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The Romney campaign is trying to keep Obama's support among Hispanics and Latinos to 65-70%. Latino leaders say Romney's positions on immigration during the primaries, when he chose to go to the right of Governor Perry, have affected their perceptions and his more recent centrist positions are being discounted. Republicans are awakening to their weak position in the fastest growing demographic in the U.S. Positions on abortion, gay marraige and religion are affecting a portion of the Latino vote. One question is how enthusiastic is the voter turnout, especially because president Obama failed to take up immigration reform in his first term and gave it a lower priority.

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The skills to navigate different personalities and work patiently on the issues surrounding changes to the U.S. tax system of Rep. Dave Camp (MI), chairman of the U.S House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, will be immensely useful in the effort to make changes to the U.S. tax system. Camp works well with fellow House Republican leaders Boehner, Ryan, Cantor, and his Democratic counterpart in the U.S. Senate Max Baucus. Camp is a good listener, refuses to engage in partisan criticism, and has the patience to work through difficult issues of achieving savings and keeping fairness in the the tax changes. Earlier efforts to achieve consensus in late 2011 failed, making it even more important to have leadership which can create productive debate and bridge the differences. The tax changes are part of the overall effort for U.S. economic recovery by reducing the deficit.

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David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law School, says letting the fiscal cliff cuts in spending go into effect is fairer to the poor and middle class than the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts proposed by president Obama and the Democrats. He says the pressure of public opinion would lead to some minideals for the Bush tax cuts to go to lower incomes and for restoring some funds to defense after the fiscal cliff agreement goes into effect, leading to a fairer outcome.

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The 2011 State of the Union address by President Obama. A calculated effort to move the debates that will frame the future election to a different place. He emphasizes the importance of investing in the future, in global competitiveness, through spending on education, infrastructure, alternative energy and other projects. But there was little in the way of specifics for reducing the high jobless rate which stands at 9.4%. And little in the way of specifics of how the investments in the future for global competitiveness and infrastructure spending are to be achieved. Especially when the fiscal imbalances are growing after the compromise on the Bush tax cuts and the passage of health care legislation. The Washington Post says that a majority of Americans approve of his overall performance, yet they are generally negative in their evaluation of how the Obama administration and President Obama has handled key issues relating to the economy. And this is more so among independent voters who will be crucial in the 2012 elections....

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In his second part of the series on Capitalism and Globalization Schieritz says Trump's arguments have backing, and goes back to the studies done by David Autor of MIT on the adverse impact of free trade on communities across the U.S.. Lyrarc has covered this issue since 2006, and the reality is that this issue was brought up long before the Autor study gained prominence. On Nov. 12, 2010 Robert Lighthizer, Deputy Trade Representative under U.S. president Reagan wrote an op-ed in the NYT titled "Throwing Free Trade Overboard," that made a strident and strong case for what Trump says 5 years later, and from no less than a top trade official under Repubican Reagan.Trump comes late to this in 2015 when it was already amply clear what was happening. It is not so much Trump having discerned this, than others who should have paid attention, including Lew and leaders in both parties, and the business community,  who for too long ignored it. Or as Hilsenrath in a recent WSJ report says, simply said we have seen this before with Japan's entry into the American market, not realizing the speed and widespread impact of the changes in trade with China, that are unprecedented in history- evident just from the great speed of urbanization and manufacturing work force growth in China, policy rapidly impacting vulnerable communities across the U.S. The corrective course has to be credible which is why it has to come from a a reawakening among leaders such as May, Merkel and Clinton, who are keen students of change, and capable of designing and executing a corrective course of action, and winning the popular support and patience needed to stay the course which could run for most of the next decade. It would also provide leadership and show the way for societies in Brazil, China, India and other countries facing similar problems.     ...

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This WSJ article provides a detailed account of the positions of Clinton and Trump on Wall Street, the financial industry, banks, Dodd-Frank, regulatory reform, 6 weeks before the U.S. presidential election.

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Estimates by the Congresssional Budget Office in January 2011 show the federal budget deficit in the US at nearly $1.5 trillion in 2011. The deficit would equal 9.8% of the US gross domestic product. In 2009 the budget deficit was $1.4 trillion or 10% of GDP. The CBO estimates show the debt held by the public increasing from 40% of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2008 to about 70% at the end of fiscal year 2011. Republican senators Orrin Hatch of Utah and John Cornyn of Texas called for a constitutional balanced budget amendment in an op-ed published in Politico.

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Barney Frank, of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, is interviewed by the New York Times one year after the passage of the legislation. He says we did not punt anything, it was because the legislators couldn't get everything right that they set up the provision for extensive rule making. He would rather forget financial matters as they are not his strong point, he has learnt more about repos and derivatives than he ever wanted. Critics have pointed to the extensive rule making delegated to regulators in Dodd Frank as a major weakness. It makes Dodd-Frank as effective as the regulators want it to be, something that goes back to an earlier period before 2008 when lack of regulatory discipline led to the financial crisis. He gives the regulatory agencies CFTC and the S.E.C. good grades for writing some of the rules because of the difficult conditions they face. His main fear is the stalling by Republicans in Congress and efforts to weaken the law by crimping resources for the agencies. And he fears the Republicans with support from the banking industry see the 2012 presidential elections as an opportunity to reverse the legislation....

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Republican voter sentiment in Springfield, Ohio. Warren Davidson is running for former House Speaker Boehner's seat in this Congressional district in Ohio with the support of Tea Party activists. The median income in the city is $31,635, $15,000 less than the Ohio median. The population has declined from 80,000 in the sixties to less than 60,000, according to Census Bureau. Only about 15% of the Springfield population has a college degree compared to 30% in the U.S. Speaker Boehner had a small group of loyalists and tight control of the Republican party in his district, leading to charges that he was too close to the establishment and business. Trump has support from Republican voters who feel the party has drifted away from them.

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The tough job President Obama faces as he faces opposition from politicians who have interests to protect, and healthcare businesses with interests to protect. The President has to come up with a plan that is deficit neutral, because financial markets could see a healthcare bill that further widens the deficit as a signal for higher interest rates that would deepen the recession. At the same time each of the three sources of revenue puts him at loggerheads with political leaders in Congress or groups with interests to protect. Limiting income tax deductions for high earners could raise $267 billion in 10 years. It would require taxpayers in the top tax brackets deduct their mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and charitable donations, at the 28% tax rate instead of the 33% and 35% tax rates. The opposition is with democratic leaders that it would hurt charities, universities that depend on tax deductible donations, and taxpayers in high tax cities like New York city that are the home base of Democratic leaders. Yet only 1.4% of households would be affected says the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, says charitable giving would decrease by 2%. The other opposition on this comes from the preference of Senators Baucus and Grassley, who head the Senate Finance Committee, for tax increases or cost savings to come from the health sector. Specifically they want to see the value of workers' employer provided health benefits subject to income taxes. It is a situation in which every sensible person admits the need for healthcare reform and would see the current pace of healthcare costs as unsustainable and dangerous; and after that will just go back to his group and try to preserve as much of the status quo as possible, so as not to disturb by much the benefits or compensation they have secured from the system over the years. Then there are political leaders in Congress with their own preferences, and Congressmen who are the subject of heavy lobbying by these interests. The administration and the Presidents job is to navigate this stream with a workable deficit neutral plan, without any requirement for any group to make sacrifices, and in some situations even small sacrifices for the public interest. Would charitable institutions be hurt that much, what if charitable institutions were exempted, why would other interests the try to obtain the same exemption. Its like the unions trying to keep the old unsustainable goldplated healthcare and other benefits at GM even as the ship was going down. Taxing employer provided employee health benefits as income would raise $2.5 trillion over a decade. The opposition here is from unions which are a force in the Democratic party and which count tax free health benefits as a legacy of the labor movement. Employer provided health insurance covers 160 million American employed and their dependents under the age of 65, so it has a wide impact. Yet most economists favor ending the tax break. They say it mainly goes to upper income taxpayers, and discourages cost consciousness among consumers of health care, thus encouraging excessive spending and surging health care costs. Senior Obama advisors, Peter Orszag, the budget director, and economist Jason Furman favor this approach. So do Republicans in Congress. Senators Baucus and Grassley are not asking for the complete removal of the tax break, what they want to see is capping the value of benefits that go untaxed. If the tax-free limit is $13,000, a policy worth $15,000 would pay income taxes on $2000. A third spource is to spend less on Medicare. About two thirds of the $948 billion in savings Mr Obama has proposed over 10 years comes from a number of reductions in Medicare spending. $177 billion comes from insurance companies bidding for government reimbursements for offering private plans to seniors. $106 billion comes from cutting the subsidies to hospitals serving the uninsured as universal coverage should remove this need. And $110 billion in reduced payments to hospitals and doctors because of productivity gains. A range of industries insurance companies, hospitals, doctors drugmakers, nursing homes, home health care companies and medical device makers, all stand to lose from reduced payments from Medicare and Medicaid. And these groups with interests to protect are another factor in this process of working out a healthcare plan. ...

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Are there costs or are there savings from the Obama health care bill? Does it affect jobs and how? The Congressional Budget Office says the health care law will save $230 billion in ten years based on a whole set of calculations and assumptions. Commonsense and basic math leads others to question how spending $930 billion on insuring 32 million Americans could end up with significant savings. The different view argues that the Budget Office erred in making some calculations, by counting $70 billion in premiums from long term care because they would be used to pay benefits later, omitted $115 billion in spending to adminster the law, and omitted $208 billion needed to prevent scheduled reductions in Medicare payments to doctors. The money needed on the Stimulus, on two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the uncertain prospects of the US economy in the longer term till debt and other issues are resolved, injects the critical element of difficult choices and priorities. If state and local budgets are severely strained in 2011-2012 would that require federal help and will there be other needs that will have to be met by the federal government that are critical such as another unexpected downturn, or a resolution of unresolved bad debt at the large US banks There is also a sense that the health care law does not do enough to reduce the cost of health care that will be needed over the next decade so that other priorities are not neglected. Both parties are not up to the task in this respect for running the country's finances withot using the numbers to tell different stories....

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The rapidly changing demographics as the U.S. becomes more of a multicultural society. For the first time minority babies formed a majority in 2011 with 50.4% of new babies, according to the Census Bureau. The median age of the non-Hispanic White population is 42 compared to 28 for Hispanics. Hispanics are right at the child bearing age. This also raises the issue of how the U.S. will educate the minority population. Today 13% of Hispanics have college degrees, 18% of Blacks and 31% of Whites. High school graduation rates in places like New York City for Hispanics are lagging far behind other groups. The economic downturn after the 2008 financial crisis has worsened the educational prospects for Hispanics and other minorities. The education of minority children is essential to improve the competitiveness of the U.S. in a global economy, as the educational levels in emerging markets accelerates with more opportunities.

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Republican success with the blue collar vote and the failure of Democrats to attract those without a college degree. Republican gains came from areas that were older, less diverse and less educated, says Farnam. Republican support was not as strong on both coasts and in areas with Latino voters.

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Senator Patrick Toomey (Pa.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) are lobbying Republican party members in Congress behind the scenes to accept $300 billion in taxes as the only way to get an agreement on debt reduction in the Supercommittee. This would be part of a plan that addresses entitlements, and changes the tax code to lower rates and reduce tax expenditures by closing deductions and loopholes. This is leading to an intense debate in the Republican party about the wisdom of a purely ideological position on taxes that does not take into account current realities, and risks letting markets take control of the nation's future.

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Biden sees his plan for American workers and families put together in the $3.5 trillion spending package that covers child care, education, healthcare, services, climate change proposals, infrastructure building, as a way to show that democratic governments can work for the people. After two decades when American workers and families were largely put aside in the nation's priorities during a tech driven and capital markets driven expansion that benefited large corporations, America is returning to its core concept of government by the people, for the people, of the people. White House officials say this is to be seen even in the program he put forward in his upset victory many years ago for the US Senate from Delaware. Because economic strength of America depends on a strong middle class, and strong working class, strong families, and underpins the world leadership role of America, even Republicans and hesitant Democrats, cannot give in to the current situation of doing nothing or too little for workers and families which weakens America. And at a time when its leadership role in Asia and Latin America, Africa is sorely needed. The size of the package in $3.5 trillion is because too little was done in the past in the mistaken acceptance of Reagan policies of no government role in the economy- surrendering this role of guidance entirely to the capital markets driven from New York, London, and Silicon Valley. The rise of China today, and also of Japan and South Korea, and of India as it plans for 2030 shows that government guidance of the economy is needed in global competition. Trade entirely driven by capital markets, without a role for government to emphasize national priorities in spending can lead to disastrous results such as we see today where manufacturing even in critical fields such as healthcare, semiconductor driven technology, entire parts of the economic structure are ceded to China and supply chains outside the US. German elections are also leading in the same direction with Social Democrats emphasizing national priorities in child care, education, healthcare, and delivery of social services, building of infrastructure. And the Greens emphasizing climate change. Merkel in Germany and in the European Union, her predecessor Schroeder, pursued policies of no government role in emphasizing and articulating national priorities, in a way that past US presidents have done, resulting in the CDU falling to 20% support in the September German elections. Across all parts of the world, from India, China, to Europe and the US, the focus is on government voicing the national priorities  and allocating funding instead of capital markets driven from London, New York and Silicon Valley, or capital markets in Shanghai or Mumbai, as the pandemic runs into its second year. ...

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California's governor Jerry Brown has put forward his budget plan for fiscal 2013 showing a budget surplus of $851 million. Brown was able to get Proposition 30 passed in the November 2008 elections. Higher income earners pay more in taxes for several years and the sales tax is increased. An improved economy with unemployment down from 11.3% in 2011 to 9.8% in Nov. 2012 is helping with higher tax revenues. General fund revenues are expected to increase 3.3% to $98.5 billion in the 2013 fiscal year from $95.4 billion the prior year. Brown has accomplished a remarkable feat of balancing the budget for 2013 and still continuing to invest in education and healthcare. Spending will increase 5% to $97.7 billion in fiscal 2013 from $93 billion in fiscal 2012 with higher spending on education and health care and lower spending in other areas. Brown's path to achieving this was eased after Democrats won control of both houses in the the state legislature. Says Brown: "Right now, for the next 4 years, we'll be talking about a balanced budget, we're talking about living within our means... This is new." Even Republicans praise this effort from a veteran of California politics- his father was governor in the Kennedy years, and he was governor in the 1980's....