Mid Term Madness

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I'm delighted that someone is still talking about the economy, instead of Islamic, "Nazi" forces in NYC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38770982/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

 

So do, but of course that would mean real work for the pollsters.

This is a good point. The Republicans are upset with the Democratic leadership, which means they'll come to the polls in large numbers to oust them. The Dems, on the other hand, are upset with the Democratic leadership. That means a lot of uninterested voters that may well not bother. Unless Obama can turn it around in a couple months.

 

Low turnout during the midterm elections is nothing new. It's unbelievable (IMO) that nearly half of all eligible voters don't turn out for presidential elections, but the midterms usually see a good 10%-15% less than that. So it's not at all unusual for only about 1/3 of those eligible to vote actually do vote in the midterms.

Furthermore, history is against the Democrats here: 1) Republicans historically tend to get better turnout in midterms than Democrats, and 2) the party in power tends to lose seats during the midterms, simply because they have more contested seats to defend.

Finally, I think that there is a third factor, not normally seen at play here. As we all know, a historically high number of African Americans voted for Obama in 2008, and while they were there, they probably voted for some other Democrats too. Those people are the most likely to not turn out to vote in the midterms.

There has been some generic polling done at this point on a national level, and these show Republicans having about a 5% lead over Democrats. There are a couple of problems with polling though:

1.) Since these are "generic" polls, they only ask people if they plan on voting Democrat or Republican in the midterms, without using the actual candidates' names. In some states, the primaries have not yet taken place, and in other states, there is a runoff yet to be held, so they use generic polling simply because the pollsters do not yet know who is going to be on the ballot.

2.) Most polls up to this point do not differentiate between all elgible voters and those likely to vote in the midterms. It doesn't really matter which candidate you support if you don't show up to vote.

3.) While kind of obvious - a national poll is a rather blunt tool to use to gauge lost or gained seats, because Congressional elections necessarily occur at a local (or state) level.

There was an article at http://fivethirtyeight.com the other day, in which they ran a regression analysis on polling of all recent Congressional elections, and tried to estimate the results of this year's election based on that model. When you plug those numbers in, it shows Republicans picking up a net total of 41 seats this fall - 35 in the house and 6 in the Senate. At first blush, 41 seems like a fairly reasonable number. It does, until you look at the margin of error of +/-48! According to the model, they are very confident that the actual number of seats gained is somewhere between a net 89 gain for the Republicans and a net seven seats lost by the Republicans.

While that statement is almost certainly true, it's not very informative at all. Not even the rosiest of Republican forecasts has them gaining 89 seats, and not even the rosiest of Democratic forecasts has them picking up 7 seats. So yeah, the number is almost certainly somewhere in the middle, but it's hard to predict where.

Taking everything together, about the only thing we can say with reasonable certainty is that the Democrats are going to lose seats this year. But to predict whether it's going to be a few seats, a moderate amount of seats, or a lot of seats is a crap shoot.

 

How can governments really claim they have a legal mandate to rule? Surely if you get just over 50% of the votes (I know presidential elections are that close there - I'd imagine senate ones would be a bit different, but it's easy maths), with a voter turn out of 50%, you've only got a 1/4 of the country supporting your rule.

 

While it's obviously not the case in the US, I was under the impression that voting in a lot of countries was obligatory. Like you either vote, or pay a fine to not vote. As I said, you can chose to leave yourself out of the electoral process in the US.

What that means in practice is that senior citizens are typically over-represented in elections (as a far greater percentage of them vote compared to the population at large), and people in their late teens and early 20s are under-represented (as a far smaller percentage of them vote compared to the population at large).

 

Although there are a few countries where I think it is mandatory to vote I can't name one straight up, maybe Switzerland? Not sure, it is not here and I am pretty sure it is voluntary in most other European countries.

 

Australia is the one that jumps to mind. But I believe there are quite a few more, such as some of the bigger South American nations. Maybe Brazil?

 

While younger people not voting is a general problem in the US I can say I'm glad to live in Wisconsin where the % of college students (and I think younger people in general though maybe not) is above average.

WI makes it easier to vote by having same day registration (with photo ID and/or a bill with your name and current address on it) and generally not engaging in the policies that college towns in some other states do that are designed to make it harder for college students to vote.

Thus you encourage people to vote and actually make it possible for them to and a decent number of people will vote-that doesn't mean that there aren't people that sit out elections, but there are many in my state who don't.

 

That's no surprise, since most of these republicans voted against him anyway. It was the independent vote that is the deciding votes in most elections. Most often, there is not a whole of lot of crossover between parties.

As for Obama, he's done mostly what he said he would do "on paper." However, what generated the excitement was that there was a certain genuine quality about him, and optimism about the theme of change, that it would not be politics as usual if Obama was elected. Of course, that did not pan out the way many have hoped, and it is really the independent voters that have shifted away from Democrats.

People want change - that's the bottom line. They wanted change away from the Bush Republican regime, and now they want change, that they feel they are not getting, from the Democratic regime. When will these guys get it?

 

Unfortunately, probably never. In our local primary, all but one Republican candidate promised to lower taxes and to keep all the carriers in Hampton . The one who didn't actually did want to move one carrier to Florida, in the interests of national defense , and promised not to raise taxes . He didn't win.

Nationally, the anthem of lowering taxes is already starting to ring . Unfortunately, that doesn't quite mesh with the anthem of fiscal conservation. At the moment, we either must gouge our federal spending (likely focused on welfare programs and the military), raise our taxes through the roof, or some partial combination of the two. That's the only way you can really claim fiscal conservation and paying down the debt.

 

When people are so unsatisfied with both parties, is there generally a rise in third party votes (ie. wasted votes)? Or is lower voter turn out one of the only key signs?

I know here, even when we had a majority voting system, times that both the major two parties were unpopular, large numbers (up to 20%) would vote for a third party, as a protest vote. Of course, given the workings of most majority systems, the third party would never get in. But it's a sure sign to the major parties they need to change their act. I guess a more recent example is the surge in the Lib-Dems popularity in the recent UK election (even if it didn't carry through to the polls).

 

You'd be surprised how many times have I heard the mantra that lowering tax rates increases revenue. It is one of the many "truisms" of the legendary Reagan years, I suppose.

 

Absolutely. If we just lower the tax rate to zero, we should have all the tax revenue we will ever need.

 

I think they would settle for a more modest change now - specifically a change away from the ~10% unemployment figure we've been running for about a year now, and the ~14% underemployment figure. (Underemployment is when you have a job, but either A) you are working part time but would prefer full time, it's just that there are no hours to give you or B) you have a job outside of your area of expertise (and are typically getting paid significantly less than what you'd get working in your field) or both.

I'm pleasantly surprised to hear you say this NOG. Taxes are the lowest they've been - practically ever. They are much lower now than under Reagan, and there hasn't been an increase in taxes since Bush Sr.

I'd say most people if they are fed up with both the major parties are more likely to stay home on election day rather than vote for a candidate that has little to no chance of winning.

That is one of the few things I like about the Parliamentary system of government. Third parties that only receive a fraction of the vote still get some representation. Now, I don't particularly like the way the Prime Minister gets elected - I kind of like the idea of a President - but I wouldn't mind if Congress was a bit more Parliamentary.

The crazy thing is - it did - during the Reagan years. However, taxes are already so low, and so many people are receiving unemployment or working for peanuts (about 1 in 4 combined), that I am largely unconvinced such a strategy would work now. If you don't have a job, a tax break doesn't save you any money. Counterintuitively, you'll see a larger benefit from raising taxes when the economy is going strong. That's when a lot of people are making - and therefore spending - money.

 

I remember when Obama was first elected almost two years ago now, and the talking heads were giving him and the Dems two years to move the needle on unemployment. I guess their "two years" are up.

The interesting thing is that coporate earnings are mostly up, but there is still little hiring. And the economic numbers are still bad, especially the housing market. I strongly believe America's wealth is being exported.

 

The July housing report is due out today - most people are not expecting to hear anything good. It doesn't matter how low interest rates go - there are way more homes on the market than there are potential buyers, and most people who could refinance their mortgages have already done so.

 

As far as I know, during the Reagan years it rose due to tax loopholes being closed and certain taxes - iirc on Medicare, possibly also some corporate ones - rising, as well as the economy itself recovering from the 1981-2 downturn. On the other hand, I think it also rose when Clinton raised taxes a little, so what does that prove?

 

It wouldn't have been Medicare - that has been a flat 1.45% on your income since it was introduced by LBJ. I'm no Reagan lover, but the fact remains that taxes got lower, revenues increased (granted he spent it all and then some on the military), and inflation greatly slowed during his tenure.

 

I'm a little confused since I read this today:

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/24/why-the-gop-will-raise-taxes.html

So it appears that he cut taxes and then raised them because of lost revenue.

 

It's not that complicated if we stop and think about it, but most don't. Think of a graph, with tax level on the x-axis and income received on the y-axis. Obviously, if taxes are at 0%, the government earns 0 income. Likewise, almost as obviously, if the tax level is 100%, the economy is dead and the government earns 0 (or close to 0) income. Also obviously, somewhere in between the two, the government has to earn some income. So, we can get a basic picture of a bell-curve, probably offset to one side or the other (guess which). If taxes are above the peak, then you earn more money by lowering taxes. If they're below the peak, you loose money by lowering taxes. Of course, figuring out where that peak is, and where it is for each type of taxes, is way more complicated and I won't even try to figure it out.

The talking heads now are saying that the wealthy and corporations are holding onto their money right now because there's too much uncertainty. They blame much of that uncertainty on Obama and the Dems, and with good reason. Obama's rhetoric has targeted businesses, corporations, and basically all money-earners since his campaign, and that's not a good way to encourage businesses. Add to that the health care bill, talk of raising taxes, and all the regulations that have been added (and the talk of more regulations), and the Dems really haven't been helping businesses become more certain,

All that said, though, and I'm not sure I trust the talking heads.