Saturday, August 25, 2012

Josh Mandel---Still An Empty Suit


** In case you missed Plunderbund's take on it, Sen. Sherrod Brown and Josh Mandel met at an interview at the Dispatch.  After reading the article, a sane person would conclude that Sen. Sherrod Brown was the grown up candidate with facts on his side.  However, Josh Mandel sounded a lot like a kid with over memorized talking points as his answers for everything.

Dispatch:

....When Mandel was asked by The Dispatch what he would have done differently at the time the federal loans were offered to the auto companies, as well as what health-care alternative he would offer to “ Obamacare,” Mandel offered a five-minute response about the free-enterprise system, government regulations and Greece before steering to an environmental regulation he has criticized Brown for supporting.

When he was asked again to answer the initial question, Mandel offered general remarks on regulations, energy production and the U.S. tax code. Twelve minutes after Mandel was asked what he would have done differently during the time of the bailout — and it had been suggested to him that he either did not have or was not offering an alternative — Mandel said: “You can write, ‘Josh’s plan would’ve been, and Josh’s plan continues to be, to reform regulations and create a better economic environment for auto manufacturing and manufacturing in general.’  ”

Josh Mandel's response sounded a little disjointed and goofy. Mandel is like a kid that hasn't read a book but tries to convince the teacher he knows what is in the book.  No matter what he says, Josh Mandel sounds like a babbling, right wing puppet.  Words come out of his mouth, but he doesn't even know what they mean. Mandel's ego has been pumped up by his right wing handlers. He has no plans and the only things he does know are the vocabulary words given to him by the likes of Jim DeMint, Karl Rove, Dick Armey, Paul Ryan, and the Americans for (their own) Prosperity.

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* If you are thinking about voting for a Republican, remember that they are targeting Social Security, and Medicare.  Through a pledge, Cut, Cap, and Balance, signed by Republican Senators (including Rob Portman, etc. see LINK), House Members (including Paul Ryan, Todd Akin, Jeff Flake, Darrell Issa, Thad McCotter, Patrick McHenry, Ben Quayle, Jim Rinacci, Steve Stivers, Joe Walsh, Allen West, Joe Wilson, etc. see Link), candidates for the Senate and the House (including George Allen, Josh Mandel, Heather Wilson, etc., see LINK), and Mitt Romney (and the rest of the Republican presidential candidates, see LINK), they've vowed to make cuts no matter how many people get hurt.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities evaluated the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act and the conclusion is frightening:

...The “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” that House Republican leaders are circulating achieves these results through a multi-faceted attack on the federal government.  It would require that total federal spending shrink to about 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) starting in 2015 (by writing the Ryan budget’s year-by-year expenditure levels as a share of GDP into law, as caps to be enforced through automatic across-the-board budget cuts if the caps otherwise wouldn’t be met).  The Ryan budget would slash non-security discretionary programs by 33 percent by 2021 (relative to CBO’s January baseline), cut Medicaid by $1.4 trillion over the decade, and cut an array of other programs from Medicare to Pell Grants, while shielding the defense budget and further cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.


...“Cut, Cap, and Balance,” by contrast, specifically subjects all such programs to across-the-board cuts if its spending caps would be exceeded....

...an impoverished elderly widow living on Supplemental Security Income — which provides benefits that lift people to just 75 percent of the poverty line — could have her assistance cut back under the measure’s across-the-board budget cuts even as millionaire hedge-fund managers retained their lucrative carried-interest tax breaks.


Let me repeat------Republican candidate, Josh Mandel, signed the pledge.