Conservatives simply don't get it

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I hope everyone, especially conservative business types, recognize just who is sowing more uncertainty into our economy and who is more concerned with how this fiasco may affect their brand instead of how it may affect the American people.

 

[wuliheron]

working at an oil company in Texas, even my more hardcore and vocal conservative friends are speechless about what is going on with the debt ceiling.

Obama's Grand Bargain gave 4 trillion in cuts to 1 trillion in revenue. 4 trillion in cuts, but the teapartiers dismissed it on principle - they DO NOT want to compromise with a Democratic president and I would go so far as to say they hate Obama specifically.

Why else would you give up almost double the spending cuts as was originally proposed by Boehner 2 months ago?

You need to think it through. The Tea Party is a minority that can't possibly achieve its agenda and their very survival depends on them making sure no one else achieves their agenda either. By keeping the debt high and taxes low they can at least continue to funnel money to their wealthy campaign contributors and keep the budget cuts as their reason for existing. If they can collapse the economy altogether then they have a chance of leveling the field more in their favor. If you didn't already realize these people were crazy extremists willing to do anything to further their cause, now you know.

 

[Matt1970]

working at an oil company in Texas, even my more hardcore and vocal conservative friends are speechless about what is going on with the debt ceiling.

Obama's Grand Bargain gave 4 trillion in cuts to 1 trillion in revenue. 4 trillion in cuts, but the teapartiers dismissed it on principle - they DO NOT want to compromise with a Democratic president and I would go so far as to say they hate Obama specifically.

Why else would you give up almost double the spending cuts as was originally proposed by Boehner 2 months ago?

That all sounds great, we are gonna cut 4 Trillion. But it's over 10 years (400 Billion a year) with us currently racking up 1.4 Trillion a year in Debt.

 

[Matt1970]

I hope everyone, especially conservative business types, recognize just who is sowing more uncertainty into our economy and who is more concerned with how this fiasco may affect their brand instead of how it may affect the American people.

Tax increases for Corporations
Cap and Trade
Mandatory Health Insurance
Gov Spending at record levels
Foreign policy in the toilet

Everyone seems to be forgetting we can't keep spending money like we are.

 

[soundforbjt]

Tax increases for Corporations
Cap and Trade
Mandatory Health Insurance
Gov Spending at record levels
Foreign policy in the toilet

Everyone seems to be forgetting we can't keep spending money like we are.

38% of corps pay no taxes at all and some of the biggest get money back. How are those being taxed too much?

And we need to ask for a raise and cut our spending.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Tax increases for Corporations
Cap and Trade
Mandatory Health Insurance
Gov Spending at record levels
Foreign policy in the toilet

Everyone seems to be forgetting we can't keep spending money like we are.

And you types don't seem to realize making government even more dysfunctional does not reduce economic uncertainty.

 

[xj0hnx]

Obama's Grand Bargain gave 4 trillion in cuts to 1 trillion in revenue. 4 trillion in cuts, but the teapartiers dismissed it on principle - they DO NOT want to compromise with a Democratic president and I would go so far as to say they hate Obama specifically.

Over ten years, and none of the plans actually cut spending, under all of them we will spend more, just varying degree's of more.

 

[Moonbeam]

We spent decades defeating the extremist rot of the Communist left that infected this world and now we will have to spend decades more to defeat the extremist rot of the Republican right who are every bit as dangerous to the welfare of our country. When you have an uncompromising enemy that threatens your life you crush them without remorse or pity. We are going to have to wage a war against the radical right and snuff it.

I believe it was in 1982 in the midst of a recession with mounting and unsustainable debt and unemployment at ten and a half percent that Reagan approved a bill to raise taxes and did so two more times, to bring the deficit to a more manageable level. This back when the Republican party still cared more about the welfare of the country than they did about ideology.

 

[shortylickens]

We dont live in a democracy.
We live in a representative republic.

 

[soundforbjt]

We spent decades defeating the extremist rot of the Communist left that infected this world and now we will have to spend decades more to defeat the extremist rot of the Republican right who are every bit as dangerous to the welfare of our country. When you have an uncompromising enemy that threatens your life you crush them without remorse or pity. We are going to have to wage a war against the radical right and snuff it.

I believe it was in 1982 in the midst of a recession with mounting and unsustainable debt and unemployment at ten and a half percent that Reagan approved a bill to raise taxes and did so two more times, to bring the deficit to a more manageable level. This back when the Republican party still cared more about the welfare of the country than they did about ideology.

He raised taxes iirc, 11 times. But you never hear conservatives talk about that. They only remember him cutting taxes for the top.

 

[ProfJohn]

working at an oil company in Texas, even my more hardcore and vocal conservative friends are speechless about what is going on with the debt ceiling.

Obama's Grand Bargain gave 4 trillion in cuts to 1 trillion in revenue. 4 trillion in cuts, but the teapartiers dismissed it on principle - they DO NOT want to compromise with a Democratic president and I would go so far as to say they hate Obama specifically.

Why else would you give up almost double the spending cuts as was originally proposed by Boehner 2 months ago?

They walked away because Obama wouldn't put anything in writing and then kept changing his mind about how much revenue was needed etc etc.

Also, Obama refused to put anything in writing. Hard to make a deal when you don't know what the deal actually involves.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Excuse me? Reid has been saying to Boehner for two days, "Work with me to craft a bipartisan bill that can pass the House and the Senate."

Boehner's reply? "Fvck you and the U.S.A too. I'm going to waste two days crafting a bill so extreme that it can attract just enough Tea Party support to pass the House, but is so absurd that it's guaranteed to get rejected by the Senate. I'm doing this because Republicans need a fake political debating point for the 2012 elections."

Ok you are Boner. Get to work and come up with a bill that passes BOTH Republican and Democrat hacks.

Get back to us when you do, but expect your retirement plan to kick in first.

 

[soundforbjt]

They walked away because Obama wouldn't put anything in writing and then kept changing his mind about how much revenue was needed etc etc.

Also, Obama refused to put anything in writing. Hard to make a deal when you don't know what the deal actually involves.

The President doesn't write bills, he only submits a budget. Writing bills is the job of Congress. You've been getting your civics lessons from the right wing and Sean Hannity again.

 

[soundforbjt]

Ok you are Boner. Get to work and come up with a bill that passes BOTH Republican and Democrat hacks.

Get back to us when you do, but expect your retirement plan to kick in first.

So, it's all about staying in power. Damn, here I thought it was supposed to be about serving the country's (the people) interests. 🙄

 

[Icepick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJxmpTMGhU0

She's right. We do have a right to debate and disagree with any administration. I love how the conservatives are always playing the "patriotic" card and yet, their core policies are so anti-American.

 

[Icepick]

Their actions are counter-Constitutional and anti-democratic. At this point, they are essentially saying that if they can't get their demands met they are going to take the credit of the United States hostage and watch this country go down in flames. This is not how our democracy was ever designed to work.

If you cannot convince the House, Senate, and President to go along with what you want then you MUST find a way to compromise. This whole situation is akin to me getting my credit card bill in the mail and just deciding I didn't like what I bought so I'm just not going to pay.

The bulk of the money that our government spends is tied up in our entitlement programs (SS, Medicare) and our military. If conservatives were really serious about reducing spending then the military should be one of our biggest targets. We are fighting two utterly useless wars and spending FAR too much money on a large standing army. Instead all I hear from conservative leaders is how we should abolish the EPA, reduce spending on education, etc. Do you really think that our country should reduce spending on education? Do you really think we're going to remain a competitive superpower if we can't train our children better than 3rd world countries are doing right now? Do you realize that we IMPORT the majority of our PHD students?

We must also reform our tax code in a serious way, and part of that involves ROLLING back the reckless Bush tax cuts and going back to the Clinton rates. There must be spending cuts along with revenue increases. This is the only logical way forward.

We need to get the right people into government office who can push these changes through. Unfortunately, I don't believe Obama has enough balls or clout to get it done. That, and we're still in the middle of a 50 year cycle and we won't have a significant change until we reach a point of crisis.

 

[ProfJohn]

The President doesn't write bills, he only submits a budget. Writing bills is the job of Congress. You've been getting your civics lessons from the right wing and Sean Hannity again.

Bull shit.

Presidents offer plans and ideas for bills all the fucking time.

Are you ignorant or unprincipled?

 

[soundforbjt]

Bull shit.

Presidents offer plans and ideas for bills all the fucking time.

Are you ignorant or unprincipled?

Offers plans & ideas does not = writing bills.

fail

 

[ProfJohn]

"Under the plan outlined by Obama on Wednesday, "
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0414/Obama-s-Medicare-proposal-How-would-it-work

"President Obama unveiled an aggressive plan to raise fuel economy standards to an average of 54.5 mpg by 2025, nearly doubling current mileage rules."
http://autos.aol.com/article/obamas-cafe-plan/

Obama $1 Trillion Tax Proposal Slams Into Republican Wall of Opposition
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...al-u-s-tax-code-rewrite-to-raise-revenue.html

Obama Administration Utilities Offer Plan to Accelerate U.S. Smart Grid
http://www.smartmeters.com/the-news...s-offer-plan-to-accelerate-us-smart-grid.html

Obama's housing-finance reform plans
http://www.minnpost.com/community_v...fer_hope_especially_for_low-income_households

How many more do you want?

 

[ProfJohn]

Offers plans & ideas does not = writing bills.

fail

But he offers plans with details all the time.

I just listed a few of them.

But for some strange reason he can't offer ANY details when it comes to the debt ceiling. NO details at all.

We are in this major crisis and all of a sudden the President can't think of ANYTHING??

Why should we keep him for another term if he can't even offer a solution to this crisis?

 

[CountZero]

I have no idea, but it is an irrelevant point because every Republican can just vote no on any Democrat plan.

The Democrats can offer all the plans in the world and the GOP can vote no for everyone of them. No different that what the Senate is doing now.


Stop being so damn blindly partisan.

If the Democrats in the Senate can say no to every GOP plan then why couldn't the GOP in the house do the same to every Democrat plan?

And you can't blame the Republicans for failing to pass a plan when the Democrats haven't passed one themselves.

Right now the GOP has passed two plans to the Democrats zero. The American people will have seen this and know what is going on. It will be hard for the Democrats to blame the GOP for the problems when they can't pass anything on their own.

Passing a plan that has no chance is pointless, well not pointless, useless. Dems could pass a plan: rollback Bush cuts, remove corporate loopholes, cut defense by 50%. It won't pass the house so why bother? They should be working on a bill that can pass both, not wasting time. So what is the point of these bills the house has passed? Election crap, they are basically working out campaign stuff (look what useless stuff we did that happen to cater to your ideas, please re-elect me!) rather than spending what little time they have working on a compromise.

 

[IronWing]

But he offers plans with details all the time.

I just listed a few of them.

But for some strange reason he can't offer ANY details when it comes to the debt ceiling. NO details at all.

We are in this major crisis and all of a sudden the President can't think of ANYTHING??

Why should we keep him for another term if he can't even offer a solution to this crisis?

There aren't many details needed. "The debt ceiling is raised to xxx." End of bill. You're just pissed because you want to stack destructive riders onto the bill that have nothing to do with the issue at hand and your buds can't get them through.

 

[Whiskey16]

Honest questions? What is wrong with the educational system in the USA and why is the following failed mantra so prevalent?

We dont live in a democracy.
We live in a representative republic.

A second time in as many weeks that such a glaring failure is evident!

I'll repost what I presented then to correct another's identical error:

Dude, you warrant a lecture to help put an end to such lunacy.

You are a democracy without a monarch as head-of-state. The term of a republic goes back for millenia. Democracy is exactly what you just stated your "representative republic" to be. A form of representative government where those representatives are elected by a limited portion of the population with all held to a high set of written laws in the form of a constitution.

I know of no state where democracy is open to all present within. Restrictions upon who those representatives may be or who may even vote for them differs among states. Be it only those who are deemed to be adequate citizens, property owners, a specific sex, race, of certain age, status of criminal convictions, party affiliation, etc. All or a portion of such restrictions upon who may vote for representation have or continue to exist in the USA and all other states in this world. The elected representatives form the government.

The term democracy itself also includes constitutional parliamentary monarchies through to the extreme of a Communist Politburo or Qaddafi's Libyan People's Committees. A quantifiable metric for a level of democracy is commonly down to how pervasive into the society it is for people who are permitted to vote for representation. Upon such lines, the USA was rather tardy in providing higher democratic freedoms in comparison to some other western states who more quickly provided full voting rights to wider segments of their population.

The corruption within a democratic system becomes another matter that will also include the level of judicial Independence from political interference, the professionalism of law enforcement agencies, a responsible and independent media, and ultimately to the maturity of the society as a whole to be informed and assess critical decisions.

 

[wuliheron]

We spent decades defeating the extremist rot of the Communist left that infected this world and now we will have to spend decades more to defeat the extremist rot of the Republican right who are every bit as dangerous to the welfare of our country. When you have an uncompromising enemy that threatens your life you crush them without remorse or pity. We are going to have to wage a war against the radical right and snuff it.

ROFL. You're declaring war on at least 25% of the population. Good luck with that.

These are vicious dogs that a bunch of fools have allowed off their short leashes. It happened with Senator Joseph McCarthy and it took broadcasting him foaming at the mouth on TV to get the public to put him back on a leash. Either the majority now recognizes the threat these vicious dogs represent in the current crisis and puts them back on their leashes or they continue to pay the consequences.

 

[Jaskalas]

So, it's all about staying in power. Damn, here I thought it was supposed to be about serving the country's (the people) interests. 🙄

That's great, so instead of Republican interests he should serve the Democrat's interests. Your plan is brilliant.