Are you serious? Forgive me if you’re whooshing me, but if you’re serious, that’s among the most absurd arguments I’ve ever seen.
adaher, what is the actual cost for the progressive wish-list, and how does that cost differ from the cost for the conservative wish-list–with cited numbers?
IOW your claim is ridiculous, although not as ridiculous as Flyer’s, but at least Flyer is probably making the claim satirically in order to mock people who see Communists behind the toilet.
I don’t need to know the actual cost compared to the revenues desired when the disparity is so vast, just as I don’t need to know I can’t afford a lamborghini on minimum wage.
For starters, your infrastructure program alone eats up all the new revenues from a Buffet Tax and then some.
$17 trillion, to pay off the debt.
Not so much a matter of taking what someone has as it is about redirecting the flow, spreading wealth rather than seizing it. I don’t envy a rich man’s ability to buy more loud, shiny crap than I can, but I"m damned if his kids deserve better health! Fuck that shit!
For many of us sane people, getting more money than you can spend isn’t a good enough reason to get out of bed, much less do anything.
Its a consumer economy, which sucks it big, but if the consumers don’t have any money, you have no economy.
This is just playing with words and semantics.
When income taxes are deducted from someone’s salary, part of their income is being taken, redirected, removed, - call it what you will - but it’s been taken away, period.
Calling it a different name to make it sound nicer doesn’t change the fact that $33,000 in pre-tax income (hypothetical figure) has become $26,000 in post-tax income (hypothetical figure). It is what it is.
And how does it spread wealth? Does anyone seriously think our problem is that we don’t have enough income transfer programs?
Well… yes. Load of folks in fact.
(though, I guess technically something like a higher top tax rate isn’t a new income transfer program per se)
Here’s an interesting Washington Post article on what the Republicans did right & the Democrats did wrong.
Great reporting. The Post always does the insider stuff so well. It doesn’t seem like the Democrats ran a horrible campaign so much as a couple of key candidates, namely Braley and Udall, blew winnable races. Braley because of gaffes and failure to take advice, and Udall because he built his strategy around facing Ken Buck but was instead facing the more moderate Cory Gardner.
Still waiting to see if Bricker can answer the questions above.
Does anyone seriously believe concentrating 80% of the wealth in 10% of the population is sustainable?
What infrastructure program is mine? What are you even talking about? And how does it compare to your program?
I can tell from your framing that we must have vastly different ideas of what counts as bipartisan.
Obviously, you don’t mean that he failed to sign or support major bills that included Republican-sponsored amendments or that won Republican votes–which I think most people would consider the definition of bipartisan. You clearly don’t mean that he failed to have lengthy televised sit-downs with Republicans over how to include their ideas in major legislation like healthcare reform, or that he failed to include those ideas. You cannot mean that he failed to pursue legislation that the Bush Administration supported.
So maybe you can offer a definition of what you think counts as bipartisan.
Maybe you think it’s not bipartisan if it doesn’t get half the Republican caucus on board, or something. If so, more power to you. But I don’t find that kind of definition persuasive at all, since I believe that it is not a good measure of whether the bill reflected Republican input or whether the bill constituted an effort to compromise.
Oh ye of little faith! The invisible hand of the marketplace will direct the golden showers of the wealthy to trickle down upon us all.
No, what Democrats did wrong was run as Republican-lites instead of as progressives. They didn’t campaign on the minimum wage, marijuana legislation, fixing income inequality or any of the other progressive issues where the American people are considerably to the left of Congress. Instead they attempted to portray themselves as just like their Republican opponents, only with a different letter after their names. So of course their progressive base didn’t turn out, and so of course they lost. This election had the widest disparity in turnout between the old and the young evah!
I’m not at all surprised that the article presents the problem as a matter of infighting between the White House and Congressional leaders. That’s just they way the Beltway Democrats understand things … and it’s why the keep fucking up, and will keep fucking up … until they learn. Maybe if they lose as disastrously in 2016 as they did this year, they MIGHT get their heads out of the sand …
Sure, haven’t you seen all those Third World kleptocracies where exactly that happens all the time? Welcome to the new America, once the New World, now just another neighborhood in the Third World.
I’m not completely sure of this, but ISTM that you’re simultaneously claiming that Obama is being bipartisan by signing or supporting major bills that included Republican-sponsored amendments or that won Republican votes, and having “lengthy televised sit-downs with Republicans over how to include their ideas in major legislation like healthcare reform”, while claiming the Republicans are being obstructionist despite participating in the drafting of and voting for these very bills and participating in the same “lengthy televised sit-downs”. This seems weird, and if you mean something else perhaps you can clarify.
I’m not adhering to any specific definition of bipartisanship and I can think of two offhand, which I think sometimes get conflated. 1) is where you find areas in which you already agree (at least as to the major details) and work out the rest. I think Obama has done this, as have the Republicans - I’m aware that some on this board have claimed the Republicans have opposed bills they support solely to thwart Obama, but I’m skeptical as to whether there is any truth to this at all (the most cited example - the ACA - is revisionist mythology, and the fact that it gets trotted out so often suggests that the claim as a whole is bogus). 2) is more about compromise. You want X, I want Y, we meet somewhere in the middle. I’m not aware that Obama has done this at all - there have been abortive attempts at various Grand Compromises between Obama and Republican leaders on various issues, most of which have been sabotaged by other players, but as a practical matter I’m not aware of anything that Obama has compromised substantively in order to win “bipartisan” Republican support. One important point here is that there are some things that Republicans are against in principle, and offering them the opportunity to have a scrap or two while selling out their principles is not a meaningful compromise. The same applies to the reverse as well, and I haven’t seen the Democrats offering to support things that go against their principles in exchange for a chance to have some minor input. (Imagine, for example, a Republican bill to outlaw abortion - or an amendment to overturn RVW - and Republicans piously offering a sit-down with the Democrats to see if they have any good ideas that could be incorporated in the measure.)
Apropos of my initial claim, though, it’s worth noting that the " lengthy televised sit-downs with Republicans" that you refer to have generally not been “over how to include their ideas in major legislation like healthcare reform” as you suggest, but been photo ops for Obama and opportunities for him to lecture the Republicans about how right he is and how wrong they are. (Example here.) Which is how I think is consistent with how Obama views bipartisanship.
I once read a Dave Barry column about the various complaints men and women have about each other, and he ended off with himself as the ostensible peacemaker. “So I’d like for us all to come together, men and women, and come to a mutual agreement and understanding of just how irrational, obstinate and pigheaded women are”. I think Obama might have read that column too.
BTW, on NPR they interviewed a typical Republican voter and among the reasons he was going to vote for all Republicans was that ‘Democrats were looking to turn the USA into a Third World country’.
The cliche of the progresives and liberals Democrats that believe that most conservatives are ignorantly voting against their own interests is supported by evidence.
Really? That’s the chief message she gets from the Democratic debacle that was the election? Unbelievable.