Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Sense vs. Nonsense in Debt Ceiling Debate

Yes--but there is just something a little off in this recent article headline:

Tea Party activists tell Boehner to stand firm

Jesus, you really do not understand, do you? These people believe with every fiber of the being that spending has already ruined America and that there is no place to go from here but down, unless spending is reversed. Have you made no effort to try and understand what drives them? I understand what the Liebral goals are, I even understand the emotions behind them and believe that maybe there really are a few out there who believe that load of BS that they spout continiously. Let me give you the cliff's notes version:
1) America is already at the breaking point
2) America is already taxed too mauch
3) America is America, they do not care what Europe's tax rate is
4) If the spending limit is allowed to grow, America is going to fail
5) This is the most important thing to remember - The government never tell the truth.

For a person to believe that raising the debt limit is necessary they have to believe that they are being told the truth, that even if the deadline passes the interest will not be paid and most importantly, they have to believe that Obama has the balls to let it all go down the tube.

You are a true believer, so are they. You believe come Aug 3 the world as we knew it will end. They believe that it will be restored to what it used to be. Neither side is totally rational in their beliefs, but they are so opposed to each other that communication has become impossible. The Republicans do not trust that the dems will follow through with the cuts that were promised, and history is on their side. Why it was just a few months ago that there was this big cut, only to have it thrown in their face that it wasn't really that big a ct because the monies involved would never be realized and that they were flim flammed by the White House.

Me, I believe that we are going to fail eventually, so do it now and save the next generation the damage that will be multiplied by time. I have no faith in the government to solve its spending problems, and America will not accept the kind of taxes that will be needed to pay the debt down. The Dems cannot pass a tax increase in either house, so tris is all posturing anyway. We will not default, and unless something like the Senate caving on taxes, the House will not pass a tax increase. Reality is reality and all of the foot stomping and breath holding will not change that reality.

Sometimes life just sucks.

Ma, there are so many internal contradictions and flights of fantasy/rhetoric in your previous post that it is hard to know where to begin. I recognize that your primary and firmly held beliefs are firm, but their basis is purely ideological and unrelated to the actual circumstances:The TEA partiers are not determined to make America accountable to the tax payers, that is a figment of your imagination, abetted, of course, by their fantasies. They are a bunch of brainless ideologues who are, nonetheless, "beholden to special interests." They have no interest in serving America, they are interested in getting fellow ideologues (read conservative Republican candidates) reelected, and really have no clue as to what is best for America, nor do they really care.

By "viable solution" I suspect you mean one that doesn't include any compromise, which is not viable. After all, you said "The art of being a successful politician is knowing what can and cannot be signed into law." By definition, the (bad) Republican thing is not viable, since it can't be passed in the Senate, and won't be signed by the President. Ergo, you are suggesting an impossibility, but only blaming the other side for failing to accede to the demands of the other. Pot? Kettle? Soot? Hard to tell, but internally inconsistent, at any rate.

actually i understand it better than you ....

gee you went from do i understand to you definitely don;t understand nor will you make any effort to understand

the problems is you don't understand what the goals are because the goals are in the Constitution

ok i'll bite ... if this government is lying and the bush government was lying ... then what government is telling the truth??? seems like you have proved no government is truthful so therefore what? dont have a government?

now take a moment to reflect on what you have said and see if you can spin your statement into something like o but tea people will tell the truth

ok you just have listened to hannity and rep king today as they are just as clueless as you are

their argument is and they say this most casually that we can pay the interest and mandatory and therefore everything is good ... what they have never said and will never say is by doing that all government services stop because there is no money to pay for it ... so if THAT is the point then yes you are successful and will have destroyed America

NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT!!!!!

i am sorry i don;t know who they are and you have me confused with yourself ... i am a realist ... show me the bottom line ... show me the stats ... show me the data ... SHOW ME THE FACTS!!!!!

Used to be what??? ... no government??? really???

this is the choice: we will have some government service so for every cent of government service there will be an offsetting cut in something else ... how about SS??? no ... how about DoD??? no how about interest payments??? you tell me what will be cut???

you read stockman's comments on that but the reality is when you cut $39 billion in discretionary spending it is $39 billion ... so if $6 billion was for the census and had been spent then $6 billion from something else was not spent ... and if you think the GOP was FF then you are saying they are stupid and if they are stupid why would you even listened to anything they would say??? ... you got flim flammed for not doing your homework

you and all the other conservative have some kind of fatalistic view of history which suggests some kind of sickness

consider that in 1948 we were at 125% GDP .... would you jump out the window then??? was there no hope then????

25-30 years later guess what all that negativity you engendered was for naught as we overcame it without all the hyperbolic talk about generational theft

Look here is the deal ... when crunch time comes i want everyone in America to know (and you have to agree with this) that it was the conservatives who forced America to the point of default or to have no government service ... "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America"
now should the conservative shut down government because they are true to their constituents, then they will have effectively abrogated the Constitution as government will no longer provide those services mandated by the Constitution

One of the problems facing negotiations is the economic flaw of the necessity of cutting spending up front. You say well I don't believe etc but here is the problem, if you cut up front too heavily, it may have negative impact on the already fragile economy which in turn would greatly reduce Obama's reelection ... but that would be a bonus for conservatives ... so am i making an argument that conservatives are willing to destroy the economy so they can elect someone else???

You know this is pretty funny, I live in the land of doing it for the children and doing it to strengthen the social safety net. I get a good part of my news from the TAS of the east, the Boston Globe. I have extensive experience of living in a Democratic paradise. I understand perfectly what the the scam is and how it is being sold. I also have spent the last 20 years or so working at a local level to rebuild the Republican Party in Massachusetts. I have come to understand that the solution to being successful is to understand what can and can't be done. What laws can be passed or blocked, what taxes can be rolled back to stopped, what kind politician certain candidate probably is. The lesson is any successful political battle is to accept what can and can't be accomplished.

The House will not pass the kind of tax increase that Obama and the Dems want. Just like Obama caving to the liberals in Congress, the House is going to cave to the fiscal hawks. You seem to think that your political stance is obviously the correct one, but I tell you right now that the Tea Partiers believe that theirs is the correct political and moral stance. Plus they have the leverage and the will to stand their ground. In the end, Obama cannot let the nation default, he will have to deal, especially if a viable plan of put forward that will pass in the House. The Senate will follow suit because if they don't the political fallout will be unbearable.

You may not like it, or believe in it, or be happy about it, but if the House stands firm they have to win, there is no other choice for the Administration. If Obama allows that Aug 2 date to pass, then he will have, in effect, told America that politics was more important than their well being. The House, after actually putting politics first, can claim the high ground by tell America that they are the watchdogs for the economy and that they will continue to shrink the national debt. Spun correctly, it is a powerful message and will probably increase their sway in voting America.

From the political junky's perspective, as long as the House stands it ground, they become the defacto economic saviors, the Dems look like all they want to do is spend more money, and Obama looks weak and wounded going into election season. If the House caves the newly minted Tea Party members probably lose next election, the Dems get their tax increases and Obama gets a boost in his standing with his party. This far out from the election the administration has to most to lose, but they also have the least control over the situation. Last night's speech was a cry for help, but it wasn't very effective. How can I tell, because it didn't even lead the morning newscasts here in Moonbat Central. If it were even a good speech it would have been given priority, instead it was the second or third thing that the newsbabes talked about.

The only hope that the Dems have right now is that the House gets cold feet and Obama doesn't. That is not something I would want to place a bet on.

What will the House do when the Bush tax cuts expire in a year and a half, O prescient One?


When the economy tanks from mere insecurity and lowered credit ratings (because it is built on speculation) will your "saviors" get put on a pedestal?

Drink the TEA,
Sign the Pledge,
Don't think!

This is not 1948. The new industrial base that WWII established is no longer new and the opportunity to rebuild Europe is no longer available. That analogy doesn't work because the situation is so different. But you know that already.


And what happens if the economy starts to boom? What happens if suddenly businesses start to hire people because of the regulatory certainty another administration, any other administration btw, brings with it? You keep looking for the cause part of cause and effect, but you have to look at both sides of the equation to see the possibilities. What is certain right now is that whatever this Administration has tried to do, didn't. Whenever this administration talks to the public it asks for higher taxes and when it doesn't get its way, it asks for new revenue. People want solutions, not more of the same and Obama is almost a stereotypical "when in doubt raise taxes" type Democratic politician. For a guy who was so savy when he was a candidate, he has become a very bad politician as President. I know, you will say that all he has to be is a good President, but I tell you that being a President means that you are a good politician by definition, because your job is to make politial deals and keep the country functioning. My biggest complaint about this administration is that Obama has never embraced the whole political deal making aspect of the job. Whenever the time for horsetrading came about, Obama has done exactly the wrong thing, and by wrong I mean he has made it impossible for the other side to compromise.

Like it or dislike it, America wants that debt cut. America still believes in the American dream, even if Obama doesn't and America believes that if somebody works hard enough they will succeed without a government handout. What we know today is that what isn't working today has to be changed to put people back to work. In the end, it will come down to the economy and jobs. People are desperate, they see disaster in their futures and are looking to our leaders for help. All they are getting is a fiction that by taxing the rich everything will be OK, when in reality there aren't enough rich to make anything better and by taking money away from the rich you also take money away from businesses and businesses are in business to make money.

Bush tax cuts will not be allowed to expire, politically it will be death.

What happens if the economy starts to thrive? I have no crystal ball, but I believe that more money in the economy means more demand and more demand means more jobs.

Politics is always a gamble. If a politician guesses correctly his career is made, if he guesses wrong his career is ruined. If the economy starts to grow at say 5% after the cuts are implemented, the Tea Party becomes America's darlings.

It is as I have said many times here, a person could get hit by a car, so why cross the street? A person could catch a cold, so why go outside? A person could get killed in a tornado so why stay inside? "Don't just do something, stand there" is not a couse of action, it is a recipe for disaster. What we are doing today isn't working, and blaming Bush doesn't change the fact that in the almost three years of Obama the economy has gotten steadily worse. Politically, and this is a political situation not an emotional situation, that fact puts Obama at risk. He has played with the idea of moving to the center, but he just can't allow himself to do it.

The economy has already tanked, as far as I am concerned what is needed is equal parts of motivation, politics and competency. Obama might be competent, but he isn't a motivator and he isn't a very good politician. We need a reagan type of leader, not a Carter.