The Tea Party is back in business! (1 Viewer)

[Todd Andrews]

KooKs in charge!!

 

[Todd Andrews]

The ACA my be poorly drafted and will likely be poorly executed as many federal government programs are. The ACA was, however, passed with majorities in both houses of Congress and signed by the President. As a consequence, money ought to be allocated for it. Failure to do this sets a very bad precedent because when the roles are reversed and Republicans are ascendant (highly unlikely for the Presidency), what is to stop Democrats from deploying the same strategy and shutting down the government until some legislation they don't like is reversed? The result is paralysis, regular shutdowns, and large uncertainty for an economy that craves a degree of predictability to function.

I also think the public deserves to see ACA in effect rather than the Republicans being the arbiter of it's fate. If there is vast public dissatisfaction with the ACA in practice then future steps came be made to tweak the ACA or repeal it in it's entirety -- depending on the public's wishes after seeing the ACA in practice.

Bingo

 

[3C's]

The real problem to me is the precedent. When one side does something like this the other ups the ante later. Anyone thinking the dems would not do this to a GOP president in the future is mistaken. IT's just an escalation of the lengths the parties will go to to prove they are different from and better than the other party. If one house of congress disagrees with a law in the future this could be the template to fight it.

At some point governing has to take precedence over campaigning and establishing positions to solidify your base, if not this country cannot survive. No country lasts forever, if we do not find a way to make compromise a strength instead of a weakness we are on a path to failure.

http://nolabels.org

Not sure how, but I had never seen this group. Thanks for the link.

If only the GOP had gone for Huntsman. Instead they kept pushing the loons to the front.

 

[timschochet]

It will be very important to see if the public in general agrees with Icon and the Commish ("both sides are equally guilty') or agrees with me ("the GOP is to blame for this.") If the polls show that the public agrees that both sides are guilty, then we can expect the shut down to go on for a while. If the public blames the GOP, then I expect the GOP establishment to put an end to this crap pretty quickly.

You do know that there is quite a bit of room between 100%-0% and 50%-50%?

Of course.

 

[B-Deep]

The real problem to me is the precedent. When one side does something like this the other ups the ante later. Anyone thinking the dems would not do this to a GOP president in the future is mistaken. IT's just an escalation of the lengths the parties will go to to prove they are different from and better than the other party. If one house of congress disagrees with a law in the future this could be the template to fight it.

At some point governing has to take precedence over campaigning and establishing positions to solidify your base, if not this country cannot survive. No country lasts forever, if we do not find a way to make compromise a strength instead of a weakness we are on a path to failure.

Both sides are acting like little kids. Repubs and Dems both suck balls now. It's all about the slapfight and not about bettering the nation and fixing the problems. Whole lotta stomping feet, pointing fingers, and yelling "BUT HE STARTED IT". Jackholes, the lot of em.

No no NO!!!

People need to stop spewing this "both sides" crap. In this instance, the fault is SOLELY the Tea Party, and the GOP leadership which has caved to them. That's it. Not Obama, not the Democrats. This lies completely at the feet of the Republican party.

even if you are correct, the problem is either side would do this. The democrats have the advantage of being in power in the oval office, and the GOP is fighting them. IF the roles reverse next time the Dems play will be the same, or worse. It is an escalating cold war of dumbassness and neither side is going to stop it. This is just the latest and most extreme example. it will continue it always does. We need only look at how the party who does not hold the oval office is always the party trying to score points on the debt ceiling or the budget (see Obama quotes). Neither party's position on most topics matters other than to be opposite the other party. One of the best wayd to win market share is differentiation, and it has become the mainstay of american politics. If i cannot convince people my ideas work (since no ones ideas are 100%) the next best thing is to convince them the other side's ideas are a disaster and if i can get them to buy into actual evil intent from the other side all the better.

The party in the minority always has to bang these strategies harder. Right now it is the GOP, it won't always be,

 

[B-Deep]

But so what?... you overwhelmingly flood threads with numerous posts because you refuse to let those who view the world with different subtleties have the same number of posts on the matter as you do.

people who make every thread into a bash tim thread are 10,000 times more annoying than tim

 

[Politician Spock]

Any bill that gets passed is part of the give and take of politics, no matter how party line it is.

That sounds an awful lot like "the end justifies the means".

You're not applying the correct timschochet subtlety filter.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

I got some more good ones form the trenches for you all.

Customer #1 "I want a plan with very low premiums and a very low deductible"

X

Customer #2 "You mean I have to pay for doctor visits?" "What do you mean I still have to pay for 20% of the hospital bill?"

XX

No offense to those hard working folks who know zero about insurance and are only calling because of Obamacare and the media...but these folks seem shocked when you tell them it is going to be $300 a month, $25 co-pay, $2,500 deductible...a ton of folks cannot qualify for "free healthcare" but they don't make enough money to afford $3,600 a year in monthly premiums.

Many folks in the more rural parts of this country have gotten along fine dipping into their pockets for the once or twice a year visit to the doctor. It really doesn't cost that much money without insurance. The vast majority of folks will never see the inside of a hospital due to some catastrophic event, rarely happens. Go to your local hospitals, they are filled with old people not folks in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. This is only gonna get worse.

Eventually people are gonna figure out they got hosed on this badly.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

The real problem to me is the precedent. When one side does something like this the other ups the ante later. Anyone thinking the dems would not do this to a GOP president in the future is mistaken. IT's just an escalation of the lengths the parties will go to to prove they are different from and better than the other party. If one house of congress disagrees with a law in the future this could be the template to fight it.

At some point governing has to take precedence over campaigning and establishing positions to solidify your base, if not this country cannot survive. No country lasts forever, if we do not find a way to make compromise a strength instead of a weakness we are on a path to failure.

Both sides are acting like little kids. Repubs and Dems both suck balls now. It's all about the slapfight and not about bettering the nation and fixing the problems. Whole lotta stomping feet, pointing fingers, and yelling "BUT HE STARTED IT". Jackholes, the lot of em.

No no NO!!!People need to stop spewing this "both sides" crap. In this instance, the fault is SOLELY the Tea Party, and the GOP leadership which has caved to them. That's it. Not Obama, not the Democrats. This lies completely at the feet of the Republican party.

You're insufferable

Maybe, but in this case, he's 100 percent correct.

No he's not.

 

[Sand]

lol

I didn't find that situation terribly funny. To each his own.

 

[Politician Spock]

But so what?... you overwhelmingly flood threads with numerous posts because you refuse to let those who view the world with different subtleties have the same number of posts on the matter as you do.

people who make every thread into a bash tim thread are 10,000 times more annoying than tim

It's the last ditch effort of one about to leave because he makes this place unbearable. If you like him, then keep him. I'm done.

Bye all!

 

[Fennis]

I got some more good ones form the trenches for you all.

Customer #1 "I want a plan with very low premiums and a very low deductible"

X

Customer #2 "You mean I have to pay for doctor visits?" "What do you mean I still have to pay for 20% of the hospital bill?"

XX

No offense to those hard working folks who know zero about insurance and are only calling because of Obamacare and the media...but these folks seem shocked when you tell them it is going to be $300 a month, $25 co-pay, $2,500 deductible...a ton of folks cannot qualify for "free healthcare" but they don't make enough money to afford $3,600 a year in monthly premiums.

Many folks in the more rural parts of this country have gotten along fine dipping into their pockets for the once or twice a year visit to the doctor. It really doesn't cost that much money without insurance. The vast majority of folks will never see the inside of a hospital due to some catastrophic event, rarely happens. Go to your local hospitals, they are filled with old people not folks in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. This is only gonna get worse.

Eventually people are gonna figure out they got hosed on this badly.

subsidies are given at pretty high incomes

 

[Fennis]

But so what?... you overwhelmingly flood threads with numerous posts because you refuse to let those who view the world with different subtleties have the same number of posts on the matter as you do.

people who make every thread into a bash tim thread are 10,000 times more annoying than tim

It's the last ditch effort of one about to leave because he makes this place unbearable. If you like him, then keep him. I'm done.

Bye all!

spock, wait

 

[TPW]

I awoke this morning expecting Ragnarök but instead the sun rose in the east just as normal, market futures were up, and my morning coffee went down just as well as it always does.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-01/rush-hour-traffic-dc-government-shutdown-day

What a beautiful sight! Finally, government employees are NOT getting paid six figures not to work. Let's keep it up through the end of the year and then we might be getting somewhere.

 

[humpback]

It will be very important to see if the public in general agrees with Icon and the Commish ("both sides are equally guilty') or agrees with me ("the GOP is to blame for this.") If the polls show that the public agrees that both sides are guilty, then we can expect the shut down to go on for a while. If the public blames the GOP, then I expect the GOP establishment to put an end to this crap pretty quickly.

You do know that there is quite a bit of room between 100%-0% and 50%-50%?

Of course.

I think very few reasonable people are saying that this is either a 100/0 or 50/50 proposition. I place more of the blame on the right, but it's ridiculous to put it at 100%.

 

[B-Deep]

But so what?... you overwhelmingly flood threads with numerous posts because you refuse to let those who view the world with different subtleties have the same number of posts on the matter as you do.

people who make every thread into a bash tim thread are 10,000 times more annoying than tim

It's the last ditch effort of one about to leave because he makes this place unbearable. If you like him, then keep him. I'm done.

Bye all!

spock, wait

the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

 

[timschochet]

The real problem to me is the precedent. When one side does something like this the other ups the ante later. Anyone thinking the dems would not do this to a GOP president in the future is mistaken. IT's just an escalation of the lengths the parties will go to to prove they are different from and better than the other party. If one house of congress disagrees with a law in the future this could be the template to fight it.

At some point governing has to take precedence over campaigning and establishing positions to solidify your base, if not this country cannot survive. No country lasts forever, if we do not find a way to make compromise a strength instead of a weakness we are on a path to failure.

Both sides are acting like little kids. Repubs and Dems both suck balls now. It's all about the slapfight and not about bettering the nation and fixing the problems. Whole lotta stomping feet, pointing fingers, and yelling "BUT HE STARTED IT". Jackholes, the lot of em.

No no NO!!!

People need to stop spewing this "both sides" crap. In this instance, the fault is SOLELY the Tea Party, and the GOP leadership which has caved to them. That's it. Not Obama, not the Democrats. This lies completely at the feet of the Republican party.

even if you are correct, the problem is either side would do this. The democrats have the advantage of being in power in the oval office, and the GOP is fighting them. IF the roles reverse next time the Dems play will be the same, or worse. It is an escalating cold war of dumbassness and neither side is going to stop it. This is just the latest and most extreme example. it will continue it always does. We need only look at how the party who does not hold the oval office is always the party trying to score points on the debt ceiling or the budget (see Obama quotes). Neither party's position on most topics matters other than to be opposite the other party. One of the best wayd to win market share is differentiation, and it has become the mainstay of american politics. If i cannot convince people my ideas work (since no ones ideas are 100%) the next best thing is to convince them the other side's ideas are a disaster and if i can get them to buy into actual evil intent from the other side all the better.

The party in the minority always has to bang these strategies harder. Right now it is the GOP, it won't always be,

I agree with you 100%. But I want to add that this only is likely to happen when grass roots, populist elements exert too much influence over the political party. The last time that happened to the Democrats was in the early 1970s. It's happening right now with the Republicans.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

I remember Obama saying if you liked your healthcare plan then nothing would change for you. That was obviously a joke since my company is no longer allowed to offer the same plan they have been offering us because it's too good of a plan. LOL. I can't believe anyone with a job and a brain supports this guy.

 

[timschochet]

It will be very important to see if the public in general agrees with Icon and the Commish ("both sides are equally guilty') or agrees with me ("the GOP is to blame for this.") If the polls show that the public agrees that both sides are guilty, then we can expect the shut down to go on for a while. If the public blames the GOP, then I expect the GOP establishment to put an end to this crap pretty quickly.

You do know that there is quite a bit of room between 100%-0% and 50%-50%?

Of course.

I think very few reasonable people are saying that this is either a 100/0 or 50/50 proposition. I place more of the blame on the right, but it's ridiculous to put it at 100%.

I probably shouldn't have written 100%. That was hyperbole. But I place the blame for this STRONGLY on the Tea Party, and I hate the "both sides" line.

 

[Slapdash]

Look again. The undoing of the Clinton era in the 2000s was led by a Republican House.


And if you want to focus on party, here is the sum total of Presidents since WW2 that have seen an increase in debt on their watch:

Ford (very small)

Reagan

Bush 1

Bush 2

Obama

Four our of five are Republicans.

Congress controls the purse strings - that is a basic tenet of our Constitutional setup.

And looking at 1994-2008 or so when there was a Republican led house that was a flatline. Zero change. Not ideal, and certainly could have been a lot better, but there is no positive slope there.

You and I both know there was a fundamental difference in philosophy in both Congress and the Presidency between the 90s and the 00s. The 90s, as painful as it was, was marked by a drive to balance the budget. The 00s was all about the tax cut.

Supply side economics, championed by Reagan and reinvigorated by Bush's tax cuts, has smoked this country financially.

So if you wanted this country on solid financial footing, which side would you choose? We only have two realistic choices.

And I'm not sure why you blame supply side economics for (I gather) the latest recession. That one was pretty cut and dry. We had both sides of government, but to be fair mostly Democrats, push government intrusion into the housing market and pump up prices to ridiculous levels. Fannie and Freddie were Democrat inventions and Democrat darlings. That is what smoked us. In the guise of "helping people" they managed to cripple a large part of the economy and depress the rest as a result. Really sad to think how many people they hurt through the philosophy of infinite subsidy - well, until that house of cards came crashing down.

lol

 

[Fennis]

Sorry to those impacted, but I don’t care that much about a government shutdown and I expect it will be worked out in the next several days.



The far scarier conversation is the debt ceiling and the negative impact these same people with the same strategies are going to bring to this country.

 

[DanFouts]

I got some more good ones form the trenches for you all.

Customer #1 "I want a plan with very low premiums and a very low deductible"

X

Customer #2 "You mean I have to pay for doctor visits?" "What do you mean I still have to pay for 20% of the hospital bill?"

XX

No offense to those hard working folks who know zero about insurance and are only calling because of Obamacare and the media...but these folks seem shocked when you tell them it is going to be $300 a month, $25 co-pay, $2,500 deductible...a ton of folks cannot qualify for "free healthcare" but they don't make enough money to afford $3,600 a year in monthly premiums.

Many folks in the more rural parts of this country have gotten along fine dipping into their pockets for the once or twice a year visit to the doctor. It really doesn't cost that much money without insurance. The vast majority of folks will never see the inside of a hospital due to some catastrophic event, rarely happens. Go to your local hospitals, they are filled with old people not folks in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. This is only gonna get worse.

Eventually people are gonna figure out they got hosed on this badly.

However, that is the definition of insurance.....paying monthly fees for coverage in case something is catastrophic (health, car wreck, hurricane, etc). And guess who pays for that when you need help if you don't have insurance?? The government and the people through medicaid, FEMA, tax dollars. This is a way to evenly distribute the pain. The individual mandate is critical. People seems to whine about big govt, then come running when they need help.....annoying.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

I got some more good ones form the trenches for you all.

Customer #1 "I want a plan with very low premiums and a very low deductible"

X

Customer #2 "You mean I have to pay for doctor visits?" "What do you mean I still have to pay for 20% of the hospital bill?"

XX

No offense to those hard working folks who know zero about insurance and are only calling because of Obamacare and the media...but these folks seem shocked when you tell them it is going to be $300 a month, $25 co-pay, $2,500 deductible...a ton of folks cannot qualify for "free healthcare" but they don't make enough money to afford $3,600 a year in monthly premiums.

Many folks in the more rural parts of this country have gotten along fine dipping into their pockets for the once or twice a year visit to the doctor. It really doesn't cost that much money without insurance. The vast majority of folks will never see the inside of a hospital due to some catastrophic event, rarely happens. Go to your local hospitals, they are filled with old people not folks in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. This is only gonna get worse.

Eventually people are gonna figure out they got hosed on this badly.

That's why we need the insurance reform now.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Anyone else catch Jon Stewart last night.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-stewart-shreds-gop-over-obamacare-utter-insanity-its-a-fcking-law/

Jon Stewart tore apart Republicans over threatening to shut the government down over Obamacare, using it to claim the GOP doesn’t really care about the Constitution that much to begin with, mocking their concern that Obamacare is “the end of America as we know it for reasons no one is able to clearly explain!

Stewart walked through how Obamacare was already upheld as constitutional, and offered a simple analogy: when football teams lose, they don’t say “If you don’t give us 25 points on Monday, we will shut down the ####### NFL!” He decried this “utter insanity” and berated the media for thinking both sides are equally at blame here, likening Republicans to an “####### causing a head-on collision” on the highway.”

Stewart ended by calling out the GOP for the talking point that Obama negotiates with Iran but not them.

“You’re not helping yourself if it turns out that President
Barack Obama
can made a deal with the most intransigent, hardline, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world, but not with Republicans, maybe he’s not the problem!”

 

[Uwe Blab]

I awoke this morning expecting Ragnarök but instead the sun rose in the east just as normal, market futures were up, and my morning coffee went down just as well as it always does.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-01/rush-hour-traffic-dc-government-shutdown-day

What a beautiful sight! Finally, government employees are NOT getting paid six figures not to work. Let's keep it up through the end of the year and then we might be getting somewhere.

I woke up this morning and my electricity was out, my vehicle wouldn't start, my office was closed, the traffic lights were all off.... oh wait. none of that happened.

Good to hear that you're fine.

But my sister has been told that she needs to continue to report to work but won't receive any paychecks until this mess is over. And then, just to add some more pain, starting in November the sequester is causing her one furlough day every two weeks, dropping her paycheck by 10%. She's cash strapped as is, so she's all kinds of stressed out. So go to hell.

 

[timschochet]

But so what?... you overwhelmingly flood threads with numerous posts because you refuse to let those who view the world with different subtleties have the same number of posts on the matter as you do.

people who make every thread into a bash tim thread are 10,000 times more annoying than tim

It's the last ditch effort of one about to leave because he makes this place unbearable. If you like him, then keep him. I'm done.

Bye all!

Sorry you feel this way. Hope you'll change your mind.

 

[Henry Ford]

Look again. The undoing of the Clinton era in the 2000s was led by a Republican House.


And if you want to focus on party, here is the sum total of Presidents since WW2 that have seen an increase in debt on their watch:

Ford (very small)

Reagan

Bush 1

Bush 2

Obama

Four our of five are Republicans.

Congress controls the purse strings - that is a basic tenet of our Constitutional setup.

And looking at 1994-2008 or so when there was a Republican led house that was a flatline. Zero change. Not ideal, and certainly could have been a lot better, but there is no positive slope there.

It's crazy how Bush was president for 8 of those 14 years, he's listed as having an increase in debt in the post directly above yours, and you're convinced that there was zero change during that time.

Here's a picture: http://jimcgreevy.com/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.jpg

 

[timschochet]

I awoke this morning expecting Ragnarök but instead the sun rose in the east just as normal, market futures were up, and my morning coffee went down just as well as it always does.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-01/rush-hour-traffic-dc-government-shutdown-day

What a beautiful sight! Finally, government employees are NOT getting paid six figures not to work. Let's keep it up through the end of the year and then we might be getting somewhere.

This is really a very disgusting post, especially the bolded part.

 

[Rush Limbaugh Fan]

Sorry to those impacted, but I don’t care that much about a government shutdown and I expect it will be worked out in the next several days.

The far scarier conversation is the debt ceiling and the negative impact these same people with the same strategies are going to bring to this country.

Technically Obama can just raise the ceiling anyways. Which he should do if the republicans are still acting like children.

 

[Fennis]

Sorry to those impacted, but I don’t care that much about a government shutdown and I expect it will be worked out in the next several days.

The far scarier conversation is the debt ceiling and the negative impact these same people with the same strategies are going to bring to this country.

Technically Obama can just raise the ceiling anyways. Which he should do if the republicans are still acting like children.

trillion dollar coin.

 

[DanFouts]

I awoke this morning expecting Ragnarök but instead the sun rose in the east just as normal, market futures were up, and my morning coffee went down just as well as it always does.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-01/rush-hour-traffic-dc-government-shutdown-day

What a beautiful sight! Finally, government employees are NOT getting paid six figures not to work. Let's keep it up through the end of the year and then we might be getting somewhere.

You are pathetic...I hope you never need government to save your ### (VA, DOJ, Defense, Fed)

 

[timschochet]

Sorry to those impacted, but I don’t care that much about a government shutdown and I expect it will be worked out in the next several days.

The far scarier conversation is the debt ceiling and the negative impact these same people with the same strategies are going to bring to this country.

Technically Obama can just raise the ceiling anyways. Which he should do if the republicans are still acting like children.

He can, but that would create a real crisis that would impact the financial world very badly.

Fennis is right. The debt ceiling issue IS far scarier and the consequences could truly be catastrophic.

 

[TPW]

I awoke this morning expecting Ragnarök but instead the sun rose in the east just as normal, market futures were up, and my morning coffee went down just as well as it always does.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-01/rush-hour-traffic-dc-government-shutdown-day

What a beautiful sight! Finally, government employees are NOT getting paid six figures not to work. Let's keep it up through the end of the year and then we might be getting somewhere.

I woke up this morning and my electricity was out, my vehicle wouldn't start, my office was closed, the traffic lights were all off.... oh wait. none of that happened.

Good to hear that you're fine.

But my sister has been told that she needs to continue to report to work but won't receive any paychecks until this mess is over. And then, just to add some more pain, starting in November the sequester is causing her one furlough day every two weeks, dropping her paycheck by 10%. She's cash strapped as is, so she's all kinds of stressed out. So go to hell.

Welcome to the real world of job insecurity that the rest of us live with every day. While the Feds have been liviing high on the hog with their $831 billion dollar "stimulus" slush fund the rest of the country is struggling to make ends meet.

The wealthiest counties in the United States ring the capital so you'll get no sympathy here.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2013/04/25/americas-richest-counties/

 

[Rush Limbaugh Fan]

I awoke this morning expecting Ragnarök but instead the sun rose in the east just as normal, market futures were up, and my morning coffee went down just as well as it always does.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-01/rush-hour-traffic-dc-government-shutdown-day

What a beautiful sight! Finally, government employees are NOT getting paid six figures not to work. Let's keep it up through the end of the year and then we might be getting somewhere.

How does one become this stupid?

 

[B-Deep]

The real problem to me is the precedent. When one side does something like this the other ups the ante later. Anyone thinking the dems would not do this to a GOP president in the future is mistaken. IT's just an escalation of the lengths the parties will go to to prove they are different from and better than the other party. If one house of congress disagrees with a law in the future this could be the template to fight it.

At some point governing has to take precedence over campaigning and establishing positions to solidify your base, if not this country cannot survive. No country lasts forever, if we do not find a way to make compromise a strength instead of a weakness we are on a path to failure.

Both sides are acting like little kids. Repubs and Dems both suck balls now. It's all about the slapfight and not about bettering the nation and fixing the problems. Whole lotta stomping feet, pointing fingers, and yelling "BUT HE STARTED IT". Jackholes, the lot of em.

No no NO!!!

People need to stop spewing this "both sides" crap. In this instance, the fault is SOLELY the Tea Party, and the GOP leadership which has caved to them. That's it. Not Obama, not the Democrats. This lies completely at the feet of the Republican party.

even if you are correct, the problem is either side would do this. The democrats have the advantage of being in power in the oval office, and the GOP is fighting them. IF the roles reverse next time the Dems play will be the same, or worse. It is an escalating cold war of dumbassness and neither side is going to stop it. This is just the latest and most extreme example. it will continue it always does. We need only look at how the party who does not hold the oval office is always the party trying to score points on the debt ceiling or the budget (see Obama quotes). Neither party's position on most topics matters other than to be opposite the other party. One of the best wayd to win market share is differentiation, and it has become the mainstay of american politics. If i cannot convince people my ideas work (since no ones ideas are 100%) the next best thing is to convince them the other side's ideas are a disaster and if i can get them to buy into actual evil intent from the other side all the better.

The party in the minority always has to bang these strategies harder. Right now it is the GOP, it won't always be,

I agree with you 100%. But I want to add that this only is likely to happen when grass roots, populist elements exert too much influence over the political party. The last time that happened to the Democrats was in the early 1970s. It's happening right now with the Republicans.

I'd disagree

I think much of the way Bush II was treated plays directly into this. I submit the number of people who are convinced that the iraq war was an evil plot as evidence. IT was not enough to say mistakes were made, it had to all be part of some Machiavellian scheme by Bush and Cheney to advance some evil agenda.

and hey, maybe it was

and maybe obama is a manchurian candidate driving us to a godless socialism

but either way, those are the ideas that drive the campaigns of the people that run our country now. So it almost does not matter if they are true or not, because their impact is. As people of opposing views become more and more convinced the other side is not just mistaken, but is malevolent, what eventual reconciliation can there be? How can you compromise with someone whose goal is to destroy your country by either:

1) destroying god and religion and driving us to socialism and making us all slaves to the government

2) destroying all personal liberty and createing an economic elite class ruling at expense of the poor

why would anyone want to compromise with someone whose goal is their persecution? You would not, thus failure to compromise is strength of principles and you get what we have here...

hell at this point the cat is so far out of the bag even if the candidates wanted to reign it in they could not. Special interests and PACs and bloggers and radio shows fuel the fire of the segregation of ideas. Everyone likes to hear that what THEY believe is right and what others believe is bad. If we want change the people in the middle need to fight for it, assuming there is any quantity of people in the middle left.

 

[RCon]

Then no offense, but your memory is a little short here. Obamacare was negotiated with the Republicans for months, and the Dems made concession after concession with Republican moderates in order to have some kind of bipartisan approval. By the time the bill was up for a vote, it barely resembled what was originally proposed. At that point, the GOP leadership, realizing the bill would pass anyhow, decided that it would serve them politically if not a single Republican voted for it. But that political decision had nothing to do with the give and take that occurred during the formation of the bill.

The Dems made "concession after concession" to win votes from Democrat moderates (the "Blue Dogs"), not from GOPers.

 

[Slapdash]

Sorry to those impacted, but I don’t care that much about a government shutdown and I expect it will be worked out in the next several days.

The far scarier conversation is the debt ceiling and the negative impact these same people with the same strategies are going to bring to this country.

Technically Obama can just raise the ceiling anyways. Which he should do if the republicans are still acting like children.

He can, but that would create a real crisis that would impact the financial world very badly.

Fennis is right. The debt ceiling issue IS far scarier and the consequences could truly be catastrophic.

As long as we avoid a default rating, I'm sure markets would be fine with Obama doing an end-run around Congress.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

You guys have no idea what this is even about do you? You're just spouting whatever bull#### comes into your heads that supports whatever personal axe you have to grind.

--The budget fight in 2011 resulted in Sequestration -- a compromise that it was thought neither side wanted to see actually come to pass. Sequestration set total 'discretionary' spending for a long time into the future -- broken into defense and civilian (i.e. everything else). The plan was to create something so heinous that it would force a budget agreement.

--But the two sides couldn't reach agreement on something other than the sequestration deal so 2012 operated under the sequestration limits. As will 2013, and every year going forward for quite awhile unless the two sides agree to changes.

--As has happened most years recently there is no budget in place on October 1st. Which means there is no money to fund goverment operations. Typically a short-term spending bill is passed to keep things working while the budget is worked out -- I believe they're called continuing resolutions (but could be mixing and matching).

--That short-term spending bill is what's being fought over today -- and the lack of one is why government is shut down.

--The two sides are not arguing over spending with regard to the continuing resolution. There is no disagreement over spending. Instead Republicans have refused to pass a short-term bill unless Democrats and Obama overturn Obamacare. They frame it as a 'delay' and cutting out single provisions -- but the intent is to kill the program.

--Obamacare passed both houses of Congress after months of political fighting, and was signed by the President. It was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court. It's already law.

--In other words, Republicans are attempting to use the threat of government shut down to overturn existing law that was passed by Congress. It has nothing to do with the budget process. It's the equivalent of Democrats shutting down government unless all restrictions to abortion were eliminated. Or shutting down government until a national gun control program were put in place. In other words, to inflict damage solely for the purpose of overturning something that they were unable to prevent via the democratic process and will not be able to overturn via the democratic process.

--This is largely, but not entirely, unprecedented. There were shutdowns in 1977 and 1978 related to disagreements between the (Democratic) House and (Democratic) Senate on abortion, but neither the House nor the Senate intended to shut down government and neither side was using the shutdown as a weapon. It was an unfortunate and unintended result of the the fight.

--More important than the government shut down is the Republican threat to follow the same playbook when the debt limit is reached in a few weeks. Prior to recent Republican efforts along the same lines this -- threatening to have the United States default on its debt in order to obtain policy results that are not possible via the democratic process -- is entirely unprecedented.

--Debt in the United States is primarily incurred when the government needs to borrow money to perform the functions mandated by the budget that come out of Congress. And if we can not borrow in order to pay for the services the government has performed we default on debts we have already incurred. In other words, the debt limit has ZERO to do with spending.

--People say all sorts of things about the consequences of a US default, but the truth is no one has any idea what will happen. Given the fragile state of the international financial system not knowing what will happen scares the #### out of a lot of very smart people.

--So, in summary, Republicans are attempting to inflict pain on government workers and government service recipients and are threatening to inflict pain on the US economy and international financial system to achieve a policy goal that they were unable to achieve via the normal democratic process and which they are unlikely to achieve via the normal democratic process in the future.

--This is unprecedented. And both sides do not do it.

 

[Jewell]

You guys have no idea what this is even about do you? You're just spouting whatever bull#### comes into your heads that supports whatever personal axe you have to grind.

--The budget fight in 2011 resulted in Sequestration -- a compromise that it was thought neither side wanted to see actually come to pass. Sequestration set total 'discretionary' spending for a long time into the future -- broken into defense and civilian (i.e. everything else).

--But the two sides couldn't reach agreement on somethign different so 2012 operated under the sequestration limits. As will 2013, and every year going forward for quite awhile unless the two sides agree to changes.

--As has happened most years recently there is no budget in place on October 1st. Which means there is no money to fund goverment operations. Typically a short-term spending bill is passed to keep things working while the budget is worked out -- I believe they're called continuing resolutions (but could be mixing and matching).

--That short-term spending bill is what's being fought over today -- and the lack of one is why government is shut down.

--The two sides are not arguing over spending with regard to the continuing resolution. There is no disagreement over spending. Instead Republicans have refused to pass a short-term bill unless Democrats and Obama overturn Obamacare. They frame it as a 'delay' and cutting out single provisions -- but the intent is to kill the program.

--Obamacare passed both houses of Congress after months of political fighting, and was signed by the President. It was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court. It's already law.

--In other words, Republicans are attempting to use the threat of government shut down to overturn existing law that was passed by Congress. It has nothing to do with the budget process. It's the equivalent of Democrats shutting down government unless all restrictions to abortion were eliminated. Or shutting down government until a national gun control program were put in place. In other words, to inflict damage solely for the purpose of overturning something that they were unable to prevent via the democratic process and will not be able to overturn via the democratic process.

--This is largely, but not entirely, unprecedented. There were shutdowns in 1977 and 1978 related to disagreements between the (Democratic) House and (Democratic) Senate on abortion, but neither the House nor the Senate intended to shut down government and neither side was using the shutdown as a weapon. It was an unfortunate and unintended result of the the fight.

--More importantly than the government shut down is the Republican threat to follow the same playbook when the debt limit is reached in a few weeks. Prior to recent Republican efforts along the same lines this -- threatening to have the United States default on its debt in order to obtain policy results that are not possible via the democratic process -- is entirely unprecedented.

--Debt in the United States is primarily incurred when the government needs to borrow money to perform the functions mandated by the budget that come out of Congress. And if we can not borrow in order to pay for the services the government has performed we default on debts we have already incurred. In other words, the debt limit has ZERO to do with spending.

--People say all sorts of things about the consequences of a US default, but the truth is no one has any idea what will happen. Given the fragile state of the international financial system not knowing what will scares the #### out of a lot of very smart people.

--So, in summary, Republicans are attempting to inflict pain on government workers and government service recipients and are threatening to inflict pain on the US economy and international financial system to acheive a policy goal that they were unable to acheive via the normal democratic process and which they are unlikely to acheive via the normal democratic process in the future.

--This is unprecedented. And both sides do not do it.

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

Look again. The undoing of the Clinton era in the 2000s was led by a Republican House.


And if you want to focus on party, here is the sum total of Presidents since WW2 that have seen an increase in debt on their watch:

Ford (very small)

Reagan

Bush 1

Bush 2

Obama

Four our of five are Republicans.

Congress controls the purse strings - that is a basic tenet of our Constitutional setup.

And looking at 1994-2008 or so when there was a Republican led house that was a flatline. Zero change. Not ideal, and certainly could have been a lot better, but there is no positive slope there.

Thank God that Clinton blinked in those '90s budget showdowns/government shutdowns with the House GOP!

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

You guys have no idea what this is even about do you? You're just spouting whatever bull#### comes into your heads that supports whatever personal axe you have to grind.

--The budget fight in 2011 resulted in Sequestration -- a compromise that it was thought neither side wanted to see actually come to pass. Sequestration set total 'discretionary' spending for a long time into the future -- broken into defense and civilian (i.e. everything else).

--But the two sides couldn't reach agreement on somethign different so 2012 operated under the sequestration limits. As will 2013, and every year going forward for quite awhile unless the two sides agree to changes.

--As has happened most years recently there is no budget in place on October 1st. Which means there is no money to fund goverment operations. Typically a short-term spending bill is passed to keep things working while the budget is worked out -- I believe they're called continuing resolutions (but could be mixing and matching).

--That short-term spending bill is what's being fought over today -- and the lack of one is why government is shut down.

--The two sides are not arguing over spending with regard to the continuing resolution. There is no disagreement over spending. Instead Republicans have refused to pass a short-term bill unless Democrats and Obama overturn Obamacare. They frame it as a 'delay' and cutting out single provisions -- but the intent is to kill the program.

--Obamacare passed both houses of Congress after months of political fighting, and was signed by the President. It was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court. It's already law.

--In other words, Republicans are attempting to use the threat of government shut down to overturn existing law that was passed by Congress. It has nothing to do with the budget process. It's the equivalent of Democrats shutting down government unless all restrictions to abortion were eliminated. Or shutting down government until a national gun control program were put in place. In other words, to inflict damage solely for the purpose of overturning something that they were unable to prevent via the democratic process and will not be able to overturn via the democratic process.

--This is largely, but not entirely, unprecedented. There were shutdowns in 1977 and 1978 related to disagreements between the (Democratic) House and (Democratic) Senate on abortion, but neither the House nor the Senate intended to shut down government and neither side was using the shutdown as a weapon. It was an unfortunate and unintended result of the the fight.

--More importantly than the government shut down is the Republican threat to follow the same playbook when the debt limit is reached in a few weeks. Prior to recent Republican efforts along the same lines this -- threatening to have the United States default on its debt in order to obtain policy results that are not possible via the democratic process -- is entirely unprecedented.

--Debt in the United States is primarily incurred when the government needs to borrow money to perform the functions mandated by the budget that come out of Congress. And if we can not borrow in order to pay for the services the government has performed we default on debts we have already incurred. In other words, the debt limit has ZERO to do with spending.

--People say all sorts of things about the consequences of a US default, but the truth is no one has any idea what will happen. Given the fragile state of the international financial system not knowing what will scares the #### out of a lot of very smart people.

--So, in summary, Republicans are attempting to inflict pain on government workers and government service recipients and are threatening to inflict pain on the US economy and international financial system to acheive a policy goal that they were unable to acheive via the normal democratic process and which they are unlikely to acheive via the normal democratic process in the future.

--This is unprecedented. And both sides do not do it.

Boener needs to grow a pair and stand up to these fools.

 

[timschochet]

The real problem to me is the precedent. When one side does something like this the other ups the ante later. Anyone thinking the dems would not do this to a GOP president in the future is mistaken. IT's just an escalation of the lengths the parties will go to to prove they are different from and better than the other party. If one house of congress disagrees with a law in the future this could be the template to fight it.

At some point governing has to take precedence over campaigning and establishing positions to solidify your base, if not this country cannot survive. No country lasts forever, if we do not find a way to make compromise a strength instead of a weakness we are on a path to failure.

Both sides are acting like little kids. Repubs and Dems both suck balls now. It's all about the slapfight and not about bettering the nation and fixing the problems. Whole lotta stomping feet, pointing fingers, and yelling "BUT HE STARTED IT". Jackholes, the lot of em.

No no NO!!!

People need to stop spewing this "both sides" crap. In this instance, the fault is SOLELY the Tea Party, and the GOP leadership which has caved to them. That's it. Not Obama, not the Democrats. This lies completely at the feet of the Republican party.

even if you are correct, the problem is either side would do this. The democrats have the advantage of being in power in the oval office, and the GOP is fighting them. IF the roles reverse next time the Dems play will be the same, or worse. It is an escalating cold war of dumbassness and neither side is going to stop it. This is just the latest and most extreme example. it will continue it always does. We need only look at how the party who does not hold the oval office is always the party trying to score points on the debt ceiling or the budget (see Obama quotes). Neither party's position on most topics matters other than to be opposite the other party. One of the best wayd to win market share is differentiation, and it has become the mainstay of american politics. If i cannot convince people my ideas work (since no ones ideas are 100%) the next best thing is to convince them the other side's ideas are a disaster and if i can get them to buy into actual evil intent from the other side all the better.

The party in the minority always has to bang these strategies harder. Right now it is the GOP, it won't always be,

I agree with you 100%. But I want to add that this only is likely to happen when grass roots, populist elements exert too much influence over the political party. The last time that happened to the Democrats was in the early 1970s. It's happening right now with the Republicans.

I'd disagree

I think much of the way Bush II was treated plays directly into this. I submit the number of people who are convinced that the iraq war was an evil plot as evidence. IT was not enough to say mistakes were made, it had to all be part of some Machiavellian scheme by Bush and Cheney to advance some evil agenda.

and hey, maybe it was

and maybe obama is a manchurian candidate driving us to a godless socialism

but either way, those are the ideas that drive the campaigns of the people that run our country now. So it almost does not matter if they are true or not, because their impact is. As people of opposing views become more and more convinced the other side is not just mistaken, but is malevolent, what eventual reconciliation can there be? How can you compromise with someone whose goal is to destroy your country by either:

1) destroying god and religion and driving us to socialism and making us all slaves to the government

2) destroying all personal liberty and createing an economic elite class ruling at expense of the poor

why would anyone want to compromise with someone whose goal is their persecution? You would not, thus failure to compromise is strength of principles and you get what we have here...

hell at this point the cat is so far out of the bag even if the candidates wanted to reign it in they could not. Special interests and PACs and bloggers and radio shows fuel the fire of the segregation of ideas. Everyone likes to hear that what THEY believe is right and what others believe is bad. If we want change the people in the middle need to fight for it, assuming there is any quantity of people in the middle left.

But see, your example just demonstrates my point. In 2006, the Democrats won a majority in the House. Almost all of them were just as much against the Iraq War as this current group of Republicans is against Obamacare. At that point (in 2007) they could have threatened to shut down the government, or refused to raise the debt ceiling, unless Bush agreed to end the war in Iraq. This was actually proposed by a few extreme progressives. But nothing happened, because the Democratic party is not controlled by it's more extremist members.

In this case, the shutdown is occurring because the GOP is controlled, currently, by the extremists.

 

[humpback]

It will be very important to see if the public in general agrees with Icon and the Commish ("both sides are equally guilty') or agrees with me ("the GOP is to blame for this.") If the polls show that the public agrees that both sides are guilty, then we can expect the shut down to go on for a while. If the public blames the GOP, then I expect the GOP establishment to put an end to this crap pretty quickly.

You do know that there is quite a bit of room between 100%-0% and 50%-50%?

Of course.

I think very few reasonable people are saying that this is either a 100/0 or 50/50 proposition. I place more of the blame on the right, but it's ridiculous to put it at 100%.

I probably shouldn't have written 100%. That was hyperbole. But I place the blame for this STRONGLY on the Tea Party, and I hate the "both sides" line.

I hate hyperbole, only makes things more polarized than they already are.

 

[timschochet]

It will be very important to see if the public in general agrees with Icon and the Commish ("both sides are equally guilty') or agrees with me ("the GOP is to blame for this.") If the polls show that the public agrees that both sides are guilty, then we can expect the shut down to go on for a while. If the public blames the GOP, then I expect the GOP establishment to put an end to this crap pretty quickly.

You do know that there is quite a bit of room between 100%-0% and 50%-50%?

Of course.

I think very few reasonable people are saying that this is either a 100/0 or 50/50 proposition. I place more of the blame on the right, but it's ridiculous to put it at 100%.

I probably shouldn't have written 100%. That was hyperbole. But I place the blame for this STRONGLY on the Tea Party, and I hate the "both sides" line.

I hate hyperbole, only makes things more polarized than they already are.

I,,,agree with you. And yes, I am guilty of it at times. Mea culpa.

 

[timschochet]

Sorry to those impacted, but I don’t care that much about a government shutdown and I expect it will be worked out in the next several days.

The far scarier conversation is the debt ceiling and the negative impact these same people with the same strategies are going to bring to this country.

Technically Obama can just raise the ceiling anyways. Which he should do if the republicans are still acting like children.

He can, but that would create a real crisis that would impact the financial world very badly.

Fennis is right. The debt ceiling issue IS far scarier and the consequences could truly be catastrophic.

As long as we avoid a default rating, I'm sure markets would be fine with Obama doing an end-run around Congress.

I'm not sure of anything. I really hope it doesn't get to that point.

 

[B-Deep]

You guys have no idea what this is even about do you? You're just spouting whatever bull#### comes into your heads that supports whatever personal axe you have to grind.

--The budget fight in 2011 resulted in Sequestration -- a compromise that it was thought neither side wanted to see actually come to pass. Sequestration set total 'discretionary' spending for a long time into the future -- broken into defense and civilian (i.e. everything else). The plan was to create something so heinous that it would force a budget agreement.

--But the two sides couldn't reach agreement on something other than the sequestration deal so 2012 operated under the sequestration limits. As will 2013, and every year going forward for quite awhile unless the two sides agree to changes.

--As has happened most years recently there is no budget in place on October 1st. Which means there is no money to fund goverment operations. Typically a short-term spending bill is passed to keep things working while the budget is worked out -- I believe they're called continuing resolutions (but could be mixing and matching).

--That short-term spending bill is what's being fought over today -- and the lack of one is why government is shut down.

--The two sides are not arguing over spending with regard to the continuing resolution. There is no disagreement over spending. Instead Republicans have refused to pass a short-term bill unless Democrats and Obama overturn Obamacare. They frame it as a 'delay' and cutting out single provisions -- but the intent is to kill the program.

--Obamacare passed both houses of Congress after months of political fighting, and was signed by the President. It was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court. It's already law.

--In other words, Republicans are attempting to use the threat of government shut down to overturn existing law that was passed by Congress. It has nothing to do with the budget process. It's the equivalent of Democrats shutting down government unless all restrictions to abortion were eliminated. Or shutting down government until a national gun control program were put in place. In other words, to inflict damage solely for the purpose of overturning something that they were unable to prevent via the democratic process and will not be able to overturn via the democratic process.

--This is largely, but not entirely, unprecedented. There were shutdowns in 1977 and 1978 related to disagreements between the (Democratic) House and (Democratic) Senate on abortion, but neither the House nor the Senate intended to shut down government and neither side was using the shutdown as a weapon. It was an unfortunate and unintended result of the the fight.

--More importantly than the government shut down is the Republican threat to follow the same playbook when the debt limit is reached in a few weeks. Prior to recent Republican efforts along the same lines this -- threatening to have the United States default on its debt in order to obtain policy results that are not possible via the democratic process -- is entirely unprecedented.

--Debt in the United States is primarily incurred when the government needs to borrow money to perform the functions mandated by the budget that come out of Congress. And if we can not borrow in order to pay for the services the government has performed we default on debts we have already incurred. In other words, the debt limit has ZERO to do with spending.

--People say all sorts of things about the consequences of a US default, but the truth is no one has any idea what will happen. Given the fragile state of the international financial system not knowing what will happen scares the #### out of a lot of very smart people.

--So, in summary, Republicans are attempting to inflict pain on government workers and government service recipients and are threatening to inflict pain on the US economy and international financial system to acheive a policy goal that they were unable to acheive via the normal democratic process and which they are unlikely to acheive via the normal democratic process in the future.

--This is unprecedented. And both sides do not do it.

wait and see

i agree it is the latest and most extreme example of the party divide, i think you are naive to think that the Democrats will not learn from this and amp things up if they are ever in a similar position

i have no problem thinking if a GOP President and Senate passed a law limiting abortion the democrats would shut it down to stop it, "The GOP shut the government down because they didn't like health care, we can shut it down to protect a women's rights over her body"

the GOP is wrong here, imo

but my bigger concern is what comes next...because some one on one of the sides will find a way to top this

 

[B-Deep]

The real problem to me is the precedent. When one side does something like this the other ups the ante later. Anyone thinking the dems would not do this to a GOP president in the future is mistaken. IT's just an escalation of the lengths the parties will go to to prove they are different from and better than the other party. If one house of congress disagrees with a law in the future this could be the template to fight it.

At some point governing has to take precedence over campaigning and establishing positions to solidify your base, if not this country cannot survive. No country lasts forever, if we do not find a way to make compromise a strength instead of a weakness we are on a path to failure.

Both sides are acting like little kids. Repubs and Dems both suck balls now. It's all about the slapfight and not about bettering the nation and fixing the problems. Whole lotta stomping feet, pointing fingers, and yelling "BUT HE STARTED IT". Jackholes, the lot of em.

No no NO!!!

People need to stop spewing this "both sides" crap. In this instance, the fault is SOLELY the Tea Party, and the GOP leadership which has caved to them. That's it. Not Obama, not the Democrats. This lies completely at the feet of the Republican party.

even if you are correct, the problem is either side would do this. The democrats have the advantage of being in power in the oval office, and the GOP is fighting them. IF the roles reverse next time the Dems play will be the same, or worse. It is an escalating cold war of dumbassness and neither side is going to stop it. This is just the latest and most extreme example. it will continue it always does. We need only look at how the party who does not hold the oval office is always the party trying to score points on the debt ceiling or the budget (see Obama quotes). Neither party's position on most topics matters other than to be opposite the other party. One of the best wayd to win market share is differentiation, and it has become the mainstay of american politics. If i cannot convince people my ideas work (since no ones ideas are 100%) the next best thing is to convince them the other side's ideas are a disaster and if i can get them to buy into actual evil intent from the other side all the better.

The party in the minority always has to bang these strategies harder. Right now it is the GOP, it won't always be,

I agree with you 100%. But I want to add that this only is likely to happen when grass roots, populist elements exert too much influence over the political party. The last time that happened to the Democrats was in the early 1970s. It's happening right now with the Republicans.

I'd disagree

I think much of the way Bush II was treated plays directly into this. I submit the number of people who are convinced that the iraq war was an evil plot as evidence. IT was not enough to say mistakes were made, it had to all be part of some Machiavellian scheme by Bush and Cheney to advance some evil agenda.

and hey, maybe it was

and maybe obama is a manchurian candidate driving us to a godless socialism

but either way, those are the ideas that drive the campaigns of the people that run our country now. So it almost does not matter if they are true or not, because their impact is. As people of opposing views become more and more convinced the other side is not just mistaken, but is malevolent, what eventual reconciliation can there be? How can you compromise with someone whose goal is to destroy your country by either:

1) destroying god and religion and driving us to socialism and making us all slaves to the government

2) destroying all personal liberty and createing an economic elite class ruling at expense of the poor

why would anyone want to compromise with someone whose goal is their persecution? You would not, thus failure to compromise is strength of principles and you get what we have here...

hell at this point the cat is so far out of the bag even if the candidates wanted to reign it in they could not. Special interests and PACs and bloggers and radio shows fuel the fire of the segregation of ideas. Everyone likes to hear that what THEY believe is right and what others believe is bad. If we want change the people in the middle need to fight for it, assuming there is any quantity of people in the middle left.

But see, your example just demonstrates my point. In 2006, the Democrats won a majority in the House. Almost all of them were just as much against the Iraq War as this current group of Republicans is against Obamacare. At that point (in 2007) they could have threatened to shut down the government, or refused to raise the debt ceiling, unless Bush agreed to end the war in Iraq. This was actually proposed by a few extreme progressives. But nothing happened, because the Democratic party is not controlled by it's more extremist members.

In this case, the shutdown is occurring because the GOP is controlled, currently, by the extremists.

they threatened, gop upped the ante by doing

you think it stops there, i do not

 

[Bottomfeeder Sports]

I would like to know if Obamacare would pass Nationally if folks knew that the vast majority of folks already paying on their insurance, those folks are now having their premiums hiked.

Yeah, no one's premiums ever went up prior to ObamaCare.

 

[pantagrapher]

Then no offense, but your memory is a little short here. Obamacare was negotiated with the Republicans for months, and the Dems made concession after concession with Republican moderates in order to have some kind of bipartisan approval. By the time the bill was up for a vote, it barely resembled what was originally proposed. At that point, the GOP leadership, realizing the bill would pass anyhow, decided that it would serve them politically if not a single Republican voted for it. But that political decision had nothing to do with the give and take that occurred during the formation of the bill.

The Dems made "concession after concession" to win votes from Democrat moderates (the "Blue Dogs"), not from GOPers.

They tried to appease GOPers, but the goalposts kept moving.

 

[timschochet]

The real problem to me is the precedent. When one side does something like this the other ups the ante later. Anyone thinking the dems would not do this to a GOP president in the future is mistaken. IT's just an escalation of the lengths the parties will go to to prove they are different from and better than the other party. If one house of congress disagrees with a law in the future this could be the template to fight it.

At some point governing has to take precedence over campaigning and establishing positions to solidify your base, if not this country cannot survive. No country lasts forever, if we do not find a way to make compromise a strength instead of a weakness we are on a path to failure.

Both sides are acting like little kids. Repubs and Dems both suck balls now. It's all about the slapfight and not about bettering the nation and fixing the problems. Whole lotta stomping feet, pointing fingers, and yelling "BUT HE STARTED IT". Jackholes, the lot of em.

No no NO!!!

People need to stop spewing this "both sides" crap. In this instance, the fault is SOLELY the Tea Party, and the GOP leadership which has caved to them. That's it. Not Obama, not the Democrats. This lies completely at the feet of the Republican party.

even if you are correct, the problem is either side would do this. The democrats have the advantage of being in power in the oval office, and the GOP is fighting them. IF the roles reverse next time the Dems play will be the same, or worse. It is an escalating cold war of dumbassness and neither side is going to stop it. This is just the latest and most extreme example. it will continue it always does. We need only look at how the party who does not hold the oval office is always the party trying to score points on the debt ceiling or the budget (see Obama quotes). Neither party's position on most topics matters other than to be opposite the other party. One of the best wayd to win market share is differentiation, and it has become the mainstay of american politics. If i cannot convince people my ideas work (since no ones ideas are 100%) the next best thing is to convince them the other side's ideas are a disaster and if i can get them to buy into actual evil intent from the other side all the better.

The party in the minority always has to bang these strategies harder. Right now it is the GOP, it won't always be,

I agree with you 100%. But I want to add that this only is likely to happen when grass roots, populist elements exert too much influence over the political party. The last time that happened to the Democrats was in the early 1970s. It's happening right now with the Republicans.

I'd disagree

I think much of the way Bush II was treated plays directly into this. I submit the number of people who are convinced that the iraq war was an evil plot as evidence. IT was not enough to say mistakes were made, it had to all be part of some Machiavellian scheme by Bush and Cheney to advance some evil agenda.

and hey, maybe it was

and maybe obama is a manchurian candidate driving us to a godless socialism

but either way, those are the ideas that drive the campaigns of the people that run our country now. So it almost does not matter if they are true or not, because their impact is. As people of opposing views become more and more convinced the other side is not just mistaken, but is malevolent, what eventual reconciliation can there be? How can you compromise with someone whose goal is to destroy your country by either:

1) destroying god and religion and driving us to socialism and making us all slaves to the government

2) destroying all personal liberty and createing an economic elite class ruling at expense of the poor

why would anyone want to compromise with someone whose goal is their persecution? You would not, thus failure to compromise is strength of principles and you get what we have here...

hell at this point the cat is so far out of the bag even if the candidates wanted to reign it in they could not. Special interests and PACs and bloggers and radio shows fuel the fire of the segregation of ideas. Everyone likes to hear that what THEY believe is right and what others believe is bad. If we want change the people in the middle need to fight for it, assuming there is any quantity of people in the middle left.

But see, your example just demonstrates my point. In 2006, the Democrats won a majority in the House. Almost all of them were just as much against the Iraq War as this current group of Republicans is against Obamacare. At that point (in 2007) they could have threatened to shut down the government, or refused to raise the debt ceiling, unless Bush agreed to end the war in Iraq. This was actually proposed by a few extreme progressives. But nothing happened, because the Democratic party is not controlled by it's more extremist members.

In this case, the shutdown is occurring because the GOP is controlled, currently, by the extremists.

they threatened, gop upped the ante by doing

you think it stops there, i do not

I don't think it stops here, necessarily. But it could, if the establishment GOP swiftly puts down this revolt. They still can. We'll see what happens in the next few days.