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September 13, 2008 04:56 PM UTC

Bob Schaffer - financial genius

  • 32 Comments
  • by: DavidThi808

from the Rocky Mountain News

Democrat Mark Udall’s campaign says Schaffer violated federal law by not having the candidate’s image appear in the final four seconds of the new TV ad on taxes.

Udall’s attorneys asked Colorado’s TV stations on Thursday to enforce a provision of the law that says that requirement must be met for campaigns to get the discount rates that TV stations charge candidates.



If the stations comply, she said, Schaffer’s $2.7 million ad buy would end up costing him an additional $1.7 million.

Dick Wadhams was his normal high-class act. Maybe Wadhams could teach an elementary school civics class.

Schaffer’s campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, called the request “legal bullshit from the Democrats.” The campaign wrote a rebuttal letter to TV stations.

Comments

32 thoughts on “Bob Schaffer – financial genius

    1. Tom Udall was much futher ahead than made any sense. I think he’s facing some of that swing back towards the Republican side.

      Mark Udall was very sensibly keeping a low profile while Schaffer was busy making mistake after mistake. Now that Schaffer has stopped shooting himself in the foot weekly – Udall is going to have to step it up.

      In both cases they should still win handily.

  1. Does he even remember how to talk to the press?

    “legal bullshit”? How is that at all professional?

    If Schaffer loses, and I was a Republican, I would be calling for Wadhams’ resignation.

    1. Yeah, shows how much lawnorder really means to these types.

      But boy, they sure were fast to use “legal bullshit” in Bush v. Gore. And bullshit it was.  

  2. everyone is checking every ad.

    You need to show the candidates image for 4 seconds and repeat the “my name is x and I appove this message”

    Technically speaking if you do not follow the rules, you don’t just lose prefered pricing for the past ads, but for all ads at that provider for the rest of the cycle.

    The FEC has failed to act on these since McCain feingold, but the new tact of going after the TV stations is novel.

    To those that say its “legal bullshit from democrats”, I  respectfully believe it is more correctly characterized as “illegal bullshit from Republicans”

    Laws must be enforced or just repeal them.  If you think the law is pointless or unfair fight to change it.  Until then, as lawmakers you have a duty to obey them.

  3. .

    but I think it would be nice for the Internet impaired

    if there was a link to the ads so we could see for ourselves if Schaffer is concealing his tie to the ad.

    .

      1. .

        What’s so offensive about the ad is that the person who put it together,

        after the “I’m ‘x’ and I approved this message,”  

        ended with “Bob Schaffer, a new direction for US Senate,”  but didn’t have an image of Bob on the screen for the last 4 seconds.  

        But his image was featured prominently from 3 – 4 seconds, and again from 18 – 26 seconds.  

        Wadhams called this one.  

        .

          1. you think it’s a trivial “technicality.” Ads often run a thumbnail image of the candidate next to the disclaimer at the bottom of the screen. Schaffer’s campaign could have done this and still run its giant bumpersticker up top, but chose not to, which is a violation of the law.

            What do you want to bet a new version of the ad shows up Monday and an “errant media consultant” gets blamed again, as happened when neither Schaffer nor Wadhams could keep Pikes Peak and Mt. McKinley straight?

            1. .

              and Ralphie, I agree with that stuff about the law.  

              Either get the law changed, or comply.  

              But I don’t think there will be any formal action before the election, so I think they will get away with it for now, and pay fines later.

              .

  4. According to Alan Greenspan, American can’t afford the extremist agenda of Bob Schaffer and the rest of the Norquist Cons who want to shrink government small enough to drown it in a bathtub.

    Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the country can’t afford $3.3 trillion of tax cuts proposed by Republican presidential nominee John McCain without corresponding spending reductions.

    Greenspan, a lifelong Republican and longtime friend of McCain, said today on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” that “I’m not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money.”

     

    1. Obama is bad, but McCain is almost twice as bad.

      All from the very balanced non partisan Tax Policy Center.

      The new report concludes that both will significantly increase the deficit over the next decade. Including interest costs, Obama would do so by $3.4 trillion, while McCain would raise the deficit by $5 trillion.

      Where is that crazy old fool Ross Perot.  He made being a deficit hawk cool.  The problem is the GOP used to have fiscal conservatives, but now the GOP supply side gluttons.  The Paygo ethos of the old party is one of the reasons I used to be more moderate and sometimes vote for republicans.  Bob Rubin and Bill Clinton brought that ethos into the Democratic party and the country is better for it.  Unfortunately the GOP forgot they used to own this issue.

      Instead like the spendthrift scions of wealthy clans they so enjoy giving tax breaks to, the GOP borrows this country into slavery to both our friends and enemies.

      I used to think irrational tax policy were just empty campaign rhetoric, I didn’t think anyone was that stupid.  But then Bush bankrupt the government and poured the fiscal discipline of both his father and Clinton into the toilet.

      Although both candidates have at times stressed fiscal responsibility, their specific non-health tax proposals would reduce tax revenues by an estimated $4.2 trillion (McCain) and $2.8 trillion (Obama) over the next 10 years. Both candidates argue that their proposals should be scored against a “current policy” baseline instead of current law. Such a baseline assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts would be extended and the AMT patch made permanent. Against current policy, Senator Obama’s proposals would raise $800 billion and Senator McCain’s proposals lose $600 billion.

      The two candidates’ tax plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain’s tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those tax cuts would be small as a share of after-tax income. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise significantly.

      The impact of the tax code on economic activity under each candidate’s policies would differ in several important ways. Under Senator McCain’s proposed policies, the top marginal rates (35 percent on individual income and 25 percent on corporate income) would be significantly lower than under Senator Obama’s plan (39.6 and 35 percent, respectively). McCain’s reduced individual and corporate rates could improve economic efficiency and increase domestic investment, but the larger future deficits would reduce and might completely negate any positive effect. In contrast, Senator Obama’s proposed new tax credits could encourage desirable behavior, particularly if the childless EITC and payroll tax rebate encourage additional labor supply among childless low-income individuals. However, he would also direct new subsidies at an already favored group-seniors and an already favored activityhomeownership-which could probably be better directed elsewhere.

      I’m hoping Bob Rubin (or even Bloomberg–Oh please let him be treasury secretary) gets in to see President Obama and gets the Pesident to take more affirmative steps to get us back on track.

      http://www.taxpolicycenter.org

      1. Obama’s plan is just as fiscally irresponsible as McCain’s, however, I think there are some fundamental differences between the two.

        We all know that America thrives on the concept of deficit spending. Without it, there is no way we would be able to function. The whole concept of “pay for play” is fundamentally flawed, especially at a time when there is nearly a half trillion dollar budget deficit.

        If the budget were balanced, that would be a different story. The problem is that neither candidate is talking about balancing the budget, because they both know that to try to do that while fighting two wars and keeping entitlements like Social Security and Medicare would be disastrous. Something would have to be cut from those two entitlements if they wanted to balance the budget, and there is just no way that either candidate can talk about that, because it would be a political nightmare.

        So, we are at a point where we’ll have a massive budget deficit either way.

        With John McCain’s economic plan, we are going to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, with a heavy dose of extended middle class tax cuts–including a (correct me if I’m wrong on this number) $12,000 a year tax credit for purchasing one’s own health care. The military spending will increase, because it’s unlikely that we’ll be leaving Iraq anytime before 2011 (according to the new agreement with Iraq.) Plus, we all know John McCain talks big about budget cuts, but I seriously doubt we will see anything but increases in DoD funding. So, we have a lot of money spent on military spending, with very little being pumped directly into the economy. People have more money in their pockets, but it does nothing to help the problems in our financial sector–thus inflation continues to rise, and consumers end up spending more money, even though they are paying less in taxes.

        With Obama’s plan, we have the same perceived fiscal irresponsibility as with McCain’s: no balanced budget, continued budget deficits. The difference in the two is that Obama wants to spend where it will actually help boost the economy. Give health care to people so that they can seek preventative care at a reasonable cost, thereby lowering the overall cost of health care. Give tax breaks to companies that create jobs here, which puts more money in their pockets, which then increases their employees’ wages.

        It’s basic Keynesian economics: if inject money into your own economy, you will create an increase in revenues while keeping inflation low. So even though there’s a budget deficit, the economy has the ability to get back on track.

        Sorry for the long comment, I just wanted to throw that in there.

      2. to Republicans.  All their screaming for tax cuts would be revealed to be hocus pocus craziness if they were called on it.  I believe this is why they couldn’t allow Ron Paul to speak at their convention and allow him to name what must not be named.

        The ad itself reveals a lot about Republican values.  We agree to abide by certain rules of conduct and fairness until we break them then it doesn’t matter.  Talk about flipping the finger at The Rule of Law.  And these are the same people who want to go to Washington to make new laws to control women and allowing for wiretapping.  How 1984 is that?

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