You can make up $500B real quickly by simply not buying foreign oil. You can then get $500B surplus by not funding middle eastern military presence as well.

Basically...the part I think we diverge on is what order to do these things. I believe you start the process of reducing outsourced energy first (which is 100% loss if not worse)...and then we'll split up the other $500B we save on military campaigns for deficit reduction, infrastructure, tax cuts, etc..

You're still $600B in the hole on this current budget.

Sorry, that was to JPhillips.

I'm all for that, I just don't think it happens quickly enough. I see putting people to work as a short term and energy independence as a long term. If you can do it quickly it would be great.

To answer a previous question, shovel ready projects are those projects that have been engineered, they have only been waiting for the funding to be approved (think WWTP upgrades, energy retrofits, etc.)

Yep. Should have been started in 2009 so that people could go to work with that money we spent instead of the unemployment line (or even addressing HCR before addressing the actual economy to pay for Health Care in the 1st place).

As it stands...we'd need to do something which will appear to be crazy or gambling if we actually made a massive push towards energy independence.

I wish we had a Huey Long around these days:

Not surprising given the rush to push this legislation through. What's concerning is all the loopholes that haven't been found yet.

AP Exclusive: Medicaid for the middle class? - Yahoo! News

I believe I said this months ago. If you try to ramrod/steamroll something like this through as fast as you can, there's going to be problems. I don't know why it would be so bad to implement things incrementally and ditch the things that don't work or are money drains.

Of course, if it wasn't pushed through like it was, then it would've never got through at all. Obama correctly realized that he had to press his advantage when he had it. One of the benefits of having many provisions take effect in 2014 is it gives time to catch things like this.

Correct. It wouldn't have gotten through in its current form had he not pushed it then. It just reminds me though, of NASA launching the shuttle when it's too cold...there's going to be problems.

Don't get me wrong, I know about trying to take advantage of things when you have the votes to do so. And there's no argument from me that certain things need to be fixed and or improved. Now that this loop hole has been found, it will now be even more picked apart like a vulture does to its carrion by their competition at just the right time for the campaigns to begin.

The bill was negotiated for over a year. How long should the process have been?

This can be fixed. Just because fixes will be necessary later is no reason to not try to fix healthcare in this country.

I hope it does get fixed. I seem to remember the plan came out near the beginning of fall (I'm thinking Octoberish) and then was signed by Obama near the beginning of summer.

To answer your question of how long should it have taken: As long as it takes to get it right. If it's not this time around, then you keep on working until you get there.




From wikipedia (Ah my memory isn't that bad!):

Introduced in the House as H.R. 3962 by John Dingell (D-MI) on October 29, 2009

The PPACA passed the Senate on December 24, 2009, by a filibuster-proof vote of 60–39 with all Democrats and Independents voting for, and all Republicans voting against.

signed into United States law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010

October 29, 2009 to March 23, 2010. Not quite a year. :)

That timeline leaves out the negotiations between the Senators of the so-called Gang of Six that took up most of 2009. There was a lot of work on the ACA before it was formally introduced in the House.

I can concede that. :)

The Senate overwhelmingly voted to end the tax credits to ethanol producers. One tiny step in the right direction but many more steps to go.

No one in Washington gives a shit about getting that right, it's just a circus to score political points.

Funny how a lot of the (mostly) Conservative grain farmers are complaining now.

Everybody is for cuts until they cut something you benefit from.

I've got no problem with it. Our corn goes where it was meant to be, into cows.

My former co-workers are going to be throwing fits today. They're going to have to redo that section of the web subsidy program. Job security I suppose.

I definitely know that. It's a pipe dream to think anything else, regardless of your alignment.

Today both Cantor and Kyl walked away from debt ceiling negotiations because they refuse to consider any tax increases. According to Cantor there was agreement for trillions in cuts, but the Dems are insisting on increased revenue as well and the GOP won't consider that.

@6 weeks until the GOP purposefully throws the word into a depression.

If two sides are refusing to do something why is only one "purposefully throwing the world into a depression"?

What are the Dems refusing to do?

Exactly. Dems have said that spending cuts and tax increases are necessary. Republicans are the only ones who are refusing to consider revenue increases.

One side is making concessions and one side isn't. One side wants to continue negotiating and one side has walked away.

So are cuts now officially a Democrat "concession"? Good to know. That's often denied.

Dems haven't aggressively pushed for tax increases. And now, they suddenly REFUSE to cooperate in lifting the debt ceiling unless they get them? At least they're playing ball now, I suppose. Or maybe they don't believe that the debt ceiling not being lifted would be that bad, if they, like Republicans, are willing to take that chance to try to get what they what they believe is important.

Oh, I know what (elected) Dems "say", I'm just trying to judge their actions/inactions. MAYBE this is the closest they've come to actually accomplishing the increased tax thing (if that's actually a sincere goal.) I think they're equally happy with blaming the other side for it not happening than they are actually accomplishing it. (I think some of the Dems are enjoying this whole thing a little too much). But hey, if they can get the Republicans to blink here, with the debt ceiling thing hanging in the balance, they'll have finally accomplished something - albeit by means that they criticize Republicans for using.

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure that the Dems are willing to have a straight up or down vote on extending the debt limit while the GOP leadership will only (for the time being, until we get closer to default, at least) said that they won't agree to increasing the debt limit without cuts.

In other words....

The Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling.
The GOP wants major cuts to raise the debt ceiling.
The Democrats want to increase revenues by ending some tax loop holes and increasing the tax rate on the very wealthy if they agree to major cuts.

I know the republicans are pretty consistent with the "no new taxes" thing, and i'm not sure how you overcome that (though I didn't promise I could accomplish this in campaign speeches like Obama and some legislators did.) But if the republicans are able to characterize the dems as the party that refuses to make cuts without getting "concessions" in return (however fair or unfair that would be), they could win some moderates. I agree that both cuts and taxes would be ideal, but the masses are a lot angrier about spending/corruption then they are taxes being too low. The republicans have won that pr battle.

I think we're definitely going to need some tax increases to get rid of the deficit, but increased spending is by far the biggest contributor to our financial problems. The CBO just released their long term budget outlook. They give two scenarios, one in which spending decreases to its lowest level as a percentage of GDP since before WWII. That one gets the annual deficit to about 4% of GDP. In the other scenario, spending levels are allowed to increase at their present rate. The results there?



Revenues have historically been around 18% of GDP regardless of taxation levels. I think we can count on the economy recovering to the point we get back to 18% revenues. There is no way we're ever going to get to 33.9%. Tax increases will help, but spending has to be cut.

Which goes back to the original complaint of the Republicans purposefully throwing the world into a depression.

[quote=JPhillips;2489269]
If that what it takes to prevent a tax increase, so be it. There simply is no acceptable reason for one, nada, zip, zero, not a fucking penny.

It may be that the point has been reached where we simply have to let everything implode & start over ... starting with D.C.

Are any and all tax increases bad? Not being a smart ass here. I'm genuinely curious.

At the current levels of wasted spending, and given the weakness of the economy? Absolutely.

At this point, I'd have to go with yes.

I've seen nowhere near enough in the way of cuts to consider giving the gov't (any government - federal, state, or local) another penny a wise/good investment.

It's kind of like when you first let a kid begin to manage their own money, prove to me that you can be responsible with it & maybe you'll get access to more. The leash is a lot shorter when you've proven how irresponsible you can be with it.

Right now, if the gov't promised to cure cancer with just an additional penny tax per person I'd oppose it.

I've read three times in the last month that Americans are paying less in taxes (% of income) than they have since WWII. Is that true or false?

The measure is probably % of GDP as that can be measured population wide the best. With that measure taxation is at the lowest since the early fifties. I haven't heard anything related to WWII, but then I don't have a good handle on how fast war taxation dropped and the economy boomed.

[quote=JonInMiddleGA;2489409]
That's insane. You do realize that a global depression will have effects far worse than returning to the Clinton tax rates, right?

And yet the Dems seem willing to take that chance unless tax rates are raised immediately? (IF they believe they can successfully blame Republicans, of course). The Republicans have to sign the deal the Dems want or they're evil, but the Dems are in the moral clear if they don't sign the deal that the Republicans want.

I'm no economist, and I don't fully understand the debt limit and can't make an educated prediction about the impact if it's not raised.

But what about Obama? Did he just not understand the debt limit or was he intentionally trying to deceive people back during the campaign when he vowed not to raise it, and voted against raising it as a Senator? I mean, what the hell was that? And is this all fear mongering now with some basis in speculative truth? It's quite the 180. It's like if someone opposed the Iraq War and then supported withdrawal but then suddenly determined that the world was actually such a dangerous place after all, that the middle east required our aggressive presence indefinitely...oh wait.

Edit: I mean, if something was so complicated and speculative and difficult to understand that Obama couldn't figure it out in 2006-2008 when he had a reason to be knowledgeable about such things....how much stock are we really supposed to put in the opinions - now 100% political - floating out there now?

The global depression prediction...

brought to you by the same group of experts who didn't foresee the housing collapse, who passed multiple stimulus’s that stimulated nothing, who (D&R included) only want to spend 3.7 trillion this year, who refuse to say inflation to explain why food and energy prices keep going up (these aren't included in their definition), who landed a plane on an aircraft carrier declaring "Mission Accomplished" in 2003, who patted themselves on the back (and took a very couragous politcial "gamble") when they planned to reduce troop levels in Afghanistan to a level higher then when the anti-war president took office… In other words, the experts!

I am going to go read "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" to the kids. I hope the D's and R's can all save the day at the last minute and save us all from this depression! All without cutting spending or increasing taxes a dime. Wonder when this mentality catches up with us?

I posted some graphs earlier, here are numbers:

Historical Source of Revenue as Share of GDP

We've been 15-20% since WWII pretty consistently, but right before WWII we were MUCH lower. Note that 2000 was one of the highest years on record, and they are currently expecting revenue to go up as a percent of GDP. Around 18% seems average, which would be a 20% revenue growth from the current tax levels. With $2.2 trillion in revenue, that would mean going to $2.7 trillion in revenue, leaving us only $900 billion (!) in cuts to balance the budget. Historic levels of taxation would be 33% revenue growth, or almost $3 trillion in revenue, leaving just $600 billion so the Dems could just cut the military budget to the bone and be happy.

I posted spending graphs earlier that showed how fast spending has gone up.

No, the Dems have a responsibility to negotiate and sacrifice from their priorities. According to multiple sources they are willing to agree to Medicare cuts and trillions in overall cuts. The GOP has responding by sacrificing none of their priorities. If the Dems were unwilling to negotiate any priorities I'd agree they share blame, but it isn't the Dems responsibility to agree only to GOP priorities especially when they are willing to raise the debt limit with no strings attached.

But we know that there's nothing you won't eventually blame on liberals.

Oh and Jphillips will give good reasons not to trust the GOP. (I am serious) And JinMGa will give good reason not to trust the Democrats. (Seriously) Hmmm, maybe neither party has any idea of what the hell they are talking about?

I'll send you a pm when it's time for you to post your bi-weekly republican debt limit rant. Until that's over, and you can move on to the next partisan competition on the schedule, whatever that is.

I mean seriously.....you are the liberal JIMGA. I appreciate the conviction from both of you, but you're both pretty much 100% down party lines/blame on every single issue. (Though I've definitely seen JIMGA turn on his own party much more often than you have).

The predictions regarding failure to raise the debt ceiling come from economists, bond traders, etc. It isn't a political issue. If the U.S. stops paying its bills bad things will happen. Nearly every prediction of what will happen when the debt eventually gets too burdensome will happen when we fail to raise the debt ceiling.

But Obama wasn't smart enough to understand that just 5 years ago? When the Iraq War started getting unpopular Democrats were ALL ABOUT the debt limit (and Republicans were all about making sure it was promptly raised). But this isn't political?

What happens if it isn't raised isn't political.

I guess we could isolate "what happens" in neutral terms, but they could have done that in 2006 too. I guess the Dems' idea was that if the debt limit was not raised, the Iraq war would have to be scaled back. Mirror image today. The Republicans' idea is that if the debt limit was not raised, federal government bureaucracy will have to be scaled back.

No, at that point the GOP was going to raise he limit so there were no consequences for a political stunt. I would expect a stunt from a minority party. It may not be the best leadership, but you can't separate politics completely. In this case I wouldn't mind if the Senate GOP voted against the debt ceiling and most of the House GOP did, especially those in tight districts.

The problem is that the GOP seems genuinely set against raising the ceiling without gutting the federal government for a generation, and has the power to do so.

[quote=JonInMiddleGA;2489409]
LMAO. Such an ideologue.

I do absolutely agree with you that there needs to be cuts. With no cuts, it really makes no sense to raise taxes in my opinion. I do like how the ethanol subsidy was cut. So that's a start, but, they got a long way to go.

Unfortunately, the voters are far too lenient with incumbents that prove time and time again that they are not fiscally responsible. At least with the kid, you can usually get through to them or teach them a lesson.

I'm for cuts. There are some stupid things out there and not stupid things that are giveaways (see the AARP commercial on this for some stupid things, and ethanol subsidiaries)

But there has to be some revenue increases to go with it. Bush's "starve-the beast" "Trickle-down" tax cuts economics are a fraud (and the fact that Obama basically gave into the blackmail into extending them is a thing against him in my book.

If you cannot realize that tax (as a percentage of income) is at a pretty much historic low, then, seriously, grow up.

Consider this a hole in the dam that holds America together. From what I've seen, D's would prefer a clean debt limit vote, R's would prefer to let it all break down so they can get control of government and then REALLY go to work. As far as I'm concerned. That's (insert right/left) wing stupidity right there folks.

This has to be solved by both parties, working together.However, you don't see the D's walking out of bilateral talks like you do the R's (Cantor?). I see one side more willing to compromise, and the other side being too inflexible.

But.. personally, let me just say I hate the politics of brinkmanship. This is stuff too important to the nation, and should have been settle weeks if not months ago. But of course, just like everything else (the lockout, the budget, yadda yadda yadda), things don't get done till the last moment because that's when the two sides are most desperate.

However, this doesn't call for desperate. This calls for a plan (from both sides) so we don't need to be this desperate ever again.

Cantor's Cant - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

He was either lying during the campaign, or didn't understand the consequences of it. Neither one is good.

Big +1.

I love how anyone on either side in this thread claims any of this stuff is anything but political posturing... Gee look at how all of the R's and D's are on opposite sides. That's strange. The Democrats all understand economics now and the Republicans all used to? I see, not political at all. More posts about the armageddon please!

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LI...n=2&vote=00054

2006 Roll Call Vote

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chafee (R-RI)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
DeWine (R-OH)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Enzi (R-WY)
Frist (R-TN)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Talent (R-MO)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)

NAYs ---48
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Burns (R-MT)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Ensign (R-NV)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Obama (D-IL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wyden (D-OR)

John Cole nails it:


The whole lot of Congress is terrified to actually make decisions. I'm sure Obama will be really respectful of them now that they have voted their displeasure.

Didn't realize you were in favor of the Libya mission, I thought you were pretty solidly anti-war? Oh thats right Obama is president.

Or maybe he ya know...actually sees the greater good in getting rid of Qadaffi and protecting the Libyan people from being massacred. :banghead:

Sure. Those Middle East missions are always exactly what the government tells us and they never come back to fuck us in the ass. (Why wouldn't we support Osama Bin Laden to get rid of the Soviet threat? Its for the "greater good"!) I used to agree with you guys on at least the foreign policy stuff and the privacy stuff but it becomes clearer everyday that you both just rubberstamp Obama policy on basically everything. I miss the two of you who were adamantly opposed to Bush's nonsense wars. Please tell me you at least are still against the Patriot Act?

No blood for oil!

Nah, I figure no one is forcing the soldiers to join. If they want to go kill brown people for cheaper gas and Israel its fine with me. But I really wish the governement wasn't spending so much money in doing so. No blood for bankrupting this country would be a better slogan.

I don't rubberstamp Obama.

Vehemently still against the Patriot Act. Not in favor of Iraq/Afghanistan either. Never was in favor of Iraq at all. Afghanistan - something needed to be done to get rid of Taliban & Al Qaeda, but we've WAYYY overstayed our time there. There's domestic policy stuff I disagree with him on too (although off the top of my head I can't think of something at this very moment - edit: allowing the Bush tax cuts to be extended for one, throwing the public option under the bus prematurely for another -- but I suppose these are things where I think he wasn't liberal enough and we're not likely to agree there - foreign policy is where we're most likely to agree).

Huge difference between the other Middle East missions and this one panerd - and you know that. We don't have any troops on the ground here...we've turned over a significant amount of the day-to-day to NATO allies (and did so early), there's a U.N. resolution behind this one, there's other Middle East countires that are supporting the mission. This is much more like a Kosovo operation than an Iraq/Afghanistan operation.

Libya does have a little bit of oil - but we don't see it anyways. It goes to Italy and France, not to us. It's not even the type of crude that we use (I don't believe, but I'm not 100% sure).

It's like the operation that we should have undertaken in Rwanda before the genocide there, but which we pussied out of because Rwanda wasn't of strategic importance.

I'm against letting mass murdering fuckhead crackpot dictators anywhere make violence on their own citizens and wreck their own countires at the expense of their citizens - particularly when the citizens have risen up and told them to GTFO.

This operation in Libya is really something that the Republicans should love - it's an extension of Bush's whole "support democracy in the Middle East" program (and that's even if you consider Libya "in the Middle East" - IMO it's a hybrid state between that and Africa).

I think a lot of dems are against this, but there is zero question that it is no longer a dem "rage issue" like it was under bush.

I mention this above, but we don't see any of the Libyan crude here in the US I don't believe. IIRC France and Italy are the two main energy beneficiaries. (Okay - found source. Guess we see less than 2%?).

I agree with the sentiment - but in the case of Libya it's misplaced. Definitely agree with the "no blood for bankrupting the country" sentiment also. We're turning into the damn Roman Empire - and we all know how that ended.

Europe gets over 85 percent of Libya's crude exports. The rest goes to Asia, Australia and the U.S. Here's a breakdown of how much oil various countries import from Libya (in barrels per day) and the percentage of a country's total crude imports supplied by Libya.
_Italy: 376,000 (22 percent)
_France: 205,000 (16 percent)
_China: 150,000 (3 percent)
_Germany: 144,000 (8 percent)
_Spain: 136,000 (12 percent)
_United Kingdom: 95,000 (9 percent)
_Greece: 63,000 (15 percent)
_Austria: 31,000 (21 percent)
_Netherlands: 31,000 (2 percent)
_Portugal: 27,000 (11 percent)
_Switzerland: 17,000 (19 percent)
_Ireland: 14,000 (23 percent)
_Australia: 11,000. (2 percent)
(Source: International Energy Agency 2010 statistics)

Gee, it'd be sure nice to have an actual debate of issues instead of "OMG you said this when Bush was President" ad nauseum.

If you can't realize that "historic low" != "low enough" or "low as it should be" then, seriously, grow up.


Here's a question for you, which you can freely apply to either party's representatives: if they're reflecting the will of their constituents, aren't they doing what they were sent there to do?

There are some serious questions about how much the US Intel network is involved in the uprisings in Libya, Yemen... However even if everything you are saying is 100% true (and I agree with you if I were to rank the biggest wastes of money Iraq and Afghanistan come at a much higher cost than Libya) it still costs money and we are broke. The back and forth the last couple of days in this thread has been about the debt limit and cutting entitlements vs raising taxes. Cut the military down to defense only and quit with the offensive miltary shit and we probably aren't on the verge of a major default.

We are the Roman Empire and what’s funny is I can remember every history class I took from junior high up until college with discussions on the collapse of every empire about "Why did they invade there?" or "Why did the citizens support this?" and I can't answer either of those questions for the current United States empire. Why the hell are we involved in every single skirmish in the world?

Since I haven't done so in a while, seems like a good time to point out that pretty much everything is political to some degree or another, because politics are reflective of our beliefs/values/priorities, not the other way around.

Fair enough about it still costing money and us being broke.

I think that's a fair as hell stance to take in Iraq/Afghanistan. And as mentioned - I was against Iraq from Day 1. As far as Afghanistan - as mentioned, I think there needed to be some "regime change" and we had to get rid of it as a base for Al Qaeda (and show them we were going to kick their asses), but it's wayyyyy out of control now, and we're propping up a corrupt-ass tinpot dictator in Karzai and enabling him and his family to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions at this point).

But you can't take that kind of stance with somewhere like Libya (although you can argue and I'd agree that they have bungled it up to a degree). That's just cold and heartless - to say that you're okay with genocide, or countries making war on their own civillians just because it'd cost us money to stop it.

And that's frankly, I think, the thing that turns the majority of people off of libertarianism. The "strict nonintervention" stance. The refusal to recognize that there are legitimate times (as mentioned, when people are making war against those who are defenseless or are perpetrating genocides) when intervention is morally justifiable. "Just wars" (in the Catholic parlance) if you will.

You're saying you'd be okay with the people in the Balkans wiping each other out when you say that. That you wouldn't mind the Hutus wiping out all the Tutsis in Rwanda. That is was fine for Pol Pot to kill millions of Cambodians (don't even get me fucking started about how we stood by and did nothing about that for YEARS). That (to take it to it's full extension and Godwin the argument) we should have stood by and did nothing as Hitler gobbled up Europe and wiped out the Jews, as long as he wasn't directly attacking us.

That's messed up man. If you're that empty - if you have that little empathy for other human beings and their right to live...I dunno.

It'd be nice, but i'm not sure you can get there until you can isolate this other stuff out of it. If someone could explain these inconsistencies, the views asserted might have more credibility. As it is, if most opinions are just based on party loyality, then the merits are just kind of a show, aren't they? If there was a dem yelling about depressions and the debt limit in 2006, when politics dictated he should hold the opposite view, I would DEFINITELY listen to that guy today.

I don't think I ever heard any liberal in here say all wars are bad. In fact, I'm pretty sure (though I can't speak for all) most supported the Afghanistan operation that was started under Bush. So the argument that we can't support Libya without being accused of just rubberstamping everything Obama does is just crap.

As for the debt limit, the Dems are willing to compromise, while the GOP isn't. That fact pattern makes it perfectly justifiable to criticize the GOP and Obama's (or any other Dem) vote from 5 years ago when unemployment was more than 4% lower than it is today doesn't change that fact.

And in the thread where it was announced that Obama was extending the Patriot Act (Hmmm, Obama/Bush.. What a fine line... - Front Office Football Central, the 2nd and 3rd posts are from none other than JPhilips and DT.

It seems like you and Panerd want to make assumptions about the liberal posters. OMG, you're a liberal so you must be against every war that has ever existed, what a hypocrite for supporting Libya!!! You're making false assumptions about the posters. If you want to attack us for being hypocrites, then maybe actually attack what we say. JPhillips was completely correct to call you out in this thread. You went way out of your way to criticize Democrats and exempting Republicans from similar scorn on the debt ceiling issue. You come across as the same partisan shill that you claim everyone on the left of being.

a) congrats Jon. you're as consistent as ever. consistent in being mule headed stubborn and (usually) wrong.. but eh. its SOMETHING...right? maybe we're both Peter Pan's and we'll never grow up

b) well.. that's because the fanatics on both sides have decided that their job security and sanctity of Worldview was more important than... you know actually governing. gerrymandering is rife. no longer do you have districts based on reigon and identity.. now its.."we can move that district from a R+2 to a R+7" or "we need as many minority-majority districts as possible".

I think you misread the quote. I don't favor the Libya mission.

Again, there's a difference between political posturing in the face of certain passage and seriously threatening to deny passage. One is pure politics and perhaps objectionable, but harmless. The other is playing chicken with the global economy.

Or, to put it in terms of today's setup, I don't mind Senate Republicans making hay out of the debt limit, that's the price of being the President. The House GOP, though, has to suck it up and do the right thing to keep the government paying the bills, that's the price of being in the majority.

What could possibly be more relevant to "identity" than core values, beliefs, priorities? Those ARE identity, or at least at the heart of it.

And after all, all's fair in love & war, we're definitely in one of those. I bemoan the impact of the tactic when D's use it, not the use of the tactic itself.

And that makes you a Hypocrite.

Can someone tell me what today's House vote (on Libya) would have been if a Repub were president? In other words, don't tell me that the Dems have more principles than the Repub. They are just like them: political assholes. When do they get to vote on Yemen or Syria?

It's not so much political as spineless. They said the U.S. shouldn't be involved in Libya and then approved funding. Congress, both parties, is quite comfortable ceding war authority to the President because they are afraid of taking a stand.

I agree that it is symbolic (or hollow) and spineless but you know just as well as I do that if the situation was reversed, it would have been Democrats overwhelmingly opposing the measure and Republicans voting more narrowly in favor of it.

It wasn't about politics today. The Dems were split on the authorization and plenty of the GOP voted for funding. It's just wimpery.

Huh?

I bemoan the impact, as in "dammit, that's contrary to what I want".
I don't criticize the use of the tactic itself (since I'd have no prob doing it myself)

How is that possibly even remotely hypocritical?

Do unto others as they would do unto you... ring any bells?

I haven't said a thing about Libya.

JPhillips "calling me out" was comical. If you feel I'm "going out of my way to criticize Democrats", what in the world is Jphillips doing in the other direction?

Maybe my perception is wrong, I'm not perfect. I see jphillips bumping this thread like clockwork, and it's always the same schtick - the evils of republicans and great holiness of democrats. The blame game and the feeling of superiority game. It gets old and I've been doing better at staying out of it until today. I do experience it from both sides and feel like I can recognize it from both sides - my conservative relatives who watch fox news all day, they drive me nuts when I have to spend time with them. There's no point to the merit of any debate - Obama-hate rules all, Democrat-hate is a close 2nd, and everyone's opinion falls however it may best accomplish those two goals. You can do 180 on issues as long as you have the right enemy in your crosshairs. That's how jphillips comes off to me in this thread, it is the same as hearing my fox-news watching uncle ranting about Obama.

And no, I'm not a republican, and if you put a gun to my head I'd register with Dems before I did Republicans. But those "problem" Republicans are like your drunk uncle who you can't really reason with, you laugh at them and move on. I just find the close-minded, judgmental Democrats much more bothersome for some reason. I hate the morality that some Democrats impose into fiscal policy debates. I hate how they sell this product to the masses, this feeling of self-worth that tells you that if you believe what we tell you and vote how we want you to - you're a great person (WAY better than that "other' team), even if you don't ever really give a shit about anyone or do anything for anyone. Sure, the Republicans do that too, but it's just expected that they have that cultish quality. To me it's just creepier when Dems do it because it's like it's poisoned the mainstream.

I don't understand how I can see these jphillips posts over and over again and how you don't criticize him for "going out of his way to blame" his particular enemy. It's mind-boggling. ("Hey, maybe Dems don't have all the answers and have some fault too" gets responses like "OMG YOU'RE BLAMING LIBERALS FOR EVERYTHING!!!!" Oh well. I don't mean any harm really, I may not be coming across the way I mean to, I'll going to try to do better to stay out of this thread where you guys clearly have all the good/evil sides worked out. :)

Not nearly so much so as "do unto others before they do unto you".

I consider the battle for control of government nothing short of a state of war, I've found no spiritual compulsion to acquiesce to the enemy to the point of my own destruction.

The simplest way I can put it is that I do not trust giving the federal govt. any more of my revenues. They have used up most of the credibility in managing such resources and it does not make sense to throw more good money at bad (e.g., with their wasteful bureaucracy and adding more debt-ridden legislation).

However, I am not asking to give less, I can accept the current level of my revenues that I give to them. Just like my local (city and county), as well as state, governments have learned to live within their means (which includes many households too), the feds must show they can do the same.

I'm in the same boat. I'm fine with paying more if it's not going to be wasted on crap. But don't sell me on more taxes and then just casually announce that $17 billion in Iraq went missing.

Aww.. Jon the romantic. I would say politics is merely deciding who gets what in order to remain in power.

+1

Which is why states' rights are so critical to keep expanding as we contract the fed level. It isn't always perfect at the state & local level, you dont always have the sharpest knives in the drawer at those levels, but they also do not have the ability to destroy the country quite as easily and MUST run a balanced budget (to some degree today...though the less fed taxes to draw from...the less capable the fed will be to bailout horribly run states, which will provide incentive).

Well, I was referring more to personal (i.e. voter) politics moreso than to politicians. Their view often seems to be considerably different than most folks.

State and local governments are hardly paragons of virtue that can be contrasted with the federal government in terms of balancing budgets and living within their means--look at how much federal stimulus money they accepted over the last few years to balance their budgets.

Do you really want 50 states with 50 different FDAs, NTSBs, FAA, etc.

Can you imagine flying across the country and having to deal with a new set of rules/regulations along the way?

+2

There's simply no way I'd ever support increased taxes when I know that there would be an increase in liquidity if they just started spending money properly.

To survive on the current level of taxation the federal government would have to shrink to pre-FDR size. You may want that to happen, but there's no realistic way for that to happen. Even the Ryan budget has the government running deficits for decades. There's no realistic way to balance the budget without an increase in revenues.

It is still my right to demand and to protest against increasing my taxation. Others may (and should) feel differently. I am not demanding that they balance the budget overnight but simply to realize that what they have done over the past 2-4-10 years was wrong and not to keep doing those things (focusing on new legislation, not so much on bureacracies). Until they and proponents of an even bigger federal govt (I'm looking around at a few here), I will work harder to not give them more.

I've worked for the government for seven years as a contractor. There's tons of waste going on. Those projections include that waste. Until more responsible spending is implemented, they can go to hell on asking for more taxes. Cut the spending and act like you care about how millions are wasted on a daily basis. When you do that, we'll talk about raising taxes.

If you mean it's not realistic because politicians are acting like jackasses, then I agree. If you're saying it can't realistically be balanced at all, I couldn't disagree more. Anything is possible and people are going to have to start accepting the fact that the government is not available as a babysitter anymore.

I am not convinced that bureaucratic wastes add up to much in real dollars, compared to the shear number of employees on the payroll (salaries, benefits, training, travel, etc.). But the real dollars come from tens and hundreds of billions going to military (weapons and wars), stimulus (terrible ROI) and foreign aid (dubious ROI).

The only way you get to a balanced budget without tax increases is through drastic cuts in SS, Medicare and defense. That won't happen, not because the politicians are cowards, but because the populace doesn't want that limited a level of government.

It's a pretty simple equation. Without tax increases you can't balance the budget and without spending cuts you can't balance the budget. If you take either side out of the equation a balanced budget can't happen.

Even if you want to argue that there's two billion a day in waste and fraud, you still don't balance the budget by cutting out all of it.

Long term the issue is medical spending. Defense is too high, IMO, and there are plenty of other areas to make some cuts, but the real spending issue is Medicare/Medicaid. The problem is that seniors won't accept significant cuts in services and providers won't accept significant cuts in fees. Eventually I think we need a combination of the two, but I don't think we can do much in this political environment.

And with that, you've made my point. There are realistic ways to balance the budget. All it takes is what we believe to be the most qualified 538 individuals to make the right decision for our country rather than posture for votes. It's really that simple and you've made the point quite clearly for me.