Frum: How the Tea Party could drive GOP to disaster

[Matt1970]

SUCH AS WHAT SPECIFIC ITEMS IN THE BUDGET!? BE SPECIFIC.

How many times do I need to ask this?

$1 Trillion Stimulus
$650 Billion Universal Health Care
Auto and Wallstreet Bailouts

Look up the rest.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

You can't be educated?

I'm not the one making rediculous comments.

 

[etrigan420]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wealth

Don't like it? Argue with a dictionary.

...and where in that definition does it say "Wealth is when you don't have to work."?

Do you just make this shit up as you go along or does "The Party" provide a script?

 

[Engineer]

$1 Trillion Stimulus
$650 Billion Universal Health Care
Auto and Wallstreet Bailouts

Look up the rest.

Have we already spent 650 billion on this UHC that you're talking about?

Did we not get paid back for some of the Wall Street bailouts? How about auto bailouts?

Don't know if we have spent $1 Trillion in stimulus or not. Anyone have any information on this number? Links?

 

[fskimospy]

$1 Trillion Stimulus
$650 Billion Universal Health Care
Auto and Wallstreet Bailouts

Look up the rest.

Stimulus was $787 billion, not $1 trillion, additionally it was spaced out over more than 2 years.

$650 billion on health care is a fantasy. As in, what you're saying doesn't exist.

The auto bailout was $80 billion, and the Wall St. bailouts came from Bush.

You have come nowhere even remotely close to identifying the cause of the increased deficits over the last few years. The vast majority of the increase comes from increases in spending already built into federal law that Obama had nothing to do with as well as a decrease in tax revenues. Social safety spending increases, along with other similar things are driving these deficits, not some super spendy Obama budget.

That's what I was trying to get you to understand. I think I failed.

 

[fskimospy]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wealth

Don't like it? Argue with a dictionary.

Maybe you should read that dictionary. Nowhere in any of those definitions does it mention not having to work.

 

[BoberFett]

Maybe you should read that dictionary. Nowhere in any of those definitions does it mention not having to work.

wealth
   [welth] Show IPA
noun
1.
a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches: the wealth of a city.
2.
an abundance or profusion of anything; plentiful amount: a wealth of imagery.
3.
Economics.
a.
all things that have a monetary or exchange value.
b.
anything that has utility and is capable of being appropriated or exchanged.
4.
rich or valuable contents or produce: the wealth of the soil.
5.
the state of being rich; prosperity; affluence: persons of wealth and standing.


Apparently simple definitions confuse a great number of Democrats. A person can make $1M/year and still not be wealthy if they don't have "a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches."

 

[BoberFett]

...and where in that definition does it say "Wealth is when you don't have to work."?

Do you just make this shit up as you go along or does "The Party" provide a script?

Oh look, another one jumps on the train. All aboard the Dumbfuck Express.

 

[Engineer]

A person can make $1M/year and still not be wealthy if they don't have "a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches."

People of all income levels can be "poor" or "poor money managers" so I agree that you can make $1 million and not be wealthy but generally, people who make that type of money are indeed rich/wealthy/insert own choice of words here. As far as I'm concerned, if you're making $1 million a year and aren't moving toward "wealthy" or already there, you're doing it completely wrong.

 

[fskimospy]

wealth
   [welth] Show IPA
noun
1.
a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches: the wealth of a city.
2.
an abundance or profusion of anything; plentiful amount: a wealth of imagery.
3.
Economics.
a.
all things that have a monetary or exchange value.
b.
anything that has utility and is capable of being appropriated or exchanged.
4.
rich or valuable contents or produce: the wealth of the soil.
5.
the state of being rich; prosperity; affluence: persons of wealth and standing.


Apparently simple definitions confuse a great number of Democrats. A person can make $1M/year and still not be wealthy if they don't have "a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches."

And having a great store of stuff doesn't mean that you would never need to work again.

Apparently simple definitions confuse you greatly. This isn't the first time though, you're another one of those aggressively stupid people on here.

 

[Jhhnn]

Apparently simple definitions confuse a great number of Democrats. A person can make $1M/year and still not be wealthy if they don't have "a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches."

That's silly. $1M is more than most people will make in 20 years. It's enough money that the vast majority of Americans would consider themselves rich if they had it.

Obviously, its not super rich. I'll agree that the issue really isn't about the top 1%, more like the top .1%, but we need to recognize that anybody who earns $384K in taxable income year after year will become rich by middle class standards, very comfortable indeed, if they're not a complete idiot, in which case they wouldn't be making $384K/yr.

We also need to recognize that movements need slogans, and "We're the 99%" serves the purpose.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

Apparently simple definitions confuse a great number of Democrats. A person can make $1M/year and still not be wealthy if they don't have "a great quantity or store of money, valuable possessions, property, or other riches."

Holy fuck you're dumb.

 

[Craig234]

Frum is, above all else, a true patriot and a reasonable man, one of a very few of either with any prominence still flying Republican colors.

You greatly overrate Frum.

He's basically a cheap, opportunistic guy on the wrong side IMO - but because of comparison with people even worse it makes him look better.

Frum is a Jew who on his first day at the White House had it made clear to him he was expected to show up at the Christian bible study meetings. He's always had a bit of an 'outsider' role with a small skepticism towards some of the worst excesses of the Bush administration, which has found him a niche as the 'honest' conservative.

David Brock was also a darling writer of the right, who as a gay man, when finally outed, felt the sting of the Republican policies towards gays that helped him also be at long last an 'outsider', but he actually took on the Republican agenda. HE is the 'patriot and reasonable man' you describe, compared to Frum.

I once asked Frum a pointed question - had he ever made the connection with David Brock, someone who realized the harm of their having been on the wrong side?

Frum responded with not getting the point, and just saying no, he did not relate to David Brock. I wonder if he's further considered the point.

Frum, as someone MORE moderate generally than the radical right typical of today's Republican party, wins the 'great moderate statesman' role by defualt.

But he's not deserving IMO.

His first book IIRC was 'The Right Man', a hagiography of George Bush. I'll agree with some limited compliments for Frum, but overall I have little use for him.

He has little to say it seems to me helps much.

 

[Demo24]

Did we not get paid back for some of the Wall Street bailouts? How about auto bailouts?

?

Not quite all of it, but a majority has flowed back in and for the most part the treasury has made billions on it. Pretty sure all the auto loans have been repaid by now as well.

 

[zsdersw]

It was only 5 years ago we were at $400 Billion deficit per year. You can't tell me our Government costs $1 Trillion more a year to run.

No, I can't... because that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is apparently something you don't want to hear: the Tea Party and their candidates aren't proposing things that will significantly reduce or eliminate our deficit. Especially because none of their proposals call for reductions in benefits to current retirees.

 

[Doppel]

I think the TP is really too irrelevant now to have much impact either way.

 

[Ausm]

Which means it didn't stimulate anything. You can pay a hooker to play with with your balls all you want, but at some point you've gotta be able to keep it up on your own if you're gonna get the job done. Obama's stimulus just left you limp.

That stimulus would have been more effective in a normal Recession but what we are enduring is anything but normal due to a whole list of system failures.

We are better then we were beforethe Recession but we are still as you eloquently state "limp"

 

[Demo24]

That stimulus would have been more effective in a normal Recession but what we are enduring is anything but normal due to a whole list of system failures.

We are better then we were beforethe Recession but we are still as you eloquently state "limp"

Yep, and the reality is that there is rather little any government could really do about it. The fact is out GDP has been growing, albeit it much slower than before, since the 'fall'. This is happening with a still high unemployment rate. Which means, like most recessions, companies have slimmed down and figured out how to get more efficient with a smaller work force. Eventually it will work itself out.

 

[Matt1970]

Stimulus was $787 billion, not $1 trillion, additionally it was spaced out over more than 2 years.

$650 billion on health care is a fantasy. As in, what you're saying doesn't exist.

The auto bailout was $80 billion, and the Wall St. bailouts came from Bush.

You have come nowhere even remotely close to identifying the cause of the increased deficits over the last few years. The vast majority of the increase comes from increases in spending already built into federal law that Obama had nothing to do with as well as a decrease in tax revenues. Social safety spending increases, along with other similar things are driving these deficits, not some super spendy Obama budget.

That's what I was trying to get you to understand. I think I failed.

I included Bush when I said it was their budgets, but Obama took it to the next level. Obama's 2010 budget had Discretionary spending up 13.8% over 2009 and a lot of the "mandatory" spending was after voting to increase Unemployment benefits.

Our spending is way out of control and we are gonna pay dearly for it in the long run if we don't do something about it. Even by the most optimistic numbers out there raising taxes on the rich will only make a small dent.

 

[Jhhnn]

I included Bush when I said it was their budgets, but Obama took it to the next level. Obama's 2010 budget had Discretionary spending up 13.8% over 2009 and a lot of the "mandatory" spending was after voting to increase Unemployment benefits.

Our spending is way out of control and we are gonna pay dearly for it in the long run if we don't do something about it. Even by the most optimistic numbers out there raising taxes on the rich will only make a small dent.

You really don't understand money at a macro level, at all.

First off, the annual deficit must be as large as the balance of payments deficit if we're to maintain domestic liquidity w/o the creation of more debt in the private sector. Think of it as replacement money. The balance of payments deficit exists to boost profits of American capitalists.

The Obama stimulus had 3 parts of near equal measure- tax cuts, which many people saved or used to pay off debt, extended unemployment benefits, which don't make up for the loss of work based income at all, and spending on various projects plus grants to state govts, which stretched out over 2 years. It was barely enough to slow the bleeding, let alone stimulate recovery.

What the Tea Party wants won't make it better, just worse. The vast majority of us will end up making sacrifices of one sort or another over the next several years, and it's important that America's wealthiest join in that sacrifice, something that the Tea Party denies entirely in supporting he extremely regressive tax and spending proposals of their repub sponsors.

Cut, cut, cut! won't put more money in the hands of average Americans, bet on that.

 

[JSt0rm]

I included Bush when I said it was their budgets, but Obama took it to the next level. Obama's 2010 budget had Discretionary spending up 13.8% over 2009 and a lot of the "mandatory" spending was after voting to increase Unemployment benefits.

Our spending is way out of control and we are gonna pay dearly for it in the long run if we don't do something about it. Even by the most optimistic numbers out there raising taxes on the rich will only make a small dent.

Lets all focus on being productive and growing the economy and grow our way out the problem instead of cutting us all down to mud huts.

 

[irishScott]

The Tea Party will drive the GOP into the ground by giving Herman Cain the nomination.

 

[Ausm]

It helped, but it was a piss poor attempt. It trickled out over 2 years combined with Obama threatening to raise taxes, shove univeral health care down our throats and pass cap & trade. Doesn't instill much confidence in the consumer or the stock market.

Do you always regurgitate right wing talking points??

1) Whose taxes are going to get raised?

2)Where is the Republican alternative to the Healthcare Bill?

3)Republicans embraced cap and trap UNTIL Obama jumped on board.

 

[Ausm]

The Tea Party will drive the GOP into the ground by giving Herman Cain the nomination.

I wasn't aware the GOP could go much lower but ...heh I'm all for your analysis

 

[Dulanic]

Do you not see the last 4 years of that chart ? The massive rise in the Blue line ?????

EDIT: The 2 drops in the red (revenue) is the last 2 stock market crash's and recessions.

It may have partly been a recession but it was largely EGTRRA in mid 2001 and JGTRRA in 2003... look how the red follows those 2 tax cuts perfectly, the large amount of lost revenue was tax cuts not recession. Obviously both had some impact, but your statement that the drops in red were recession and stock market related only is epic stupidity. Remember... EGTRRA and JGTRRA cost us between $200-$250 billion a year.

BTW, neither of those tax cuts did shit to help the economy either. EGTRAA had nearly 0 effect on the recession at the time and JGTRRA didn't do shit either to help the economy. The only thing that got us out of that recession was the housing boom, which got us into this current recession. It just delayed the inevitable, it was a fake recovery by inflating the assets of people.