Blumenthal, Paul and other idiots...POLITICS Thread

by **TenuredVulture** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 11:32:31

I do wonder though if large corporations aren't rather ambivalent about what's happening in the Republican party. The big corporations really want health care reform of some sort, they mostly want regulations (that they have a hand in drawing up) and they might really be frightened of anti-bailout populism.

Finally, I doubt big corporations really like the over-turning of McCain-Feingold. Corporate lobbyists don't really enjoy the shake down that interest groups and candidates do in the name of fundraising. Spending limits would give them an easy out.

by **dajafi** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:25:32

I'd like to think that successful corporations understand and fear the head-smacking irrationality of a Republican platform that promises tax cuts, new job creation, sustained or increased military expenditures, attempted overturns of (budget-friendly) health care reforms... and lower deficits. But that's probably very naive on my part.

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:35:30

As opposed to the Democrats' plan of creating new entitlements, bailing out the states, fearmongering whenever someone proposes a plan to deal with the current entitlement issues, and pretending that hiking taxes on a small segment of the population is going to be the solution to cutting the deficit. Where you're naive is believing the Democrats are any more honest about the problems we're facing than the GOP was back when we were in charge. Once you get the brass ring, it becomes a lot less convenient to acknowledge the challenges the country has, because you're the one who would have to administer the bad medicine.

by **TenuredVulture** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:49:10

I really don't think it's the fiscal side of things that's troubling corporations so much. I think it's the kind of vitriol that some on the Republican side of things are directing at things like the bailout. The bailout was bad politics, but probably necessary to prevent an economic meltdown. It's sort of funny, but Bush was at his best during the last six months of his administration.

Whether or not the wall street bail-out was good policy, the important thing was that neither Obama nor McCain really tried to exploit the situation to his own advantage. McCain's weird "I'm not going to campaign until the crisis is resolved" aside, it is hard to imagine any prominent Republican acting the way Bush or McCain did.

If I'm a member of the corporate establishment, I'm troubled by the way ther right wing has demonized a responsible public servant like John McCain.

On issues like free trade and immigration, many Tea Party type Republicans are downright hostile these days to corporate interests.

by **dajafi** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:51:32

jerseyhoya wrote:As opposed to the Democrats' plan of creating new entitlements, bailing out the states, fearmongering whenever someone proposes a plan to deal with the current entitlement issues, and pretending that hiking taxes on a small segment of the population is going to be the solution to cutting the deficit. Where you're naive is believing the Democrats are any more honest about the problems we're facing than the GOP was back when we were in charge. Once you get the brass ring, it becomes a lot less convenient to acknowledge the challenges the country has, because you're the one who would have to administer the bad medicine.

I could disagree with you (in part; see below for the part I agree with) on the equivalency you suggest, but I'll let Reagan administration officialsBruce Bartlett and David Stockmanmake the points instead:

DiA: More generally, which party do you find more credible when discussing America's fiscal challenges?

Mr Bartlett: The Republicans don’t have any credibility whatsoever. They squandered whatever they had when they enacted a massive UNFUNDED expansion of Medicare in 2003. Yet they had the nerve to complain about Obama’s health plan, WHICH WAS FULLY PAID FOR according to the Congressional Budget Office. The word “chutzpah” is insufficient to describe how utterly indefensible the Republican position is, intellectually.

Furthermore, Republicans have a completely indefensible position on taxes. In their view, deficits cannot arise from tax cuts. No matter how much taxes are cut, no matter how low revenues go as a share of GDP, tax cuts are never a cause of deficits; they result ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY from spending—and never from spending put in place by Republicans, such as Medicare Part D, TARP, two unfunded wars, bridges to nowhere, etc—but ONLY from Democratic efforts to stimulate growth, help the unemployed, provide health insurance for those without it, etc.

The monumental hypocrisy of the Republican Party is something amazing to behold. And their dimwitted accomplices in the tea-party movement are not much better. They know that Republicans, far more than Democrats, are responsible for our fiscal mess, but they won’t say so. And they adamantly refuse to put on the table any meaningful programme that would actually reduce spending. Judging by polls, most of them seem to think that all we have to do is cut foreign aid, which represents well less than 1% of the budget.

Consequently, I have far more hope that Democrats will do what has do be done. The Democratic Party is now the “adult” party in American politics, willing to do what has to be done for the good of the country. The same cannot be said of Republicans, who seem unwilling to do anything that would interfere with their ambition to retake power so that they can reward their lobbyist friends with more give-aways from the public purse.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Democrats have the guts or the stamina to put forward a meaningful deficit-reduction programme because they know—as I do—that it will require higher revenues. But facing big losses in the elections this fall I can’t blame them. That leaves us facing political gridlock between the sensible but cowardly party and the greedy, sociopathic party. Not a pleasant choice for those of us in the sensible, lets-do-what-we-have-to-do-for-the-good-of-the-country independent centre.

Stockman:

IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt — if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 — will soon reach $18 trillion. That’s a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.

More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance — vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.

This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy.

And on "creating new entitlements," I'm happy to compare the relative fiscal responsibility of Medicare Part D, which added trillions in new, unpaid-for costs to government, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which saves a hundred billion or so while vastly expanding coverage.

But this isn't to excuse the Democrats. While I'm uneasily okay with what you characterize as "bailing out state governments" because the alternative is to lose hundreds of thousands more jobs and undercut the recovery, the moral hazard problem is real and I wish there were some provision to force structural budget reforms on states/localities in exchange for aid now. And you're right that raising taxes on the $250k and up crowd won't be remotely close to enough to put the budget back in order. (Nor will this idea, though I strongly support it and think it will help a bit.) I've always thought, and still believe, that we need a more honest debate about the size of government that we collectively want and that we're collectively willing to pay for.

Still, from my admittedly biased perspective, the Democrats are essentially cowards about this stuff--probably cognizant of what needs to happen to get our finances on a sustainable course, just afraid to come out and say so. (This includes a saner approach to defense spending. I sometimes wonder if it would be worth seeing Rand Paul win his race just on the chance that he might get a bigger megaphone for the idea that our pretensions of empire are going to bankrupt us.) What the Republicans propose is utterly irrational, and if enacted will send us full-speed into a wall when our foreign creditors or the bond market decide that the crazy can't go on anymore.

edit: on extending the Bush tax cuts, the former McCain adviser Mark Zandi makes some sense. Problem is that the bipartisan commitment to phasing in tax increases during an election year, as he proposes, is totally missing.

by **drsmooth** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 13:39:49

jerseyhoya wrote:Where you're naive is believing the Democrats are any more honest about the problems we're facing than the GOP was back when we were in charge. Once you get the brass ring, it becomes a lot less convenient to acknowledge the challenges the country has, because you're the one who would have to administer the bad medicine.

You may have something here, but clarification is needed.

What challenges exactly have gone unacknowledged by the current administration?

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 14:56:38

I think there is a general sense that has been fostered by Democratic politicians that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (tm) are largely responsible for the deficit and letting them expire on people who make more than $250k would be a huge step in addressing our problem. Geitner's own numbers say they would cost the Treasury $700 billion over the next decade, and the projected deficit over that timespan is over $6 trillion.

Personally, I have no hope that a Democratic controlled Congress with a Democratic President are going to make any of the systemic changes we need on the spending or revenue sides to get the country's fiscal house in order. Partially because I don't think they're ideologically inclined to make cuts, but largely because they would be savaged by the GOP no matter what they did, and would probably lose lots of seats.

If there's divided government, they will probably just yell a lot at each other and get nothing done, but there's always that chance that some bipartisan group will get together and pass major tax reform, implement cuts across the board. I dunno. Greece is a very real world example of what can happen if public debt gets out of control, and California is creeping toward being another on our own shores.

Not to harp on my boy Christie too much, but the public appears to be at least partially embracing his tough medicine approach, and the Democrats who control the legislature have been an awful lot more helpful in some of the steps NJ has taken than you would maybe expect.

by **drsmooth** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 15:21:20

jerseyhoya wrote:Not to harp on my boy Christie too much, but the public appears to be at least partially embracing his tough medicine approach, and the Democrats who control the legislature have been an awful lot more helpful in some of the steps NJ has taken than you would maybe expect.

I don't get out much, & I'm lazy; the only poll info I could find quickly indicates there may be differences of opinion on this:

http://eagletonpoll.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... es-to.html

Rutgers-Eagleton Poll Blog wrote:But at the very same time, Christie's job performance rating in our poll is negative. Only 12% say he is doing an excellent job, and 27% say a good job. But a majority, 58% rate his performance as fair (33%) or poor (25%).

So they seem to like him as a guy, but are not overly happy with the specifics of what he is doing.

by **dajafi** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 15:55:39

jerseyhoya wrote:Personally, I have no hope that a Democratic controlled Congress with a Democratic President are going to make any of the systemic changes we need on the spending or revenue sides to get the country's fiscal house in order. Partially because I don't think they're ideologically inclined to make cuts, but largely because they would be savaged by the GOP no matter what they did, and would probably lose lots of seats.

If there's divided government, they will probably just yell a lot at each other and get nothing done, but there's always that chance that some bipartisan group will get together and pass major tax reform, implement cuts across the board. I dunno.

True, the last time we had divided government was pretty good for the bottom line. Even "get nothing done" is somewhat helpful here, as that means no new spending. Problem is that we're out of a mode where it's okay simply not to make things structurally worse and hope that the economy becomes or remains strong enough to make things better. The Boomers were still years from retiring during the Clinton/Gingrich period.

Unless Christie has somehow reinvented the wheel on the other side of the Hudson, the core of the problem is that all the political incentives work against doing what's necessary to fix the country's finances--any plausible combination of spending cuts and tax increases. That's why we need "some bipartisan group": to essentially take it out of the hands of the politicians. But with the probable exception of Paul Ryan--whose specific plan I don't think works, but whom I take seriously as someone who cares about this and might negotiate in good faith--I don't see many Republicans willing to cut spending, let alone consider tax increases.

Website · by **Wolfgang622** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 16:05:17

I have the answer: make every elected office at the federal level a 5-year, one-term-only office, and elect everybody on the same go-round. Electon years from now on on the oughts and fives. Once you've served, you are ineligible to serve again.

Impractical? Probably. Politically impossible to accomplish? Without a doubt.

But would it stop the incessant running for office, and actually encourage those in office to actually ... you know ... do their JOBS while they are there? I think at least as much as now. People could work on things they really believed in, instead of what will get them re-elected.

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 16:27:49

drsmooth wrote:
jerseyhoya wrote:Not to harp on my boy Christie too much, but the public appears to be at least partially embracing his tough medicine approach, and the Democrats who control the legislature have been an awful lot more helpful in some of the steps NJ has taken than you would maybe expect.

I don't get out much, & I'm lazy; the only poll info I could find quickly indicates there may be differences of opinion on this:

http://eagletonpoll.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... es-to.html

Rutgers-Eagleton Poll Blog wrote:But at the very same time, Christie's job performance rating in our poll is negative. Only 12% say he is doing an excellent job, and 27% say a good job. But a majority, 58% rate his performance as fair (33%) or poor (25%).

So they seem to like him as a guy, but are not overly happy with the specifics of what he is doing.

His personal ratings are still pretty good in that poll. Also I don't like the fair=disapproval delineation.

It's a stupid comparison by me to the federal level because he had to balance the budget in NJ constitutionally, so cuts are easier sells. Something has to give.

by **pacino** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 16:38:53

mozartpc27 wrote:I have the answer: make every elected office at the federal level a 5-year, one-term-only office, and elect everybody on the same go-round. Electon years from now on on the oughts and fives. Once you've served, you areineligible to serve again.

Impractical? Probably. Politically impossible to accomplish? Without a doubt.

But would it stop the incessant running for office, and actually encourage those in office to actually ... you know ... do their JOBS while they are there? I think at least as much as now. People could work on things they really believed in, instead of what will get them re-elected.

sounds like we'd get some really dumb legislators

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 16:46:08

Harry Reid comes out against the mosque, saying it should be built elsewhere. Hilarious.

The fucking thing is 3000 miles away from his state, and he feels the need to chime in. Probably not a whole lot of nice words being said about the Majority Leader at the DNC, Dem Senate and House campaigns and other Dem consulting shops across the country today.

by **dajafi** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 16:49:15

mozartpc27 wrote:I have the answer: make every elected office at the federal level a 5-year, one-term-only office, and elect everybody on the same go-round. Electon years from now on on the oughts and fives. Once you've served, you are ineligible to serve again.

Impractical? Probably. Politically impossible to accomplish? Without a doubt.

But would it stop the incessant running for office, and actually encourage those in office to actually ... you know ... do their JOBS while they are there? I think at least as much as now. People could work on things they really believed in, instead of what will get them re-elected.

What I think you'd see there is even greater devolution of power to staff members and interest groups, where the permanent expertise would reside. It takes a fairly long time to figure out where the levers are and how to be effective in those jobs. Granted, part of why it takes so long is because the seniority system somewhat disincentivizes getting good at it until you're fairly senior, and the dollars chase takes up time, but some of it is just human nature.

I'd rather just publicly fund campaigns and/or do something to shorten the time frame of them. Of course that almost certainly would require amending the Constitution, which ain't happening for that.

by **drsmooth** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 17:03:21

jerseyhoya wrote:Harry Reid comes out against the mosque, saying it should be built elsewhere. Hilarious.

The $#@! thing is 3000 miles away from his state, and he feels the need to chime in. Probably not a whole lot of nice words being said about the Majority Leader at the DNC, Dem Senate and House campaigns and other Dem consulting shops across the country today.

wait jerz, you're complaining about ol' harry doing his best to counterpunch crazy sharron angle? coming from where you're usually coming from ("just win, baby"), gimme a break.

like you said, the ish is a country away from Harry's voters, who wouldn't know a mosque from an igloo (tho probably are also suspicious of eskimos). Angle "demanded" Reid take a position - so he took hers. Eff you, Sharron!

by **jerseyhoya** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 17:19:34

drsmooth wrote:
jerseyhoya wrote:Harry Reid comes out against the mosque, saying it should be built elsewhere. Hilarious.

The $#@! thing is 3000 miles away from his state, and he feels the need to chime in. Probably not a whole lot of nice words being said about the Majority Leader at the DNC, Dem Senate and House campaigns and other Dem consulting shops across the country today.

wait jerz, you're complaining about ol' harry doing his best to counterpunch crazy sharron angle? coming from where you're usually coming from ("just win, baby"), gimme a break.

like you said, the ish is a country away from Harry's voters, who wouldn't know a mosque from an igloo (tho probably are also suspicious of eskimos). Angle "demanded" Reid take a position - so he took hers. Eff you, Sharron!

I think when you're majority leader of your party you've got to be thinking about more than just looking out for number one. By stating his opinion on it, Reid has further legitimized the issue as one applicable to races all across the country. It makes it harder for a Jack Conway in Kentucky or Robin Carnahan in Missouri or whatever to say "That's a local New York issue that I don't want to weigh in on." It makes it easier for Republican candidates to bring it up "Do you support the President on the New York mosque, or do you support Harry Reid?" Nevermind that the President doesn't support the President on the issue.

And I'd be surprised if it did him much good in the polls. I can't imagine many of the people who are making up their minds on this issue are Harry Reid voters.

by **dajafi** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 18:27:25

jerseyhoya wrote:I think when you're majority leader of your party you've got to be thinking about more than just looking out for number one. By stating his opinion on it, Reid has further legitimized the issue as one applicable to races all across the country. It makes it harder for a Jack Conway in Kentucky or Robin Carnahan in Missouri or whatever to say "That's a local New York issue that I don't want to weigh in on." It makes it easier for Republican candidates to bring it up "Do you support the President on the New York mosque, or do you support Harry Reid?" Nevermind that the President doesn't support the President on the issue.

On the one hand, I find this compelling in its logic... and on the other, it reinforces my sense that it's kind of dubious for the Democrats to keep picking party leaders from tossup-or-worse states like South Dakota and Nevada.

by **drsmooth** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 19:28:40

jerseyhoya wrote:I think when you're majority leader of your party you've got to be thinking about more than just looking out for number one.

Yes, politicians great & small are notorious for their willingness to fall on their swords on behalf of their political affiliations.

Nevermind that the President doesn't support the President on the issue.

Let's see: he underscored that in America, Muslims have the right to practice their religion, and to build a mosque on property they own.

2nd rate opportunists like Rick Lazio tapdance around the straightforwardness of Obama's remarks, insinuating he's "supporting" its construction. "It's right for him to get involved", squeaks Lazio, 'but he came in from the wrong direction' (or words to that effect). "he's confusing the issue", because that spin helps Lazio raise campaign dough.

And I'd be surprised if it did him much good in the polls. I can't imagine many of the people who are making up their minds on this issue are Harry Reid voters.

you're on much more solid ground here. Why not just stick with strong points like this?

by **dajafi** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 19:57:27

Mort Zuckerman channels... Bob Herbert?

The End of American Optimism

by **philliesphhan** » Mon Aug 16, 2010 21:13:56

pacino wrote:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4jiqYcUoOk[/youtube]

I seriously thought this was an SNL skit or something at first esp after that opening.

Archived

Blumenthal, Paul and other idiots...POLITICS Thread