In replying to bucc's assertion that we should fight over the federal budget, my thinking was that the federal budget spends over 20% on the military, thus cutting that down significantly would help in reaching his desired goal. However, I know that a lot of that military spending is in jobs that basically support entire communities (pseudo-social welfare), so doing those hard cuts would be a non starter.

*Psuedo social welfare that actually produces a needed product for our nation.

The only thing that most of those social welfare dollars produce are votes for democrats. Which is the ONLY reason this admin doesnt want or cant talk about cutting those.

Uhh, almost everything that is traditionally termed welfare has been cut during Obama's presidency.

The deficit is projected to be @3.5% of GDP next year.

Yeah I'll grant you that - what is happening is strictly speaking within the rules, but only I believe because it wasn't considered that enough politicians would risk running the country into the ground in the way which is currently occurring.

Politics lacks what in 'soccer' terms is known as as a foul for 'ungentlemanly conduct' - this is used to allow the referee to call a foul if a team does something which is outside of the normal rules of the game and deemed to be unsporting or abusing the intent of the rules in some manner which wasn't originally considered.

PS - Do you think that the rules should change because of what is now becoming a regular occurrence?

Nope.

(In all the house races combined Democrats got roughly 54.3M votes, Republicans 53.8.)

Well, let's be clear. The reason Boehner won't bring a clean CR to the floor is because of the "Hastert Rule", which is not an actual rule. So, it's probably true to say someone is playing by rules which do not exist.

A director I admire wrote, "Civilization is, after all, restraint." The GOP may be playing within the rules, but that doesn't mean their behavior isn't destructive. There's no way to create a system of rules that eliminates the possibility of dangerous and destructive behavior. The rules only work when society understands not only the letter of the law, but also the spirit.

It's like playing boards games with the asshole that exploits the rules and ruins the evening.

Not at all.

I'm in favor of discomfitting the enemy in any way possible. I'm quite willing to go as scorched earth as available at this point, not for the sake of it in & of itself mind you, but rather as long as it serves some purpose.

I'd sooner see the "union" dissolved entirely -- or destroyed if need be -- as to see it give another inch to the left.

JP, are you counting reductions in the rate of increase as cuts? How many department's budgets (including defense) proposed for 2014 will be lower than 2013?

I'd have to look harder at all the numbers. At a minimum, though, you have to look at things in inflation adjusted dollars. Regardless, the deficit is always forecast over ten year periods and over that window there have been significant reductions. Maybe not as dramatic as you would prefer, but the reductions are real.

Lest anyone think that Jon is alone in this thinking, my B-I-L was saying just last night that he wouldn't mind seeing Texas go independent so he could move there. This is from an ex-Marine who...currently works for the federal gov't. But he's so steeled against the left/Obama that yeah, he'd probably rather that happen than see the country trend left.

I'm not that far to the right. If anything, opinions like that* are making me start to want to distance myself (and I've not voted for a Dem in 20 years).


* also folks like the guy who commented on a friend's FB post on how the UN could seize our national parks, closed or not, because we signed over sovereignty when they became World Heritage sites. Uh...no.

I think a lot of the stuff like * is just ignorance. Or, to put it more crassly, stupidity. There's an awful lot of unintelligent people out there who fall prey to the big-business of fear-mongering.

Let's also note, just for fun, that I am also the guy who consistently & persistently corrects all the half-baked crap that gets shared & reshared on social media.

I figure there's more than enough 10x over to hang the left with, it's foolish to just outright make up shit (or lazy/ignorant to fail to check it out before sharing).

Sure - you've consistently shown that you're informed, and that you form your own opinions intelligently. You'll fact check. A lot of people don't, they just parrot misinformation without really thinking about it. And they'll use it to work themselves into a fervor. Those are the folks that make me pause.

(and make no mistake - there are an AMPLE number of idiots on the left)

Speaking of political theater, remember how the last almost 4 years now, we've played government shutdown chicken but everyone knew that at the last minute a deal would get done. Well, we got downgraded last year when they flew too close to the sun and this year we actually nominally shut the government down and it will remain shut down for another week or two. So this time they're REALLY SERIOUS about it. Until they swoop in, reach a deal at the last minute, and life goes on with "minimal" (not to those affected by a three week shutdown, of course) carnage in its wake.

...Until the next one.

SI

That's the thing, Boehner is a wheeler and dealer. But he just has no idea how to keep his party together while simultaneously keeping himself employed. It's like this balancing act of who he wants to be the bad guy to today: the left, the moderate GOP, the Tea Party, etc. The problem may be that the factions within the party are just too much at odds to be able to find common thread to keep them bound together.

SI

I think Jon is the most correct in all of this.

In politics, the goal is to "win" by any means necessary. But there's a public perception portion where you can't break the rules too much or risk the popularity you need even to play the game. However, that line is pretty far skewed: you have to really, really, really break the rules - like do things explicitly against the rules (get caught taking an illegal bribe instead of the scores of legal ones) to lose. Basically, if you bend the rules and win, you get a lot more points than not bending the rules and losing.

SI

The odd thing about it all is I wouldn't even classify Obama as a liberal. So all this teeth-gnashing and uproar from the right just makes me shake my head and wonder how they'd react if a genuine liberal got elected.

I guess if you can move the Overton Window, you do it, no matter where on the spectrum you're fighting, even if it's middle-right.

SI

Competition doesn't make sense for health care. It is an inelastic demand, so competition is meaningless. People will buy no matter the price because you can't not fix health problems...you can only delay the fix.

So you'd be ok with the left doing the same to the Republican agenda if they were in power? - ie. we won't let you pass a budget/debt ceiling/whatever until you give us ObamaCare/higher minimum wage etc. ...

It's just people who treat politics like a sport. They don't care about the issues or what happens with the country, just that their team wins. Wish they'd find a hobby.

Well, there was a time Obama proclaimed it was a "failure of leadership" that we had to raise the debt limit to begin with, and he voted against raising it. He was just grandstanding, but the Republicans may be too (but just in a more effective way that gotten Republican-friendly resolutions in the past, which has of course only encouraged this behavior.)

This is exactly right - on both sides. This showdown is a akin to the Broncos-Cowboys game yesterday where the Broncos are basically bleeding every second off the clock and taking a knee for a FG. It's unsightly and somewhat aggravating to watch (esp if you are a Dallas fan), but it's a strategy to "win".

The republicans are basically doing the same thing here (except there's not the concrete concept of winning like there is in sports). At any point in time, the democrats (like the Cowboys) could have let the republicans (like the Broncos) "score" (or give in on a few items) and then have their shot. But, neither side is willing to budge so we are left with Peyton Manning flopping on the 5 yardline like a dead fish to bleed the clock out :D

Democrats also threatened to not pass a clean budget in 2007 because they were upset with the Iraq War.

Uhh, the Dems agreed to sequestration level funding. They only aren't willing to budge on delaying Obamacare.

A better example would be if the Cowboys agreed to let the Broncos score 51 points, but the Broncos said they wouldn't even play the game unless Cowboys Stadium was demolished.

There were 8 shutdowns when Reagan was president (dems), one under HW Bush (Dems) and two under Clinton (Rep). The reason it hasn't happened lately is the congress wasn't going to do that around 9/11 and the democrats never had the votes in W's second term. Same goes for Obama's first term.

History has shown if you have the political will (and votes to cause a stalemate), the side not in power will use it.

And yet the government wasn't shut down. That's the difference.

Look at the last two Dem presidents, 2 shutdowns, threats to default and impeachment. Look at the last three GOP presidents, none of that. Everybody blusters and threatens, but only one side has broken historical norms.

Arbitrary end dates. And there were threats to impeach Bush, am I wrong?

A little hyperbole there ;) Again, I'm not a fan of what the republicans are doing - but if what they are doing is that bad and against the rules (as blowing up a stadium would be) - why are the democrats letting them? Unless, of course, what they are doing isn't in violation of any congress rule and just is unsightly to the party in power (much like watching Denver take a knee with the lead is to the Cowboys).

That's the "aim high" negotiation strategy. It's obnoxious, but it's worked for them in the past. Eventually, when some kind of coalition comes together and asks for 10% of that in exchange for something they don't really care about, they'll be viewed as super-moderate lifesavers.

All but two shutdowns have been technical or over weekends so people didn't notice. Only two shutdowns have actually closed things down for days.

I didn't figure we needed to go back to Millard Filmore, as the basic point remains. I don't think anyone would call Nixon's impeachment purely partisan and we didn't have any meaningful shutdowns or default talk.

Threats to impeach are far different than the real thing, no?

Ah, I thought you were referring to impeaching Obama as well - there were certainly movements to impeach Reagan was what I was getting at.

Asking to blow up the stadium isn't against the rules. :)

My point above stands, it isn't that they are violating the rules, they're just showing a lack of restraint that makes it impossible to get anything done. If Obama bends to the debt limit demands it would be foolish for any minority party to agree to a debt limit increase without a ransom. The country can't function like that.

It is, but it isn't. They genuinely think that the American way of life is changing, and for the worst. It's just been applied to the point where Obama embodies that change. I mean, some of my in-laws still lament desegregated schools, viewing them not as an effort meant to elevate black people, but to drag white people down to their level. Anything else the left does can only serve to make matters worse.

My thinking on this is either you allow these methods or you don't. And, if you allow them, you can't pick and choose when they are "unsightly" and when they are proper. I remember when there was a huge hub-bub about the democrats not rubber stamping W Bush's supreme court nominees like the republicans did for Clinton. But, the democrats used techniques to block or delay certain nominees that were "unsightly" but allowed. This is a similar situation, just from other side.

In the end, if they are allowed then they are fair game.

Those are just stupid people though. It's the people who egg them on who are the one's that are horrible. We used to laugh at stupid people years ago and now we just call them the party base.

Democrats in power know this shutdown isn't going to cause Armageddon with people dying in the streets. Just as Republicans in power know that Obamacare is not going to bring about much change to this country. They just ratchet up the hyperbole for the morons.

But that's the thing - they're not stupid. My in-laws are generally smart, but they grew up in the 40s, in the south (or in the 60s, in the south). I don't doubt that they see a lot of things and think that things were better in the old days*.

Now, they are biased, and THAT can leave them predisposed to being egged on.


* talking from the standpoint of civility, work ethic, education, and yes, faith

Again, you can't make rules that stop all behavior that damages the institution. There are always loopholes or exploits that can be found. If, however, you set about using every loophole and every opportunity to circumvent historical norms eventually the institution becomes unworkable. How can the government function if it becomes the standard that a minority party demands ransoms for simply keeping the economy from blowing up?

I wasn't aware of that - interesting to know as I've never seen it mentioned in the media, the impression I've been getting being relatively new to the country is that this is a very rare event .... but apparently not.

And how is this not stupid?

Again, all but two shutdowns were technical or lasted such a short time that nothing was closed.

Add to this:



Who isn't compromising now?

You can argue whether the viewpoint is stupid* - but RainMaker said that they were stupid, which they are not.


* I'm not sure it couldn't be argued that the school system now isn't worse now than it was then - certainly in comparison to other countries. Is this a result of segregation? Yeah, that's a touchy debate and wouldn't be a popular stance. That's not to say it couldn't be the case though, even if desegregation was absolutely the right thing to do. But it's a matter of if you hold an "us" vs "them" mentality - some would say that you do the best for the whole, even if it isn't best for all (a liberal stance); others would rather you do what is best for me and my group, even if it is at the expense of others (a conservative stance). Obviously, my in-laws believe in the latter.

The difference is usually the party in power doesn't want the negative press that goes along with a shutdown. For Bush and Reagan both happened in the first term (and they wanted to get re-elected). For Clinton, he was just pretty savvy when it came to this stuff and knew a prolonged shutdown would hurt him.

Obama has made the calculation that the risk against the president that often comes from any kind of serious "stalemate" situation is worth the fight. In some ways he's to be commended for taking this stand (although it helps it is his second term), but it also shows how impossible is it to work with the opposite party on certain issues when you are the president. The level of interest groups, lobbys, news stations, blogs, radio/tv blowhards is so high that the fringe of each party will run the minority party moving forward (IMO).

In other words, regardless of who is in power, these shutdowns aren't going away anytime soon.

But the only two shutdowns that actually effected people were put into motion by the GOP. The impeachment of Clinton, the GOP. The threats to purposefully default, the GOP. Yes, both sides play politics, but only one side has spent the past two Dem presidents refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the president. The Dems negotiated with Reagan. They negotiated with Bush1. They negotiated with Bush2, even though he lost the popular vote.

This problem isn't that they both do it. This problem is that the current GOP is controlled by a radical faction.

edit: And if standing firm now keeps the Dems from ransom based politics I'm all for it. The country can't function like this.

I'm going to say that the shutdown is a bit of a small sample size with 2 so no meaningful conclusion can be reached from it. And if you did feel like drawing a conclusion from 2, is the GOP at fault for being "radical" or are the Democrats at fault for not being "radical enough" and not getting anything done?

I don't remember who said it a few pages back but the Dems typically are a bunch of doofs whose VCR clock is still blinking 12:00. It gets hard to tell if its deliberate or if they're just that stupid. Even if the answer is a little from column a and a little from column b, both are fairly damning.

SI