I fail to see what the problem is in having lobbyists on your staff. I'm always amazed about how the possibility of impropriety has replaced actually doing something illegal. John McCain has lobbyists on his staff. Barack Obama nuances his way around the lobbying issue. He has no one registered as a federal lobbyist on staff. His chief strategist David Axelrod runs a political consulting firm that he claims isn't lobbying.

Lobbyists are some of the smartest most well informed people on issues in the country. They are critical to providing information to Congressmen when doing debating a bill. Legal lobbying certainly isn't bad. Americans need to have their voices heard and lobbyists do this. I had my investment account at UBS at one time as do thousands of middle class Americans. I hope they had lobbyists.

Where lobbying is bad is when lawmakers cater to them, as the Democrats did to the big corporate farmers on the farm bill.

The question shouldn't be whether Barack Obama or John McCain has lobbyists on staff. It's whether his policies benefit the American public. If John McCain's fiscal policy is designed to benefit the banking industry more than the public that's a problem. But he's a Republican. Basic Republican philosophy is that helping business helps all the people the businesses employ.

McCain doesn't shed tears for people who had no money and no way to pay for a house, but bought one anyway in 2003-2005. Many of the people hurt in the mortgage crisis were people who only purchased their homes recently, not those who got mortgages in the 80's and 90's. He asks these people to be responsible for themselves and share that responsibility with the mortgage companies. Do the Dems think the people who signed those mortgages have no role in this?

A big deal has been made about McCain's comment that he's not an economic expert. Yet Barack Obama's refusal to believe that his raising of the capital gain tax will lower revenue and hurt the middle class's ability to invest isn't focused on. I don't get the idea that Obama has much of an understanding on economics other than the philosophy of "I'll raise taxes on the rich and on businesses."

John McCain does not want to keep the status quo in Iraq on social security, or healthcare any more than Barack Obama does. His approach is different than Obama's. We should be discussing whose approach is better instead of the crap people are focused on.

I'd like to think the American public is smart enough not to fall for Republican dirty tricks and the Democrats desire to mislead them and will vote for the candidate whose policies they think will work.

Monkeyboy wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Having Phil Gramm in on writing your economic policy isn't pandering to lobbyists. The man was the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, a presidential candidate in 1996, one of McCain's earliest endorsers, and one of his best friends from the Senate. He's one of the GOP wise men on budgetary policy. Dajafi probably counts him in with Grover Norquist in his circle of evil.

So you don't think it's inappropriate to have someone working as a lobbyist and vice chairman of one of the largest banks in the housing crisis shaping ecomonic policies for one of the presidential candidates? Keep in kind that McCain's chosen policy looks very nice for the banking industry and has consumers upset.

If you don't think that's wrong, then I don't know what to say. It's the type of thing that's led to investigations and some indictments, as well as to your party having a very steep hill to climb to convince voters they're on their side.

I realize that it's GOP tactics to continually try to challenge what is "normal" in order to convince people everything is OK, but I don't think that will work in this case. Eventually, the American people can smell a rat.

Are you speaking on behalf of all consumers now? I am a consumer (and an amateur economist :roll: ), and I like what I've heard about his policy. Usually it takes someone in business to understand the business ramifications of a particular policy. Also, are you suggesting that McCain would support a different policy if Phil Gramm didn't have a title at UBS? As jerseyboy mentioned, Phil Gramm isn't some random guy trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes; would you rather he only seek the advice of unemployed economists and his hired political advisors?

Laexile wrote:I fail to see what the problem is in having lobbyists on your staff. I'm always amazed about how the possibility of impropriety has replaced actually doing something illegal. John McCain has lobbyists on his staff. Barack Obama nuances his way around the lobbying issue. He has no one registered as a federal lobbyist on staff. His chief strategist David Axelrod runs a political consulting firm that he claims isn't lobbying.

Lobbyists are some of the smartest most well informed people on issues in the country. They are critical to providing information to Congressmen when doing debating a bill. Legal lobbying certainly isn't bad. Americans need to have their voices heard and lobbyists do this. I had my investment account at UBS at one time as do thousands of middle class Americans. I hope they had lobbyists.

Where lobbying is bad is when lawmakers cater to them, as the Democrats did to the big corporate farmers on the farm bill.

The question shouldn't be whether Barack Obama or John McCain has lobbyists on staff. It's whether his policies benefit the American public. If John McCain's fiscal policy is designed to benefit the banking industry more than the public that's a problem. But he's a Republican. Basic Republican philosophy is that helping business helps all the people the businesses employ.

McCain doesn't shed tears for people who had no money and no way to pay for a house, but bought one anyway in 2003-2005. Many of the people hurt in the mortgage crisis were people who only purchased their homes recently, not those who got mortgages in the 80's and 90's. He asks these people to be responsible for themselves and share that responsibility with the mortgage companies. Do the Dems think the people who signed those mortgages have no role in this?

A big deal has been made about McCain's comment that he's not an economic expert. Yet Barack Obama's refusal to believe that his raising of the capital gain tax will lower revenue and hurt the middle class's ability to invest isn't focused on. I don't get the idea that Obama has much of an understanding on economics other than the philosophy of "I'll raise taxes on the rich and on businesses."

John McCain does not want to keep the status quo in Iraq on social security, or healthcare any more than Barack Obama does. His approach is different than Obama's. We should be discussing whose approach is better instead of the crap people are focused on.

I'd like to think the American public is smart enough not to fall for Republican dirty tricks and the Democrats desire to mislead them and will vote for the candidate whose policies they think will work.

It's not just that he has so many connections to lobbyists, it's that there are so many questions of impropriety (land deal, gramm advising on a deal that affects the affects the company he lobbies for, the affair). I personally believe that lobbyists' involvement in our gov't has overstepped what is healthy for our country..... they have become too entwined and their interests match up too much. If you disagree with that, then I don't think we'll end up agreeing on McCain's lobbyist issues.

Werthless wrote:Are you speaking on behalf of all consumers now? I am a consumer (and an amateur economist :roll: ), and I like what I've heard about his policy. Usually it takes someone in business to understand the business ramifications of a particular policy. Also, are you suggesting that McCain would support a different policy if Phil Gramm didn't have a title at UBS? As jerseyboy mentioned, Phil Gramm isn't some random guy trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes; would you rather he only seek the advice of unemployed economists and his hired political advisors?

Yes, I'm speaking on behalf of all consumers. :roll: No, of course I'm not. Most of what I've read has said the deal was charitable to the banking industry. You may personally disagree with that. If you're telling me that business people like it because they know what they're doing, well, that sounds awfully elitist. Are you an obama supporter or something?

I think someone should stop being a lobbyist before becoming a main advisor to a campaign, and then recuse themselves for a period of time in matters directly affecting the lobbyist's former company. It's called conflict of interest. You may have heard of it.

All I think Monkeyboy is trying to say here is conflict of interest. Surely everyone can see why this would raise some flags and get some press...

Wasn't the whole affair with the lobbyist deal debunked years ago?

jerseyhoya wrote:Having Phil Gramm in on writing your economic policy isn't pandering to lobbyists. The man was the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, a presidential candidate in 1996, one of McCain's earliest endorsers, and one of his best friends from the Senate. He's one of the GOP wise men on budgetary policy. Dajafi probably counts him in with Grover Norquist in his circle of evil.

Be nice if, just once, you argued policy substance rather than trivia and hackery. I won't hold my breath.

And yeah, Gramm is a fucking monster. He's the guy who said that America is the only country in the world where the poor people are fat.

They should eat him, but he'd probably make them sick.

Oh, and IIRC his "wisdom" included the insight that the '93 Clinton deficit reduction bill would trigger the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Which does beg the question of how good his "advice" would be.

To get back to jeff's point about McCain vs. Il Douche or The Mittster, he's half-right. McCain is a vastly more honorable man than either Giuliani, who combines Bush's arrogance and loyalty fetish with Nixon's rage and paranoia, or Romney, who never met a principle he wouldn't toss away. His instincts are better than theirs, and his Senate experience has given him a sense of how to compromise in making policy and disagree without publicly demonizing opponents. In terms of checks and balances and the Bush/Cheney Executive Superduperpowers, I'm much more comfortable with McCain than I'd be with Hillary Clinton.

But on economics and social policy both, he'll do what they would have done, and substantially what Bush has done, because he doesn't give a damn. He's not interested, and in his more candid moments he admits as much. He'll lick Norquist clean, to the extent it's politically possible in a Democratic-controlled Congress, and appoint psycho right judges to keep the religious nuts semi-docile. All so he can have a relatively free hand on the policy questions that interest him--mostly war stuff.

I'm glad that in the one breath I was accused of hackery and in the next you managed to call a former US Senator a monster.

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm glad that in the one breath I was accused of hackery and in the next you managed to call a former US Senator a monster.

Not to nitpick, but I think you just did it again

How about when I was 1, Gramm was influential in passing a bipartisan deficit reduction, spending control act? As such, as far as I'm concerned, he is a good man.

And a lot of poor people are quite fat.

jerseyhoya wrote:And a lot of poor people are quite fat.

that is true

ive seen them

Lots of McD's

jerseyhoya wrote:How about when I was 1, Gramm was influential in passing a bipartisan deficit reduction, spending control act? As such, as far as I'm concerned, he is a good man.

And a lot of poor people are quite fat.

Yeah, that tends to happen when you don't have any access to affordable, healthy food in your community or much knowledge of what constitutes good nutrition.

Kudos on the research. I actually like that Gramm is a spending hawk, but the comments about the obese poor and the Clinton deficit reduction measure kind of gives away the game as far as what he'd cut and who would suffer for it.

And with that, I'm really going to try and stay out of this thread. It's just too stupid, and life's too short.

dajafi wrote:Yeah, that tends to happen when you don't have any access to affordable, healthy food in your community or much knowledge of what constitutes good nutrition...

Right, cause the well to do people are all lean mean nutrition machines.

Which isn't to defend the poor people are fat comment. Both positions lack merit.

The last couple pages of this thread is the essence of why I hate politics

VoxOrion wrote:

dajafi wrote:Yeah, that tends to happen when you don't have any access to affordable, healthy food in your community or much knowledge of what constitutes good nutrition...

Right, cause the well to do people are all lean mean nutrition machines.

Which isn't to defend the poor people are fat comment. Both positions lack merit.

That's why he didn't use absolutes

Baltimore Sun

A recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study found that women in poverty were roughly 50 percent more likely to be obese than those with higher socioeconomic status.

In U.S. households making less than $15,000 a year, 31 percent of the women are obese, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In households with more than $50,000 annually, 17 percent are obese.

University of Pennsylvania epidemiologist Shiriki Kumanyika and other investigators found that poor 15- to-17-year-olds - black or white, male or female - were 50 percent more likely to carry excessive poundage than more affluent teens.

Super Size Me and other info I've shared in other threads -- can lead you to understand why lviing on fast food and the foul products found at WalMart, Safeway, Walgreen's and the rest -- will make people toxic and yet obese. It's not just a matter of that's all they can afford, it's also all that is available to them as agribusiness and other mega-business in the food business doesn't care about happy healty people, but just profit.

Show me a Republican who stands for anything that is good for the working man? That is good for his bottom line, his moving up the economic ladder, his children affording a good college, his health care. Republicans come in several flavors, usually repressive on social matters, hawkish on foreign policy, and wanting no regulation or restrictions on wanton greed and lying.

You can spin McCain all day -- talk about him like he's some American good guy, gramps, war hero -- and wise man with years of experience in the Senate. He's just another corrupt, insincere wealthy politician doing the bidding of a variety of interests, none of which are the people at large -- and he's got a temper to boot. Our country will be no better off in 4 years if McCain becomes the leader of the USA.

You can argue the minutiae of his relationships with lobbyists, you can play lawyer or whatever you want. Or you can use your sense to see what's right there and deal with reality.

The Dems aren't good guys either. It's a choice between bad and worse. I've had 20 years of Reagan/Bush worse -- I'm ready for anything that can take the edge off of that!

And I'll put it out there again --

Do you want your next President to campaign to repeal the Patriot Act? Yes or No? Should that discussion be in play? I don't think anyone will ever repeal that until we have a new form of govt. it's just becoming more and more repressive here. Thomas Paine is turning is his grave!

jerseyhoya wrote:I'm glad that in the one breath I was accused of hackery and in the next you managed to call a former US Senator a monster.

is being a former US senator related to not being a monster? the two have little to do with one another. someone can be a jerk and be a former senator

Woody wrote:The last couple pages of this thread is the essence of why I hate politics

*slow clap*


time to start over, this politics thread has failed miserably.