Balanced-Budget Amendment Fails in House

[DrPizza]

Posturing, because 80% of voters; no, probably closer to 90% of voters haven't got much of a real clue. They're just pandering to get votes come election time. Otherwise, the bill was a complete waste of time.

 

[Jhhnn]

Obama refused to follow the War Powers Act because he claimed Libya was not a military confict area...

Afghanistan and Iraq are also both Obama's wars...since he could have ended them shortly after taking office. He promised we would be out of Iraq long ago, too...but that was only if he was elected President...

Repubs were just *posturing* wrt Libya, anyway- it's not like they wanted to keep Qaddafi, even if he did give Dubya a propaganda victory over his alleged nuclear program.

Or not. Maybe they would have supported Qaddafi if they thought it'd damage Obama.

Iraq? On schedule, the schedule agreed upon by the Bush Admin, and more, with zero troops left behind.

Afghanistan? Obama campaigned on strengthening efforts there, and he has, although it's tough to follow through on the cock-up his predecessor left behind. When we leave, Righties will be raving about the Terrarist Threat! no matter what, anyway.

It's not like he left Afghanistan to fester while he took off on the invasion of Iraq for totally trumped up reasons....

WTF ever made the Bushistas think that they could pacify Afghanistan with fewer than 30K troops when the Soviets couldn't do it with over 100K?

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/22/chart-u-s-troop-levels-over-the-years/

 

[Zebo]

Good read over there at rolling stone J. Really puts last 20 years in perspective. To much depth though for righties. It's a shame author can't reduce 8 pages to a sentence preferably attacking someone for simple minds so it makes an impact. Basically wasted post, preaching to choir.

 

[Nebor]

It's not like he left Afghanistan to fester while he took off on the invasion of Iraq for totally trumped up reasons....

WTF ever made the Bushistas think that they could pacify Afghanistan with fewer than 30K troops when the Soviets couldn't do it with over 100K?

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/22/chart-u-s-troop-levels-over-the-years/

What made anyone think that it would be ok to continue sacrificing American lives and money on a lost cause?

Bush fired all the generals that disagreed with COIN, and Obama was left with a bunch of generals that are willing to lie about the future of Afghanistan. :\

 

[DominionSeraph]

FTFY.

No, the difference is that Democrats can't pull it off. They look like idiots when they try to tell half the story and they can't help but come out and correct it later.
Democrats are the intellectual elite. It's just a different mindset when your conclusions have concrete premises; you really can't help but want to show it off -- to show people that you're actually pretty good at this "thinking" thing, even if verbal speech is too linear to show it off an interconnected multidimensional support structure very well.

You're not gonna find complete bullshitters high up in the Democratic party. Smart people really frown on that sort of thing, and we are waaay overrepresented in the party.

 

[DominionSeraph]

It was a landslide victory. The republicans took control of the House from a large Dem majority and dropped the Senate to the dems barely having a majority.

Prior to the elections, the dems had so much power they could override everything (almost) the repubs tried to do.

That ain't a landslide. What you're showing is that the Democrats had a landslide and all the elections did was move it back a couple of feet.
Learn to find the zero point, n00b.

 

[Rainsford]

You're never grow up and realize that this is not one side against the other...

Maybe it shouldn't be, but it certainly appears to be that way. Clearly the main priority for Republicans isn't helping the country, it's beating the Democrats. And when the Republicans are in power, Democrats often seem to have the same priority. You don't have to pay attention to the issues very much to see that reaction on both sides is almost entirely dictated not by what action was taken, but by WHO took the action.

Republicans bashing President Obama for killing Osama bin Laden is probably the most obvious example in recent memory, but there's a long history of that kind of "taking sides" BS.

 

[Darwin333]

Massive spending is doing wonders for the economy in Europe.

He does have a point.

Simple math tells us that if we cut deficit spending that the economy will contract. This is undeniable. OTOH, simple math tells us that we can not continue the deficit spending we currently are nor can we meet the promises we have already made.

There are solutions but nothing the two parties we have will push through. What we will get is more kick the can.

And make no mistake, the Republicans didn't want the consequences of this bill either and if they somehow did it would be decades before they held office again. None of them are willing to cut the "big 3" entitlement programs in any significant way (key word is significant) or the .mil. That is pretty much the ONLY thing that we can cut that will make a sizable dent in our deficit. The other piece of the solution they are against as well, increasing revenue.


Summary: They don't want to significantly decrease social security, medicare, medicaid, or the .mil and they do not want to increase revenue. Exactly how are they going to balance the budget again?

 

[cybrsage]

Repubs were just *posturing* wrt Libya, anyway- it's not like they wanted to keep Qaddafi, even if he did give Dubya a propaganda victory over his alleged nuclear program.

Agreed. Still, I wanted to see a court showdown over the law to finally find out if it is constitutional or not.

Iraq? On schedule, the schedule agreed upon by the Bush Admin, and more, with zero troops left behind.

Obama promised to have all combat troops out of Iraq by his 16 month point...not by Bush's promised point.

WTF ever made the Bushistas think that they could pacify Afghanistan with fewer than 30K troops when the Soviets couldn't do it with over 100K?

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/22/chart-u-s-troop-levels-over-the-years/

It was certainly not enough troops...we definately agree on that. The difference is that the Afghanis wanted to be freed and we were helping them gain this (the common man, not the ruling despots). The Soviets were trying to take their religion away from them.

 

[cybrsage]

That ain't a landslide. What you're showing is that the Democrats had a landslide and all the elections did was move it back a couple of feet.
Learn to find the zero point, n00b.

Point zero? Sure, the Republicans did not exist 150 years ago but the Democrats did. Any gain the republicans have means the democrats have lost.

See how stupid your zero point argument is? The zero point has to be reset at each election.

 

[Nebor]

It was certainly not enough troops...we definately agree on that. The difference is that the Afghanis wanted to be freed and we were helping them gain this (the common man, not the ruling despots). The Soviets were trying to take their religion away from them.

It didn't help that we radicalized their religion to use as a weapon against the Soviets.... Giving the Soviets a good reason to hate it.

 

[Jhhnn]

What made anyone think that it would be ok to continue sacrificing American lives and money on a lost cause?

Bush fired all the generals that disagreed with COIN, and Obama was left with a bunch of generals that are willing to lie about the future of Afghanistan. :\

Obama never was a military guy, never pretended to be. The arrogance of our military leadership extends across party lines. It would have been very difficult if not impossible for him to find anybody in the top brass who would have agreed with what you said.
They think it's always possible to win with more tech, more guns, more troops, more tanks, more artillery, more airstrikes. And they're probably right, except for the fact that America doesn't have the stomach for the kind of mass murder required to pacify Afghanistan.

We'd also have to do the same in the tribal areas of Pakistan, as well.

The surge appeared to have worked in Iraq, and it seemed to be the best of the possibilities they laid out wrt Afghanistan. It remains to be seen what will finally happen, but none of the people at the top on either side of the political divide want to see us pull out in a way where we'll take lead in our ass doing so, or where the Karzai govt will fall faster than we can get out.

2 years or so into it, the Bush Admin should have declared victory & departed, before the opposition had time to regroup. They deliberately held on in Afghanistan because it was too big a cash cow for their pals to let it go, and because it served to beat the Terrarist Threat drum over and over again in this country.

 

[Darwin333]

That ain't a landslide. What you're showing is that the Democrats had a landslide and all the elections did was move it back a couple of feet.
Learn to find the zero point, n00b.

So the Dems pick up 21 seats in the house during the 2008 election cycle. That equals a landslide.

The Reps pick up 63 seats in the 2010 election cycle, the highest loss for any party since 1938. That is simply "moving back a few feet"?

Aren't you that idiot that pretends to be intellectually superior to everyone else? I can send you my daughters old 4th grade mathematics book if you would like, it could potentially help you out with your entire "intellectual superiority" goal that you have so far failed to achieve. Just PM me your address and I will get it in the mail ASAP, I'll cover shipping and everything.

 

[Jhhnn]

Point zero? Sure, the Republicans did not exist 150 years ago but the Democrats did. Any gain the republicans have means the democrats have lost.

See how stupid your zero point argument is? The zero point has to be reset at each election.

You're so dim. Lincoln won the presidency as a Republican in 1860, 151 years ago.

We've seen a role reversal since then, where Repubs of Lincoln's day wouldn't recognize Repubs of today as being from the same planet, let alone the same political party.

 

[Darwin333]

Point zero? Sure, the Republicans did not exist 150 years ago but the Democrats did. Any gain the republicans have means the democrats have lost.

See how stupid your zero point argument is? The zero point has to be reset at each election.

No no no, you just aren't smart enough to figure out the new math that he just created. Heck he is almost as smart as rain man, except for the math part.

 

[palehorse]

No, the difference is that Democrats can't pull it off. They look like idiots when they try to tell half the story and they can't help but come out and correct it later.
Democrats are the intellectual elite. It's just a different mindset when your conclusions have concrete premises; you really can't help but want to show it off -- to show people that you're actually pretty good at this "thinking" thing, even if verbal speech is too linear to show it off an interconnected multidimensional support structure very well.

You're not gonna find complete bullshitters high up in the Democratic party. Smart people really frown on that sort of thing, and we are waaay overrepresented in the party.

Well now, YOU certainly have that whole "elitist" thing down to a science, dontcha?

/rolleyes

 

[Darwin333]

You're so dim. Lincoln won the presidency as a Republican in 1860, 151 years ago.

We've seen a role reversal since then, where Repubs of Lincoln's day wouldn't recognize Repubs of today as being from the same planet, let alone the same political party.

Lol, you don't need to go back that far either....


To be fair, I think what both parties lack these days are true statesmen which it seems we had at least some of in the past. Frankly, I blame us for the most part on that. We don't want statesmen anymore, we want the next "American Idol" or whoever wins the popularity contest regardless of how they might run the country (GWB won TWICE).

Anyone with truly good intentions wouldn't even think about running for President and most wouldn't even think of running for Congress. I for one would not put my family through the crap that is our current election process. Just last week in my area a guy running for office was called all sorts of names (idiot, doesn't care about the people, in the pocket of BP, etc...) because he truthfully answered no to the question of "have you read XYZ report". He wasn't given the opportunity to say that NO ONE has read the report because it won't be released for another month. Had to start taking radio ads out to combat the opposition attacking him for not reading a report that had not yet been written.

He wasn't in my district so I couldn't tell you if he was a decent candidate or not but I did check his story and he was right. Who in their right mind would want to put themselves AND their family through that if there wasn't huge personal gain in it?

 

[Darwin333]

Well now, YOU certainly have that whole "elitist" thing down to a science, dontcha?

/rolleyes

In her case I wouldn't even call it a hypothesis.

 

[Ausm]

You're so dim. Lincoln won the presidency as a Republican in 1860, 151 years ago.

We've seen a role reversal since then, where Repubs of Lincoln's day wouldn't recognize Repubs of today as being from the same planet, let alone the same political party.

QFT!

 

[senseamp]

If Republicans believe in balanced budgets so much, they'll have an opportunity to demonstrate that after we go into sequestration. If they want to restore the defense cuts, I expect them to find a way to pay for it.

 

[Nebor]

Crank up taxes on everyone until we're not running a significant deficit. If that tax rate is ok with most people, great. If it's oppressive to most people, then they can look at what programs they want to cut.

Didn't someone try to pass a balanced budget amendment or law in the past 15 years? Both sides bicker back and forth and we just sink further and further into the red every day.