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

I love it when that elitist eastern liberal conciet overrules any shread of doubt. Why is it that it is only the Conservatives who have to be wrong? How do you know what is going to happen in a year? In two years? I don't care that you seem to hate people who actually contribute to the economy. I don't care that you ignore the reasons why businesses are not willing to invest in the economy. And, as a matter of fact, auterity is just the latest bogie man to be thrown out into the media to scare the great unwashed. The truth is we are in debt $14T and have no possible chance at getting out from under that debt unless we can create business, built the mechanisms needed to allow businesses to thrive. Please don't use FDR as an example of good government, he was as useless as titts on a bull, he got bailed out by WWII. But even FDR understood what you evidently don't; people need to be encouraged. They need to be pumped up, given a pat on the back, made to feel like they contributed to something. That is missing from the equation, the people with money create the businesses who create the jobs, life sucks but you have to get used to it. Businesses are not going to invest their money today because the laws will be different tomorrow, and those laws could end up costing businesses lots of money. I must take this moment to remind everybody that a business is in business to make money; the more the merrier. Healthcare is unfinished and unpopular, Frank/Dodd is unfinished, tax rates are not set in stone with massive business tax rises coming in 2013. Banks are holding a trillion dollars in housing with no buyers, but they refuse to liquidate them because it more profitable for them to keep the bad debt than to take the loss. The base structure of investment, stocks and bonds, have no idea what the capital gains tax is going to be and what it will be next year and the year after.

But, I keep forgetting that I am discussing politics with anti-business liberals who want people to spend money and hire people at a loss. Who want to screw Americans because they were lucky enough to be well off. Who want to rob graves because they are dead anyway. I have no sympathy for what Obama is going through right now, he brought it on himself and refused to show the political graces necessary to succeed in his chosen office. This is politics, it is a violent and brutal sport. If you aren't ready for the consequences of your actions, you shouldn't be playing. What you see today is old fashioned hard ball politics, where leverage is applied and politics are matched with constituencies. You have the Senate, the White House and 193 members of the House. Go ahead and see what you can pass out of the Senate, my bet is Reid couldn't get a tax increase out of the Senate on a simple majority vote. In a way your party has played this pretty well, they have pointed fingers at the right side of the aisle, made them out to be the bad guys, but they could never get the public to agree that the debt limit should be raised no matter what. When the President started talking about "increased revenue", like America was full of a bunch of f'ing morons, he lost the battle for public sentiment.

I have wondered this for the longest time, Ma. I think it is their bankrupt ideology. The conservative movement, some time ago, was taken over by ideologues who no longer wonder, or even care, about how the real world works. I understand you. You have a visceral dislike for government, and the same modest understanding most of us have for how economics actually works, but you rely upon "experts" to provide you with information, theories and analysis. The problem, in my view, with your approach is not heeding Ronald Reagan's aphorism: Trust, but verify. There is whole cavilry (see what I did there? ) who spend their time tearing down anything that works and promoting ideology based upon theory and magical thinking. They have been proven wrong again and again, and their theories debunked with evidence - yet they persist in their views, despite all evidence to the contrary. Hence, their propensity for being wrong. I acknowledge that you have a lot of company, but that is just evidence of their influence, not their correctness.

Could it be because conservatives such as yourself live in a made-up, fantasy world while facts have a liberal bias? I think that answers your questions.


If you can't engage in a political discussion without erecting strawmen, then your position must not have any merit.


And cutting spending to the bone will do nothing to accomplish any of those goals.

Or, stated differently, he got bailed out by massive government spending which put millions to work.

and just when is this going to happen?


And how is that different than any other time in our history? Laws have always been subject to change...but businesses still invest when it's profitable.
Why thanks for that reminder.

Keep building those strawmen. It's obviously all you got.

Ma not all of us are anti-business liberals. But the threat of what comes with the GOP has scared the hell out of many who will choose to drop out of the GOP rather than have to put up with all the religious junk that comes with it.

I can live with many labels but hell and damnation will never be accepted when it starts at the federal level of government. This plan of religious control started with the Birch Society and will never give up their chance at bringing America to God.

The entire Republican Movement is an insult to millions of us who have worked for the agenda of equality. Not even CHB can look at the truth of what is about to happen in America. Think in terms of President Bachmann to control America. Thd American people have elected who they want in their government. Read 1984 for the end result.

Ma, your propensity to personalize your arguments in such a way as to create friction, and undercut the argument (to the extent there is substance to undercut). For examples see Chuck's immediate prior post.:
There are so many fallacies included here: who is the "you"? Where is the "hate"? Who is being attacked that has actually contributed to the economy?

Let's reflect back on that comment a little, shall we? Why are those businesses not investing? Because the Republican party (at least the right wing) is deliberately creating volatility and uncertainty in the economy for political gain. What they should have done is quickly pass a debt limit increase, and then addressed the deficit problem. It has been an economic disaster (unless, of course, you represent Wall Street Brokers) to hold it hostage and has made the United States look weak and feckless to the rest of the world. It was purely a political ploy, and has backfired on the GOP - whose approval has reached single digits - except that it continues their efforts to weaken the economy as much as possible prior to the 2012 elections. Is it economically sound? Absolutely not. Is it an approach in the interest of the nation? DEMONSTRABLY not, and yet, they, like a jealous lover, are willing to burn down the house with the family still in it rather than see their already abused spouse work outside the home. THEY ARE CRAZY. And I know, Ma, that you are not crazy, so why do you support such unadulterated claptrap?

I do not have a religious bone in my body, so whenever anybody starts talking about fire and brimstone, I ask them if it is the name of a pub and just like Sarah Palin, Bachman is unelectable. As for the equality movement, I give you the perverts who reside in the Dem caucus and ask what kind of equality you can gain from them? As a matter of fact, the most outragous statement I ever heard uttered in politics was that Dem state chair telling a reporter that the only qualification that sarah Palin had is that she never had an abortion. Where were all of your equality heros then? I gather that it is OK to be a sexist ahole if you are a Dem? A woman? Both?

Paranoia has a rightful place in any political discussion, but the paranoia that Michelle Bachman could ever be elected President is Quixotic. It is always easy to find an excuse to quit something, I am faced with that excuse during every election here in Moonbat Central. Who knows, maybe someday I will just give up, but I will never convert. I have much too much pride in my self reliance and too much faith in my ability to succeed. I hope I never have to ask for the handouts that Obama offers, it kind of reminds of Randall Flag telling Ray Walsiton that he has to beg for him to release him from jail. I have lived long enough to experience shared sacrifice, and it is always short on sharing and long on sacrifice.

Sandy I like you, but have been duped. Republican/Democrat, it doesn't matter. They are all the same and nothing will ever change unless it is forced down their throats at the end on an election. I heard the anti-Christ label during reagan, Bush the Elder, GW, Clinton and even today I hear that Obama fits the description. I will tell you the same thing I told my ancient civilizations professor; Moses was a good leader who knew some parlor magic, Jesus was a guy who was young, probably pretty good looking and gave good speech. It is all about politics and how to leverage them to gain power, because without power you cannot effect change. Now, if you tell me you don't like their philosophy or their candidates I can understand, but being paranoid over the possibility of a theocracy in America? Why, we would elect a semi-white black man with a Muslim sounding name and big ears long before that would ever happen.

This is why it is hard to carry on a conversation, MaThere was more of this than any substance in that post. Who, really, would want to respond to such rancor and vitriol?

We could instead spend time talking about your substantive (or insubstantial and debatable) points
Gosh, the post got kinda short without the baseless, biased, and rather insulting rhetoric.

As far as I can tell taxation, in the United States, is lower than any other industrialized nation, as expressed as a percentage of the GNP, and we actually rate something like 132nd in taxation (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_tax_rev_of_gdp-taxation-tax-revenue-of-gdp) At the same time we pay almost twice as much to poorly educate our children, our medical costs are the highest in the world, and we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined (yet have been unable to take out Al Quida - 200 members at most, we are told). These are all gifts of our congress, over many years. Congress has been responsive to demands for programs, but unwilling to actually pay for such (does anybody believe that a 1.45% payroll tax would really pay for medicare?). Our taxes were low before Bush Jr but even lower afterwards. So, why in the world would we not have a budget out of balance? Why would we not have debt?

So, the Right, terribly concerned with our national debt, decided to fix that debt by reducing our taxes so that they are the some of the lowest in the world. At the same time they reduced regulation, crashed the economy, and then passed it all on to the Left to take care of. Ok, so then the left said we gotta raise income because if we do not then we cannot fix the debt without cutting all social programs, the military, etc. The Right responded with their plan to privatize both Medicare and Social Security (the SS 'trust' fund is now 17% of the entire national debt!), ie. get rid of them.

Nobody has ever claimed that gov does not make mistakes. Nobody has ever claimed that gov cannot do a better job spending our tax dollars. Anybody, however, that believes this is what its all about have to be out of their collective minds. Anybody who believes the rants of the Right, about what its about have got to be kidding! The Right, and our congress, have now cut taxes so that nothing seems to be getting paid for. The Right then says that more cuts in gov must be made as we are taxed too much and there will be no new taxes. It seems pretty clear to me that the agenda of the Right is NOT the debt. I, for one, firmly believe that the Right wants this nation to stop spending money, nothing more, nothing less. Not raising the debt accomplishes this. I, therefore, believe this is their goal - nothing less, nothing more.

We have another 5 days and then we will be forced to live on our existing income. The Right has been very clear about this - nothing will happen, except that gov will no longer be spending money it does not have. We will be returned to a time of full employment, little or no taxes, and freedom. I have also found it interesting that the Right, in its wisdom and understanding of economics, have dismissed any thought that bad things are to happen. Well, in 5 days we see. We are going to have the opportunity to see who is right. This is not all bad! Finally! Either the Right is dead wrong and things are going to get a lot worse, or they are right. In any case it will be interesting? Unfortunately, if the Right is wrong we will ALL get to deal with it and its not going to be real entertaining.

Remember, Bush got the ball moving with huge tax reductions and two unpaid wars and the medicare drug option. Then we spent trillions bailing out, and making richer, the very criminals that were responsible for the economic downturn whilst our president repeatably said that his administration would not deal with these same criminals because that was all in the past. Then we spent almost another trillion on a stimulus which was really just maintenance for the states. Then our electorate decided to elect those from the Right, who would carry on the same policies that brought us down in the first place (lower taxes no regulation)! We seem to be on a roll of ignorance, failure, mistakes, hot air and baloney. Why in the world would anybody think that we are going to change when, with a little more politics, and stupidity, we can get that unemployment rate up to 20%, or even 30%!

'
Don't forget the costs---both human and financial---of imprisoning one percent of the population in gulags.

By the way, those 200 members of Al Qaida are worth far more than their weight in diamonds and rubies, and must be protected at all costs !

How else could the Military-Industrial Conspiracy Complex justify its extortions from the American people? · · ·

numan,
You forgot to add that half of those in prison are non-violent offenders. They are are there, basically, to be re-educated so that they get back into prison easily the next time around! They can also stand as examples of how grownups act for their youth! I know, education is expensive, but prison education in the ways of the world, just may be the most effective system of education we have!