Somali Famine Relief put at risk by Republican Budget Cuts

Yesterday, September 6^th, Lawrence O’Donnell did a masterful rewrite (his term for editorial comment) on the famine in Somalia and our country’s moral duty to respond to it. 

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I really have nothing to add to his rewrite; it was a job well done. 

 

On August 17, Rachel Maddow pointed to another program that would be compromised by planned Republican budget cuts: the National Nuclear Security Administration.

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I can’t believe these cuts are part of the Republican deficit reduction plan, cutting aid to starving children and the reducing the budget of the agency working to keep nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists.

Here is what a real deficit reduction plan looks like.

Originally Posted 9/7/11 

Everything you need to know about Income Inequality in America

As Congress (prematurely) shifts its focus away from ending the Great Recession to dealing with our long term debt crisis, a basic question emerges. Who should bear the burden of the tough choices that will be necessary (even if they are not wise in the short term) to reduce our deficits and our future debt? Republican plans would put the burden on the poor and middle class, although they hope you don’t notice. Democratic plans purport shared sacrifice where all income groups share in the pain. I am going to declare something that would get me branded as a Socialist in DC. The rich should bear a large portion of the sacrifice involved in dealing with our debt crisis.

The current income inequality in the United States is amazing in its size, as well as its relation to other developed countries and to what it has been in our past. The following information is all that an analytical liberal needs to win an argument on trickle-down economics.

I do not wish to demonize the rich; they have done and continue to create amazing new products, jobs, and industries for our country. They have also done amazing charitable work (see Bill and Malinda Gates). I simply think they should pay more in taxes.   

A Note on Terminology

Before we begin, I think I should explain a term that is used quite frequently throughout this article. A Percentile refers to dividing a population into 100 equal groups of people based on some criteria. For example, the term 10^th income percentile refers to the 10^th lowest percent of income earners. In essence the term percentile shows that it is a percentage of the population that is being talked about rather than a percentage of the quantity being compared (income, wealth, income growth, etc.)

There is a difference between the rich and the super-rich

If you look at the lower income marker of Percentiles it shows that there is a relatively steady climb up the income ladder until around the 95^th  percentile. Then the difference between each percentile is enormous. This can be most clearly seen on a graph of 2010 income data at the Economix blog at the New York Times website.

I also find this data useful to understand what the income structure of the United States looks like in general. For instance where would an income of $100,000 a year place a person compared to the rest of the country? The following data is from the Tax Policy Center, a joint project between the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. These numbers show the (yearly pre-tax) income breaks for all tax filers (aka families) for 2011. They might not match up to the numbers in other sections of this article because economists use different definitions for income and different years for their calculations.

Percentile                                         Lower Income break

10                                                       $9,235

20                                                       $16,358

30                                                       $23,873

40                                                       $32,188

50                                                       $42,327

60                                                       $57,213

70                                                       $73,886

80                                                       $97,298

90                                                       $154,131

95                                                       $200,026

96                                                       $235,687

97                                                       $290,860

98                                                       $360,435

99                                                       $506,553

99.5                                                   $815,868

99.9                                                   $2,070,574

Income is heavily concentrated at the top

The Federal Reserve did an investigation into the distribution of pre-tax income in 2009.  These numbers represent the percent of all income that was earned by different income groups in 2007. These numbers come from the income row of table A5a.

Income group                                 Percent of all income

Top 1%                                          21.4%

95-99 Percentile                             15.8%

90-95 Percentile                             10.0%

50-90 Percentile                             38.2%

Bottom 50%                                   14.6%

These numbers point out what Bernie Sanders said and Politifact confirmed: The top one percent of earns more income than the bottom 50 percent combined.

The top 10 percent earn 47.2%, nearly half, of all income.

Wealth is even more heavily concentrated at the top

The rich have the ability and the willingness to save more than the rest of us. Many of the poor have a negative net worth due to debt, so that also increases the inequality between the rich and the poor. The following numbers come from the same Federal Reserve study and are found in Table 4. They show the percent of post-tax wealth in the country held by net worth percentile groups.

Wealth Group                     Percent of all wealth

Top 1%                               33.8%

95-99 Percentile                 26.6%

90-95 Percentile                 11.1%

50-90 Percentile                 26.0%

Bottom 50%                        2.5%

Wealth is so heavily concentrated at the top that Michael Moore was able to correctly claim that the wealthiest 400 individuals have more wealth than the bottom half of the country combined (Politifact).

The top 10 percent own 71.5% of the country’s wealth. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.

Since 1979 higher income groups have seen the largest gains in income

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a liberal organization that focuses on fiscal policy, calculated the average percent growth in after-tax income for income groups from 1979 through 2007 (before the Great Recession). These numbers are based on Congressional Budget Office data.

Income group                                 Percent growth 1979-2007

Lowest fifth                                      16%

Second fifth                                     23%

Middle fifth                                      25%

Fourth fifth                                      35%

Top fifth                                          95%

Top 1 Percent                                  261%

The higher the income group, the higher the gains in income. And the super rich saw a phenomenal growth in income.

In the past, income growth was much more uniform (and greater for lower income groups than it is today)

The liberal group United for a Fair Economy reverse engineered (don’t ask me how) Census data to show income growth for various income groups from 1947-1979. Politifact did the calculations and came up with results only a few percent different than theirs. I should point out that this time frame is 4 years longer than the previous data set.

Income Group                                 Percent growth 1947-1979

Bottom fifth                                     118%

Second fifth                                     100%

Middle fifth                                      111%

Fourth fifth                                      114%

Top fifth                                           99%

Top 5 percent                                  86%

Why the stark difference between these two growth patterns? My guess is that the first set reflects the results of the Bush and Regan tax cuts for the rich. I don’t know why the income growth patterns for the poor and middle class were so much larger in the second set.

Income Inequality in 2007 was the greatest it had been since the 1920s

2007 is a better gage of our long term income inequality than it using data from today because the Great Recession caused a (hopefully) temporary reduction in income across the board, but likely affected different income groups differently at different times during the Recession. So the numbers for 2007 are more indicative of the long term trend.

Politifact confirmed that income inequality in 2007 was the greatest it had been since the 1920s based on the analysis of the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.

This information provides a rather convincing circumstantial case that high levels of income inequality leads to market volatility and financial crashes. The theory is that when the rich have a lot of money, they spend it in ways that create bubbles (stocks, housing, ect.) which are billed at the time as the safest investment imaginable, but ultimately end up crashing the economy.

The United States has one of the highest degrees of income inequality in the developed world

The Gini Index is a statistic (which I do not fully understand) that measures a country’s income inequality. The larger a country’s Gini Index, on a scale from 0 to 100, the greater the income inequality. The CIA World Factbook compiled a list of 136 countries and ranked them based on their Gini Index. [I have been having some problems with the CIA World Factbook link, so here is the URL: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2172.html]

The UN maintains a list of developed countries based on the Human Development Index. That list includes 42 countries (Wikipedia). Of the countries on their list only Hong Kong and Singapore, small island nations just off the coast of Asia, have a greater Gini Index than the United States. All other developed countries in the CIA World Factbook list have a smaller degree of income inequality than the US. What follows is a selective list of developed countries and their Gini Index.

Country                                             Gini Index

Hong Kong                                       53.3

Singapore                                         47.8

United States                                   45.0

Israel                                                  39.2

Portugal                                            38.5

Japan                                                 37.6

New Zealand                                   36.2

Poland                                               34.9

United Kingdom                             34.0

Switzerland                                      33.7

Greece                                               33.0

France                                               32.7

Canada                                              32.1

Italy                                                    32.0

Spain                                                  32.0

South Korea                                     31.4

Netherlands                                     30.9

Australia                                           30.5

Ireland                                               29.3

Denmark                                          29.0

Belgium                                             28.0

Iceland                                              28.0

Germany                                          27.0

Finland                                              26.8

Austria                                               26.0

Czech Republic                                26.0

Norway                                             25.0

Sweden                                             23.0

Lower income groups have higher rates of unemployment

Researchers from Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies found that the less someone makes, the more likely they are to be unemployed. This trend is true during times of economic growth as well as during economic downturns. The numbers also show that the poor are bearing the overwhelming brunt of the recession. The middle class has been hit hard, but not quite as bad as the poor. The rich have a labor market that isn’t in recession at all. The report’s authors conclude,

What has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets.

All of my information, including the table below, comes from a blog post at the Time Magazine website.

Income decile   Unemployment 4^th Q 2007  Unemployment 4^th Q 2009

$12,160 or less                           18.4%                                                  30.8%

$12,160-$20,725                        10.7%                                                  19.1%

$20,725-$29,680                        7.5%                                                    15.3%

$29,680-$39,000                        5.6%                                                    12.2%

$39,000-$50,000                        4.0%                                                    9.0%

$50,000-$63,000                        3.7%                                                    7.8%

$63,000-$79,100                        3.3%                                                    6.4%

$79,100-$100,500                      2.4%                                                    5.0%

$100,500-$138,700                    2.0%                                                    4.0%

$138,700 +                                 1.6%                                                    3.2%

The US tax code is only barely progressive

The organization Citizens for Tax Justice did an analysis of our country’s tax system by comparing the percent of income earned by various income groups to the percent of taxes that they pay. The results show that sales taxes and the Social Security payroll tax, both of which are regressive, almost completely counteract the progressivity of income taxes. They also computed real tax rate for various income groups, the percent of a person’s income that is taken up by taxes. All that ever seems to get talked about in tax discussions are marginal taxes, taxes on the highest portion of someone’s income. Marginal tax rates are always higher than real tax rates. This focus on marginal rates obscures how much people actually pay in taxes. These numbers are for 2009.The link for Citizens for Tax Justice has a couple graphs that show these numbers quite nicely, I would suggest you take a look at it.

Income Group     Share of total income     Share of total taxes   Taxes as a % of income

Lowest 20%                 3.5%                                      1.9%                             16.0%

Second 20%                 7.1%                                      5.0%                             20.5%

Middle 20%                 11.6%                                    10.2%                            25.3%

Fourth 20%                  18.9%                                    18.9%                           28.5%

Next 10%                      14.3%                                    15.2%                           30.2%

Next 5%                        10.2%                                    11.2%                           31.2%

Next 4%                        14.2%                                    15.8%                           31.6%

Top 1%                          20.4%                                    22.1%                           30.8%

The Overwhelming Majority of Americans support raising taxes on the wealthy

With republican legislators unwilling to consider any new revenue in deficit reduction plans, you might think that there are no changes to the tax code which the vast majority of Americans would support. But what is going on in Congress right now does not reflect public opinion. In poll after poll, an overwhelming majority of the public favor raising taxes on those who make over $250,000 a year. The following polls come verbatim from a Politifact article. [Emphasis added]

"In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose raising taxes on Americans with incomes over 250 thousand dollars a year?" Support: 72 percent. Oppose: 27 percent. Unsure: 1 percent. (ABC News/Washington Post Poll. April 14-17, 2011)

"Do you support or oppose doing each of the following to deal with the federal budget deficit? … Increase taxes on income over $250,000." Support: 64 percent. Oppose: 33 percent. Unsure: 3 percent. (McClatchy-Marist Poll. April 10-14, 2011.)

"Now looking ahead to next year's federal budget, do you think it should or should not include higher taxes for families with household incomes of $250,000 and above?" Should: 59 percent. Should not: 37 percent. Unsure: 4 percent. (USA Today/Gallup Poll. April 11, 2011.)

Conclusion

By various markers, income growth, market volatility, public opinion, the country would be better off with a smaller degree of income inequality. The level of income inequality in the United States is astonishing in and of itself, but also in comparison to other countries and our country’s past. As we ask ourselves who will bear the burden of deficit reduction, keep these figures in mind.

Republicans and the Debt Ceiling

On Friday, July 15^th, Jonathan Alter, columnist for Bloomberg View, joined Lawrence O’Donnell to talk about the debt ceiling negotiations.  During his appearance he made a statement that I found unbelievable, that all republican candidates for president oppose raising the debt ceiling.

“Even now all the [Republican] presidential candidates are on record wanting to take the American economy all the way over the cliff into default if necessary.”

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I had trouble believing that all of the Republican presidential candidates opposed raising the debt ceiling, so I did my own investigation. Below are the positions of the major Republican candidates for president on the debt ceiling.

Ron Paul                               No

Ron Paul political director Jesse Benton told CNN, “Dr. Paul is committed to leading the charge against raising the debt ceiling and is running this campaign to win the presidency.”

Gary Johnson                       No

Gary Johnson said in an interview with the Fiscal Times, “For all the talk of Armageddon—and there will be tremendous hardship if we don’t raise it, the problems we’ll face by not doing so will pale in comparison to what’s down the road."

Michelle Bachmann                 No

Michelle Bachmann says in a campaign ad, “I will not vote to increase the debt ceiling.”

Tim Pawlenty                        No

A Politico article cites Pawlenty as saying, “I don’t think we should raise the debt ceiling.”

Mitt Romney                          Won’t give a straight answer

David Frum explained Mitt Romney’s answer about a debt ceiling question quite well with the headline, “Mitt Romney dodges on the debt ceiling.”

Romney’s unintelligible answer was, “The answer for the country is for the president to agree to cut federal spending and cap federal spending and put into place a balanced budget amendment. That for me is the line in the sand. It is within the president’s power to say to the leadership in the house and the senate that ‘I’ll cut spending I’ll cap the amount of spending and I’ll pursue a balanced budget amendment and if the president were to do that this whole debt limit problem goes away.”

Herman Cain             Raise the ceiling this time then prioritize spending

Herman Cain’s position is complicated and lengthy. You can hear him explain it at length on a Fox News Sunday clip. He says that you must raise the debt ceiling this time because the republicans in congress waited too long to prioritize spending, meaning specify what is paid and what isn’t once the government hits the debt ceiling and must drastically cut government services. He says that we should prioritize the payments on the debt, military spending, Social Security, and Medicare. That actually totals pretty close to what the government would be allowed to spend without borrowing, but would require the end of college aid, Medicaid assistance to the states, meat and poultry inspections, food stamps, and unemployment benefits. I explained the effect that not raising the debt ceiling would have on government services at length in a previous post.

Rick Santorum                     Yes, if it comes with specific concessions

Rick Santorum said on his campaign website that he would support a debt ceiling increase if it was accompanied by cuts and caps on government spending and a balanced budget amendment.

His full statement was, "I urge Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell to stand fast against attempts by President Obama and Congressional Democrats to use the debt limit vote as a vehicle to raise taxes. This is a real opportunity for our nation's leaders to come together, cut and cap government spending, and, most importantly, pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to our Constitution so that we never have to raise our nation's debt limit again."

Newt Gingrich    Raise the debt ceiling as much as Obama is willing to cut

Newt Gingrich said at a campaign stop, “Don’t give him a penny more in debt ceiling than he accepts in spending cuts and if he only wants to accept enough spending cuts to get through the next 6 months that’s fine. Then six months from now, you’ll have another fight and get another round of spending cuts from it, but insist that we turn the corner and we move on a trajectory that gets us back to a balanced budget and then stay on that balanced budget long enough to pay down the national debt.”

Jon Huntsman                                 Yes

Huntsman told the St. Petersburg Times (which runs Politifact), “I think everybody agrees that it’s a big deal to get serious with the debt ceiling. And I have every confidence that cooler heads will prevail and by our deadline. It is my hope that we’ll have cuts commensurate with the raising of the debt and some serious steps toward a balanced budget amendment. … There seems to be a deal in the works," Huntsman said.

Where does this put Alter’s claim that all Republican presidential candidates oppose raising the debt ceiling? Four Republican candidates [Gingrich, Santorum, Cain, Huntsman] support raising the debt ceiling at least one more time. Four [Bachmann, Paul, Johnson, Pawlenty] state without hesitation their opposition to raising the debt ceiling. One response [Romney] is simply unintelligible. Jonathan Alter is wrong and I will be writing The Last Word to ask for a correction.

But let’s look at the consequences of the positions stated by the candidates.

If the US doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, credit ratings agencies will downgrade the creditworthiness of US debt. When the federal government is allowed to borrow money again it will have to pay a higher interest rate on its debt. That will mean that the US debt will be larger than if we had passed the debt ceiling on time. It would also mean that businesses, students, and families will face higher interest rates when they try to borrow money to finance their home, college tuition, or expand their business.

These higher interest rates coupled with the collapse of demand caused by the immediate 43% cut in government spending could send the country into a double-dip recession.

As for the balanced budget amendment, which was brought up by Santorum, Romney, and Huntsman, you actually want to have a deficit during a recession to act as a stimulus. This is why we shouldn’t cut spending before the unemployment rate is back to a normal level (which I define as under 6 percent). It’s during economic boom years that you want to pay off the deficit.  Ezra Klein has a great column where he explains why a balanced budget amendment is a bad idea.

Of all of the republican candidates for president only Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman hold what I consider to be a reasonable position on the debt ceiling.

What’s Obama’s position? He wants congress to raise the debt ceiling past the 2012 election that’s accompanied by a grand deal to slow the growth of the national debt over time that includes both spending cuts and tax increases. This comes despite his own vote against raising the debt ceiling when he was a senator in 2006.

Here is my position on the debt ceiling. We shouldn’t have one. The treasury should be able to borrow the amount required by the taxes and spending congress authorizes each year. We shouldn’t have a separate vote which is politically difficult that threatens to shut down large portions of the government, raises the cost of borrowing, and hurts economic growth.


My plan to deal with the deficit was explained at length in a previous post.

P.S. Here is a Planet Money (NPR) podcast about the history of the debt ceiling.

Originally posted July 16, 2011

Factchecking the Peacock

On Tuesday July 5^th, NBC Nightly News did a segment on the debate over the debt ceiling. Brian Williams said that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, “in less than a month the United States will not be able to pay its debts.”

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The best explanation of why this isn’t true was stated by Brit Hume on Fox News’ Special Report,

As President Obama enters the negotiations over extending the borrowing authority that is the debt ceiling there’s some things that need to be understood. The first is that there is almost no chance that government will default on its debt payments even if the debt ceiling is never raised. That’s because revenues will continue to flow into the treasury from income tax withholdings, which will be more than enough to cover the debt payments. So the only way that a default could occur would be if the treasury department inexplicably chose not to make the payments; but there will come a time when there won’t be enough money to fund all government departments and agencies, which would mean real disruptions. The administration would then get to decide which programs are funded and which are not.

Debt payments would almost certainly be the first bills to be paid because, just like a credit card, if you do not pay the interest on your debt, creditors will jack up the rate next time you need to borrow money. It is a possibility that this will happen simply due to creditors’ fear that the government may not pay the interest on its debt. But that is irrelevant to Williams’ claim that the government won’t be able to pay its debts.

The structure of the federal budget is very similar from year to year. So one could easily compare the effect that not raising the debt ceiling would have on government agencies this year based on its spending last year. Here is the breakdown of the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2011, which is the period from October 1^st 2010 through September 31^st 2011.

                                                         Billions          Percent of Budget

Receipts (Tax Revenue)                      2174                56.9%

Outlays (Spending)                              3819                100%

Deficit                                                 1645                43.1%

Interest on the debt                               207                  5.4%

Social Security                                     742                  19.4%

Medicaid                                              276                   7.2%

Medicare                                              488                  12.8%

Other mandatory programs                   716                  18.7%

Non-Security discretionary spending     507                  13.3%

Security discretionary spending            908                  23.4%

These categories are explained very well by the Politifact article that lead me to these numbers.

Not raising the debt ceiling would mean that the government couldn’t spend any more than it collects in tax revenue. It would leave the government enough money to pay its debts, but not nearly enough to pay for all the services provided by government agencies. That means that the treasury department (which is part of the Obama Administration) would have to cut 43.1 percent of the budget, the proportion of federal government spending which is financed through borrowing.

Brit Hume also explained the practical effect of cutting even the small portion of budget represented by the Agriculture Department (which is part of Non-Security discretionary spending)

I do think that when it gets closer to it the democrats and the white house have a certain advantage in that they get to decide when the money runs short which agencies and departments get funded and which do not. And they will be able to pick and choose in such a way as to put maximum pressure on republican lawmakers on the hill. One senator I know of has told his leader that if for example the agriculture department were not able to fund the meat and paltry inspections which would effectively shut down that industry because you have to have inspected meat to sell that that would be the moment that he caved and voted to raise the debt limit.

Not raising the debt ceiling would be disastrous, not because America wouldn’t be able to pay its debts, but because it would require the suspension of large numbers of critical government services. So politicians who tell you they don’t support raising the debt ceiling are really advocating for a drastic restructuring of the federal government or they’re being dishonest.

But even if the debt ceiling is never raised, the government will be able to pay its debts and will likely do so. Therefore Brian Williams is wrong. It is a rare thing indeed to find a factual error in an NBC report, but today the peacock hangs its head in shame.

Originally posted July 6^th, 2011

UPDATE (July 7, 2011): ABC and CBS News (both usually reliable sources) made the same mistake that NBC News did.  The website for ABC World News with Diane Sawyer features a countdown clock titled, "Countdown to US Debt Default". CBS Evening news introduced a segment on the debt ceiling by saying, "With the D-day for default less than 4 weeks away...," implying that the US will be required to default on its debt if the debt ceiling isn't raised.

P.S. I would like to thank Fox News, The Young Turks, Politifact, and whitehouse.gov for assisting in this factcheck.

The CNN Presidential Debate

On June 13^th, 2011 CNN hosted the second republican presidential debate of the 2012 election. John King was the moderator. Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Michelle Bachman, and Ron Paul attended the debate. Gary Jonson was not allowed to participate. He did not poll above 3 percent in enough polls to qualify. Polls this early only reflect name recognition, and the primary purpose of debates is to introduce candidates to voters. Gary Jonson was the governor of New Mexico, whereas Herman Cain has no political experience at all. The media should not be choosing winners and losers by excluding those who are relatively unknown from the national debates. Doing so amounts to serious journalistic malpractice.

The candidates were not allowed a formal introduction and were only given 30 seconds to answer most questions. This allowed for more questions, but resulted in shallower and less detailed answers. I believe that this rule didn’t give the candidates the time to fully express their stances on the key issues.  

Now, onto the candidates. Michelle Bachman is a walking contradiction. On whether she supports adopting an amendment to the US Constitution banning gay marriage she said, “I do support a constitutional amendment on-on marriage between a man and a woman, but I would not be going into the states to overturn their state law.” That’s what a constitutional amendment would do! You can’t say that marriage falls under the jurisdiction of the states and that the US federal Constitution should have an amendment banning gay marriage. Either marriage is a state issue or a federal issue; you can’t have it both ways.  

Many candidates expressed extreme positions. Gingrich supported defunding the National Labor Relations Board. He adopted this stance after the NLRB told Boeing that they couldn’t move a plant from Oregon to South Carolina to punish legal union activity at their Oregon plant.  Bachman reaffirmed her opposition to the EPA, the agency responsible for keeping our air and water clean. Cain expressed his support for eliminating the capital gains tax, a move that would almost exclusively benefit the rich. The capital gains tax is already lower than the standard income tax rate and needs to be raised, not lowered.

However, Romney took the prize for the most ridiculous position. He said that the federal government shouldn’t pay disaster relief to areas struck by flooding and tornadoes. He thinks that disaster relief should be the job of the states affected.  States cannot go into debt and are in an absolute fiscal crisis. He even suggested that disaster relief should be the job of private industry! I can’t wait for his explanation on how Target can make a profit off providing food, housing, and clothes to people without money.

John King asked Romney about disaster relief a second time to make sure his position was clear

KING: Including disaster relief, though? 

ROMNEY: We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all. 

No governor, what is immoral is denying disaster relief to those who just lost everything that they own to a tornado. It’s a testament to how idiotic the conversation over the budget has gotten that Romney is talking about denying disaster relief to Joplin. It makes no sense at all.

Foreign Policy, the most important topic in this race, was covered last. A voter asked if it was time to bring our troops home from Afghanistan. Romney said that he would withdraw troops in accordance to the advice of generals and conditions on the ground, a position that is identical to the irresponsible policy of the Obama administration. Ron Paul supported bringing our troops home immediately.  Gingrich surprisingly seemed to share this position. [Emphasis Added].

GINGRICH: I think that we need to think fundamentally about reassessing our entire strategy in the region. I think that we should say to the generals we would like to figure out to get out as rapid as possible with the safety of the troops involved. And we had better find new and very different strategies because this is too big a problem for us to deal with the American ground forces in direct combat. 

We have got to have a totally new strategy for the region, because we don't today have the kind of intelligence we need to know even what we're doing. 

Let’s hope Gingrich holds this position longer than he opposed the Ryan plan for Medicare or supported the individual mandate to buy health insurance.

John King failed to get the rest of the candidates on record on Afghanistan, the most important issue of the 2012 campaign.

This debate provided so much material to cover that I couldn’t fit it all into one post. I will be writing another post factchecking some of the factual claims make during the debate in my next article.

Originally Posted June 14, 2011