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Why did you sign a pledge ruling out any tax increases
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by PBworks16 years, 5 months ago
George Stephanopoulos: Taxes. When you were running for governor or Massachusetts, you refused to sign a pledge ruling out any tax increases. But you've done that in this campaign. Why?
Mitt Romney: Well, when I ran for governor, it was pretty clear that I was going to be an anti-tax governor. I said I wouldn't raise Taxes and I was very clear about that, and I didn't raise Taxes.
I did everything in my power to balance what I thought was going to be a $1 billion budget gap that turned out to be a $3 billion budget gap, but we did not raise Taxes.
And when I decided to run for president and, actually, as I formed my exploratory committee, I wanted to communicate that's exactly what I'd do as president, as well.
I support the continuation of the tax cuts that were enacted under President Bush's watch and I will not raise Taxes.
George Stephanopoulos: But when I was speaking with Governor Huckabee last week, he said that he may sign this, but he hasn't signed it because he's concerned that it would constrain him and prevent him from fulfilling his constitutional obligations.
For example, if we were attacked, if we were at war, if we needed more funds, he wouldn't rule out the possibility of a tax increase.
Mitt Romney: Well, he raised Taxes, this governor, and felt the need to do so and I understand that. People are in different circumstances.
But you can read the pledge, if you will, and you can see that it's drawn very narrowly. It's not drawn very broadly.
It talks about raising the highest marginal income tax rate. It does not talk about all forms of revenue for the government.
And so that being said, the ability to manage the nation and to protect our interest is there.
But at the same time, I think people have to indicate pretty clearly, are they in favor of a huge tax increase which would occur in 2011 if the tax cuts expire or are they in favor of keeping the burden placed on Americans the same as it is today.
I will not raise that burden. I don't want a higher tax burden, and that's something which I wanted to communicate very clearly.
MR. ROMNEY: I want to make it very clear that I'm not going to raise taxes.
As governor of Massachusetts, I made it very clear there, and I did not raise taxes. We faced a huge budget gap, and I went in and said, you know, what? I know some people want to raise taxes, but that's going to hurt working families and scare away jobs. I recognize that raising taxes could also lead to a slowdown in our economy, and so we didn't do it. We balanced our budget, and that's exactly what I'll do with the federal government.
They key thing you have to consider, as you look at what's happening in the federal government, is that Washington is broken. We need to have fundamental change in the way business in Washington is carried out. What that means is we're going to have to have leadership that can reorganize the government. We're going to have about 40 percent of the government employees turn over in the next couple of terms. And if we can -- we can reduce the employment there, but more importantly, is to go through all the agencies, all the departments, all the programs and cut out the unnecessary and the wasteful.
We're also going to have to do something we talk about on in Iraq. We all talked about benchmarks. Well, how about benchmarks in Washington? Let's lay out what we're going to get done, and instead of just talking about the same old same old, let's streamline and make Washington more efficient.
Gov. Romney: Benchmarks for Washington
My Analysis:
I had never heard this before: "We're going to have about 40 percent of the government employees turn over in the next couple of terms. And if we can -- we can reduce the employment there, but more importantly, is to go through all the agencies, all the departments, all the programs and cut out the unnecessary and the wasteful." People say that these debates can be a lot of hot air, empty platitudes, and slogans. Mitt Romney is looking at the numbers. He is the man of substance. Has any one heard anyone else talking about that? That in the next two terms (I assume he was talking about presidential terms) 40 percent of the (federal?) government retire? What an opportunity to downsize!
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To start, we will break our problems down into their sub-components, including beliefs, supporting, and weakening evidence, and arguments. This will allow thousands or millions of us to evaluate each part of an argument and evidence one at a time. We will group beliefs by topic and sort them by their positivity, strength, and level of specificity. This will prevent duplication and allow us to focus on one issue at a time.
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Interactive Interface: Users can actively participate by submitting evidence, voting on argument strength, and suggesting alternative viewpoints.
7. Promoting Quality Debate:
Separating Argument Types: Distinguishes between truth, importance, and relevance arguments for a more nuanced debate structure.
Encouraging Constructive Dialogue: Aims to shift focus from emotional responses to evidence-based reasoning, fostering meaningful discourse over sensationalism.
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Open-Source Development: Encourages community involvement in refining and evolving the platform, ensuring its adaptability and relevance.
Additional Considerations:
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We are a political party that organizes all the ideas and arguments by subject, and lets them battle in a survival of the fittest death-match.
We are a political party that supports candidates that promises to make their decisions based on online cost benefit and idea evaluation algorithms. They just have to use a forum that ties the strength of their conclusion to the strength of their assumption, so that when you strengthen or weaken an assumption you also strengthen or weaken conclusions based on the assumption.
We have had the technological ability to create a world based on logic for too long. It is about time we build a rational political party based on the assumption that we support plans, conclusions, activities, and policies that can gather evidence based support, and that we don't do things that don't stand up to analysis.
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