What can the democrats learn by the loss of Cockley

[cubby1223]

To answer your loaded question, yes I want to bring back GWB 2008 policies and melt down the economy again.

This is part why the Democrats are crashing.

You cannot go into every debate and say "It's either my way or else it's Bush's way." Every person capable of rational thought knows that there are three, four, five, plenty more ways of handling various situations.

If you want the Dems to stick to the course, okay but expect them to be kicked out in droves before the year is out.

 

[brencat]

Takeaways:

1. People don't want a progressive agenda. Likewise, they don't want a far-right religious crusade agenda either. Both parties had better wake the fvck up and start putting out bipartisan, centrist, and most of all fiscally conservative legislation that passes the common sense test.

2. Abandon this turd of a healthcare bill and focus soley on the economy until the unemployment rate drops from 10% to 7%. Cut corporate taxes from 35% to 25% across the board to stimulate job growth and make our country competitive with international tax havens. Notice I did not say cut personal income taxes. But don't raise them either...that includes increased regulation whose costs will only get passed to customers

3. Still want to pass health care? Okay...switch gears and propose to dismantle state regulation of insurance and allow companies and individuals to buy insurance across state lines. That's the way to drop costs -- more competition, less state monopolies. Tell the trial bar to go fvck themselves and cap damage awards at a bipartisan acceptable level.

4. Don't let Pelosi and Reid write Healthcare Part Deux. Take charge of it yourself Obama!!

5. Both parties need to abandon their sacred cows...and I mean right the fvck now. No more union exemptions, no more funding Medicare cost increases for Nebraska in perpetuity. No more carve outs and special deals for special interests.

6. Absolutely no more bailouts of any kind. Announce tomorrow that Wall Street, Main Street, and everyone else is on their own if they blow themselves up again, regardless of the threat of Depression.

7. Remove the govt liquidity propping up the economy. If it's too big to fail, it's too big to succeed. Raise interest rates immediately. Our current environment only encourages carry trades for those in position to borrow gobs of money, lever it up, and make massive profits speculating in the capital markets, while brutally punishing retirees and savers dependent on fixed income.

Just a few. If I've missed any, feel free to add.

 

[palehorse]

Takeaways:

1. People don't want a progressive agenda. Likewise, they don't want a far-right religious crusade agenda either. Both parties had better wake the fvck up and start putting out bipartisan, centrist, and most of all fiscally conservative legislation that passes the common sense test.

2. Abandon this turd of a healthcare bill and focus soley on the economy until the unemployment rate drops from 10% to 7%. Cut corporate taxes from 35% to 25% across the board to stimulate job growth and make our country competitive with international tax havens. Notice I did not say cut personal income taxes. But don't raise them either...that includes increased regulation whose costs will only get passed to customers

3. Still want to pass health care? Okay...switch gears and propose to dismantle state regulation of insurance and allow companies and individuals to buy insurance across state lines. That's the way to drop costs -- more competition, less state monopolies. Tell the trial bar to go fvck themselves and cap damage awards at a bipartisan acceptable level.

4. Don't let Pelosi and Reid write Healthcare Part Deux. Take charge of it yourself Obama!!

5. Both parties need to abandon their sacred cows...and I mean right the fvck now. No more union exemptions, no more funding Medicare cost increases for Nebraska in perpetuity. No more carve outs and special deals for special interests.

6. Absolutely no more bailouts of any kind. Announce tomorrow that Wall Street, Main Street, and everyone else is on their own if they blow themselves up again, regardless of the threat of Depression.

7. Remove the govt liquidity propping up the economy. If it's too big to fail, it's too big to succeed. Raise interest rates immediately. Our current environment only encourages carry trades for those in position to borrow gobs of money, lever it up, and make massive profits speculating in the capital markets, while brutally punishing retirees and savers dependent on fixed income.

Just a few. If I've missed any, feel free to add.

You just won my vote. :thumbsup:

 

[PJABBER]

Takeaways:

1. People don't want a progressive agenda. Likewise, they don't want a far-right religious crusade agenda either. Both parties had better wake the fvck up and start putting out bipartisan, centrist, and most of all fiscally conservative legislation that passes the common sense test.

2. Abandon this turd of a healthcare bill and focus soley on the economy until the unemployment rate drops from 10% to 7%. Cut corporate taxes from 35% to 25% across the board to stimulate job growth and make our country competitive with international tax havens. Notice I did not say cut personal income taxes. But don't raise them either...that includes increased regulation whose costs will only get passed to customers

3. Still want to pass health care? Okay...switch gears and propose to dismantle state regulation of insurance and allow companies and individuals to buy insurance across state lines. That's the way to drop costs -- more competition, less state monopolies. Tell the trial bar to go fvck themselves and cap damage awards at a bipartisan acceptable level.

4. Don't let Pelosi and Reid write Healthcare Part Deux. Take charge of it yourself Obama!!

5. Both parties need to abandon their sacred cows...and I mean right the fvck now. No more union exemptions, no more funding Medicare cost increases for Nebraska in perpetuity. No more carve outs and special deals for special interests.

6. Absolutely no more bailouts of any kind. Announce tomorrow that Wall Street, Main Street, and everyone else is on their own if they blow themselves up again, regardless of the threat of Depression.

7. Remove the govt liquidity propping up the economy. If it's too big to fail, it's too big to succeed. Raise interest rates immediately. Our current environment only encourages carry trades for those in position to borrow gobs of money, lever it up, and make massive profits speculating in the capital markets, while brutally punishing retirees and savers dependent on fixed income.

Just a few. If I've missed any, feel free to add.

Very good list, but I would amend #4 to have a non-partisan expert panel appointed by leadership of both parties equally. Better yet, don't attempt reforms now, delay until 2012.

 

[Zebo]

Stop being corporate whores and tying to pass it off as populism. People are not stupid.

Stop treating terrorists as criminals worthy of our constitutional protections. Kill and/or imprison them until war is done.

 

[Wreckem]

Why do you people think its just going to be the GOP voting down clouture? You are delusional if you dont think Moderate Dem Senators who were reluctent to vote for the bill to begin with wont vote no the second time around. Now they will be further embolden to vote no if it comes back to the Senate.

Reconciliation won't work all that well and will make the bastardized current bill even worse.

Its time for the democrats to scrap the current bill and start over. Start by passing parts that everyone agrees with(banning the pre-exisiting condition loophole for insurers).

 

[IronWing]

Takeaways:

1. People don't want a progressive agenda. Likewise, they don't want a far-right religious crusade agenda either. Both parties had better wake the fvck up and start putting out bipartisan, centrist, and most of all fiscally conservative legislation that passes the common sense test.

2. Abandon this turd of a healthcare bill and focus soley on the economy until the unemployment rate drops from 10% to 7%. Cut corporate taxes from 35% to 25% across the board to stimulate job growth and make our country competitive with international tax havens. Notice I did not say cut personal income taxes. But don't raise them either...that includes increased regulation whose costs will only get passed to customers

3. Still want to pass health care? Okay...switch gears and propose to dismantle state regulation of insurance and allow companies and individuals to buy insurance across state lines. That's the way to drop costs -- more competition, less state monopolies. Tell the trial bar to go fvck themselves and cap damage awards at a bipartisan acceptable level.

4. Don't let Pelosi and Reid write Healthcare Part Deux. Take charge of it yourself Obama!!

5. Both parties need to abandon their sacred cows...and I mean right the fvck now. No more union exemptions, no more funding Medicare cost increases for Nebraska in perpetuity. No more carve outs and special deals for special interests.

6. Absolutely no more bailouts of any kind. Announce tomorrow that Wall Street, Main Street, and everyone else is on their own if they blow themselves up again, regardless of the threat of Depression.

7. Remove the govt liquidity propping up the economy. If it's too big to fail, it's too big to succeed. Raise interest rates immediately. Our current environment only encourages carry trades for those in position to borrow gobs of money, lever it up, and make massive profits speculating in the capital markets, while brutally punishing retirees and savers dependent on fixed income.

Just a few. If I've missed any, feel free to add.

Or pass a single payer health care system that removes the dead weight of private health insurance from the neck of industry. This would do far more to stimulate job creation then any tax cut. It would also unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of folks who might want to strike out on their own but are chained to employer health benefits. Health care costs are destroying our international competitiveness more surely than any tax or regulation.

If we can find a way to make sure that every person pays income tax on the income they earn in this country, we can abolish corporate income taxes entirely.

Abolish the capital gains tax and tax income from all sources as regular income.

Remove the salary limit on SS taxes. After this, if SS is still in bad shape, then means test benefits.

Mop up the tax code to get rid of the ever growing list of deductions and credits for special interests.

I agree with you on Obama needing to step up and show some leadership.

Tightening up the money supply is dicey. I'm a saver and I know I'm getting screwed by the money printing but I also don't want to see what little recovery we have collapsing if the money supply gets tightened too quickly (yeah, not likely under this Fed).

 

[werepossum]

I hope they learn to elect someone with proven leadership abilities. IMO Hillary would have gotten a health care package through and it would have been a good program too.

At this rate Obama will be a lame duck by 2010.

Yeah, if only someone had thought to let Hillary run with health care reform. Yup, nothing could possibly go wrong there . . .

"HillaryCare, Chapter 32. The subject, as with the proceeding thirty-one chapters, will be penalties for non-compliance. . ."

 

[Zebo]

Or pass a single payer health care system that removes the dead weight of private health insurance from the neck of industry. This would do far more to stimulate job creation then any tax cut. It would also unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of folks who might want to strike out on their own but are chained to employer health benefits. Health care costs are destroying our international competitiveness more surely than any tax or regulation.

If we can find a way to make sure that every person pays income tax on the income they earn in this country, we can abolish corporate income taxes entirely.

Abolish the capital gains tax and tax income from all sources as regular income.

Remove the salary limit on SS taxes. After this, if SS is still in bad shape, then means test benefits.

Mop up the tax code to get rid of the ever growing list of deductions and credits for special interests.

I agree with you on Obama needing to step up and show some leadership.

Tightening up the money supply is dicey. I'm a saver and I know I'm getting screwed by the money printing but I also don't want to see what little recovery we have collapsing if the money supply gets tightened too quickly (yeah, not likely under this Fed).

^^^^This is better.

Many people do not even know hedge funds managers salary is taxed at 15% with zero employment taxes due to a loophole. Nor that most corp officers pay themselves a token salary and take out their real money at 15% cap gains rate. Ridiculous just like Warren Buffet said that his secretary pays more as a percentage than he does.

 

[brencat]

Tightening up the money supply is dicey. I'm a saver and I know I'm getting screwed by the money printing but I also don't want to see what little recovery we have collapsing if the money supply gets tightened too quickly (yeah, not likely under this Fed).

I work on Wall St and was a finance major. Textbooks tell me interest rates should be low to stimulate growth. Common sense tells me my retired father will not be able to live off the interest income he's getting without compromising principal if rates stay low like this for another 2 years.

We can have low rates but not near zero rates. Hedge funds used to borrow money from Japan and invest it elsewhere. Now they're borrowing money from the U.S. and investing it globally. How does that help us? The act of borrowing and carry trades to lever up and speculate in the capital markets is causing a misallocation of capital...which will lead once again...shocker...to asset bubbles (the current stock market waaaaay ahead of growth prospects), and an eventual meltdown.

Keynsian economics is a failure in my book. We will pay the piper big someday soon with all the personal and sovereign debt we have. And the next market meltdown is probably less than a year away. All we're doing is delaying the inevitable...face the music now and get it over with.

And I haven't even talked about what will happen when the Fed will need a bailout when the market moves against the trillions in mortgages it's carrying on its books. You do realize the Fed is the marginal buyer in this space currently, yes? Very easy from a trading perspective to tip a market when you know one player holds a sizeable position.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

If the dems fail in 11/2010, this country will be in a heap of problems with continual gridlock. United we stand, divided and we are sure to fail. And anyone who thinks our current grid lock is a good thing is crazy. Our failure to adapt to change is a good part of the problems.

I have full confidence in the Democrats to squander the leadership opportunities they had and to hand Congress over to the equally worthless Republicans in November.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Well I for one don't want my grandmother going to a death panel.

But aren't you afraid that you, or your daughter, or your wife might be the subject of a private health insurance company's CEO-appointed death panel? We already have death panels--at private health insurance companies.

 

[bob4432]

Well I for one don't want my grandmother going to a death panel.

what a surprise, i agree w/ "death panels", or at least some form of legal, respectable assisted suicide. living in severe chronic pain for over 30% of your life and probably by the time i die it will be more like 60% (not taking into acct medical progress which may or may not change my situation), changes views on such things.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

You still think healthcare is the number one issue facing this nation right now, don't you?

Our nation's primary issue is the state of and the future of the U.S. economy and the American standard of living. Health care is one aspect of the economy and standard of living. In its own right, health care is the 2nd or 3rd largest issue facing this country with the economy being #1 and the War against Terror being #2 or #3.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

This is part why the Democrats are crashing.

You cannot go into every debate and say "It's either my way or else it's Bush's way." Every person capable of rational thought knows that there are three, four, five, plenty more ways of handling various situations.

Sure, there are other ways of handling situations, but we know how the Republicans are going to do it and it's not the "Party of the American Middle Class" nor the "Party of the American Working Class" way, but rather the "What is in the economic interests of the wealthy?" way.

 

[dammitgibs]

Quit being so partisan on everything. As far as health care was concerned, democrats had good ideas, republicans had good ideas. Find stuff you can agree on first and pass that bill, then work out your differences later.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

3. Still want to pass health care? Okay...switch gears and propose to dismantle state regulation of insurance and allow companies and individuals to buy insurance across state lines. That's the way to drop costs -- more competition, less state monopolies. Tell the trial bar to go fvck themselves and cap damage awards at a bipartisan acceptable level.

What if they advocated scrapping our current system and adopting the more economically efficient and less expensive British or French systems?

(Oh that's right! Threatening to put insurance companies out of business for the good of the American people would anger the rich people and dogmatic free market morons, resulting in a loss of campaign financing (er, politician purchasing). Guess that's not going to happen.)

In all seriousness, the Democrats should go for broke and advocate real socialized medicine. They have nothing to lose. The economy and the health care situation in this country is only going to get worse and more and more Americans are going to lose their insurance while insurance premiums continue to soar. Whichever politicians oppose real health care reform will have to face an angry populace. "Senator X is the reason why you don not have health care." Eventually the Democrats will win on this issue once enough Americans have become fed up with our current system.

 

[IGBT]

the eco-KOOKS and secular progressives are a pariah to the democrat party. they need to be dumped like yesterdays trash.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Lessons from the election:

While knowing little about the two candidates other than what I've heard on the TV and radio, here's my take on the lessons:

(1.) Don't assume that anyone you anoint to run for a vacated seat is going to win the election just because you like this person and it is time to pay her for her party loyalty and the friendships she has. This holds doubly true in a time when the voters are very concerned and scared about their financial well being and want to see action and change in a positive direction.

(2.) If you have the opportunity to run the government, don't fuck it up! Show real leadership and advocate real solutions to the nation's problems and then be prepared and be able to articulate why those solutions will help Americans in a way that makes intuitive sense. Advocate policies that will have a clear and direct impact.

For example, if your nation has large amounts of unemployment, don't just throw money at the economy without addressing any of the nation's real economic issues. Instead do something the populace would understand such as ending the H-1B and L-1 visa programs, opening up middle class jobs for Americans. Do something that would have a direct cause-and-effect relationship and thus make intuitive sense to the people.

(3.) If you are going to give tax money to wealthy bankers to help bail them out of their irresponsible decision making, be sure to prosecute any who can be prosecuted for white collar crimes and tax the beejeezus out of anyone in the industry who receives huge salaries and/or huge bonuses.

 

[Patranus]

(3.) If you are going to give tax money to wealthy bankers to help bail them out of their irresponsible decision making, be sure to prosecute any who can be prosecuted for white collar crimes and tax the beejeezus out of anyone in the industry who receives huge salaries and/or huge bonuses.

Totally agree with this.
If actual crimes were committed, those responsible should be prosecuted. If however no crime was committed, actually lead the recovery instead of blaming the same people over and over again.

 

[JSt0rm]

I learned that she was a dumb bitch.

 

[JSt0rm]

Totally agree with this.
If actual crimes were committed, those responsible should be prosecuted. If however no crime was committed, actually lead the recovery instead of blaming the same people over and over again.

You know the world is fucked up when this dude agrees with higher taxes for someone lmao.

 

[Throckmorton]

Takeaways:


3. Still want to pass health care? Okay...switch gears and propose to dismantle state regulation of insurance and allow companies and individuals to buy insurance across state lines. That's the way to drop costs -- more competition, less state monopolies. Tell the trial bar to go fvck themselves and cap damage awards at a bipartisan acceptable level.

NOT AGAIN

Tell me what part of this you don't understand:

Insurance across state lines with no state regulation means that my state cannot protect my rights.


And the thought of the government setting a cap on damages won in a free nation's court by free people is disgusting. The question is why it's not disgusting to the right.

 

[her209]

I learned that she was a dumb bitch.

Yeah, pick a candidate that can spell the name of the state that she is campaigning for.

 

[Patranus]

You know the world is fucked up when this dude agrees with higher taxes for someone lmao.

To be clear I agreed with the part about prosecuting those who actually committed crimes or FRAUD in the sub prime loan markets.