US POLITICS SUMMER 2011: The Rise of Neo-Gabbnebism

Cuz it's true. Symmetry required it too.

i could sense that cantor's haircut was blended

the day that i've been waiting for is almost here:

it's the tim pawlenty gun range photoshoot http://yfrog.com/kjk3myjj

i was holding out for his hunting photo op, but this is probably close enough

Greg Sargent reports that House Democrats are using Reagan to woo Republicans into voting for the debt ceiling increase:

Dana Milbank had a provocative column this morning arguing that on the debt ceiling, Dems have become the new party of Ronald Reagan, and that Republicans only honor their alleged hero Reagan in the breach and not the observance. After all, Reagan presided over 18 debt ceiling hikes as President. But for a large swath of today’s House conservatives, the drive to prevent the debt ceiling from being hiked has replaced the now-forgotten push to repeal Obamacare as their number one ideological cause celebre.

Now House liberals have hit on a fun new way of emphasizing this point: They are sending a letter today to every House Republican asking them to raise the debt limit. Only the letter wasn’t written by House liberals. It was written by Reagan himself.

Here's the letter to Minority Leader Howard Baker:

Dear Howard:
This letter is to ask for your help and support, and that of your colleagues, in the passage of an increase in the limit on the public debt.

As Secretary Regan has told you, the Treasury’s cash balances have reached a dangerously low point. Henceforth, the Treasury Department cannot guarantee that the Federal Government will have sufficient cash on any one day to meet all of its mandated expenses, and thus the United States could be forced to default on its obligations for the first time in its history.

This country now possesses the strongest credit in the world. The full consequences of a default or even the serious prospect of default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the cost, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.

I want to thank you for your immediate attention to this urgent problem and for your assistance in passing an extension of the debt ceiling.

Sincerely,

Ronald Reagan

lol i love the thread title btw ... so very appropriate.

US POLITICS SUMMER 2011: The Rise of Neo-Gabbnebism

same xp

can a mod lock?

both michelle bachmann and ron paul voted against the cut, cap, & balance act, hm

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/sieckanddestroy/kodos.jpg

the politics of failure have failed, its time to make them work again

my palin-bachmann girl

Bears repeating:

I want to thank you for your immediate attention to this urgent problem and for your assistance in passing an extension of the debt ceiling.

Sincerely,

Ronald Reagan

P.S. A little help with stem-cell research? Ok, I'm done now, thx.

I'm waiting for this thread to relaunch in 3-D. Can we hold off 'til the mods retrofit?

Mitch McConnell in 3-D blowfish mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOZpJ4rSITo#t=01m08s

in b4 sb

Time reported this week, “Democrats are clearly baffled by the challenge of persuading opponents who not only have a different set of priorities, but a different set of facts. ‘There’s a question about how much the facts matter to them,’ says a Democratic official. ‘And I don’t know what to do about that.’”

Facts are stupid things.

There are facts that lots of voters care about that don't seem to matter to the Dems these days.

That video of obama 'promising a net spending cut' is more than a bit disingenuous. He was basically repeating his boilerplate campaign position, which was formulated long before Lehman Bros. collapsed, and the debate where he is saying these things took place before the TARP was passed and before unemployment shot up by about six percent. When reality changes that much, you change your position along with it.

George Will:

Richard Miniter, a Forbes columnist, is right: “Obama is not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev.” Beneath the tattered, fading banner of reactionary liberalism, Obama struggles to sustain a doomed system. Democrats’ dependency agenda — swelling the ranks of government employees, multiplying government-subsidized industries, enveloping ever-more individuals in the entitlement culture — is buckling under an intractable contradiction: It is incompatible with economic growth sufficient to create enough wealth to feed the multiplying tax eaters.

Events are validating the Tea Partyers’ arguments. Time is on their side — but not on America’s, unless the impediment to reform is removed in 16 months.

He and Krauthammer are all peeved at Obama now embracing cutting the deficit, but they never admit that Republicans ignored the deficit till Obama came into office. This notion that slashing the size of government will happen and will bring about economic growth also ignores the Bush years. But you folks know that.

oh god, will quoting that nutcase miniter column, just what the world needed

Harry Potter and the Multiplying Tax Eaters

"dependency agenda"

the US' notoriously generous safety net is turning the peasantry into unproductive milksops

Events are validating the Tea Partyers’ arguments.

oh, ffs, george is passing out buckets of kool aid. How can he say this and also live with himself after all those columns he wrote extolling the Bush tax cuts, I wonder? Oh, now I remember, he is without a conscience.

Will tested that Tea Party compliment ("the most important thing to conservatism since the Goldwater insurgency" as if the insurgency and conservatism were discrete phenomena) on Sunday's show.

George Will should be garrotted

if u wanna read what will is giving his serious-man imprimatur to:

http://blogs.forbes.com/richardminiter/2011/07/18/why-the-democratic-party-is-doomed/

it is ~painfully stupid~

"groups that vote for democrats are getting poorer and/or losing politically. this means they will disappear soon! also, you can get porn for free now, seriously, check it out."

I agree that it is stupid, but it is a poisonous stupidity that comes wrapped up in an easy reductive simplicity, so it is a bit like the strychnine bait set out for coyotes.

What's weird is that while his analysis is superficial/selective/biased, he's pointing out that the country is getting more conservative in a lot of areas. But if the conservatives are winning and the economy is shit, what does that say?

It says they are getting very adept at deflecting the blame to scapegoats, so the connection between conservative policies and the shitty economy consistently gets overlooked by the majority of people suffering under these policies.

"reactionary liberalism" -- forgive him, Father, he know not what he typeth

(obv blind if he sees liberals anywhere near the White House)

eh i dunno. i think that politics are pretty tribal and identity-based, and people rarely if ever have their minds changed by facts or events one way or another.

i don't think "the connection between conservative policies and the shitty economy" is "overlooked by the majority of people suffering under these policies", that's just not enough people to outweigh the power of the not-suffering

there are some articles going around today about obama's surprisingly high polling numbers, considering how world-historically lousy the economy is. there's never been such a variance between disapproval of the economy and approval of the president, i guess.

this at least suggests to me that a whole lot of people have some sense of who the real culprits are, or at least, are not turning to 'tea party' explanations of the world just because times are bad.

some not-suffering people still vote for Dems

Democrats’ dependency agenda — swelling the ranks of government employees, multiplying government-subsidized industries

please please please fucking stop

you know, like ethanol and big oil

and agribusiness. I'm sure that's what he was referring to!

http://www.frumforum.com/gop-stands-by-brazilian-cotton-subsidies

i can't even

haha i kind of agree with the brazilian cotton "subsidy", in a narrow way. it's a WTO penalty.

there are some articles going around today about obama's surprisingly high polling numbers, considering how world-historically lousy the economy is

Gallup has him fairly low: http://www.gallup.com/poll/148598/Obama-Maintains-Sub-Job-Approval-10th-Quarter.aspx. But I guess the way the economy is, he could be closer to Carter territory.

in comparable situations, both Reagan and Clinton were polling in the 30s; that is the discrepancy the articles are talking about

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2011/0719/Gallup-chief-puzzled-by-Obama-s-poll-numbers

"Looking at history, particularly Clinton and Reagan, it is somewhat surprising that [Obama] has never yet fallen into the 30 percent range in our approval rating," Newport said. "And yet both Reagan and Clinton, in their first terms when the economy was perceived as bad ... both fell into the 30s."

Newport noted, "Satisfaction with the way things are going is ... correlated with economic perceptions fairly strongly." At the same time, Obama "is overperforming. Based on where every president has been, his approval rating now is higher than we would predict it to be based on" how satisfied American adults say they are.

Pollsters are not sure why Obama has fared better than expected in the polls. Newport offered two possibilities. "One theory has to do with personal characteristics of the man," the Gallup executive said. "The other has to do with the nature of politics today." Under that theory, Obama has "kind of a rock-hard coalition that are never going to abandon him in approval ratings, and therefore that is why his approval ratings will be propped up no matter what happens."

Gallup, he added, will be conducting research to get a more definitive answer to the question.

Whenever someone overperforms, I always suspect steroids.

Obama has "kind of a rock-hard coalition that are never going to abandon him in approval ratings, because lalalala, they can't hear you."

And he has haters who know he's a Kenyan socialist muslim

I'm not sure I buy that "rock hard coalition" jazz

like okay the black population is never really gonna turn on him, and there's a couple other hardcore Dem constituencies, but that's like, what - 20% of the population? obviously the liberal/hard left is totally disappointed in him.

Don't forget his unshakeable white middle-aged Canadian schoolteacher demographic. Very important in any election.

and ILE!

he sleeps easy at night knowing the 20 votes from posters on this thread are safely in his pocket

imagine if Reagan had that coalition.

I'd also like to point out that Herman Cain has turned on him, so that demographic is starting to crumble.

Alan Keyes must be really pissed about being knocked out of the Token Black Conservative Nutjob position in the GOP

maybe he's ok with it

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Alan_Keyes.jpg/220px-Alan_Keyes.jpg

I'm sure a lot of you saw this on Sullivan yesterday, but if not, it's fascinating:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ptrTa8C_Pl4#at=14

The first thing that struck me was how much Cain looks and sounds like Clarence Thomas (at least my long-ago memories of Thomas from the Anita Hill hearings--those guys kind of disappear once they're in).

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/reid-presses-obama-not-to-agree-to-debt-plan-with-no-revenue.php?ref=fpa

White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer tweeted that reports of a $3 trillion deal without revenues were incorrect. "POTUS believes we need a balanced approach that includes revenues," he wrote. However, what the President believes and what he may ultimately feel compelled to sign off on are not necessarily the same. Equally, Pfeiffer's tweet would not seem to rule out the idea of "aspirational" revenues that would come at some unspecified time in the future, while coupled with cuts that could begin immediately.

Masterful negotiator Obama may gonna go for "aspirational" revenues! Embarrassing. Republicans know he's desperate and they're gonna try to get him to sign anything.

I kinda don't think so... the pressure's more on Boehner/Cantor

To finish this by Friday before happy hour.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-gop-leaders-said-to-discuss-new-debt-plan/2011/07/21/gIQAT81BSI_story.html?hpid=z1

Washington Post says:

The luncheon meeting included a presentation by White House Budget Director Jacob Lew, who was pilloried by Democrats who contended that Obama was giving away deep cuts to entitlements without any agreement on taxes. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), while declining to address the specifics of Lew’s talk, said she opposed the White House direction and instead would continue to support the option offered by Reid and McConnell — a backup plan to raise the debt ceiling in three phases over more than a year.

Reid said his caucus would oppose any plan that did not include increased tax revenue, questioning whether Obama had gone back on his pledge to include “balance” in the final deal.

“The president always talked about balance, that there had to be some fairness in this, that this can’t be all cuts,” Reid said. “There has to be a balance. There has to be some revenue and cuts. My caucus agrees with that. I hope that the president sticks with that. I’m confident that he will.”

I'm going to settle this thing. Shakey, pack a bag. kevin and aero, reserve the flight.

do I need to bring a ski mask

bring your combat boots. We be doin some stompin.

<3

note to self: "balanced approach" is officially out of the lexicon

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/us/politics/22fiscal.html

"The House has passed the Cut, Cap and Balance plan with bipartisan support,” Mr. Smith said. “We’re waiting for the Senate, which is run by Senator Reid, to act on it." (It is a sign of the times on the Hill these days that five Democrats joining 229 Republicans to pass legislation, counts as “bipartisan support.”)

They should offer tax refunds for essential beatdowns.

Hah, saw a job posting from my alumni mailing list for a paid K0ch internship, maybe I'll send in a rez for the lols.

Complete with a section on charitable causes such as ACLU, Environment California, Save Darfur, NPR, etc.

that would come at some unspecified time in the future

right after that new progressive party wins 100 seats

Our boy's first Guardian appearance. It synthesizes two years' worth of columns:

The same Democratic president who supported the transfer of $700bn to bail out Wall Street banks, who earlier this year signed an extension of Bush's massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and who has escalated America's bankruptcy-inducing posture of Endless War, is now trying to reduce the debt by cutting benefits for America's most vulnerable – at the exact time that economic insecurity and income inequality are at all-time highs.

Where is the "epic shitstorm" from the left which Black predicted? With a few exceptions – the liberal blog FiredogLake has assembled 50,000 Obama supporters vowing to withhold re-election support if he follows through, and a few other groups have begun organising as well – it's nowhere to be found.

Therein lies one of the most enduring attributes of Obama's legacy: in many crucial areas, he has done more to subvert and weaken the left's political agenda than a GOP president could have dreamed of achieving. So potent, so overarching, are tribal loyalties in American politics that partisans will support, or at least tolerate, any and all policies their party's leader endorses – even if those policies are ones they long claimed to loathe.

Thanks Glenn for your great coverage as always. It's hard being a Democrat these days, not even a liberal Democrat, but just your classic Keynesian Democrat.

What boggles my mind is that these policies have been tried and have been proved failures, and yet Obama is still carrying a very muddied torch.

I'm going to settle this thing. Shakey, pack a bag. kevin and aero, reserve the flight.

I will bring them to their knees...with a scandalous merengue

Awesome.

don't forget to bring a muddied torch

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/conceder-in-chief/

w/ respect to PK, Obama DOES know what he's doing; he wants nonracist Republicans to elect him next year.

so did the FAA close down yet?

pintofplutonium

21 July 2011 2:44PM

Republicans are too right wing.

The media are too right wing.

Obama is too right wing.

The voters are too right wing.

Ever wondered if maybe its you folks who are too left-wing?

*hangs head in shame*

Yep. Going back to the feelings I had the day after Reagan won elections...But it's much more complicated than that, I know.

Although Obama wants nonracist Republicans and independents to elect him next year, the danger for him is that when given a choice between a "Democrat" acting like a Republican, and an actual Republican, those voters might choose the actual Republican

I'm sure there were some ppl I would consider racist who still voted for Obama in '08. I think Obama's entire plan consists of treating his left base as granted and appealing to ppl of all stripes as the rational alternative to the crazy fringe, i.e. Bachmann, Palin, and those who would pander to them (all the rest).

I still remember this three years later: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1008/Race_and_the_economy.html.

yes curmudgeon, that likelihood has been my 'practical' argument vs the gabbnebs.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/07/22/reports-affordable-care-act-part-of-debt-limit-deal/

Now Cantor wants Obama to give up parts of Health Care to get his "grand bargain". Oy veh

loving these negotiations.

like you're about to sign for the car and the sales guy tries to sweeten the deal by asking to fuck your wife

waiting for Cantor to demand Obama turn over Sasha and Malia to the GOP until the end of his term to make sure he acts in good faith

Ever wondered if maybe its you folks who are too left-wing?

No. Because it isn't about tribal identity, but about policy and how that affects people.

The policies favored by the right wing have had very clear and obvious effects, which, if you have paid attention, include a stark erosion of the position of the working class and middle-middle class since 1980. These are the people who accomplish most of the work in the country and consitute its foundation. Depriving them of fair wages and depriving their children of a good education in order to fatten the estates of the very wealthy seems to me like a foolish idea, no matter how many other people seem to embrace it.

(looks around, notices no one is listening)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/debt-talks-bring-tensions-between-democrats-obama-to-surface/2011/07/21/gIQAXeVnSI_story.html?hpid=z1

About time some Dem congresspeople get mad. Below is an excerpt from the linked article concerning their reaction as they were meeting with the White House Budget Direct Lew on hearing that Obama was agreeing with Boehner on a 3 trillion deal with no tax revenue:

The Democrats were winning, the senators said. The American people were with them on tax increases for the rich and the notion of “shared sacrifice.” Why give up now? Why cut a deal without guarantees of new tax revenue?

For 45 minutes, the cross-examination went on, with few details offered. When Lew left, Mikulski turned to her colleagues and said, “I haven’t seen a meeting like this in my 35 years in Congress.”

Outside the room, Lew said he was “not aware of a deal.”

For the first time in weeks of debt negotiations that have focused on rifts within the Republican Party, Thursday brought forward long-simmering tensions between Obama and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.

With more concerns than details, Democrats lashed out, saying that deep cuts to federal agency budgets and entitlements were too steep a price to pay. They questioned whether Obama shared their core values, and they sought reassurance — at a hastily arranged evening meeting at the White House that lasted nearly two hours — that the final legislative package would be the balanced approach that the president had promised.

“There has to be a balance. There has to be some revenue and cuts. My caucus agrees with that. I hope that the president sticks with that,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) told reporters.

In the House, rank-and-file Democrats said the situation had grown dire.

“It would concern me greatly if these folks — the tea party group — have been able to convince the president to go along with a deal that basically gives them everything they want but yet still takes away from those who are our most vulnerable,” said. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“The people that I’m talking about, when you’re talking about Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security — and I’m sure they’re all mixed up in there in this $3 trillion — those are people, a lot of whom are in my district, who have no alternatives,” he continued. “They’re not the guys who own the planes; they’re not the ones who fly off to Paris for vacation.”

Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (Ariz.), a leader of the House Progressive Caucus, said: “We feel like the programs we care about are on the table. The other side’s priorities that the American public thinks should be dealt with — tax cuts, corporate subsidies — are not on the table.”

Often kept in check out of loyalty for their president, congressional Democrats have grown increasingly suspicious of Obama’s motives over the past year.

Many in the House didn’t appreciate what they saw as meager support for Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) in her final, embattled months as House speaker before the 2010 midterm election.

I have faith in Pelosi. Reid, Obama not so much

aimless 1,000% OTM upthread.

like you're about to sign for the car and the sales guy tries to sweeten the deal by asking to fuck your wife

man that shit is so insulting but we wanted the automatic windows

aimless 1,000% OTM upthread.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Abraham Lincoln

I'd like to see how that sentiment went down on ye olde foxe and friends

ok is anyone else watching cspan2 right now

no why what's up

well orrin hatch just tellin em why he mad but this hilarious staffer behind him awkwardly gesturing toward huge posters he had to put up, one of which is blank, representing obama's budget proposal

ok is anyone else watching cspan2 right now

― youmadin therapy (k3vin k.), Friday, July 22, 2011 1:41 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm wondering if any person in the history of the united states that has ever asked this question has ever received "yes" as a response

??!!

hatch claimed that 63% of democratic voters favor a balanced budget constitutional amendment, which he must either be making up or referring to voters in utah

lol jordan it's hot outside

haha i think that 63% of democratic voters would be more in favor of broiling in the sun than watch cspan 2.

Hi guys! I was swimming all morning. is Social Security gone yet?

don't you mean "strengthened"?

I can believe that up to 63% of democrats might not understand the consequences of a balanced budget amendment, especially if you preface the question with a lot of nonsense about how it's nothing but common sense and it's the only way to avert the coming apocalypse.

Polls are confusing things. Most Americans think, plausibly, that you can get balanced budgets, an eviscerated social services program, and tax cuts on everyone, all at once.

Bam just offered to give Toby Keith the Kennedy Center Honors this winter

wtf Grover Norquist doesn't consider letting the Bush tax cuts expire an "increase"?!

GOP split prognostication

1 little thing--Hatch is not the only Republican saying Obama has no economic plan of his own. That's a Republican talking point

Thank fucking god: Obama losing support from left, sez CNN poll.

hopefully we can parlay this momentum into another round of Facebook friends posting CONSIDER ALL HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS fwd's

I'm not nearly as left-wing as many of you but I do wish he'd occasionally hold the Republicans down and kick'em in the nuts. They sure have given him some HUGE openings to do so with their wingnuttery.

As it stands, I am one of the myriads of "small" contributors who will not be giving Obama any cash in 2012 if he implements any more retrograde republican policies. I'd much rather give it to Peter DeFazio (D-OR).

Michael, he's not going to kick them in the nuts because (a) it's not his nature (b) he believes most of what they do.

His arrogance leads him to accept the right's most risible talking points; this man really does think SS and Medicare are "bloated" and need "reform."

8-9% going to 13%

w/ a big margin of error in one poll

not really worth a news article

I mean 10% of self-identified 'liberals' (vs. 5% 'democrats') consider him too left-wing vs. the 16% who consider him not left-wing enough.

yeah that's confusing

'liberals' is the smallest sample set = has a pretty high margin of error. and it's just one poll. 71% liberal approval rating, 80% democrat approval rating = kinda hard to argue that there's a big left-wing backlash, esp considering how shitty the economy still is. if some more polls had the same % bump maybe you could argue there's a slow trend building, but it's really hard to say that w/ these numbers. esp considering the (16 vs. 10)

according to the results 11% of people who support the tea party think that obama is not liberal enough vs only 10% of people who oppose the tea party

so basically this poll is telling us that people are inconsistent...?

the poll is telling us very little

yeah fuck that poll.

^^^backlasher's regret

The Tea Party wraps so far to the right that I wouldn't be surprised if there's some small minuscule section of it that starts to appear on the left side of the ring.

Obama certainly deserves to lose support from the left (such as the left is), even if that poll doesn't demonstratively show that he actually has.

sure

^^^backlasher's regret

I deserve a cookie.

^^ so entitled.

I'm a liberal!

the taxpayers of America cannot afford to give you a cookie, Alfred

I will give up a year of my social security in exchange for a cookie to give Alfred

you can have a third of a cookie

who is going to pay the interest on this cookie

/bored, still looking at the pdf/

12% of people haven't heard of John Boehner
25% of people haven't heard of Harry Reid

again I'm the one saying grain of salt grain of salt but I'm surprised at that gap, if anything I woulda thought Reid would have higher awareness numbers

let's compromise: you give up a year of social security, and alfred doesn't get a cookie

xp

who is going to pay the interest on this cookie

this would be a totally different statement if Ice T said it

or Samuel Jackson.

I will vote to increase the debt ceiling if my share of the cookie is called "revenue" instead of "consumption."

Then someone will have to give up their Medicare and health care as well. We'd have more cookies if we cut corporate tax rates to 0 you know.

We're making progress! Thanks to our grassroots phone calls, the number of House members who signed the Progressive Caucus letter opposing any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits has jumped from 2 to 80! But Representative Jim Moran has not signed yet, and the situation is urgent

E-mail I received from boldprogressives.org. Now if only these 80 would really mean it and march on the White House today and storm the set of Meet the Press on Sunday, followed by the Washington Post editorial offices. Moran is my House representative here in Northern Virginia near DC

you are mortgaging our children's cookie

let's compromise: you give up a year of social security, and alfred doesn't get a cookie

OTM

my rep is Albio Sires. Hudson County, NJ has lotsa Wall Street/corporate employees these days who may be just peachy with President Obama. OTOH, Hudson County also has one of the most entrenched and infamous old-school Democratic machines in the country and changing demographics notwithstanding Gabbnebism hasn't made many inroads (and has even less natural appeal) to these types.

viva los hacks, i suppose.

I didn't know whether to post this here or in The Corner thread; regardless, it's swill of a rare order. My favorite:

Hey, I’m all for helping people who are really trying to get by. I grew up in a lower-middle-class family. I got a state scholarship to go to college. But remember the kid in high school who never paid attention in class, who was too busy goofing off to do his homework, who thought school was a great big waste of time? Sure you do. We all know jerks like that. Sorry if I sound cruel, but I don’t want to help him now that he’s middle aged and can’t pay his mortgage.

You know who else I really don’t want to help? Stupid fifteen-year-old girls — or younger — who have babies figuring they can always get welfare to pay the bills. I want them to be a burden, not on the government, but on their relatives, on their neighbors, on their church — on anybody they actually know who they’ll have to look in the eye and say, “Give me money.” That’s a lot harder, and a lot more humiliating, than looking a bureaucrat in the eye and saying “Give me money.”

ben b. bag

this from the comments is the key (taibbi had a thing about it the other day):

The only reason that this inequality is still considered acceptable (by anyone not in the 10% libertarian contingent) is because Americans don't believe it occurs.

sadly, attitudes such as that from The Corner are not exclusive to Republicans.

Oh and spare me the haughty rejoinders. I happen to live in the hood and I know how much of our tax dollars are simply supporting a dysfunctional life style.

Ever wonder why the percentage of black children born out of wedlock as risen so dramatically? spend a day with me in the "inner city" (yet another silly euphemism) and you'll see.

spare me the haughty rejoinders. i happen to live in the hood.

I didn't know whether to post this here or in The Corner thread; regardless, it's swill of a rare order. My favorite:

/Hey, I’m all for helping people who are really trying to get by. I grew up in a lower-middle-class family. I got a state scholarship to go to college. But remember the kid in high school who never paid attention in class, who was too busy goofing off to do his homework, who thought school was a great big waste of time? Sure you do. We all know jerks like that. Sorry if I sound cruel, but I don’t want to help him now that he’s middle aged and can’t pay his mortgage.

You know who else I really don’t want to help? Stupid fifteen-year-old girls — or younger — who have babies figuring they can always get welfare to pay the bills. I want them to be a burden, not on the government, but on their relatives, on their neighbors, on their church — on anybody they actually know who they’ll have to look in the eye and say, “Give me money.” That’s a lot harder, and a lot more humiliating, than looking a bureaucrat in the eye and saying “Give me money.”/

this person is not at all sorry about sounding cruel.

I hate that about pricks like this: I will boldly say something that outs me as a cold hard asshole but ~how dare you~ accuse me of being cold and hard!

like the dude I heard on the radio "defending marriage" and saying that it was outrageous to allow same sex marriage because it would make kids that grow up being told that homos are scum ~feel bad~ about their beliefs.

Mr. Obama ruled out — the idea that the Constitution empowers a president to increase the debt limit to prevent default and, as he put it, “basically ignore” the federal law requiring that the debt ceiling be set by statute. The argument of “the constitutional option,” which President Bill Clinton — like Mr. Obama a former constitutional law instructor — endorsed in an interview earlier this week, is based on the Fourteenth Amendment’s provision that the validity of the United States debt “shall not be questioned.”

“I have talked to my lawyers,” Mr. Obama said, and “they are not persuaded that that is a winning argument.”

wimpy lawyers except when it comes to authorizing overseas activities involving alleged terrorists

Just a simple intellectual thought game would support Goldberg's post. If you could split the U.S.A into two countries, one that follows the liberal's socialist redistribution model and one with the conservative's capitalist, low tax, non-Keynsian model, which do you think would have the most success. Actually no need to theorize as there are numerous real life examples to choose from.

the funny thing is it's true, there are numerous real life examples to choose from

just a simple intellectual thought game would support goldberg's post. if some people thought like goldberg, and some people thought differently, who do you think would be right?

"Boehner began a conference meeting Friday morning by deadpanning that Republicans, the White House and Democrats had reached a deal, according to a lawmaker in the room. The response from his conference was nervous silence before Boehner eased the tension by letting them know he was only joking."

i have to admit that this is kind of funny. it takes a lot of guts to start off a meeting with a joke that's designed to produce a response of confused silence.

goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop

instead of easing the tension by telling the truth, he should have kept the joke rolling by staying silent, shuffling papers on the desk, and then walking right out the door. no wait, KICKING down the door

let's compromise: you give up a year of social security, and alfred doesn't get a cookie

late coming back but this is so great

http://gifb.in/M7sV

<a href="http://www.gifbin.com/984866";><img src="http://www.gifbin.com/bin/122010/1291664331_ducks-passing.gif"; alt="funny gifs" /></a>

Man, fuck that.

It's the Obama kicking down the door gif.

Debt-reduction negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner collapsed Friday, derailing an effort to reach a landmark agreement to cut spending, overhaul the tax code and avert a government default, according to senior House Republican aides.

6 pm Eastern time news. Best news today on the political front.

Obama's talking now and Boehner issued a whiny letter full of Republican talking points

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43860786#43860786

obama presser, live

damn tell em why u mad barry

this is kind of a savage presser

quoting Reagan lol

GOP is fucking itself so hard right now, kinda entertaining if fucking the rest of us so hard was not involved

It's amazing how well Obama can convey his anger without getting overtly angry. He knows the GOP fucked itself, but at the same time he's frustrated that the GOP fucked itself. That line: "I was less concerned with how long it took him to call me back than I was with what he said when he did call me back."

damn tell em why u mad barry

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, July 22, 2011 6:25 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

did not think he was gonna go for "funder"

alright then

lol why the fuck is al sharpton on msnbc

gotta say he kinda killed it at the presser imo

straight fire beautiful presser

interesting to note that he used that "balance" requirement language Reid was trumpeting yesterday

he came off at someone that was pissed at having a shit ton of his time wasted

as**

Not feeling a lot of comfort from angry Obama. If he's this pissed, then armaggedon is probably right around the corner.

will be interesting if this just comes down to Boehner/Cantor doing some arm-twisting and just straight passing an increase in the debt ceiling with no larger deal. (Seems possible? how many in the TP caucus have said they would not vote for the debt ceiling increase under any circumstances? You'd think the holders of the GOP purse strings would be leaning hard on those idiots right now, no...?)

I'm thinking that the house Republicans will only vote for an increase if the Dems and Obama give in to all of their demands. Otherwise, it's hello default.

They just don't care if the economy tanks and the country falls to pieces. They think it will prove their point, whatever that may be.

yeah, i don't really believe that

i mean, there might be some house republicans that would be okay w/ that. but the major republicans, and the party writ large, are not that stupid.

don't really understand this part from Boehner's letter explaining his withdrawal:

"The President is emphatic that taxes have to be raised. As a former small businessman, I know tax increases kill jobs."

Uh....Obama wasn't demanding that taxes had to be raised. If he was, I might think again about voting for him next year. The revenue increases were coming from closing tax loops, correct? And in the presser Obama stated that none of the revenues would come from tax increases.

So what the fuck is Boehner talking about?

"Boehner began a conference meeting Friday morning by deadpanning that Republicans, the White House and Democrats had reached a deal, according to a lawmaker in the room. The response from his conference was nervous silence before Boehner eased the tension by letting them know he was only joking."

house republicans answer to rich people, just like democrats do. rich people don't want a default.

There are at least enough Republicans in the House who genuinely aren't that invested in raising the debt limit to make it impossible to get any kind of vote done.

i mean, there might be some house republicans that would be okay w/ that. but the major republicans, and the party writ large, are not that stupid.

yeah and the major Republicans and the party at large will twist arms/crack skulls to avoid going down the drain with these idiots, is what I'm guessing. the particulars of how it will shake out are kind of a mystery.

getting rid of a loophole is the same as a tax increase, to boehner's audience

I'm not ruling out the possibility that they'll get it all figured out, but I think there's a strong chance that they will not.

getting rid of a loophole is the same as a tax increase, to boehner's audience

^^^

which is kinda why I expressed shock upthread that Grover Norquist has publicly said letting the Bush tax cuts expire is "not a tax increase". Cuz that is, um, not how House GOP members seem to view it.

getting rid of a loophole is the same as a tax increase, to boehner's audience

yeah, i get that his audience doesn't understand how taxes work, but it's just crazy to hear that coming from Boehner as the main justification for why he's withdrawing. Especially when the reports coming out the last few days were suggesting that Obama was floating a proposal to cut the individual and corporate tax rates. Going from that to claiming that Obama is "emphatic that taxes have to be raised" is such a giant stretch, at best extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely spun and at worst just a big fucking lie. and that's the main reason he cites for withdrawing. wtf

boehner presser at 7:15

hope he talks about hamburgers and hot dogs too

actually, hope anyone in the press asks a decent question

hee hee "boehner presser"

Boehner's just talking code for "I cannot control the crazy ideologues in my party"

LA Times: Weakened Boehner Withdrawals from Difficult Spot

lol

firedoglake: Under Pressure, Boehner Again Fails to Rise to the Occasion

Boehner Erupts all Over a Stunned O-

oh nevermind

Boehner Leaks Classified Material

Boehner is an Erect Penis

man, i hope he starts out this presser with another one of his patented Confused Silence jokes

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a Reptilian.

...

. . .

the way to give people confidence in our economy is to threaten to let it default

that was it? 10 minutes and he's out.

two-pump chump Boehner in answer-record letdown

Your second in line for succession, ladies and gentlemen.

wait, it happened? i've had the live feed waiting for 20 minutes, and i thought it hadn't started yet!

so short and premature it was blink and you miss it

did he just read his letter out loud, with dramatic pauses?

Here's the only quote I've seen: "dealing with the White House was like dealing with a bowl of Jell-O."

dealing with the white house sounds pretty awesome tbh

whereas I am a stiff, erect Boehner

that's funny!

esp Jell-O being awesome, idea

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/opinion/22posner.html?hp

Not only do Democrats and Republicans disagree, but so do the Republican leaders, who want to avoid a debt default, and the Tea Party-inspired Republican back-benchers, who appear to believe that only a purifying Götterdämmerung can put public finances back in order.

awesome

and people will still vote for them! srsly the biggest problem w/ america is the fucking swamp of idiots who inhabit it.

although the ayn rand punks who populate the house of representatives might agree!

Uh....Obama wasn't demanding that taxes had to be raised. If he was, I might think again about voting for him next year. The revenue increases were coming from closing tax loops, correct? And in the presser Obama stated that none of the revenues would come from tax increases.

So what the fuck is Boehner talking about?

― future events are now current events (Z S), Friday, July 22, 2011 6:43 PM (44 minutes ago)

come again?

i did not know there was another univ. of chicago posner, though no relation. oh, it's his son? who coulda knowed.

richard's kid?

according to google at least.

even if its debt provision did not exist, the president would derive authority from his paramount duty to ward off serious threats to the constitutional and economic system.

that's a pretty weak op-ed imo - not really much evidence being offered. he's basically saying obama should ignore the debt limit lincoln did something remotely similar and FDR threatened to do something similar, but of course this would create a "constitutional crisis" (wait i thought he was on "solid consitutional ground") so he should bluff, hoping congress will raise it on their own. huh?

...ignore the debt limit because lincoln did something similar...

come again?

i worded it poorly, but i meant that if obama was making a strong case for raising taxes (or at least ending the bush tax breaks), i might consider voting for him next year. but he's been a massive fail in many other areas besides taxes, so i doubt i'll vote for him either way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-context-of-liberal-surrender-and-barack-obamas-choices/2011/07/22/gIQAFx7rTI_blog.html

seriously dude? you'd rather romney or rick perry take charge?

xpost

The whole crux is, that the obligations that will go unpaid if the government ceases to issue debt are legal obligations enjoined upon the executive branch by enactments of Congress. It's not like Obama has been running around spending money on Social Security and stuff because he's a spendthrift. The law requires him to spend that money for those purposes. It's the REVENUES that have fallen short of covering those required expenditures.

So, Congress, by failing to change the debt ceiling law, or decrease the government's spending requirements, or to raise adequate revenues, has ensured that the administration CANNOT AVOID breaking some law or other that the Congress passed. It's fucking insane. Not to mention fucking childish.

This sums up the situation really well.

seriously dude? you'd rather romney or rick perry take charge?

oh please -- not this again

for the record, i don't plan to vote for the guy either.

The Democratic president has agreed to the following if this source is to be trusted:

But according to a White House official, Mr. Obama had agreed over the coming decade to cut $250 billion to $300 billion from Medicare spending and $200 billion from other domestic entitlement programs, like farm subsidies. And Mr. Obama was willing to change the formula for Social Security cost-of living adjustments, which many economists say would more accurately reflect inflation, for savings of about $125 billion more.

And you STILL want us to worry about a President Romney or Perry?

but its so much fun. paging dr morbius

what do you guys think Obama should set as his maximum level of cuts in any deal here?

I'm not so sure that the Republicans are just going to chicken out if Obama drives a hard bargain right up to the deadline. The 90s government shutdown was one thing, but the polls out this week seem to indicate that the public believes that "both sides" are failing to compromise atm.

Really it's all a question of political strategy at this point, which is really depressing and sick.

he already has set his maximum level of cuts! This "debate" is about Boehner not having the votes in his caucus to support the raising of taxes.

theres going to be a compromise which means everyone in here will get to be mad @ obama abt it

is there some kind of piece that gives a realistic sense of what is 'possible'

The President, disregarding his own caucus and common sense as to the continuing financial stability of Social Security through 2034, has gone as far as he can to set us back to a Lochner-era/pre-FDR. United States.

read the plum line post linked itt xp

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bat-signal.jpg

l-r: bamsignal, deej

wah wah

Yes, I am more worried about a GOP pres than Obama. Good grief.

he already has set his maximum level of cuts!
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:11 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah, but what do you think he should have set? Less, obviously, but how much less?

Insofar as the GOP has refused to accept the sweetest of deals offered to them in thirty years -- the gutting of social services for the undeserving poor and lower middle class -- it's their fault at the moment that talks have stalled.

yeah, but what do you think he should have set? Less, obviously, but how much less?

It's his fault for (a) keeping the Bush tax cuts in December, thereby dooming us to another debate now (b) refusfing to detach the debt ceiling argument from the decades-long war between the GOP and the Dems about social services. The public is on his side on this.

I mean, the President has made it very clear that he wants to defy his party; it makes him more presidential and thereby attracts more indie voters, or so he says.

yeah, but what do you want him to do right now in this debt ceiling negotiation. Other than making political magic by detaching arguments and whatnot.

You were upset about what cuts he signed off on. What cuts SHOULD he sign off on? 50b? None, and just dare them not to pass the debt increase?

mordy armstron

g

When it comes to indefinite detention, starting non-wars in Libya, and aiming cruise missiles at American citizens abroad, the Office of Legal Counsel is imaginative and bold. I'd say what we've got on our hands is a genuine constitutional crisis that requires him to raise the debt ceiling on his own and watch the consequences. I can't vouch for the consequences but the public, Wall Street, international banks, and chambers of commerce will support him -- what else does a plutocrat need?

This is piss-in-your-pants-scary-shit here:

Treasury securities sit at the base of the global financial system. They are considered so safe that the interest rate on Treasuries is called the “riskless rate of return,” as the market assumes there is no chance of default under any circumstances. Almost all other types of debt — mortgages, credit card, auto loans, business loans, hospital bonds, etc. — are yoked to Treasuries. Almost all major financial players hold substantial portfolios of Treasuries or Treasury-related debt in order to buffer themselves against financial shocks. Consider that the 2007 financial crisis was caused by the market realizing it had to reassess the risk of bonds based on subprime mortgages. If the market has to reassess the risk of Treasuries, the resulting financial crisis will be beyond anything we’ve ever seen in this country.

Dick Cheney himself gave the order to shoot down any remaining planes on the morning of September 11. Among the many sins that sick fuck committed in eight years, this one ranks probably at the bottom; I'm prepared to say that everyone in the executive branch was so terrified of the consequences of inaction that they were prepared to stretch the Constitution slightly and worry about the consequences later.

I'd say we are approaching -- not yet but close -- Fort Sumter levels of crisis.

You were upset about what cuts he signed off on. What cuts SHOULD he sign off on? 50b? None, and just dare them not to pass the debt increase?

― Matt Armstrong, Friday, July 22, 2011 10:23 PM (2 minutes ago)

what the hell is wrong with you man? he's offered incredible cuts in vital social programs, and it's still not enough to get republicans to approve it. the answer is none; the debt has nothing to do with unemployment being at 9.2% and there is no reason that budget cuts be specifically coupled to an increase in its limit. he should be (and in all likelihood is) exploring his options to either raise it without spending cuts (as mitch fucking mcconnell has proposed) or ignore the law altogether

Matt Armstrong has already hinted in other threads that it's a more plausible expenditure of energy to worry about President Palin and Bachmann.

When it comes to indefinite detention, starting non-wars in Libya, and aiming cruise missiles at American citizens abroad, the Office of Legal Counsel is imaginative and bold. I'd say what we've got on our hands is a genuine constitutional crisis that requires him to raise the debt ceiling on his own and watch the consequences.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:25 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah I'm down with this move.

i mean the answer certainly is not MORE than he's already offered

in obama's press conference today he said that his proposed changes to entitlement programs (not sure if he was just referring to medicare and medicaid there or to social security too) were to involve no change in… end-user quality, i guess. i.e. it sounded like the claim was, changes only via new efficiencies, not via 'real' cuts. but that's not the way almost everyone is talking. what's the white house reason for making that claim?

i mean the answer certainly is not MORE than he's already offered

― strongo hulkington's gay dad (k3vin k.), Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:39 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah if that wasn't enough, why bother? Plus Boehner made the terrible political decision to basically scurry away, so if/when he actually comes back to the table he'll probably the be the one who has to make concessions.

same reason a mother pretends her spoon holding her baby's food is an airplane? xp

I'm sorry for snapping at you, Matt; you're a bro. It's frustrating that this president has gone this far with accepting the Reaganite line that "entitlement programs" are "out of control" yet we're supposed to accept the terms of the debate. This afternoon's developments demonstrated, for the five thousandth time, that no matter how far or often Dems try to match or surpass the GOP in conservatism it isn't enough, and the voters respond by voting these dumb pussies out of office.

it's all good dawg

what do you guys think Obama should set as his maximum level of cuts in any deal here?

none ... tell the Teabags to go suck it, and exercise the 14th Amendment option.

i guess i have some problem w/ the "fuck the constitution, worry about it later" solution

well the idea of a debt limit itself is kind of fucking the constitution

We're not even sure it IS unconstitutional.

yeah it is, but i'm not sure if "hey, dick cheney routinely wiped his ass with the constitution in the most vile way possible" is justification for obama doing it, even if it's "the right thing to do"

"yeah it is" was a response to matt

it's definitely a "fuck the legislative branch" solution, and who doesn't love that?!?!

i mean the GOP may force him into that anyway, but i think it's easy to see why obama's background would lead him away from that option initially

being raised in kenya and all

i.e. someone who edited the harvard law review probably doesn't take the position of "we'll worry about the constitution later"

Not what I said. The Bush administration broke treaties as well as ignored the Constitution. When I used the Cheney example about giving the order to shoot down the planes, I meant taking advantage of a nebulous area of executive authority that had never been delineated.

It's frustrating that this president has gone this far with accepting the Reaganite line that "entitlement programs" are "out of control" yet we're supposed to accept the terms of the debate.

that is very frustrating, but it's hard to see what the alternative political response to the rapid rise of the deficit narrative over the past year was supposed to be. 'naw, we can just keep spending even more.'? 'that's dumb, study some econ you idiots.'?

When FDR created the AAA and NIRA the SCOTUS eviscerated them, on legitimate constitutional grounds perhaps; but his administration had already created the tolerance for bold executive action in a time of domestic crisis that put the public squarely on his side.

being raised in kenya a fucking pussy and all

fixed

"It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."

--FDR

It's frustrating that this president has gone this far with accepting the Reaganite line that "entitlement programs" are "out of control" yet we're supposed to accept the terms of the debate.

that is very frustrating, but it's hard to see what the alternative political response to the rapid rise of the deficit narrative over the past year was supposed to be. 'naw, we can just keep spending even more.'? 'that's dumb, study some econ you idiots.'?

― j., Friday, July 22, 2011 10:51 PM (1 minute ago)

the appropriate response would be to cut social security?

14th amendment option prob not gonna calm the markets

did someone already post this? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/opinion/22posner.html?_r=1&src=tptw

uses the precedent of lincoln suspending habeas corpus

What if there were inefficiencies in govt, and it wasn't just abt placating the masses?? That wd be crazy

to be precise, Lincoln did it, then Congress followed suit.

xpost

it would be hard to kick against the loudmouthed media pricks ... who have gotten it into their (empty, ignorant) heads that deficit reduction is priority #1 (the same people, BTW, who thought invading Iraq was a good idea and slept-walked through the real estate/financial derivatives bubble) ... but kicking against such pricks is kind of what a President is SUPPOSED to do during a crisis!

I know it's hindsight, etc but it was very clear in the Constitution that Congress could suspend habeas corpus in the event of a rebellion, which had clearly happened.

honestly i would say that he should after the breakdown today just go ahead and say "fuck it, i'm raising it" -- or at least make it clear to the GOP that he will do it -- but i guess it just makes me uncomfortable because i'm imagining 2 or 6 or 10 years down the road a GOP white house pointing to obama defying the constitution etc etc

Lol at "liberals" encouraging the pres to tell the legislative branch to fuck itself

By any means necessary I guess

The difference between Bush and Obama is that the paper trail clearly shows the degree to which Obama consulted the legislative branch.

xpost

but i guess it just makes me uncomfortable because i'm imagining 2 or 6 or 10 years down the road a GOP white house pointing to obama defying the constitution etc etc

understood. but the GOP is a honey badger, they don't care they don't give a shit they'll come up with another justification if that one isn't available.

Kicking media ppl is what a president is supposed to do, rlly? Is jon stewart busy

hey, if the president does it, that means it is not illegal

so deej thinks the cuts obama proposed were wise on their merits, got it

Gentlemen, we're eight hours overdue for a Morbzism. Anticipating these things is the result of coming home too early from happy hour.

Kicking media ppl is what a president is supposed to do, rlly? Is jon stewart busy

it's called "the bully pulpit" for a reason ... and morons and self-interested blowhards are spreading disinformation and disingenuous information and enabling reckless behavior on the part of legislators, then the President has every right to counter such disinformation and disingenuity and recklessness.

i think the president has much less of a bully pulpit than he once did

from the plum line post:

But the bottom line is that whether it’s associated with the debt limit or with FY 2012 spending bills, Republicans are going to get some of what they want, there’s no magic way — not the 14th amendment, not the McConnell plan, not brilliant negotiating or brilliant speeches by the man in the White House — to make that go away. What we’re seeing now, therefore, is Democrats coming to grips with that reality, and battling over what specific losses they should absorb.

it seems like he's arguing that a 'grand bargain' is more plausible than the mcconnell plan - where's the evidence for that? ezra klein disagrees, at least

lol but apparently this president believes the lies!

xpost

so deej thinks the cuts obama proposed were wise on their merits, got it

― strongo hulkington's gay dad (k3vin k.), Saturday, July 23, 2011 3:00 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont know if they were or not & afaik neither do you

I mean, he said not long before or after his inauguration that we needed "entitlement" cuts. I'm as guilty as anyone for underestimating his seriousness.

i think the president has much less of a bully pulpit than he once did

― J0rdan S., Friday, July 22, 2011 11:06 PM (1 minute ago)

idk, obama in particular has certainly been...selective wrt when to use it at least - i vaguely recall seeing some statistic showing he gave relatively few news conferences, could be misremembering

I mean, he said not long before or after his inauguration that we needed "entitlement" cuts. I'm as guilty as anyone for underestimating his seriousness.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, July 23, 2011 3:08 AM (27 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im in favor of the system existing obv & a beneficiary of the social safety net myself but when hes talking about lowering farm subsidies, im like \oO/

he said as much during one of his primary debates in early 2008 ... there was even an angry blogpost by Krugman regarding it!

Alright, deej, I'll bite: what's your suggestion?

What if there were inefficiencies in govt, and it wasn't just abt placating the masses?? That wd be crazy

― Gatsby was a success, in the end, wasn't he? (D-40), Friday, July 22, 2011 10:56 PM (12 minutes ago)

like in social security, for instance

laura ingraham's lead in subbing for o'reilly tonight, to characterize obama's ask in the negotiation breakdown: 'president obama wants more of YOUR money. … he proposes to get it by raising taxes on so-called rich people'

what is a bully pulpiteer supposed to do to combat a 24-hour stream of THAT?

at first, i thought that Obama's seeming sheepishness was some sort of under-calculation of how strong support was for certain liberal (or even just plain Democratic) policies and proposals were. it's become really apparent over the years, though, that Obama really BELIEVES a whole lot of shit that in the not-too-distant past would've been Republican shibboleths (e.g., entitlement spending is out of control, tax hikes are to be avoided at almost all cost, "you can't spend your way out of a recession," doing morally scuzzy things for "national security" reasons).

tax hikes are to be avoided at almost all cost

you think obama believes this?

He doesn't have to believe it -- he's shown it. He okayed the Bush tax cuts in December.

RFE: (Request For Egging)

If any ilxors live in the Washington D.C. area, would you all mind going down to the Capitol and waiting from some of the 80-or-so Tea Party-affiliated republican representatives to show their faces, then throw eggs at them? Thx!

p.s. they don't have to be rotten eggs - any eggs will do fine.

tax hikes are to be avoided at almost all cost

you think obama believes this?

actions speak louder than words ... he didn't exactly put up much of a fight when it came to letting the Bush tax cuts expire. (then again, neither did the Dems in Congress.) and even though he said he'd repeal tax cuts only for those earning $250K+, keeping lower rates for income below that amount isn't going to help plug the deficit (if deficit reduction really WAS what Obama wanted).

xpost w/ Alfred

you think obama believes this?

― iatee, Friday, July 22, 2011 1

Watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yam5_l69qp4

well apparently Obama actually believes that global warming is a grave problem and he's done a terrific job of hiding it.

as for DC insiders, i think this is going through their heads right now re Obama:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTGn0nvFYXA

eh, I think this was Boehner's day to look like a pussy

unless you're saying DC insiders want to fuck Obama's pussy

really elevating the discourse here guys

needs more punctuation marks

would happily throw eggs at the next person to use 'obama,' 'compromise,' and 'lincoln' in the same breath.

the thing abt lincoln is it's impossible to know what his "true" feelings were and thus hard to know when he was "compromising"--chances are his opinions evolved over the course of his presidency.

mordy armstron

― strongo hulkington's gay dad (k3vin k.), Friday, July 22, 2011 10:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

lol u clearly don't get my politics at all

seriously dude? you'd rather romney or rick perry take charge?

i'm just now getting back to this, so this has probably already been mentioned, but without going to more abstract notions of whether or not you should vote for someone you don't trust, i live in maryland, and obama's going to win there no matter what i do. so no, i'd rather eat shit and die than see romney or perry take charge, but my not voting for obama doesn't really matter. if, for some reason, romney and obama are neck and neck on the night before election, i'll certainly think twice.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/mormon-mitt-romney-not-christian-says-fox-news-host/2011/07/18/gIQArzb1LI_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/mormon-mitt-romney-not-christian-says-fox-news-host/2011/07/18/gIQArzb1LI_blog.html

― Mordy, Friday, July 22, 2011 11:25 PM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh, well, in that case...

idk if he can win, but it doesn't look great for him

lol at that article treating it like she 'believes' that instead of it being a totally intentional undermining

mordy i was alluding to the pointless barrage of questions

questions r hard!

in response to the "do you just want to say fuck the constitution" stuff: i think one of the things that's disappointing to some people about obama (i think it's one of the things that's disappointing to me about him) is that like only a handful of other presidents, several of whom we remember quite fondly, he took power during a major crisis -- the financial collapse and destruction of faith in our plutocratic overlords -- and had the chance to approach that crisis by using his (enormous, post-bush) executive powers to make, or at least push for, the kinds of huge serious long-term changes to the republic that are only possible at the convergence of crisis & executive will. that sort of thing is of course in a way tyrannical, but we love those of our presidents who went for it anyway: lincoln's weird quasi-mystical obsession with a Union that hadn't really ever been set in the kind of stone he claimed (but which certainly had been when he was through); fdr's adorably pragmatic try-everything approach to the depression (people don't have jobs? make up some jobs. people don't have money? print money!). these are huge oversteps of executive power but the public will accept it if they think the situation calls for it (they certainly accepted bush's, for example) and these tend to be the presidents who hit the top 5 because these are the presidents who reinvent the country, who keep it breathing; and it's for the other branches, and for the tyrants' less titanic successors, to review and prune and downscale afterwards.

those of us who think that there are serious unsustainable problems with the way government+business operate and intersect in this country can't hold out much hope for anything to change through the normal channels, because blockage in the normal channels is the whole problem; all we can hope for is one of these guys. but obama isn't one -- he thinks of himself as Mature and Conciliatory and Nonpartisan; he wants to be like lincoln, who appointed democrats to his cabinet, but he doesn't have anything like lincoln's knack for maintaining total control beneath the appearance of being affably adrift. he let the criminal plutocrats walk; he gave up on the public option immediately; he shoveled concessions the republicans' way during this debt-ceiling thing, all in the name of Balance. it's also of course possible that he's kinda right-wing.

naturally it's pretty petulant to fault a president for not being abraham lincoln or fdr and it's not obama's fault that he isn't, but that's why people are disappointed: because that's what the moment needed, and it's not what the moment got. 9/11 was arguably similar.

it might also be less frustrating if he weren't, on the other hand, so cheerfully into the parts of expanding executive powers that involve bombing people or tapping phones.

that seems like a sound analysis. but the problem seems to go even further. i just don't understand how we get here: we elected a democratic president on a broadly center-left platform. two years later the GOP takes a majority in the house, and now we're giving away the store -- cutting the very social programs that should be the democrats' raison d'etre while holding firm for only the most marginal revenue increases. with the balance of power, in theory, still tilted ever so slightly to the democrats, how did we end up in a position where voices for the gov't as a progressive force are struggling to have even a tiny part in this process? does the GOP simply have such a stranglehold over the 'cognitive framing' of these issues that obama et al can't or won't wrestle out from under them?

obama says he's doing this, essentially, to take the deficit off the table as an issue, allowing him to push more of his agenda. but what his agenda at this point? i'm not talking about gay marriage or any of that stuff, which seems so much of a sideshow to me honestly. i mean what is his socio-economic agenda? what's left of it once these cuts take place?

we hoped that we were electing a democratic president on a broadly center-left platform but three years later it seems pretty clear that what we were actually doing was electing a standard-issue corporatist with a better pitch than most, and what we're fighting over now is whether we're gonna have that standard-issue corporatism or the weird psycho randian thing that's developed in the gop. technically the former is "better" but either way the problem of government disconnection from the people and obeisance to the corporations remains, and the opportunity's lost; voices for the government as a progressive force are struggling because they don't have the kind of money you need and obama doesn't care about them the way they thought he did.

but what his agenda at this point?

i get why this is confusing, and i wonder about it too, but in the absence of a decent explanation we might as well go with occam's: his agenda is what he proposes.

that frank rich piece made the argument that economically obama is impressed by and beholden to the Serious Men he met at harvard, and thinks -- even if he loves the public option and tax hikes for the rich in his secret socialist heart -- that entitlement cuts and minimal new taxes are what mature adults support, no matter how his party's immature ideologues in the legislature complain. but i dunno.

Isn't his agenda beside the point? He can only accomplish certain things.

ohhh

once when i was 12 i bought a very heavy plaster human skull in a tourist-trap shop in stratford-upon-avon, and the guy indicated that we should haggle, and i got all excited about haggling because previously i'd only seen it done by cool streetwise characters in fantasy novels. the guy said "twenty" and i said "fifteen", and then because i was just so thrilled and nervous to be haggling i immediately said "eighteen!" and the guy said "you're supposed to wait until i say something."

anyway if obama really wants higher taxes for the rich and to preserve Democratic social programs he should stop haggling like me.

there's a difference between what he ends up with after haggling and "what he proposes."

Obama's primary goal seems to be political success, not any sort of major policy achievement. Healthcare reform was Pelosi's doing, not his.

Political success in the current situation is extremely important.

I should stay out of this, but I've made this point before: you were haggling with someone who wanted to haggle and who understood the concept of give-and-take (and was even ready to teach it to you). When you said 15, he didn't come back with 24; when you blurted out 18, he didn't say, "Now this is where I say 27, and we keep going like that."

his initial proposals, even before he gave ground after republican refusals, were already -- well we can argue about the merits of them but let's just say way righter-wing than i had hoped for from a member of the leftest real party we have. and they might have been accepted cheerfully were the gop not in their own bizarre situation w/r/t the fringe. and when they were refused they immediately got even sweeter for the right, so naturally they were refused again.

there's also the question of selling this stuff to the public, which should have been the easiest thing in the world considering how enraged everyone was after the collapse. the press conference he gave today actually had a little fire in it, so i dunno maybe everything is gonna change all of a sudden, but otherwise all he's been doing is petulantly lecturing the "far left" about how you "can't get everything you want". well what can you get? can we at least fight a little?

the whole Is It His Fault All The Options Are So Right-Wing debate has been had a million times in this thread and its predecessors, with people who know more than i do arguing my side, so we probably shouldn't spiral into it again. i just wanted to explain where the disappointment is coming from: who this guy might have been and why it's a pity he wasn't.

Your analogy was very good, and in sane times, I'd agree with it 100%. I understand frustration/anger with Obama. I know these are mundane details that seem distant, but I often wonder if things would have proceeded differently if he'd had 62 or 63 solid Senate seats from the outset, instead of 60 including Nelson, Lieberman, and a couple of others. Most seem to have concluded it wouldn't have made any difference, Obama is who he is. I don't know. I did just finish reading this overview of default and found it scary. I don't know who to believe on that anymore either--and don't understand economics well enough to figure it out for myself--but I try to factor in the possibility that the picture presented here is accurate.

http://www.slate.com/id/2299460/

Even if you get to 62 or 63, is that safe? It would be interesting to see what happened if it was an even bigger majority. If there was a real mandate across the nation.

let's chill with the use of the word "pussy", eh?

feel like i walked into a political discussion between the three smart guys in alpha tau omega

if we default and society collapses i'm planning to just become a regional warlord.

did someone say pussy?

oh i see it now never mind

(xxpost) I think it's more like a hell-freezes-over moment--two-thirds of the floor held by these dreaded neo-Gabbnebs. (I now put down "neo-Gabbneb" for gender, marital status, and ethnicity on all goverment forms I fill out.)

let's chill with the use of the word "pussy", eh?

― J0rdan S., Saturday, July 23, 2011 6:36 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

ty

dlh killin it imo

oh yeah: good luck usa

Good morning!

Political success in the current situation is extremely important.

Political success in the current situation is always extremely important, no matter what the current situation is, though - I mean you have to admit that that's always the line: "I'd agree with you, but we have to win here"

what happened to Gabbneb and why is Neo-Gabbnebism now a label here?

what happened to Gabbneb

sonned by Vordul in a revenge beef irrc

Even if you get to 62 or 63, is that safe? It would be interesting to see what happened if it was an even bigger majority. If there was a real mandate across the nation.

― timellison, Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:33 AM (8 hours ago)

if this wasn't the case in 2008, it will never be the case

"Boehner, however, said the $400 billion demand on taxes came suddenly when the Senate's Gang of Six announced their deal, which included roughly about $1.2 trillion in revenue raisers. Just the day before, the White House countered, Boehner had asked that any deal include a repeal of the individual mandate in the healthcare reform law, including the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which were non-starters for the administration."

what an asshole

This headline made me lol very hard because I took the term in quotes to be an adjective modifying "programs"

“I have gone out of my way to make compromises,” the president added.

is the new

"We believe we have compromised significantly, and we're prepared to compromise further," Kerry said.

and look how well kerry's compromises worked out for the climate change bill!

Even if you get to 62 or 63, is that safe? It would be interesting to see what happened if it was an even bigger majority. If there was a real mandate across the nation.

― timellison, Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:33 AM (8 hours ago)

I think it would have even made a big difference if it was just 60 with someone other than Lieberman being 60th.

How can these guys with a straight face demand constitutional amendments and cutting the health care mandate then claim Obama was not negotiating in good faith? I honestly can't figure out the strategy at work here, because as noted above, playing to the base or not, not everyone in the GOP is insane.

well they talked for an hour today, i'm sure everything got settled

Threatening to carry out psychotic actions counts as a bargaining chip in the GOP, so failing to act sufficiently insane causes the threats to lose some of their punch. Ah, but if they force the country over an economic cliff? It sure fixes that problem!

Perhaps a good shorthand for the GOP threats would be economic-murder/political-suicide.

If there was a real mandate across the nation.

Republican mandate: Bush stealing an election, Senate split 50-50

Democratic mandate: cannot exist

Mr. Obama, in fact, had already gone much too far in trying to make his deal palatable to House Republicans, offering to cut spending even further than the deficit plan proposed this week by the bipartisan “Gang of Six,” which includes some of the Senate’s most conservative members. The White House was willing to cut $1 trillion in domestic and defense spending and another $650 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and even Social Security.

Much of that savings would have come from raising the eligibility age for Medicare benefits and reducing the cost-of-living increases that elderly people depend on when receiving their health and pension benefits. It could have caused significant damage to some of the nation’s most vulnerable people.

these are the inefficiencies deej was referring to fwiw

Democratic mandate: cannot exist*

*until we get rid of the senate

Perhaps a good shorthand for the GOP threats would be economic-murder/political-suicide.

― Aimless, Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:42 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

the thing is, i fully expect these guys to win a ton of elections next year.

I have trouble understanding how you guys see through all the theater tbh

which?

Republican mandate: Bush stealing an election, Senate split 50-50

Democratic mandate: cannot exist

― you call it trollin' i call it steamrollin' (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 23 July 2011 19:53 (2 hours ago)

Bush didn't do shit, nor have a "mandate" after he won his first election; it wasn't until 9/11 (and big wins in 2002 and 2004) that he flexed his muscles.

He didn't have a mandate but he famously claimed to have one. He said something like "I've got political capital, now I'm going to spend it" even though he got less than half of less than half of the population to vote for him.

Morbz is saying that Bush acted as if he had a mandate from the beginning. Remember the defection of Jim Jeffords that May?

He didn't have a mandate but he famously claimed to have one. He said something like "I've got political capital, now I'm going to spend it" even though he got less than half of less than half of the population to vote for him.
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Saturday, July 23, 2011 10:13 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

This quote was after his re-election.

he enacted, and the Congress approved, EGTRRA (the bill with all of those tax cuts that should've expired last December) in the summer of 2001, before 9/11.

Rumbled! I guess it all blends together for me. He always acted like he'd won a landslide, anyway.

Rumbled! I guess it all blends together for me. He always acted like he'd won a landslide, anyway.

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Sunday, July 24, 2011 1:39 AM (2 seconds ago) Bookmark

Well at first he was very conciliatory and blew a lot of smoke about being a "uniter." After 9/11 we got the dramatic expansion of presidential powers that might be his lasting legacy.

he enacted, and the Congress approved, EGTRRA (the bill with all of those tax cuts that should've expired last December) in the summer of 2001, before 9/11.

― My name is Frunze. Learn it well it is the chilling sound of your doom (Eisbaer), Sunday, July 24, 2011 1:31 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

This is true, but it hardly was because of a (real or perceived) mandate. That thing cruised through congress, to the everlasting shame of every Democrat who helped it happen.

I didn't mean to imply that his administration was "chastened" or whatever. But they definitely took on a different attitude after 9/11 and especially the 2002 elections.

Democrats used their mandate in 2008 to try and reform healthcare. And what they got wasn't wholly satisfying, becuase while it was easy to find a Democratic Senator in 2001 who wanted to make the rich richer, it was impossible to find a Republican Senator in 2009 who gave a fuck about the uninsured. What that DOESN'T mean is that the Democrats were scared of using their mandate.

yeah I mean 'mandate' doesn't mean much w/r/t anything that requires a vote in congress. you've either got the votes (tax cuts when we had a surplus and everything was obv gonna be peachy forever w/ the american economy, hey sure no prob) or you don't.

The GOP's insistence on these ridiculous measures gives the impression that Grover Norquist has explosive devices planted in all of their scrota or something.

one thing that's definitely different between Bush and Obama is that Bush used his narrow electoral victories to nominate really radical SCOTUS nominees and Obama pretty much chickened out.

I'll even give Bush credit and say he didn't nominate "radical" SCOTUS nominees. Robert Bork was radical in 1987; by 2006 Roberts and Alito were not radical. Obama's problem was not nominating Diane Wood and others who were the liberal equivalents of Roberts and Alito.

he wasn't willing to face the wrath of the harvard alumni club

we may be just used to the court being a largely shitty conservative hub at this point but roberts and (moreso imo) alito are pretty radical; they're two of the five most conservative justices of the past 75 years

i THINK that what alfred was getting at was that in 1987 Bork was radical w/n the context of the early days of the Rehnquist Court (Scalia had only been on the Court for about a year or two at that point, and Rehnquist was still considered pretty far-right) and all of the pre-Reagan liberal/moderate judges hadn't been sequestered out of the court system. by the 2000s, we had bona fide hard-right judges throughout the entire federal court system, GOP senators holding up nominations of judges not conservative enough for their liking, travesties such as gore v. bush -- and in that context, Roberts and Alito weren't radical.

Right; that's the whole genius of the right wing in this country in the past thirty years or so, which, for all sorts of reasons, some legitimate, some otherwise, the left wing has been unable/unwilling to counteract. No one (with any real power, because they weren't ~serious~ enough) on the left has been comfortable with making a concerted, systematic attempt at moving the center.

If this were pure horserace; if the fact of the last thirty-odd years of electoral politics didn't mean that, practically, I really should rush into marriage because my freelancing ass couldn't handle the expense of even a minor health issue, etc., etc., I'd have a deep, admiring respect for the right wing, as they've really worked very hard and intelligently to make their idea of what this country should be into a reality.

It doesn't exactly hurt the conservatives that they have the staunch backing of several thousand far right activists with net worths exceeding $500 million. Concentrated wealth can focus its efforts and attract talented hired guns. OTOH, most of the passion has gone out of the left, which was once its deepest asset.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/politics/25legal.html

Yeah, nice trap there. The one way out for Obama is the one way that is likely to provoke a constitutional challenge.

Obama should go passive aggressive and simply cut the parts of the budgets that go to the districts of the Reps railing against raising the debt ceiling. Like, there you go guys! Problem solved! Have fun!

Pretty sure those reps gave to vote on the budget at some point.

i'm not really sure what the courts could do in that situation - there are a lot of uncertianties to this path (impeachment isn't one of them, it'd probably be certain), but options are running out. impeachment might even be good for democrats

xp

xpost Clearly they don't have to vote, ever.

Anyway:

"I'm going to do my best to work with my Congressional colleagues, my House Republican colleagues, to be able to put a framework out there today," Boehner said. "I would prefer to have a bipartisan approach to solace this problem. If that's not possible, I and my Republican colleagues in the House are prepared to move on our own. Today."

How fucking disingenuous, given that his idea of a bipartisan plan is a Republican plan that the Democrats vote for. So oh noes, Boehner and the Republicans will instead "move on their own" and, I suppose, offer a plan ... identical to what they've been offering, Or perhaps even more onerous! I can see it now. "We offered you a chance to vote on our modest plan with lots of spending cuts, more tax cuts, a Constitutional fucking amendment and the repeal of the health care mandate. No more Mr. Nice Guy compromise! Now we're throwing in an abortion ban, too, and mandatory gun ownership!"

Wonder how the country would weather a second second term presidential impeachment trial. Obama for sure would be kicking himself for wasting his political capital for the good of the country rather than on blowjobs.

the meme republican rank-and-files are trying to make happen about how "cut, cap, and balance" was 'bipartisan' is kind of hilarious - apparently all we need these days is five democratic house votes and a bill has 'bipartisan support'.

Right; that's the whole genius of the right wing in this country in the past thirty years or so, which, for all sorts of reasons, some legitimate, some otherwise, the left wing has been unable/unwilling to counteract. No one (with any real power, because they weren't ~serious~ enough) on the left has been comfortable with making a concerted, systematic attempt at moving the center.

ideas like "moving the center" lead to an overly simplistic take. actually...it's not a bad way to look at the supreme court, a handful of people who basically operate like pre-programmed robots...

but national policy is more complicated and issues are always in flux. there are issues where the "center" has shifted radically (gay marriage) there are issues where the "center" hasn't shifted radically in the long-term (abortion). on many economic issues I'd agree that the center has shifted pretty far right, but that still requires context.

there were smart, sane, democrats in the 90s who felt like we were in a great moderation, alan greenspan was 'the maestro', deregulation wasn't a bad word. moderate-left summers/delong types *do not believe the same things that they did in the 90s* - and not because they were corrupt or because the right-wing 'shifted the center', but because the world changed and there was solid evidence that some things they believed were not true.

and yes - imo they probably deserve more responsibility for shifting the center than the republicans do. but the context is - there was a brief time period when it seemed like you could believe those things without being absolutely insane.

and the left-left at the time spent more energy on things like global poverty, 'globalization', than many of the national issues that get our attention today, like financial deregulation. not that you can separate those aforementioned topics, but the economic narrative for every group (left-of-center democrat, left-left, republican, right-wing republican) is different today than it was 10 or 20 or 40 years ago.

Obama's decision to put Social Security cuts on the table seems to have given cover for the Republicans to say that they'll do that and of course make the proposed cuts even larger (but that will be part 2 of the latest Boehner plan)

the "left-left" has spent the past few decades concentrating on issues that seemed marginal or irrelevant to middle-class Americans. (not that those issues were unworthy of attention, but third-world poverty and inner-city disenfranchisement has limited appeal to folks living in the suburbs). of course, some of those issues (esp. globalization and its nasty offshoot offshoring/outsourcing) have become very relevant to middle-class Americans -- but that wasn't how those issues were pitched at the time.

we are so fucked

Debt ceiling negotiators think they've hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public's unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.

This "Super Congress," composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers -- six from each chamber and six from each party.

Legislation approved by the Super Congress -- which some on Capitol Hill are calling the "super committee" -- would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn't be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who'd have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.

cut the god damn mortgage deduction! go super congress!

how do we become members of this club

move to North Dakota?

if anyone wants a good cry, count the number of nonstarters proposed in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/business/economy/tax-and-spend-but-keep-your-balance-economic-view.html

how does that even begin to sound like a good idea to a city full of people who walk around with constitutions in their pockets?

#supercongress

we are so fucked

Debt ceiling negotiators think they've hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public's unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.

This "Super Congress," composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers -- six from each chamber and six from each party.

Legislation approved by the Super Congress -- which some on Capitol Hill are calling the "super committee" -- would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn't be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who'd have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, July 24, 2011 8:32 PM (27 minutes ago)

this....this...is an onion article, right?

at the very least the writer correctly used "composed" instead of "comprised" - i'll take comfort in that while we're drowning in our debt

ultracongress

think big you fuckers

super suicide pact, who's with me

the super congress thing was from a huffington post article from yesterday, right? and it doesn't seem like any other major news outlet has picked it up. so i'm hoping it was based off of a lone, terrible, lying source?

still leaves room for moderation and radical abandon, i guess.

'i support the supercongress but a megacongress is going too far'

'we can't solve the problems facing our nation with the worn-out thinking of a megacongress, these times call for an ultracongress'

has any reputable place published about super congress?

"At the point at which the economy is melting down, who cares what the Supreme Court is going to say?” Professor Balkin said. “It’s the president’s duty to save the Republic.”

has any reputable place published about super congress?

Maximum Rock N Roll came out against it I think

hmmm, i'm seeing it on a slate blog, boston globe blog...and the daily mail.

but all linked back to the huffpo article? also, who is the source for this? "Debt ceiling negotiators." Uh- okay!

the proposal for a super congress was earlier today traced back to the Fortress of Solitude, sources confirm

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1Mb4yyprziM/Sgx_hnoaGoI/AAAAAAAAAGg/sPUfbZBNbZ8/s320/Panels2.gif

...wait a second, I found it! the source of the Super Congress story is

http://i51.tinypic.com/hwe16d.jpg

what do you have to say for yourself, Mitch Ehrlington of Woodbridge, KY?

vince cable, the business secretary for her majesty's tory coalition government, has called the republicans a bunch of "nutters"

uh

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24friedman.html

was this posted yet?

Thanks to a quiet political start-up that is now ready to show its hand, a viable, centrist, third presidential ticket, elected by an Internet convention, is going to emerge in 2012. I know it sounds gimmicky — an Internet convention — but an impressive group of frustrated Democrats, Republicans and independents, called Americans Elect, is really serious, and they have thought out this process well. In a few days, Americans Elect will formally submit the 1.6 million signatures it has gathered to get on the presidential ballot in California as part of its unfolding national effort to get on the ballots of all 50 states for 2012.

The center in between Obama and Romney is what exactly?

lol

Mitch Ehrlington is the center iirc

REID:
"In an effort to reach a bipartisan compromise, we are putting together a $2.7 trillion deficit reduction package that meets Republicans' two major criteria: it will include enough spending cuts to meet or exceed the amount of a debt ceiling raise through the end of 2012, and it will not include revenues. We hope Speaker Boehner will abandon his 'my way or the highway' approach, and join us in forging a bipartisan compromise along these lines."

where is the compromise in this? that it doesn't give into the absurd demands to repeal health care reform or attempt to disastrously amend the constitution?

alright, man with the gun, let's compromise. i agree to give you whatever you want, and you agree to not shoot me and everyone else in the room.

"Mitch Erlington" sounds like a politician in a Batman movie.

Thomas Friedman predicts a third party revolution every presidential election.

The center in between Obama and Romney is what exactly?

I think Barry Goldwater

btw if 'Supercongress' was real I wd def join any leftwing Coffee Party to overthrow this fucker

I hope we elect Supercongress for president.

supercongress will be worth it just for the amount of supercongress jokes we'll get to make

alright, man with the gun, let's compromise. i agree to give you whatever you want, and you agree to not shoot me and everyone else in the room.

pretty good compromise tbf

It wd be like that time in the '60s the Chicago Cubs had a committee of managers, and we'd get similar results.

xp

postsverymuchincharacter

alright, man with the gun, let's compromise. i agree to give you whatever you want, and you agree to not shoot me and everyone else in the room.

― future events are now current events (Z S), Sunday, July 24, 2011 9:26 PM (14 minutes ago)

this is actually a perfect analogy, no joke

WOODBRIDGE - In a noble act of bipartisanship, a 7-hour hostage situation at First Trust National Bank ended when a courageous bankteller agreed to give the gunman all of the money in the bank. In return, the compromising hostagetaker agreed not to shoot everyone.

krugman links to a forthcoming Elizabeth Drew article I haven't read yet, but looks interesting:

Drew:
It all goes back to the “shellacking” Obama took in the 2010 elections. The President’s political advisers studied the numbers and concluded that the voters wanted the government to spend less. This was an arguable interpretation. Nevertheless, the political advisers believed that elections are decided by middle-of-the-road independent voters, and this group became the target for determining the policies of the next two years.

Krugman:
As I recall, two things happened last year: voters were angry about the weak economy, and older voters believed that Obama was going to take away their Medicare and send them to the death panels. And so the way to win those voters back is to cut Medicare and weaken the economy?

A further point: even if Obama really does cut spending, will anyone notice? Even people who are supposedly well informed believe that there was a vast expansion of government under Obama, when in fact there wasn’t. So we’re supposed to believe that independent voters will actually be able to cut through the fog — the deliberate fog of Fox, the he-said-she-said of most other media organizations — and give him credit for spending cuts? Remember, whatever he does Republicans will claim that the government is getting bigger — and news organization will report only that “Democrats say” that this isn’t true.

What a disaster.

'studied the numbers' = now had to deal w/ the current composition of congress

I'm usually skeptical of Drew's reporting -- she loves anonymous sources -- but the pace of her narrative is impeccable, and this makes sense:

This all fits with another development in the Obama White House. According to another close observer, David Plouffe, the manager of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, who officially joined the White House staff in January 2011, has taken over. “Everything is about the reelect,” this observer says—”where the President goes, what he does.”

Plouffe’s advice to the President defines not just Obama’s policies but also his behavior. Plouffe tells the President, according to this observer, that the target group wants him to seem the most reasonable man in the room. Plouffe is the conceptualizer, and Bill Daley, the chief of staff who shares Plouffe’s political outlook, makes things happen; Gene Sperling, the director of economic policy, and Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, are smart men but they come out of politics rather than academia or deep experience in their respective fields. Once Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, departs later this summer, all of the President’s original economic advisers will be gone. Partly this is because the President’s emphasis on budget cutting didn’t leave them very much to do. One White House émigré told me, “It’s not a place that welcomes ideas.”

According to another close observer, David Plouffe, the manager of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, who officially joined the White House staff in January 2011, has taken over.

this was, a really enjoyable sentence, to, read.

r j, g

lol u all think that Obama cares what us plebes think. he cares what "serious people" think (i.e., the serious people who had no problem with invading Iraq and slept on subprime mortgages and securities derived therefrom). Obama thinks non-Teabags will vote for him b/c OMIGOD SCARY THEY HATE GAYS AND ABORTION!!

which may be what Krugman and Drew are getting at here.

Because of the extent to which the President had allowed the Republicans to set the terms of the debate, the attitude of numerous congressional Democrats toward him became increasingly sour, even disrespectful. After Obama introduced popular entitlement programs into the budget fight, a Democratic senator described the attitude of a number of his colleagues as:

Resigned disgust at the White House: there they go again. “Mr. Halfway” keeps getting maneuvered around as Republicans move the goalposts on him.

Definitely sympathize with their disgust, and lol at 'mr. halfway', but why aren't these senators prominently making efforts to move the goalposts back to the left?

they're just as worried about reelection as Mr. Halfway?

the congressional Dems were the ones who too pussy to refrained from taking action to let the Bush tax cuts expire when they had the chance to do so last summer ... thereby paving way for Obama to cave on the issue this winter. so LOL at the thought of them growing a pair now.

The antitax position of many conservatives would seem to be illogical, since they also hate deficits: but their real aim is to reduce or eliminate federal programs. They call efforts to redistribute wealth “socialism,” but have no problem redistributing from the poor and middle class to the wealthy through taxes, as set forth in Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which the House approved on April 15. Under the Ryan plan, the taxes of the richest one percent of Americans would be cut in half, while taxes would be raised on most of the middle class. People earning over $1 million would be taxed at a lower effective rate than the middle class.

burn

yes, let's keep using the word "pussy"

Jordan, you are a delight. Just reading here cos everyone else is more widely-read and thoughtful than I, but thank you for being you today.

i did strike out "pussy" in my last post ...

oh you're right, it's not even there!

...anyway

lol u all think that Obama cares what us plebes think. he cares what "serious people" think (i.e., the serious people who had no problem with invading Iraq and slept on subprime mortgages and securities derived therefrom). Obama thinks non-Teabags will vote for him b/c OMIGOD SCARY THEY HATE GAYS AND ABORTION!!

which may be what Krugman and Drew are getting at here.

― My name is Frunze. Learn it well it is the chilling sound of your doom (Eisbaer), Monday, July 25, 2011 2:26 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

excellent mindreading professor x

you've brought a lot to the table recently, ombudsman d

yes, let's keep using the word "pussy"

look I kinda couldn't help this and plus I had to look up how to link to the specific time so appreciate what I do for you J0rdan ty xo ua

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eKA9MO92xQ#t=2m23s

and after all that I did it wrong

fuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXtqiFOx8qs

fuck i did not know there was a video for that!

WOW AT THAT VIDEO

yeah it's basically porn

NSGW btw!

NSFW*

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=68611

^^^

guys can we please please please do "neo-gabbnebs in the supercongress"

I thought I might start a support group for Super-Gabnebbs.

dudes what the hell is happening here

can somebody please reassure me that barack obama is not about to gut medicare

also some kind of indication that the world's biggest economy isn't going to default would be nice

there's something happening here

and we don't know what it is

republicans have been bluffing from day 1. the various plans thrown around now are delaying the eventual ceiling raise bill to very close to the deadline.

$1.9 trillion. This is the amount by which the debt limit would have to be raised to implement the House Republican budget through 2012. Those who voted for this budget, which includes all but five members of the Republican caucus, explicitly endorsed policies that would produce this amount of additional debt. So there should be no dispute about having to raise the debt limit accordingly.

I'm sure using logic on them will work like it always has

there's something happening here

― you call it trollin' i call it steamrollin' (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 25, 2011 2:35 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and we don't know what it is

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 25, 2011 2:35 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

do we, dr. morbz

i kinda thought morbz was quoting buffalo springfield?

you thought that, for what it's worth

I think Obama should just ban abortion now to prove his good-faith bipartisan negotiating credibility. That move would earn him so many chits he'd be able to do whatever he wants in his second term.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m0yCM5uhQU (xp)

I think these are cogent musings on the topic "Is There Life After Obamamania?"

Obama-induced disillusionment has yet to translate into resistance within Democratic ranks, much less rebellion. Liberals are still on board, though the so-called enthusiasm gap of 2010 is likely to grow. In a healthier political climate, there would be a flourishing Dump Obama movement. As of now, there is not even an inkling of one....

How did we get to this point? The easy answer is that it’s the corporations’ fault, especially Wall Street’s ...It is widely understood too that rotten jurisprudence, handed down by a retrograde Supreme Court, is at least partly to blame.

All this is true... Nevertheless, the underlying condition that makes all this possible remains largely unacknowledged. This is because liberals and “progressives” took Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that “there is no alternative,” TINA, too much to heart. Thatcher herself had in mind alternatives to whatever neo-liberal machination she was promoting at the time. That kind of TINAism has long been a dead letter. But the implicit claim that there is no alternative to capitalism itself survives; indeed, it has come to be the conventional wisdom in what passes for a Left in the Land of the Free.

http://counterpunch.org/levine07252011.html

Just one narrow point as they all trot out to present their latest plans--the 1984-ish assertion from Republicans that by seeking a deal that extends beyond the election, Obama wants these negotiations to be about the election. Obviously, it's exactly the opposite--a 2013 deal would remove all this insanity from the election. As Frum pointed out today, arguing this all over again a few months from now will bring all sorts of other stuff (Ryan, etc.) back to the forefront that could backfire on Republicans; if there's no debt ceiling to argue about, though, Obama is left with the economy and the unemployment rate front and center. But for whatever reason--most likely the can't-take-yes-for-an-answer idea--they want a two-part deal that makes sure a rerun lands squarely in the middle of the election.

Eh, I see what the republicans are doing. If Obama gets his 2013, then he can run saying he successfully negotiated, not to mention did a lot of the onerous things "independents" purport to like. If he doesn't, then the republicans do exactly what they're doing now, only then Obama won't have much time to recover and therefore becomes more vulnerable. Not to mention how rallying the stupid base - as in, base of stupid people - generally benefits the republicans. There is no good reason for the Republicans to cooperate at all.

Basically, Obama is fucked when it comes to strategery, because even if he somehow "wins" this Pyrrhic victory, he's still got the economy as his albatross.

Which would've been a problem anyway because the job numbers suck.

But Supercongress is going to solve that.

lol

Eh, I see what the republicans are doing. If Obama gets his 2013, then he can run saying he successfully negotiated, not to mention did a lot of the onerous things "independents" purport to like.

You might be right, but I think they're nuts if they actually believe that that would carry a lot of weight in 2012 in the face of an anemic economy and still-awful unemployment numbers. Bush I couldn't even sell "I won a war" in the face of an economy that wasn't nearly as bad as this one (although that economy was 100% his, and Obama still benefits from divided feelings on who's most responsible for the current one). My explanation would be a) fear that a long-term deal somehow stabilizes the economy in a way that eventually helps Obama (maybe it helps reassure all those job-creators who allegedly won't hire because of "uncertainty"), and b) the bigger reason, the one that is clearer all the time, the pathological inability to agree to anything, no matter how favorable to their side.

do we definitely think that there is no chance they've gone for the, how about instead of strategising, we just go CRAZY - they'll never expect it route? like unpredictable GOP. wildcard GOP. just who knows what they'll do next GOP. chaos campaigning.

The number of things the American people have put up with, or even outright encouraged, despite an anemic economy and still-awful unemployment numbers is disheartening at best, distressing at worst. Recall, this is the same America that constantly polls in favor of higher taxes and smaller government; pro Medicare and pro draconian spending cuts; pro Obama and anti-Congress, yet pro electing members of Congress who are anti-Obama. Basically, a post-partisan clusterfuck.

Schlump may be onto something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND31PWVW-TQ

Boehner tweetz: "POTUS wants a $2.4T blank check to get him through the next election, w/out cuts that exceed the hike. This is indefensible."

Normally when I pay my credit card bill, I don't refer to the check that I write to cover it as a "blank check".

you guys...i think this Boehner character might be a bit disingenuous at times!!

I've kinda taken it for granted that corporate oligarchs control the political process, sorta sad to see how little control they actually exert over the wingnut faction of the GOP

can't always have it both ways big guy

http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/51CVH797H1L._SS500_.jpg

-The Movie Minute

why does boehner get an address too?

fair and balanced coverage

"new roads and bridges" = socialism

really thought bam was gonna mention the three-fifths compromise when he said america was a "great experiment in compromises or whatever"

hey boehner the us government isnt like the fucking shoe store you used to run or whatever you did before getting elected

he was in charge of a bag of dicks iirc

someone write a super congress theme song to the tune of SAN DIEGO SUPER CHARGERS

Boehner is a f---g clown.

nobody would put him in charge of something as important as a bag of dicks

Not true -- he's Speaker of the House.

Republicans seem to get bad breaks on the production end of things--Boehner sounded like he was speaking in an echo chamber (an actual echo chamber, I mean).

That was incredible. Great speech and then all of a sudden the fog of obscurity descends.

wow dude you're a bigger stan than deej

Not true -- he's Speaker of the House.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, July 25, 2011 6:31 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

well played

john boehner is seriously an idiot.

lol alfred

Speaker of the House of Dicks

him & mcconnell strike me as dudes that understand what the fuck is going on they're just major, unrelenting assholes

now, eric cantor is a fucking dumbass, while also being a major, unrelenting asshole

eric cantor has basically convinced me to "like" john boehner in the same way that glenn beck convinced me to "like" bill oreilly

yeah I have less trouble with Boehner, a ruddy satrap struggling to hold together an insurgency, than with Cantor and Ryan.

eric cantor has basically convinced me to "like" john boehner in the same way that glenn beck convinced me to "like" bill oreilly

― max, Monday, July 25, 2011 9:43 PM (13 seconds ago) Bookmark

MAX OTM WOW

altho for me replace glenn beck w/ sean hannity

that is some sinister shit

xp

srsly I haven't read Tim assert anything in this thread except incredulity that anyone would oppose Mr. Halfway.

Mister Halfway is playing a Long Game.

this is getting a lil too racy for me

tbh i didnt hear anything after "now, both parties are to blame" because my head filled with blood. did i miss anything important?

I'm not incredulous about it, Alfred.

"Long Game," though - yes, I think so.

This excerpt contains equal parts humbuggery and wisdom:

Keep in mind that under a balanced approach, the 98% of Americans who make under $250,000 would see no tax increases at all. None. In fact, I want to extend the payroll tax cut for working families. What we're talking about under a balanced approach is asking Americans whose incomes have gone up the most over the last decade - millionaires and billionaires - to share in the sacrifice everyone else has to make. And I think these patriotic Americans are willing to pitch in. In fact, over the last few decades, they've pitched in every time we passed a bipartisan deal to reduce the deficit. The first time a deal passed, a predecessor of mine made the case for a balanced approach by saying this:

"Would you rather reduce deficits and interest rates by raising revenue from those who are not now paying their fair share, or would you rather accept larger budget deficits, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment? And I think I know your answer."

Those words were spoken by Ronald Reagan. But today, many Republicans in the House refuse to consider this kind of balanced approach - an approach that was pursued not only by President Reagan, but by the first President Bush, President Clinton, myself, and many Democrats and Republicans in the United States Senate. So we are left with a stalemate.

Of course he'd invoke Reagan, the first Bush, and Clinton to endorse not raising taxes on rich "folks."

tbh i didnt hear anything after "now, both parties are to blame" because my head filled with blood. did i miss anything important?

― apichathong song (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Monday, July 25, 2011 9:49 PM (2 minutes ago)

federal debt is just like a family's debt, the debt kills jobs, balanced

huh? isnt he endorsing raising taxes on the top bracket there?

can't wait for the long game to pay off btw, maybe after the NEXT election

that's what i took it as.

it's always seemed to me to be a big problem for obama to hold this "tax increase only for those making over $250,000" idea. the entire debate plays out with the fundamental assumption being, it's better to keep cutting taxes and government. why couldn't he just gloss it over and raise taxes on everybody, clinton did

you dont want to raise taxes in a recession! not on people who might actually spend that money, at any rate

I need to ask my artist friends to draw Obama as a Marvel villain called Mister Halfway.

not sure raising taxes on the poor during a recession would be the best idea xp daria

alfred yeah i think he's pretty clearly calling for raising taxes on top earners

xpost - not raising taxes argument won the day in december over the bush tax cuts, true that. (recession technically ended over a year ago didn't it?)

yeah my bad -- I just reread the speech

xpost

I am incredulous that you guys didn't find that to be a killer moment.

i'm just saying in general by drawing a line and saying "only over $250K get a tax increase".. it polls well, no doubt, but the fundamental assumptions are unchanged (higher tax rates than the current ones are a bad thing & the goal is always lower taxes). thus it's 1000% easier for the GOP to say "ok we agree, higher taxes are always bad so don't raise taxes on anyone"

I'm not reading any more political blogs tonight. For the next two hours it's Tolstoy and Maxwell.

what did he say that hasn't been said over the past few weeks exactly, tim? or are you just really fond of those spending cuts he wants

The Longest Game

i assume they're going to work out a deal before the aug 2 deadline. what a waste of time. i wonder if boehner & mcconnell are annoyed with the tea party for all this

He used a Reagan quote to clearly demonstrate to the entire country how far right the GOP is. Felt like a winner to me.

i'm just saying in general by drawing a line and saying "only over $250K get a tax increase".. it polls well, no doubt, but the fundamental assumptions are unchanged (higher tax rates than the current ones are a bad thing & the goal is always lower taxes). thus it's 1000% easier for the GOP to say "ok we agree, higher taxes are always bad so don't raise taxes on anyone"

― daria-g, Monday, July 25, 2011 10:02 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eh i dunno, i see what you mean but to me it sounds like an argument for a more progressive tax code, which i think is a more important goal than a flat-ish tax hike

but whatever, it kind of doesnt matter what obama argues for because republicans will be against it no matter what, just because obama proposed it

probably the best 8-dimensional chess he could play would be to argue that the nation should go into default, and that the rich shouldnt pay taxes, i bet we could get a welfare state pretty quick

That the GOP won't publicly accept how definitively it's won this "argument" about the size of the federal government shows up the bankruptcy of its leaders.

He used a Reagan quote to clearly demonstrate to the entire country how far right the GOP is. Felt like a winner to me.

http://runawayjuno.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/thumbs-up-low-res.jpg

ruddy satrap

i assume they're going to work out a deal before the aug 2 deadline.

i disagree. i think you're seeing the president throw a hail-mary (he didn't even mention the reid plan, a cuts-only proposal to carry the debt-ceiling past the next election, which O endorsed earlier today as a short-term compromise measure) and, if that doesn't work, he's using this speech to position himself and his party after a disasterous default.

yeah, the country's not gonna default

is it wrong that i actually kind of want the deadline to pass and the gov. to default and ppl to notice what all the gov. actually does and pays for as we slide into irrevocable depression?

probably

i wanted the nfl lockout to continue too

I won't put change in your cup.

well, me too, but we have other sports

I won't even have change.

yeah, the country's not gonna default

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, July 26, 2011

don't bet on that

The most rational explanation for Obama's speech is that he's positioning himself for failure. He's explaining his position so that when Congress fails to lift the debt ceiling, Americans will blame the Republicans and not him. Maybe in the meantime some small deal can arise. But I expect a week from now we'll be bracing for disaster.

the way i look at it is that the influential players in the GOP know that defaulting would be monumentally retarded & if they force obama into raising the ceiling himself or w/e than that's a very easy thing for them to run on

politically, economically & for basically every other reason it makes zero sense for them to stonewall the country into default & a depression

yeah we can't default. it won't happen.. shutting things down wastes a ton of money and resources in the preparing-to-shutdown/shutting-down/starting-back-up process

"I didn't sign up for going mano-a-mano with the President of the United States"

Apparently Boehner said this while exiting the Capitol, according to CBS News' Jill Jackson
http://twitter.com/#!/jacksonjk/status/95668417163563008

I don't think we will but I'd still put it at like 25%

"I didn't sign up for going mano-a-mano with the President of the United States"

is that right?

i guess what surprises me is that -- and boehner knows this -- the gop's big biz paymasters haven't kicked asses into gear

boehner otm

Felt like a winner to me.

what sucks is that i did sign up to mano-a-mano with the President of the United States and yet I never get my day in the spotlight

have you seen his skin color? Not a good idea.

i guess what surprises me is that -- and boehner knows this -- the gop's big biz paymasters haven't kicked asses into gear

― mookieproof, Monday, July 25, 2011 10:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i thought the consensus gossip whatever was that they _had_ kicked asses, hence the mcconnell plan, and all of a sudden learned that they dont control the house GOP, in partclr the right wing

i've seen photos of him balling

pretty sure me and kk and icey and hurting could beat his team -- reggie love ain't that good

xp perhaps so, but surely big biz paymasters have further resources of persuasion -- this is serious $

This is great (from Jonathan Cohn's "Fact-Checking Boehner"):

House Speaker John Boehner, on Monday evening, in his response to President Obama:

"You know, I’ve always believed, the bigger government, the smaller the people. And right now, we have a government so big and so expensive it’s sapping the drive of our people and keeping our economy from running at full capacity."

Actually, that's not true. Statistically speaking, the world's tallest people live in the Netherlands, where government spending accounts for about half of gross domestic product. In fact, most countries in northern Europe, including the social democratic utopias of Scandinavia, now have taller people than the U.S.

He does go on from there.

maybe if bibi netanyahu came out in favor of raising the debt ceiling

he wouldn't be without reason

j cohn is wasting everyone's time by fact-checking a figure of speech isn't he?

"didn't sign up for going mano-a-mano with the President of the United States"

Interesting statement. Seems to imply that he's upset that he seemingly *had* to do it. But who is he upset with?

daria........ its a joke..........

xpost - sorry not trying to be rude! but tnr, i don't know what's the use..

im playing so nice right now too

xp mookie

nah i know it's a joke, it's more.. general frustration with all the silliness over the issue

The Boehner quote speaks to the same existentialist quandary for the GOP that someone (forgot who it was - sorry!) was talking about on here a week or so ago: if you hate government so much, why are you in it?

Obama relished the opportunity; Boehner did not.

f you hate government so much, why are you in it?

I'm not sure Obama can answer this either.

that's not really an existentialist quandary

there are in the gov't to make it worse

think you mean "more efficient"

wow. marsha blackburn (r-tennessee) on msnbc just made o'donnell and a democratic rep look terrible. o'donnell kept yelling at her and called her a liar (!) and she is totally composed and smiling at them even though you know she has to be furious. obvs i don't agree with her at all on politics but that was incredibly rude. don't they get how bad it looks?

was she lying?

i don't know. everyone has their talking points. i believe the issue in question was, whether or not any polls supported the GOP position. with the number of polls out there and the way the questions are worded, i'm sure it's debatable without flat-out calling someone a liar, especially when she isn't yelling at you. sorry to be one of those people discussing optics, but it was only interesting for that reason - completely opposing styles of people from different regions of the country. but the debt ceiling issue is so silly! obvs it should be a clean bill to raise it, like it has always been in the past.

also polls don't matter when like 5% of the respondents would be able to explain what exactly the debt ceiling was and what would happen if we didn't raise it

they kind of matter because these idiots vote, unfortunately

I mean obv public opinion matters politically, it just doesn't matter in a 'since people want this, clearly this is good policy' sense

they're not all idiots, they just don't pay attention to politics..

ok...

i too think the effect of not raising the debt ceiling is an acceptably arcane thing to not know about.

yeah it's not an interesting issue to most people. plus when it is explained it's usually done poorly, in terms of 'it's like raising our credit card limit.' but at some point i wish the 'government is just like your family' comparisons could stop - because wouldn't a regular guy from scranton, pennsylvania say 'well gee, if i have a lot of personal debt on my credit card and keep racking up more, i probably shouldn't raise my limit.' but a regular guy isn't using his personal credit card to wage war and invest in infrastructure and can't print money and stuff, i bet

he can print money but very few places accept it

Scranton Denny's locations are good abt that in my experience.

hahahah yeah. i mean i didn't even know there was a debt ceiling until watching msnbc during the 2010 midterms and know pretty much nothing about financial markets so..

I think it's acceptable to not completely understand this subject...even economists aren't really sure how exactly a default would unfold

but there are some pretty simple things that yr average american still doesn't know / care about. most of the country has a super vague knowledge of politics.

One reason very few people would have ever known anything about it was that increasing it was always so automatic. (Although I can't remember--was the Clinton/Gingrich shutdown over the debt ceiling?) So in that sense, I guess all of this has been educational. Ideally, the education would have come less dramatically.

guys deficits don't matter.

this entire exercise is unfortunately couched in right-wing terms. 'entitlements' rather than 'security'. the assumption that running a country and running a household are the same, and that deficits are morally wrong (though of course debt will get yr kids better college assistance than paying up). the idea that ppl making a quarter-million a year can't afford to pay taxes half what they were under golden-era eisenhower.

i'm disappointed in obama for any number of reasons, although he's managed some solid things that certainly belie the morbs they're-all-the-same line.

but the dude can speak and he is magnetic. i am disappointed that he has not used this ability -- unparalleled since reagan or jfk at least -- to rearrange the terms in which shit is discussed.

Seriously, half what they were under Eisenhower?

http://media-files.gather.com/images/d782/d572/d745/d224/d96/f3/full.jpg

http://ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html

but the dude can speak and he is magnetic. i am disappointed that he has not used this ability -- unparalleled since reagan or jfk at least -- to rearrange the terms in which shit is discussed.

― mookieproof, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 12:04 AM (13 minutes ago)

yeah me too - today was more or less stitching together news articles from the past week

Well, looks to me from that someone in the '50s making the equivalent of $250K today was actually paying 20%.

Not to say that American public doesn't buy that going back to Clinton era rates would be fine.

xp

obama can speak magic but it doesn't work at all on the tea party faction of the US which, minority though it is, still has a big chunk of the House right now, which is crippling everything. I kind of don't think those guys are going to get re-elected though.

Well, looks to me from that someone in the '50s making the equivalent of $250K today was actually paying 20%.

Not to say that American public doesn't buy that going back to Clinton era rates would be fine.

― timellison, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 4:21 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

A billionaire tax bracket is fine by me.

Well, looks to me from that someone in the '50s making the equivalent of $250K today was actually paying 20%.

Not to say that American public doesn't buy that going back to Clinton era rates would be fine.

xp

― timellison, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 12:21 AM (15 minutes ago)

uh, how do you figure? someone making 28000 in 1950 (roughly the equivalent of 250k today) would be paying a top rate of 60%. remember these are marginal rates too

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

OK, yes, that is amazing.