According to the CBO, saving $2.1T is not bad. Was it earlier this year they got into a pissing match on saving $30b vs $60b? Knew they could do it before the deadline without raising taxes. Now onto major tax reform...

Okay, that was funny stuff, I don't care which side of the aisle you're on.

We all had a good (sad) laugh about that one... *sigh*

SI

You need quality candidates in a 3rd party to make a difference. The Libertarians and Green Party are led by conspiracy filled kooks who make the other two parties look like political savants.

Interesting stuff: http://www.rules.house.gov/Media/fil...0ct%201206.pdf

"After September 30, 2011, and not later than December 31, 2011, the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, shall vote on passage of a joint resolution, the title of which is as follows: ‘‘Joint resolution proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.’’.

Also:

"If, not later than December 31, 2011, the President submits a written certification to Congress that the President has determined that the debt subject to limit is within $100,000,000,000 of the limit in section 3101(b) and that further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments, the Secretary of the Treasury may exercise authority to borrow an additional $900,000,000,000, subject to the enactment of a joint resolution of disapproval enacted pursuant to this section." There's more there too. A lot of what ifs.

There's also nothing in the news about the changes in Pell Grants and student loans. Shoddy news markets.

I'm pretty sure the Pell stuff has been out there.

I mean, I know roughly what you're talking about & I haven't read anything beyond pretty much the standard summaries.

Yeah, that was the first thing that caught my eye browsing thru.

So, I haven't been able to read much on this yet. Anybody have a reader's digest version?

My understanding is that there are no new taxes, no cuts to Medicare, and the figures do not include cuts which could include draw-downs in Iraq or Afghanistan....so where is most of the money being cut from?

The 'deal' is useless, although I guess garbage in (office) garbage out. Not a one of these people has a true set of balls among the entire damn Congress (except maybe a couple outliers who have near zero true influence).

The problem with most existing third parties is they play to extreme niche groups. A better source would be a couple strong independent candidates to get some momentum (not necessarilly at president level either) and then a party forms around that.

Right now the Republicrats are hardcore corporate socialists, if enough people could scramble up the brainpower they could knock out a solid bloc for themselves (run on job creation, fiscal responsibility, and not giving all our money to the rich and you mobilize all the votes you will ever need while not being too pie in the sky to make it work). No one wants to vote for socialism for people with golden toilets and both the Democrats and Republicans have so much dirt on them in that regard it should get easier and easier to build that case and get the public aligned with it.

That is if you can break them from the us vs them rhetoric which I think is being deliberately overstated these days in a tricky Orwellian game (actions speak louder than words, and the 'tension' between the two halves of the Republicrats seems to be all talk when things always end up in a lukewarm wash that sells out even more to the corporate welfare state).

A third party President couldn't get anything done. They would have no ability to get things through congress. That's why with all their flaws I think working for change through the two major parties is more likely to get things done. But with the vast sums of money in campaigns, I'm pretty cynical as to whether any change is possible.

My wife watched a bit of the coverage last night on the national news. After watching it, she was pretty sure she was just going to vote for the non-incumbent in all national and state races in the 2012 election. I think that's where a lot of Americans stand at this point.

I remember my parents saying similar things back in the '80s. Every now and then we kick a few incumbents out, but not enough.

A lot of people do feel that way, agreed, MBBF.

But I've spent a lot of time mocking, poking unrealistic people from the right, it's time for some of the left-leaning folks here to get a dose of reality here.

WHAT THE BLOODY BLUE BLAZES DID YOU EXPECT?

Half the left-leaners wanted Obama to push a power he himself doesn't believe he has (the "14th amendment option", to push a constitutional crisis and risking impeachment (actually, I would say that it would definitely lead to articles of impeachment passing the House, probably not making it through the Senate), definite downgrade, etcetera. That wasn't going to happen, except in left-leaning fantasies.

The other option was to stonewall everything and let the United States default on its good faith and credit and try to win the blame game. That's a stupid idea.

A "technical default" happened in 1979, where two weeks payments were delayed due to a debt ceiling increase delay and a word-processor failure. The affect? The cost for America to borrow went up SIXTY basis points. That doesn't sound like much (an extra 0.60%) but this was when the national deficit was $800 Billion. That's less than we're saving in this deal over the next ten years. So, yes, just like the right of the right wing needs to grow up and download reality, the left of the left wing needs to download reality and put aside the partisan game playing.

As it stands, both sides have real reason to come up with good faith spending cuts and revenue generators in this "Super Committee": Half the penalties do come out of Medicare, but it's Medicare REIMBURSEMENTS (not medicare benefits), and the other half comes out of defense spending (so, both sides have "skin in the game", so to speak). And the Tea Party can't sink this one. All the House and Senate can do is pass "a motion of disapproval" that only stops the president from raising the debt limit if they have a veto-proof two thirds in the House AND the Senate. Ain't gonna happen.

Does the deal have issues? Yes, but that's because neither side got what they wanted. Don't like it, vote the bums out in 2012. (which may just happen.. but I'd challenge any of you folks to do any better to get the debt ceiling raised in these circumstances)

In addition, it isn't like Obama ever campaigned as a far left candidate. If people actually listened to him, he sounded very much like a moderate left of center candidate. So if the far left is pissed at him its because they put their own hopes on him and when he showed that he wasn't what they hoped he'd be, they felt (for whatever reason) betrayed.

I don't think he had to use the 14th amendment, but taking off the table early in the negotiations was a terrible move. Politically, Obama was worse than wrong, he was weak. That weakness, played out over and over again in dealings with the GOP, is why I think he's toast in 2012. Independents may want people that compromise, but as Clinton said during the healthcare negotiations, strong and wrong always beats weak but right.

edit: To be fair I don't think that problem is limited to Obama. The entire Dem caucus has no foundation. I honestly couldn't tell you what Dems would like to do if given the opportunity. They don't seem to have any platform.

another edit: Isid: I'm upset with Obama because he got nothing close to what he claimed to be his desire of a balanced approach. I don't expect him to stand with the Progressive Caucus, but I'd at least like to see him stand more firmly for what he says he believes in.

This isn't true. He campaigned on a public option, ending the wars sensibly, closing Guantanamo, etc.

I don't see a third party president anytime in the near future all I want is a third party president in the debates to call both major parties on their bullshit. I am certain that Perot led to a lot of the "Contract with America" stuff. Did it last? Of course not, but at least it did have some effect. So again I know that a lot of people are turned off by Paul or Nader but you have to admit it would be fantastic for either of them to ask Obama and whoever the Republican shill ends up being what the hell they are talking about when they dance around the questions about the war or corporate welfare.

I don't understand why there isn't a third party in the debates, the commission that decides this has one Democrat and one Republican on it and they are all on the major tv networks who fight every day with the tough questions to expose this system. Very confusing. :confused:

He campaigned on universal health care and part of his plan was public option, but he didn't exactly campaign on that public option (it was merely part of his plan that he negotiated away). He did end Iraq and "ending the wars sensibly" is, as you know, a matter of interpretation. Nixon campaigned on ending Vietnam with honor, after all.

Closing Gitmo was a broken promise, of couse.

However, where did candidate Obama say he'd usher in a new progressive age?

What was Obama supposed to do about the public option? He was threatened a filibuster from members of his own damn party. Yeah, he could've pushed harder and ended up like Clinton where nothing got done at all. Obamacare isn't close to the end result I want, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. There's plenty of areas to criticize Obama (Gitmo, Patriot Act), but Obamacare is a clear victory and any liberal who doesn't see that is foolish.

What I find amusing is all the progressives who now proudly boast about how they supported Hillary in the primaries. I'm not sure why she's seen as some kind of liberal icon with her pro-Iraq War pro-Patriot Act votes. I see her being just as pragmatic as her husband and compromising on a ton of issues. She would be to the right of Obama if anything.

I would love it if we could get Howard Dean or Russ Feingold as President, but that's not happening anytime soon.

I agree with the idea that he wasn't anywhere near as left as his critics wanted to portray. But just for fun, after he got the nomination he did say,

I'll dig some things up later.

Pet peeve - people who call it Obamacare.

That's just begging for it to be put on the chopping block. It needs a better name for PR purposes.

Of course what someone believes and what they are willing to fight for are two different things ;).

That was the point, right? I always assumed it was a right wing coinage.

Call it whatever you want. The point is that it may only be a good bill, it was a great accomplishment.

Hence my problem.

I don't fault Obama for the ACA, congressional Dems were wimps, but that's not Obama's fault.

The Dems from the WH to Congress aren't willing to stand for much of anything. Going back to pre-2010 they've either surrendered or failed to take the field time after time. They wouldn't pass a budget, so they had to negotiate for a continuing budget bill. They wouldn't stand against an extension of the Bush tax cuts, so they punted. They didn't include the debt limit in the tax cut negotiation, so we got this crisis. They didn't get anything done on the Bush tax cuts so now that will play out in the runup to 2012 and I can't see Dems having the spine to force the elimination of all the tax cuts so they'll end up extending them all again.

They also won't say a thing about the continued unprecedented use of the filibuster on nearly every piece of Senate business. They won't say anything about the way the GOP is holding up nominees to critical posts as another hostage drama. They won't say anything or do anything about the GOP blocking most federal judicial appointments. They won't say anything about the GOP union busting plan that has the FAA nearly shut down and costing the country 200 million a week. And now Norquist is giving hints that the next fight will be against the extension of the gas tax, which I can bet the Dems will say little about.

I'm a grown-up. I don't expect a party to give me 100% of what I want. I do, though, expect a party to stand for something other than handing their lunch money to the school bully.

15000 woot!


(that's all i have to contribute)

In before the lock!

My vote goes to Kodos...if of course, he throws his hat into the ring.

It's a two-party system. You have to vote for one of them!

And boy-oh-boy would JiMG be upset if I were President! (Although I do support the death penalty, so he could feel good about that.)

Probably not as upset as you'd be in the reverse.

After all, you can probably guess my position on aliens :D

I'm guessing he doesn't have a valid US birth certificate either. :)

Kenya believe it?

This

That's pretty much where I'm at with everything these days. It's why we saw a huge surge in Democrats in 2006 and 2008 and it reversed in 2010. The parties are similar, so people just want to vote out everyone.

And while it's nice to see Giffords looking better, it's pathetic they dragged her out for that vote. Shit publicity stunt to turn attention away from the anger people had.

You had me going back and looking for something scathing. Curse you! :mad:

We are crashing.

Market Report - Aug. 2, 2011 - CNNMoney

Fantastic news as far as I'm concerned. Any investor who didn't sell 10-14 days ago is an idiot. This was far too easy to see coming. I'll make thousands off the stupidity of others.

It's only going to get worse. With the revising downward to basically flat of the last couple quarters of GDP growth, and the thinking (which I read in a JP Morgan quick analysis last night) that the cuts in spending forced by the "debt deal" are going to result in an ongoing 1.75% drag on the GDP through 2012.

Basically we've been flat for the last couple quarters. With a 1.75% drag on the GDP caused by the decrease in government spending we're going to be full on into contracting.

Say hello to the double dip we had all been fearing.

Stupidest thing is that it could have easily been avoided.

But low taxes mean more jobs. They couldn't possibly be wrong about that, right?

Country first!

I don't buy that last line, frankly. If you're saying this little three ring circus caused, it, I don't think so. There were some little jitters from the debt "crisis" but the majority of investors had this pegged: lots of hand wringing and a last minute deal. What's killing the market is bad report after bad report- jobs last month, manufacturing data, and now slow GDP growth. And those were things long in the making that have nothing to do with the debt deal.

SI

My action (or lack thereof) would have changed nothing. It's a speculative market. Anyone else should have seen this coming and made money off it. Even if you buy now after selling earlier this week, you'll still make thousands off the fall over the last week or so.

I'm not the problem here. The predictable idiots who made me free money are the real problem. It's bad enough they're pissing away my tax dollars. I'm not going to sit back and let their actions piss away my investment money too. I'm glad you think that's OK.

The FAA partial shutdown may be near an end. The House GOP has demanded a ransom, but luckily Sen. Reid is there to give in to their demands.

Worthless.

It's the fantastic news part that rankles.

Nah...not solely this last little three ring circus. The whole approach to the recession has been FUBAR. Too little too late.

It doesn't surprise me that you would be in favor the National Mediation Board and its tactics. Union bullying and corruption has to stop.