Re: 2012 U.S. Presidential Election
In other news,
Newt Gingrich Announces Candidacy for Democratic Party Nominee
Ron Paul Stands Strong in Support of Double-Dip LibertyNewt Gingrich said Sunday that an “age of austerity” is the wrong solution for the economy and would “punish” the American people. He said he prefers “pro-growth” policies instead. The comments appear to pour cold water on the modern Republican belief that austerity and growth go hand in hand.
The 2012 Republican presidential candidate was asked by NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet The Press” whether his hopes for a U.S. colony on the moon fly in the face of the GOP’s fiscal responsibility mantra. Gingrich responded with some choice words about austerity itself before defending his lunar ambitions.
“First of all, David, I don’t think you’ll ever find me talking about an age of austerity. I don’t think that’s the right solution,” Gingrich said. “I am a pro-growth Republican. I’m a pro-growth conservative. I think the answer is to grow the economy, not to punish the American people with austerity.”
His comments are remarkable in that they appear to contradict the core economic belief of the modern Republican Party that Gingrich hopes to lead. In this era of high deficits, austerity is routinely heralded by conservatives and GOP lawmakers as the path to economic prosperity, and the party was successful last year in keeping the issue atop the 2011 legislative agenda.
New Obama v Romney Polling DataRep. Ron Paul appears to have been paid twice for flights between Washington, D.C., and his Congressional district, receiving reimbursement from taxpayers and also from a network of political and nonprofit organizations he controlled, according to public records and documents obtained by Roll Call.
Roll Call identified eight flights for which the Texas Republican, a GOP presidential candidate and leading champion of smaller government, was reimbursed twice for the same trip. Roll Call also found dozens more instances of duplicate payments for travel from 1999 to 2009, totaling thousands of dollars' worth of excess payments, but the evidence in those cases is not as complete.
Paul's office vigorously denies that the Congressman ever intentionally received multiple reimbursements for the same trips.
Paul's office declined to make the Congressman available for an interview.
Spokesman Jesse Benton said it was "possible that wholly inadvertent errors were made in a handful of instances" in which flights were reimbursed twice, but he maintained that "absolutely zero taxpayer funds were ever misused."
Benton said those flights "may appear to show duplicative reimbursements because Congressman Paul's wife or a campaign staffer traveled with him. In such instances, the U.S. House would reimburse Congressman Paul's travel to D.C. for Congressional business, while his campaign or political action committee would reimburse his traveling companion's ticket." But Benton declined to discuss any of the trips in detail, arguing that the office does not have records for many of the years in question and that Roll Call was using "stolen" credit card records as the basis for the story.
The available records name Paul as the traveler in most cases. In other cases in which tickets were purchased for Paul's wife, Carol, or for staffers, those tickets — identifiable by distinct prices, dates and flight paths — were reimbursed separately. In one case, Paul used a company credit card in his name to buy a ticket for his then-deputy chief of staff; Paul was then reimbursed by his Congressional office and also by his campaign.
Roll Call obtained copies of credit card statements for a corporate American Express card assigned to Ron Paul & Associates Inc. on which many flights were purchased. The flight details on those statements matched payment records filed to the Federal Election Commission and office expenses itemized in quarterly Congressional disbursement statements published by the Chief Administrative Officer of the House.
President Barack Obama holds a clear lead over Mitt Romney in a hypothetical general election match-up, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Among all Americans, Obama leads Romney 52 to 43 percent, whereas among registered voters, the president has a narrower edge over Romney, 51 to 45 percent. This is the first time that Obama has more than 50 percent of the votes in a match-up against Romney among all Americans since July, when the president led the GOP candidate, 51 to 44 percent.
But the president has progress to make in instilling economic confidence in Americans — asked which candidate can be trusted to do a better job in handling the economy, 48 percent of the general population picked Romney over 45 percent that picked Obama. The Republican front-runner also fared better job creation, narrowly beating Obama 47 to 45 percent, as well as the handling of the federal budget and deficit, 51 to 41 percent.
It is the first time that the president has topped 50 percent in a match-up against Romney among registered voters.
The survey also showed, however, that people trust Obama will be a better champion of the middle class than Romney, 55 to 37 percent. Also, 56 percent of the general population said they trust that the president would do a better job handling international affairs compared with just 37 percent that picked Romney. Similarly, the majority said the president’s handling of terrorism will be better than Romney’s, 56 to 36 percent.
The president has been making a strong case for the so-called “Buffett Rule,” which would have the wealthy pay a higher rate of taxes – 72 percent indicated in the poll that they support raising taxes on Americans with annual incomes over one million dollars. Unfortunately for Romney, a whopping 66 percent said they believe his federal tax rate of about 14 percent was not fair.
Obama is also seen as having a better understanding of the American people’s economic problems than Romney, 53 to 36 percent.
Originally Posted by Dark Sage
