What Do We Think About John Boehner?
09 Oct 2013, 1:38 pm
I don't know with certainty, but I suspect that recent redistricting has something to do with this this - i.e. rather than the people with these beliefs having their influence diluted by not having the majority in any districts, district boundaries have now changed such that these people can determine the outcome of congressional elections at least in a significant number of districts, and worse, are perceived to have such great influence in Republican primaries that sitting Republican congressmen and senators are afraid to defy them.
09 Oct 2013, 4:38 pm
It's not my job to educate you. Many of your facts are wrong. That's before we even get to the conclusions.
If you can't tell me why I'm wrong, your even more wrong than I. I know SC means Supreme Court, so tell me another one.
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comedic burp
09 Oct 2013, 8:21 pm
It's not my job to educate you. Many of your facts are wrong. That's before we even get to the conclusions.
If you can't tell me why I'm wrong, your even more wrong than I. I know SC means Supreme Court, so tell me another one.
I already told you and you ignored it.
A) The Obama administration submits a budget proposal every year.
B) Every single penny we spend is authorized by the House and Senate.
C) Government growth under Obama is the lowest since Eisenhower. It's a combination of revenue loss and baked into the cake spending that piled up the debt.
D) That the courts determine Constitutionality does not make this a Monarchy.
The Republicans do not want to negotiate on debt and spending. A deal means Obama gets something. They want to make demands where all Obama gets is the Congress doing it's job. That's why the tea party and Ryan and the rest won't do any kind of actual grand bargain with Obama. All they offer are demands backed by threats. We cannot and will not cut our way to a balanced budget. If you think that's about to happen, well, good luck..
09 Oct 2013, 9:11 pm
It's amusing to me how so many people think that it is the Republicans who are refusing to negotiate.
In reality, the Republicans don't seem to understand why the Democrats absolutely refuse to even try to negotiate anything.
From http://news.yahoo.com/why-wont-obama-talk-speaker-boehner-171413402.html:
“Are we going to sit down and have a conversation, or aren’t we?” said Speaker Boehner.
Throughout the crisis over the government shutdown and impending debt ceiling problem, Mr. Obama’s answer to this question has been “no." Neither he nor Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) have shown any interest in a back-and-forth over Republican demands that he defund or scale back Obamacare as the price of funding the government or raising the debt ceiling.
...
“The President is willing to negotiate with Republicans – after the threat of government shutdown and default have been removed – over policies that Republicans think would strengthen the country,” said a readout of the call, released by the White House.
This refusal to engage has taken Republicans by surprise, apparently. An anonymous member of the House leadership told the Washington Examiner’s Byron York that he thought Democrats would respond with some sort of concession on the Affordable Care Act, such as agreement to repeal its medical device tax.
“Instead, it’s no, we’re not going to negotiate, we’re not going to negotiate, we’re not going to negotiate,” this lawmaker told Mr. York. “Which means effectively you’re going to try to humiliate the Speaker in front of his conference. And how effective a negotiating partner do you think he’ll be then? You’re putting the guy in a position where he’s got nothing to lose, because you’re not giving him anything to win.”
...
In the end, the president will have to deal with House Republicans in some way, writes veteran Washington reporter Ron Fournier. Voters want to see it. GOP control of the House gives them power with which Democrats will have to deal in some manner.
Obama’s “position against negotiating with Republicans is politically unsustainable,” writes Mr. Fournier in the National Journal.
In other words, Obama is essentially saying that he will only negotiate once everything has already gone his way and the Republicans no longer have any bargaining points left. Does anyone truly believe that there would be any negotiating to do at that point?
09 Oct 2013, 9:17 pm
It's not my job to educate you. Many of your facts are wrong. That's before we even get to the conclusions.
If you can't tell me why I'm wrong, your even more wrong than I. I know SC means Supreme Court, so tell me another one.
I already told you and you ignored it.
A) The Obama administration submits a budget proposal every year.
B) Every single penny we spend is authorized by the House and Senate.
C) Government growth under Obama is the lowest since Eisenhower. It's a combination of revenue loss and baked into the cake spending that piled up the debt.
D) That the courts determine Constitutionality does not make this a Monarchy.
The Republicans do not want to negotiate on debt and spending. A deal means Obama gets something. They want to make demands where all Obama gets is the Congress doing it's job. That's why the tea party and Ryan and the rest won't do any kind of actual grand bargain with Obama. All they offer are demands backed by threats. We cannot and will not cut our way to a balanced budget. If you think that's about to happen, well, good luck..
You mean the spending is authorized by Congress, but not what it is being spent on since the Senate has not passed any budget resolution in a while.
Obama's budget proposals are so bad that his 2012 budget proposal failed to get any votes in either the House or Senate from anyone of either party. It failed 0-99 in the Senate and 0-414 in the House.
That should tell you something about the quality of the budget proposal if he can't even get any Democrats to vote for it.
auntblabby
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09 Oct 2013, 9:20 pm
holding the economy hostage is a morally bankrupt tactic of the TP. they basically are saying to Obama voters, "F.U.! we are going to undo your mistake in voting democratic." again, TP strains at gnats [obamacare, services for the 99%] and swallows camels whole [taxcuts for the weathy, corporate welfare, vast military/industrial complex waste et al]. the democrats cannot knuckle under to this extortion attempt, it sets a rotten precedent of letting the TP dictate national policy at the point of a gun, and the 99% be damned.
09 Oct 2013, 9:24 pm
They are using guns?
Seriously, it seems like you are saying that the Tea Party members of Congress are voting against their own best interests since very few of them are in the top 1% of income earners in the country. The reality is that they are voting in what they see as their own best interests as well as what they see as best for the country.
Last edited by eric76 on 09 Oct 2013, 9:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
auntblabby
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auntblabby
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09 Oct 2013, 10:57 pm
It's not my job to educate you. Many of your facts are wrong. That's before we even get to the conclusions.
If you can't tell me why I'm wrong, your even more wrong than I. I know SC means Supreme Court, so tell me another one.
I already told you and you ignored it.
A) The Obama administration submits a budget proposal every year.
B) Every single penny we spend is authorized by the House and Senate.
C) Government growth under Obama is the lowest since Eisenhower. It's a combination of revenue loss and baked into the cake spending that piled up the debt.
D) That the courts determine Constitutionality does not make this a Monarchy.
The Republicans do not want to negotiate on debt and spending. A deal means Obama gets something. They want to make demands where all Obama gets is the Congress doing it's job. That's why the tea party and Ryan and the rest won't do any kind of actual grand bargain with Obama. All they offer are demands backed by threats. We cannot and will not cut our way to a balanced budget. If you think that's about to happen, well, good luck..
You mean the spending is authorized by Congress, but not what it is being spent on since the Senate has not passed any budget resolution in a while.
Obama's budget proposals are so bad that his 2012 budget proposal failed to get any votes in either the House or Senate from anyone of either party. It failed 0-99 in the Senate and 0-414 in the House.
That should tell you something about the quality of the budget proposal if he can't even get any Democrats to vote for it.
The continuing resolutions fund everything at the same levels that were last agreed upon with whatever modifications they insert. The money has to go where directed. Congress does all of that and always has. The President's proposals get partially folded into his party's budget and some of it gets ignored. Congress is not about to let a President do the budget alone.
sonofghandi
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10 Oct 2013, 6:42 am
Yes the Republicans say theu are trying to "negotiate." No, the Republicans have have not made any proposals that are a negotiation, just further demands and claims that the Democrats won't negotiate because they won't accept exactly what the Republicans want. No, the Democrats are no longer trying to negotiate. Yes, the Democrats offered to make many concessions to the Republicans, to be met with ultimatums and demands.
The way it stands now, the Democrats want a temporary measure to re-open the government (I believe it is still 3 months). They are trying to say that once the government re-opens, they will begin negotiations on a full fiscal year budget. The Republicans are saying that they want something out of this or they will keep the government shut-down. The Republicans have given up on defunding the ACA, and now most of them don't even know what they want, they just know that they want to get something that will hurt the Democrats position. Both sides have quite a bit of blame for things coming to this point, but as it stands, the Republicans have a much weaker position in both political capital and public support.
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"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently" -Nietzsche
11 Oct 2013, 2:25 pm
The most absurd part, to me, is that the Republicans have threatened to, and have in fact have done so, shut down the government. They've also threatened to let the government default. They do this as if one side or the other were to have more of an interest in, or be hurt more by, the government shutting down. How is this so? Republicans are supposed to stand for limited government, not no government at all. They aren't, at least on paper, anarchists.
If Republicans can say to Democrats that they'll shut down the government or let it default if the Democrats don't surrender on something that the Democrats hold sacrosanct, why can't the Democrats threaten the Republicans with exactly the same thing? Agree to cut defense spending by 70% or we'll shut down the government. Agree to repeal the 2nd amendment or we'll let the government default.
In any case, this has never been about negotiations. Negotiations mean give and take. But this is about "do this, or else". The only thing the Republicans propose to "give" is not inflicting massive harm on the country. The only thing Obama has done is to refuse to negotiate away something he already has - under threat of something being done that would hurt both sides more or less equally, and more or less terribly.
auntblabby
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