The New York Sun:
Congressman Ryan: You can cut tax rates by 20% and still preserve these important preferences for middle-class taxpayers . . .
Vice President Biden: Not mathematically possible.
Mr. Ryan: It is mathematically possible. It’s been done before. It’s precisely what we’re proposing.
Mr. Biden: It has never been done before.
Mr. Ryan: It’s been done a couple of times, actually.
Mr. Biden: It has never been done before.
Mr. Ryan: Jack Kennedy lowered tax rates, increased growth. Ronald Reagan…
Mr. Biden: Oh, now you’re Jack Kennedy?
(Laughter)
Mr. Ryan: Ronald Reagan — Republicans and Democrats…
Mr. Biden: This is amazing.
Mr. Ryan: Republican and Democrats have worked together on this.
* * *
Let us just say at the outset, we don’t think Vice President was lying when he disputed the notion that tax cuts on the margin can boost growth, jobs, and tax revenues. He and the rest of President Obama’s camarilla just find it excruciatingly awkward that one of the great tribunes on this head with President Kennedy. This is the issue on which Mr. Ryan, though he wasn’t as aggressive as Mr. Biden and didn’t smirk, won the debate on the substance. The president stands for dividing up the pie rather than growing it and Governor Romney stands for growing the pie so everyone gets a bigger slice.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEdXrfIMdiU[/youtube]
The first thing we did after the debate ended was go up on the World Wide Web and watch JFK’s explication of the point. We issued an editorial about the clip in January 2011, as President Obama was getting ready to deliver his State of the Union speech. The left wing of the Kennedy family never fails to get annoyed when the clip is used to buttress a Republican candidacy. But it has rarely seemed more apt than on the occasion when Mr. Ryan used it.
On another comparison between Ryan. Biden and JFK, hubby listened to the debate on radio and figured Biden won handily.
I saw it on TV and experienced Biden’s inappropriate smiling over and over and over again.
I figured Ryan won.
Pundits have crunched numbers from Twitter and polling and it looks like Biden pulled a Nixon or a Gore.
He lost because of his smile/smirk.
Just like Nixon lost because of his sweaty, pasty face with the dark darting eyes and the seemingly thin neck (his shirt was too big) compared with a great-looking, healthy and hip JFKennedy.
Just like Bush won over an arrogant, sighing Al Gore.
Hubby got home and watched some of the replays and couldn’t believe Biden threw it all away by all that posing!
But after SEEING it, he thinks Biden was given foolish advice, if anyone suggested he smile when serious topics were being discussed by Ryan.
I think Biden was just being Biden. He even lied about his Church. I think he has always been a little out of touch with reality.
Greg said it can’t be done and he’s better than Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Maybe in 2016 the democrats will run Biden and Greg!
The general Romney/Ryan tax reform principles have been applied twice, with John F. Kennedy’s proposed tax reforms that were later implemented slightly differently, and Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform, both of which cut marginal rates significantly and eliminated deductions for the wealthy, while gathering essentially the same revenue (technically the ’86 bill itself cost $8.9 billion in revenue over the first two years, but overall tax revenues increased substantially in its wake).
But twice Biden claims that such tax reform “has never been done before.”
BUT HE SHOULD KNOW BETTER — he actually voted to do it, 28 years ago. On September 27, 1986, Biden voted (along with 32 other Democrats) to enact H.R. 3838, Ronald Reagan’s tax reform, which lowered rates, eliminated deductions, and barely affected the deficit.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/99-1986/s677
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/330307/biden-voted-something-he-said-last-night-has-never-been-done-patrick-brennan