If last Wednesday’s presidential debate left you with more questions than answers, here’s your chance for the presidential candidates to address the issues that most matter to Missourians.
The next presidential debate will be a town hall meeting format at Hofstra University in Long Island, where voters will ask President Obama and Mitt Romney about domestic and foreign policy.
Patch is asking you, our readers, to participate by submitting questions for the candidates.
All you have to do is post your question in the comments section below and we’ll send it to the Commission on Presidential Debates. The Commission is partnering with Patch's parent company Aol, along with Google and Yahoo, to take questions from web users across the country.
Don’t wait until Nov. 6 to have a say in this year’s election. Share your thoughts in the comments!
You've never heard me call for "tax-free utopia" as you are trained (partially by the DOE) to label anyone who can see that the Federal government is too thinly stretched as it is. The way you fix the deficit is by bringing down expenditures, by getting the government OUT of more programs, not inserting them further into more areas, creating more deficit. By adding tax-PAYERS, not taxes. Adding providers, not dependents. Allowing people to provide for themselves, not by forcing the people who could hire them & sell them products, or goods & services, to pay for those dependents & of course by passing a budget. You are trained to talk about "where you have to raise taxes to pay for those cuts", except in reality, you don't have to add new taxes anywhere, when you add new tax-payers. Reducing the number of tax-payers doesn't work, because you then have to raise taxes again to pay for them, resulting in more added to the number of people you have to take care of. That's how you got here, not the answer. By your logic, why even have states? The country only has one Constitution, why not desegregate the states all into the same entity, like Somalia? Education IS an important part of a democracy, that's exactly why it should be entrusted to the people, not an inept Federal Government. Even you had to go back to MS 30 years ago to find any good that's been done by the DOE.
But don't fall into the trap they've set for you, Congress HAS passed a budget. As a matter of fact, they've passed quite a few. Problem is: those bills, along with more than 250 others, are simply sitting dormant on the floor of the Senate - yes, those same people who purposely repeat the word "Gridlock" as many times as they can in a debate, when the proof of intentional "Gridlock" is actively exercised in the Senate.
Now explain why the little ole DoE is a ginormous burden on society, while the elephant in the room is Dept of Defense spending (more than double of what Russia and China spend combined) is crippling our economy. "You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." -Jesus of Nazareth Now I'm off to read some stonekettle warnings about trying to reason with the unreasonable.
1) Where , in the constitution, does the Federal Congress or President have the power to "Pay portions of the personal tuition bills for college students".? 2) Mr President: does the Affordable Care Act provide any Health care, or does it just require all citizens to "buy Insurance".? 3) Mr President: You recently appeared on the David Letterman show, and You did not know the total DEBT of The United States. Do you now know that Debt? Also, what was the Debt of the U.S. the day you took office? 4) Is Afghanastan Bush's war or Your War, Mr President.? Didn't Bush have a very limited role in Afghanastan when you became President? Why have you not just pulled out totally , immediately from Afghanastan.? 5) Was the death of AMB. Chris Stevens and three other Americans at our US Embassy in LIBYA Avoidable? Was it spontaneous? Did you have any intelligence reports indicating the dangers.? Were any special security precautions taken on September 11th 2012.? Did it look like a Terrorist attack to you.? Or did it look like a spontaneous full "bombing" mob attack or something Planned for 9-11-2012.?
Oh, the pain! Oh, the mortification in friont of the whole USA. Now - my plaint makes as much sense as those excusing Mr. Romney's non-release of tax records and those demanding yet another "true" birth certificate of the President. Does "Magna cum laude" from a college (other than maybe Liberty or Bob Jones or Oral Roberts) mean nothing? Hey - maybe he had a surrogate take the tests! Yeah, that's it! Pass it on...
"I suspect, but do not know, based on a brochure put out by a literary agent shopping a book for him while he was in law school, that he led people to believe he was born in Kenya." which says that YOU suspect "that he led people to believe he was born in Kenya." I wonder why a trained journalist wouldn't have suspected that someone else might have led people to believe that he was born in Kenya. Especially if that someone else was a literary agent with a motive to sell a story.
Also, the average person pays an average of less than 13% in taxes due to deductions, etc.; Romney has never paid less than 13.6% - and that low rate is due to the millions he gives in charity.
Blaming union teachers is politics at its worse. The GOP making of public education into another pet wedge issue is despicable. They view public education as liberalism and it must be stopped. Read idiotRevere's many comments to this effect. Union teachers are the only thing holding things together in school districts. School board and politicians are often clueless on education. And parents are dumping their messed-up kids into school and expect teachers to make them into civilized intelligent people for them, while having all these tests that are supposed to prove it all.
If you buy a house for $150,000, and you sell it for anything less than $400,000, you owe no tax, as an individual. If you and a spouse buy a $150,000 house and sell it for anything less than $650,000, you owe no tax. If you, however, sell it for say, $750,000, you pay 3.8% on the $100,000 gain, or a grand total of $3800. And only then if their regular income exceeds $250,000. That is it. It will not affect the middle class. Would it kill you tea partiers to do a little math once in a while? Seriously?
Please no, we've seen enough of that from Revere! http://www.factcheck.org/2010/04/a-38-percent-sales-tax-on-your-home/
In your campaign ads, you stated that you could decrease the deficit, HOw do you plan to do that without raising taxes?
Mr. Willard Romney, unlike the previous incumbents, why is it that you do not want to show more than a couple of years tax returns, it seems like you have something to hide, or do you think that it is just none of our business? Can you explain the constant flip-flopping back and forth, on the major critical issues, when you are asked about them, or are you just saying anything people want to hear just to try and win this election? How can we get a true picture of exactly where you stand? In the August issue of Newsweek, they indicated that you were a wimp, and questioned whether you were presidential material to fulfill the presidency-any comments on that? Why is it that you refuse to appear on some of the talk shows, such as The View, or David Letterman and others to discuss some of the political topics, like other political figures do to further discuss your views and issues on certain topics? Since the economy is now showing recovery, what ideas are you proposing to speed up the momentum, and what preventative measures would you put in place, or suggest to deter us from getting into the same fiasco, that your Republican Party is responsible for, considered as the worst since the Great Depression ?
Bi-Partisan Bowles Simpson deficit reduction plan (not that I'm a full advocate of it) has a framework of spending cuts, AND increase in in tax rates(including capital gains rates) and elimination of tax deductions. Ryan Romney and the Grover Norquist disciples have an unworkable agenda for government and the budget. And they know it -but when such agenda does not work, which will come as no surprise, they will wash their hands of responsiblity and say "see, government doesn't work". By that time, the nation will have moved further towards full-fledged oligarchy, with little opportunity for advancement and upward mobility. The big time campaign donors to Romney and GOP, the people he was chumming with on his 47% comment would have it no other way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy