The Colonel's Forum

Today's number is $4 Million.  That's how much Mitt Romney donated to charity in 2011.  Wouldn't it be nice if we all made so much money that we could all give $4 Million a year to charity and still maintain 3 very nice homes? Here's the problem Mitt made for himself though. Earlier this year, Mitt refused to release several years of tax returns.  Critics claimed that Mitt was hiding something. Senator Harry Reid went so far as to say that he had "strong evidence" that Romney had paid $0 taxes in recent years. Still waiting on Harry to back that one up. To silence these critics though, Mitt provided an extra tidbit of information; he said "I've never paid less than 13% in taxes."  He went on to clarify that he takes every deduction possible, and in a debate said  "I don't think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes."   You see, in Mitt's world, the fact that he maximizes his deducti...

Taxes are a big issue. They affect government revenue, which affects the budget. They also affect our bank accounts, so they have an influence on how we spend or save money, which affects the economy.  We pay lots of them:  income taxes to the federal, state, and sometimes city government. There's the payroll tax (which funds medicare and social security); sales taxes, property tax, capital gains tax. Today's statistic is a table of statistics (below). These show the effective federal tax paid based on income level. Your "effective" rate is what you pay after you take all the deductions - it's your net tax liability.  The chart shows a couple interesting things. It shows that the top 20% pretty much all pay a 20% effective tax rate.  It shows that the less money you make, the less you tend to pay in taxes. It also highlights that rich people tend to get their income from capital gains and interest, which is taxed at 15%.  We can change the top rate from 35% ba...

Today's statistic comes to us from "the horse's mouth" - 47%. Thanks Mitt. It's been several days since the now-infamous "secret" fundraiser video was released (even more by the time this scheduled post goes live), but I have to say I honestly felt badly for the guy when it came out. The man was making a sales pitch to rich donors, and without rich donors you literally cannot run a Presidential campaign these days. This is a point on which both candidates agree. What Mitt was trying to do is explain how he planned to court the "undecided" electorate. This is like that TV show "shark tank"; he was pitching his business plan to investors. What he forgot was a cardinal rule: know when to shut up. His point about how to win this election is spot on. The polls have clearly shown that this is a close race, the country is roughly evenly divided, and both candidates are trying to court the "middle" without losing the "base....

Today's stat is homemade: 3.  I see 3 key reasons that Obamacare helps the middle class. 1) Insurance companies can no longer deny working families insurance due to pre-existing conditions. Yes, it's ridiculous that we had to pass a law to specify this, but we did, and I think that law should stay on the books, as does the President. Romney & Obama agree on this. 2) The mandate. By requiring more people to have coverage and removing barriers to coverage, you increase the number of people in the risk pool with lowers premiums. Ask anyone who's ever worked in the insurance business.  Romney has said a mandate was "right for Massachusetts but wrong for the country." The people who say "I shouldn't be forced to buy insurance" because a) they say they won't get sick or b) they prefer to pay their own medical costs out of pocket demonstrate a profound level of ignorance. You're going to get sick, you probably won't be able to pay it a...

Ironically, health care is one of the issues where it's very easy to compare the candidates. Thanks to Romneycare, we know exactly where Mitt stands on this issue, unless of course he's changed his mind again. Today's stat is 33,000,000 - that's how many MORE people will have health insurance 10 years from now, thanks to Obamacare. In Massachusetts, companies with more than 10 employees must offer health insurance or pay a penalty. The federal approach imposes the requirement on companies with 50 employees or more. So Obamacare gives a pass to the smallest businesses, while still extending them an incentive (in the form of a tax break) to provide coverage for their employees. FYI more than 90% of small businesses in this country have fewer than 50 employees. Both plans restructure the insurance market. In Massachusetts, the reform law merged the individual and small-group markets (that is, the market serving individuals not covered by their employer's plan a...

Let's talk about Obamacare, and how it helps the middle class. Two numbers today: 141% and 1.5 years. This is a chart showing health care spending relative to life expectancy for the richest countries in the world (OECD member countries). I think it's probably the best way to begin a health care discussion because almost anyone can agree that life expectancy is a pretty good measure of the effectiveness of healthcare, and also that, as Americans, we love a good deal. We want to get the most for our money. We spend 141% more per person than the average country on this chart, and our life expectancy is 1.5 years less. We spend more than twice as much as Japan, and they live 5 years longer.  We are not getting a good deal, at all, and this represents a tremendous burden on our economy as a whole, and the middle class. $2,600,000,000,000.  That's $2.6 Trillion, the total amount we spent on health care in 2010. We're spending more and more each year as a percentage of ...

Today's statistic is zero.  That's the net effect of tax rates on government revenues relative to GDP. So it doesn't matter if we have Obama's tax hike for the top 2%, or Romney's tax cuts for everyone, the Federal government tends to bring in about the same amount of money (relative to GDP) regardless. Surprised? I was too.  By the way, that top tax bracket number is worth point out too - the richest Americans really did pay 90% in the 50s, and 70% up until the Reagan years. Romney wants to give a big tax cut, Obama wants to raise them on the rich. These are largely symbolic gestures that will have no real impact on solving our budget problems. Ryan has proposed closing loopholes, but he continually refuses to say which ones. That actually could affect the middle class, because, even more so than the top 1%, middle class families enjoy tremendous benefits from the current loopholes (mortgage interest, child tax credit etc.). At the same time, Ryan wants to e...

With part 20 in the series, I am starting a segment on the middle class. Today's number is 281% - that's the starting point for this discussion.  Since 1979, the top 1% have seen a 281% increase in their after tax income, 10 times what the middle fifth has seen, and triple what the top 80% of families have seen.  Put simply, the rich are getting MUCH richer while the middle class is getting screwed. The GOP will tell you that Obama and the Dems talk in terms of class warfare. That's an exaggeration of course, but it's not entirely inaccurate, and there's a reason. Take a look at this chart. The red line at the top is the income gains of the wealthiest 1% of Americans since 1979: Over the past 30 years, the wealth gap in this country has increased dramatically. We all know that money runs modern politics, and if you look at this chart and don't think that the top 1% are using their money to protect the status quo, you're just nuts. Of course they are...

What about the rate at which we're adding jobs?  Is that better than 4 years ago?  Yup.  Four years ago we were losing 800,000 jobs a month.  Now we're adding them at roughly 100,000 a month.  Obama's record month in 2010 added over 400,000 jobs in a single month, more than Bush ever added in a single month. Think it's a fluke?  Refer to part #7 in the series, where I compare Democratic vs. Republican presidents over the last 50+ years.

Obama has ballooned the size of government in just 4 years!  Not if you go by the headcount; in that case he's shrunk it by several hundred thousand.  Please note the trend during George W. Bush's tenure (2000 - 2008) - pretty steady increase, even during the recession.

"The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.  First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.  Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.  Third: Any nation's right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.  Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.  And fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations. ... "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold...

For the 3rd chart in this economic focus, let's start to get personal.  This one shows unemployment, which is absolutely worse than it was 4 years ago (8.2% today, closer to 7% in 2008).  There is also recent evidence that many people are giving up the search for jobs, which is terrible news. But look at the graphic.  Look at the turn around (late 2009), and the recent trend (downward).  Now I need to geek out for a moment and show off this shiny new MBA I have so we can talk about NAIRU - the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment.  Basically what you need to know is that there is a certain level of unemployment BELOW which you have so many people in the workforce, and such intense competition for workers that wages and prices are driven upwards, resulting in accelerating inflation, which is bad.  You almost always want a tiny bit of inflation, but you want the rate to be steady, not accelerating.  And what is NAIRU for the US?  Righ...

Yesterday we began our focus on the economy series with a look at GDP.  While that's an interesting measure and one that most economists use, it's actually the GROWTH (or decline) in GDP that is an indicator of the direction the economy is heading. Today's chart is the % change in GDP, and do note the zero line on the "y" axis here - anything above it is positive growth in the economy, anything below it means the economy is shrinking. GDP growth has also been frustratingly slow. This is better than four years ago, though, when GDP was tanking. The real GDP growth rate for the past three years, moreover, is similar to the most of the growth years of the Bush administration, and today it's growing at just about 2%.  More importantly, the positive trend would be interpreted by most economists to say that the economy is better off today than it was 4 years ago.

Today is the start of a series where I'll take a detailed look at the economy.  One of the common themes on both sides of this election is "are you better off than you were 4 years ago?"  I think that's pretty subjective, and it's typically a stretch to give the President either credit or blame for what's happened.  Still, politics is personal, voters love this framework, so I'll attempt to put some concrete numbers behind it. Today's chart tracks Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, which is a measure of the total output of the US economy.  The number is $13.6 trillion, which is our projected 2012 GDP.  It was $13.4 trillion in 2008, so that's an increase which is good.  So, based on economic output, we are better off today than we were 4 years ago.  That's just one measure though, so stay tuned in the coming days as we look at a few more.

Another ratio today, 10:1.  Romney was asked "would you agree to a deficit reduction program that offered $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases?" and his answer was "no."  I cannot think of a more clear example of how the GOP is not willing to compromise. 69% of the country favors some type of deficit reduction approach that includes a mix of spending cuts and tax increases.  Even billionaire Republican donor David Koch says the U.S. probably needs higher taxes to reduce the federal budget deficit.  Mitt Romney is among the 31% of Americans (and way too many people in Congress) who refuse to accept any tax increase.

Today's stat is a year: 2017.  That's the year Medicare will run out of money.  50,000,000 seniors depend on it, so we should probably fix it.  Medicare is also a major drain on our budget - right now 21% of our federal tax dollars go to support it, making it just slightly higher than defense spending. So how to the candidates differ?  Well, they both agree it's broken, and they both want to tie Medicare spending to a percentage of GDP, meaning as the national economy improves or declines, Medicare spending goes with it.  The key difference is this; Obama is a critic of premium support. He would retain Medicare's defined-benefit structure, meaning that the government will pay whatever it takes to cover a specified set of services.  Romney prefers a "defined contribution" approach, without actually fixing what's wrong with Medicare.  This means, rather than paying whatever it takes, he'll give you a check, and you're on your own if that isn...

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) yesterday released its advice to the President on sequestration . This document is as boring as its name suggests. This particular sequestration was passed into law as part of the debt ceiling compromise both parties agreed to in the summer of 2011. That deal called for a $1.1 trillion cut from federal spending during the next ten years and then called for a "super committee" made up of leaders from both parties to shave another $1.2 trillion off the budget. They failed, so the law mandates that $1.2 trillion be cut equally from domestic programs and the defense budget.  Remember, this law was agreed to by both parties in both houses of Congress - Republicans agreed to defense cuts that they never thought they'd have to make, and Democrats agreed to huge cuts in domestic programs that they never thought they'd have to make.  Both parties thought that the Supercommittee "could not fail." But it did, and...

Today's number is 70%. Based on his business record, there is a 70% chance Mitt Romney will not bankrupt the country.  That's pretty good. The Wall Street Journal , aiming for a comprehensive assessment, examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, to see how they fared during Bain's involvement and shortly afterward. Among the findings: 22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses. An additional 8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost .  22% + 8% = 30% in my book. He did great things at Bain, and made a lot of money for a lot of people.  Depending on which date you believe for his departure (Mitt is a little unsure when he stopped being CEO there , think about that for a moment), he hasn't been a business man for 10-14 years. As an IT guy with an MBA...

Today we're going to talk about Energy policy, because we're all sick of paying $3.50+ at the pump.  The statistic for today is a ratio, 5:1.  That's the ratio of US government subsidies for the oil & gas industry to those given to renewable energy (solar, wind...) during the first 15 years of each industry.  Or, for every $1 we're giving to renewables today, we gave $5 to oil & gas when it was getting started. Why is this relevant? 1) Romney thinks we're giving too much to renewables, Obama wants to give more. 2) Oil & Gas was a great investment, but they don't need subsidies anymore.  Romney wants to continue to subsidize a 100 year old industry that's making record profits, Obama wants to end those subsidies. A little history & context is important here.  Basically, the US has subsidized "startup" energy industries for over 200 years.  These subsidies come in all forms (tax breaks, R&D incentives, direct government assi...

Well, I guess #10 means we're 1/6 of the way there.  When I started this project, I wondered if I could actually find 60 relevant statistics, but maybe it's possible. Today's statistic is 608,000 - that's the number of government jobs lost or eliminated by Obama.  That's right, under his watch the government payroll (including state & local) has shrunk 2.7%.  At the same point in Bush's first term, public sector employment was UP 3.7%.  Are you noticing a theme here?  Republican Presidents absolutely do not shrink the size of government.  Here's a chart of just the Bush/Obama 1st term comparison .

Let's talk about the growth of government - 1.3% under Obama, 2.6% under "W."  Here's a chart showing the rate at which government spending has grown over the last 40 years.  Take a look at the Carter, Clinton, & Obama years relative to the Republican presidents.  Framing it as "per capita" is better than looking at the raw numbers because the size of our country has changed over the last 40 years . That's right kids, Obama and Clinton were the two most austere Presidents in recent history.

I attended Miami University, and I loved it.  It had its ups and downs at the time, but in retrospect I can't think of any way I'd have rather spent those four years. Not to mention Oxford, Ohio is a great town. I learned more about myself, and the world, inside and outside the classroom, in those four years, than I ever have learned before or after that period. Miami prides itself on liberal education. Your courses were more or less dictated by "The Miami Plan for Liberal Education" which basically said, regardless of your major, you need to take a variety of stuff. You had to take arts classes, science, humanities, and "a class presented from the non-dominant perspective of the US," affectionately referred to as the anti-rich-white-guy class. Sounds totally hippie, I know, but years later, I got it. I realized why this makes for a good education. The Miami Plan was built on principles, including critical thinking and reasoning (thank you, Dr. Bill Gracie...

In episode #7 we talked about jobs, but what about the economy as a whole?  Which party has a better history when it comes to economic growth?  Let me put on my financial adviser hat. Over the five decades since John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, $1,000 invested in a hypothetical fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) only when Democrats are in the White House would have been worth $10,920 in February of 2012. That’s more than nine times the dollar return an investor would have realized from following a similar strategy during Republican administrations. A $1,000 stake invested in a fund that followed the S&P 500 under Republican presidents, starting with Richard Nixon, would have grown to $2,087 on the day George W. Bush left office. So, if you like a good return on your investments, and I do, vote Obama/Biden.  Or to put it in terms my GOP leaning friends might better understand "If you vote Romney/Ryan, you're anti-business!"

Let's continue the jobs theme for today's statistic.  Thanks to Bill Clinton for researching this one for me :-) 42,000,000 - private sector jobs added to the economy under Democrat Presidents over the last 52 years. 24,000,000 - private sector jobs added to the economy under GOP Presidents over the last 52 years. Think he's full of it?   Politifact says his numbers are accurate . In case you're wondering, that's 24 years of Democrats, 28 years of Republicans, going back to (and including) Kennedy.  The Democrats achieved that number with 4 fewer years in the oval office, and this includes Obama's 4 years which were the worst recession during the period. Mitt Romney said " this election is about jobs ."  I agree.  If you can look at these numbers and honestly convince yourself "Romney's financial plan is not at all like Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush; he'll buck the trend," then I can't help you.

Today's number is 4,500,000 - the number of private sector jobs created over the past 29 months.  It doesn't take a genius to look at this graph and see how Obama turned around a negative jobs situation upon taking office.  Mitt Romney claims his time at Bain Capital resulted in the creation of 100,000 jobs, but the Washington Post awarded him 3 Pinocchios for that claim.  For those who don't know how private equity firms work, Bain actually invented a model that is very popular called a leveraged buyout; buying existing firms with money mostly borrowed from banking institutions and using the newly bought firms' assets as collateral, and selling them off in a few years.  A side effect of this is often bankrupting the company or shutting down factories/stores to make the firm more profitable.  It actually makes perfect business sense, to the point that the model has become widely adopted in the finance industry.  You just need to not care about the poor s...

Romney reaching out to white male voters at NASCAR race 2 = number of Nascar races Mitt Romney has attended in a vain attempt to connect with blue collar voters. "I'm not a big fan, but several of my friends own teams." That's an actual quote.

Today's comparison is around personal finances.  Here is a comparison of Mitt, Barack, and an "average" American family.  I especially like that Romney's "wages" number is $0 - the man literally does not have a job. Hasn't had one for years, actually.  Another point is that, if you want to vote for the "poor" candidate, you can't vote for Obama either - his $600K after tax income places him WELL within the top 1%. President Obama Income Wages: $394,821 Other income: $449,764 Adjusted gross income (AGI): $789,674 (Obama's adjusted gross income was reduced $54,911 by adjustments that partially offset wages and other income) Minus exemptions, deductions: $293,298 Equals taxable income: $496,376 Taxes paid Income taxes (19.02% of AGI): $150,253 Payroll tax (4.35% of AGI; Payroll tax includes employee and employer share): $34,378 Tax rate (19.02% + 4.35%): 23.37%. Federal tax paid: $184,631 After-tax income: $605,043 Mitt ...

Today's statistic is on a different defense topic - ZERO.  That's the number of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) found in Iraq, where George W. Bush launched an unfunded war on the premise that they had WMD.  Related numbers include 4,805 coalition forces killed, 32,753 wounded, and 110,000 Iraqi civilians killed (that's the official number, many suspect the actual is higher). Total cost of the war ?  $3,700,000,000,000.  That's $3.7 trillion, kids, and that number is still rising.  August 31, 2010 - that's the day that Barack Obama ended the Iraq war he inherited.  I agree - Obama can't blame Bush for everything.  But that particular $3.7 trillion is fair game, I think. Here's where US Defense spending is today, compared to the next 15 biggest spenders: Mitt Romney wants to place a "floor" on defense spending at 4% of GDP , which is roughly 20% of the federal budget.  He wants to cut government spending, he wants to balance the budget, h...

Today's number is 262, that's the number of drone strikes in Pakistan that Obama has ordered.  That's 5 times the number Bush ordered over his 8-years in office.  Here's a map and a link to more details: I'll leave it to the military experts and ethics wonks to debate whether drone strikes are moral or not.  What I do know is that drone strikes work.  In a New York Times article , a former Air Force officer turned philosopher says "all the evidence we have so far suggests that drones do better at both identifying the terrorist and avoiding collateral damage than anything else we have.”  Sounds pretty good to me. I think this is relevant because it says Obama is not a wuss, which is what the GOP would have us believe.  I guarantee any detailed analysis of any Romney/Ryan budget will reveal that age old Republican stance of "we need to be spending more on defense."  There have already been suggestions that Obama wants to cut defense spending, and...

In part 2 of this series, I'd like to look at Obama's record.  The number is 190 - that's how many of his campaign promises Obama has kept, according to the people over at politifact .  That sounds like a big number, but any good stats professor will tell you "when they give you a number, ask for a %, and when they give you a %, ask for a number." 190 represents 37% of the campaign promises that candidate Obama made in 2008.  He has broken 83 (16%) and there are a total of 161 (32%) that are either stalled or in the works.  A related interesting number is 72 (14%) - that's the number of campaign promises where Obama has COMPROMISED with the Republicans to achieve something that advances his goal, rather than nothing at all. Let's put that in simpler terms with a little rounding.  For every 10 promises this guy made, he's delivered on 4 of them, broken 2 of them, compromised on 1 of them, and the remaining 3 are either stalled or in the works. ...

It's roughly 60 days until the US Presidential election.  As an exercise in my continuing mission of voter education, I've decided to challenge myself to produce 60 relevant, objective, substantive statistics that will help people compare Romney & Obama. Today's statistic is 5 - the number of key campaign issues on which Mitt Romney flip-flopped.  Abortion, gun control, climate change, health insurance, and taxes.  Personally, I don't think abortion or gun control matter, but I recognize that many Americans do, and Mitt has made them major elements of his platform.  From The Economist : "When Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts, he supported abortion, gun control, tackling climate change and a requirement that everyone should buy health insurance, backed up with generous subsidies for those who could not afford it. Now, ... he opposes all those things. A year ago he favoured keeping income taxes at their current levels; now he wants to...