins in KY and Dems hold on to PA-12(Murtha's old seat).

AR Dem primary is still close, but looks headed for a runoff.

Sad to see Specter go.

Actually, no, I'm not.

dola-so somehow I hadn't seen the Specter ad. Man, that was good.

Re-elect-teddddd. Not.

Hey panerd, NPR's All Things Considered interviewed Paul yesterday: Rand Paul Says He Has A Tea Party 'Mandate' : NPR


Yes, I'm trying to convert you to an NPR listener and NYT reader. Why do you ask? :D

When do I get my check??

When you stop being a whiny bitch.

Does that apply to everyone?

No, there's a mandatory 4-year cooling-off period after your guy was President for 8 years.

By the way, we did ship the pony via certified mail. Did you not get it?

I think the tea party (or a more sane version of it) is a double-dip recession/public debt crisis away from really taking off. Which seems inevitable once the stimulus dries up.

We'll see. I'm still not sure there's a lot of consensus ground in our national politics these days. For each person whose response to a massive budget deficit is to cut spending across the board, there's one person who wants to cut social program spending and there's another who wants to cut defense spending.

I could see inroads at the local and state levels, though, especially in places where bankruptcy is going to happen. They'll need to put up people with actual solid financial experience to make this happen (referring to your "sane" comment here). People are going to be wary of candidates who plan to balance the books based on ideology as opposed to accountancy, and the tea party has more of the former than the latter in its most visible ranks.

I think the real problem with any genuine taking-off scenario for a single "tea party" (or similar under whatever name) is that while the phrase is used in the media as a catch-all, I see very little in terms of structure or organization and the membership (and motivations) are so varied that it would seem very challenging to unite the supporters behind much beyond the general notion of "not the R's and not the D's". If anything, I think the tea party movement "membership" is more fractured than even the current GOP.

Take a few seconds and go look at the worst President in your lifetime vote, and send the appropriate apology.

Yeah, the Tea Party can be all things to all people right now because they don't have any platform. Once they start running candidates they develop a platform that will cause schisms and alienate a lot of people who didn't realize the Tea Party was for this or against that.

At the local level there are already a number of stories of schisms over trivial and substantial matters. It would just multiply as official stances on issues became clear.

I apologize that lots of people hate your own personal hero, George W. Bush. To make up for your suffering, on behalf of the Obama Cabal*, I will be sending you another pony. Please remember to feed the pony this time, possibly with the generous federal feed subsidy we send your "great" state each year.

:p

*There is no cabal.

Cool, thanks for the link. I actually listen to NPR quite a bit on satellite radio. (Car talk, Wait wait don't tell me, the morning edition...) I don't mind differing points of view and think the only way people learn and grow is by being exposed to other people's viewpoints. While I disagree with Dennis Kucinich on a lot of ideas I feel like he is very principled and a stand up politician and get a lot out of listening to what he has to say. My outrage is at people (possibly every other politician outisde of Paul and Kucinich, though some are better than others) that sell out to the money and power and not only do things that aren't in any American's best interest but spin this to Fox News, NYT, CNN and get them to convince the masses this is the case.

The problem the tea party is going to face is that to solve the problem of high debts and deficits you have to bite the bullet. And seeing what friends of mine have been like when trying to get out of personal monstrous debt I can imagine the country won't be happy with the real solutions for getting out of ours. (See Greece for just trying to solve some of their problems) I have a feeling some Republican or Democrat will come along in a few years and have a way to spend ourselves out of it when people aren't patient with the tea party actually really trying to fix the problem and it will be back to business as usual.

I see no way this country will ever be able to solve our high debt without having their hands forced by a complete collapse of the system or a major world war.

I find it interesting that you keep bringing up Kucinich since he sold out his position on abortion so he could run for President in the Dem primaries.