# Are we paying the price for such an inexperienced President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 29, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510 "2012-12-29T19:44:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/81 "2012-12-31T20:41:51Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > When do the new folks take over? January 3rd. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/82 "2012-12-31T21:00:44Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Inner city blacks, once Jim Crow died, were never going to be a group of voters we’d have an easy time attracting. It’s very different getting urban votes from people who are members of a “community” than it is getting suburban or rural votes. Urban communal voters you need to talk to them on two levels, both communally and individually. Rural and suburban voters it’s more retail style politics, you just need to sell your message across the board to the individual voters, but you don’t have to treat with power brokers and the like. The GOP doesn’t have the ability to work with a lot of the power brokers in the black community who could give them inroads, that’s important because it controls things like publicity and public speaking events, if several local community leaders are there supporting a candidate’s visit that has a real impact, and the GOP by and large hasn’t found a good way to work with that group of people. This all may be true to some degree, but it sounds more like post-fact rationalization about why blacks don’t vote Republican. Before Civil Rights and the Southern Strategy, Republican presidential candidates regularly earned 30% or more of the black vote. But since then, black support for Republicans have gotten worse and worse. It’s not just an urban/rural thing, obviously- Willie Horton and coded language played a big part, and the Republicans have utterly failed in separating themselves from the idea that they’re the party that aligns with racists, or at the very least expends very little effort in separating itself from them. > [@](#): > > Hispanic voters are very different, in that many of them are long time Americans (many Tejanos for example trace lineage back to pre-Anglo settlement of Texas), many are recent immigrants from different countries and many are second or third generation immigrants. They all have very different back stories and are not nearly so concentrated or monolithic as the black community. George W. Bush did very, very well with Tejanos as Governor and nationwide with Hispanics because he recognized Hispanics can respond to the same sort of retail style politics that gets suburban and rural voters, as long as you avoid doing something that pisses off all Hispanics, like threatening to make them show their papers and deport them. If George Bush can do well among Hispanics there is no reason other Republicans can’t, there just needs to be a deliberate choice made in the Republican party to shred the anti-immigration Know Nothing style politics that has taken hold in amongst many whites in the Southwest. Lately the Republican party seems set upon alienating latino voters to the same extent that they’ve alienated black voters. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/83 "2012-12-31T21:03:36Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Or Republicans can vote no on any plan by the Democrats and propose a counter offer lowering tax rates for everyone who makes under, say, $1M. I think the Democrats have the advantage as far as public opinion goes- most people support raising taxes on income \> 250K, and with both the President and the Senate in support of this (and no one in favor of _not_ lowering taxes on income \< 250K) the Dems appear to have a much stronger hand. I think the “let’s agree to lower taxes on the income we all agree should be lowered” is a more effective argument then anything the Republicans have on this issue. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/84 "2012-12-31T21:08:34Z")
Mmmyes, as opposed to all the previous presidents possessing precedential presidential experience prior to presiding as presidents? /pinkyraise ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/85 "2012-12-31T21:14:03Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > That’s a major sidetrack for this thread, but the simple truth is the policies and strategy that attracted Southern voters were **not** racist strategies. I understand that you need to believe this. I hope you understand that you’re never be able to convince anyone who isn’t a true believer. Just for the record, the battles over affirmative action were racist strategies. The battles over welfare were racist strategies. The battles over illegal immigrants were racist strategies. The law and order posturing of the Nixon era was a racist strategy. Making access to voting harder is a racist strategy. The demonization of Muslims and Arabs to wage a fake war was a racist strategy. The anti-urban hatred of Ford and Reagan were racist strategies. The move of federal money from the North to the South was a racist strategy. Oh yeah, that Civil Rights thing that Southerners can still go off about. That was racist. So are Confederate flags. So is gerrymandering racially-segregated districts. Enough. The world is not one-dimensional and I’m not arguing that race is the only factor involved. But saying that modern Republicans get ridiculously small percentages of minority voters and ridiculously large percentage of Southern white voters only because the white voters like their economic and tax policies is a denial of the past 40 years of history, which were racial, and racial, and racial, sometimes overt, something covert, usually coded, mostly under-the-table, but known to everybody on both sides, which is the only thing that explains the voting patterns that we see today. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/86 "2012-12-31T22:22:33Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Hispanic voters are very different, in that many of them are long time Americans (many Tejanos for example trace lineage back to pre-Anglo settlement of Texas), many are recent immigrants from different countries and many are second or third generation immigrants. They all have very different back stories and are not nearly so concentrated or monolithic as the black community. This is very true. However, when hispanics are all TREATED by Republican politicians as a monolithic community who all need to be pulled over at every available opportunity to prove their citizenship… Well, you see that this treatment tends to rub them the wrong way. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/87 "2013-01-01T00:11:30Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I understand that you need to believe this. I hope you understand that you’re never be able to convince anyone who isn’t a true believer. > > Just for the record, the battles over affirmative action were racist strategies. The battles over welfare were racist strategies. The battles over illegal immigrants were racist strategies. The law and order posturing of the Nixon era was a racist strategy. Making access to voting harder is a racist strategy. The demonization of Muslims and Arabs to wage a fake war was a racist strategy. The anti-urban hatred of Ford and Reagan were racist strategies. The move of federal money from the North to the South was a racist strategy. Oh yeah, that Civil Rights thing that Southerners can still go off about. That was racist. So are Confederate flags. So is gerrymandering racially-segregated districts. > > Enough. The world is not one-dimensional and I’m not arguing that race is the only factor involved. But saying that modern Republicans get ridiculously small percentages of minority voters and ridiculously large percentage of Southern white voters only because the white voters like their economic and tax policies is a denial of the past 40 years of history, which were racial, and racial, and racial, sometimes overt, something covert, usually coded, mostly under-the-table, but known to everybody on both sides, which is the only thing that explains the voting patterns that we see today. I acknowledge there is a valid argument to make, on almost all of your points I think you are basically trying to fit stuff into a preconception, I think there are solid arguments that such concepts as “law and order” and “welfare reform” are no more racist than farm subsidies or the space program. That “civil rights thing” was passed mostly over Democrat opposition if you’re talking about the 1960s civil rights acts, and gerrymandering racially segregated districts has actually been court mandate in several instances to preserve _minority majority districts_, which is both racist but arguably justifiable in the context of our entire political system. I’d be more willing to acknowledge some validity to the argument about immigration law, but less so on voter registration law changes. That’s just typical vote suppression and while I don’t like it I think there is clear evidence that Democrats love to gerrymander districts and stack the deck in their favor whenever possible. In this case Democrats historically have a better get out the vote mechanism, so they don’t have to use the legislature, but Democrats still do stuff all the time at the State and Local level to keep Democrat votes coming in over Republican votes, some of it of dubious morality. Just because voter registration law changes are bad (and I agree they are) and a majority of Democrat voters _aren’t white men_ isn’t proof it is racially (instead of politically) motivated. You can’t say “just because our party is the party of blacks, anything designed to hurt our party is racist.” I think there is an argument to be had on this stuff, but I think you’ve had a fair chance to speak your mind, as have I. I don’t think it’s relevant to this thread, and do not wish to discuss it further in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/88 "2013-01-01T00:17:56Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Or Republicans can vote no on any plan by the Democrats and propose a counter offer lowering tax rates for everyone who makes under, say, $1M. Of course they can. But that won’t be whats on the table post Jan 1st. I’d love to see Republicans explain why they turned down a tax break for 97% of their constituents. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/89 "2013-01-01T00:18:32Z")
On the fiscal cliff, it looks like it’ll be resolved tomorrow, with a Senate vote likely tonight. They’re kicking the can down the road two months on the sequester, and coming to a longer term agreement on taxes, with increases on individuals over $400k and households over $450k. That last bit has some liberal Democrats infuriated, but probably not enough to derail the deal because some Democrats from high CPI states are in favor of the higher cutoffs. What’s unfortunate is I think there is a good argument to be made this deal, while it avoids hurting regular working class people directly, is actually worse for the long term health of the country than just letting us go over the fiscal cliff. There needs to be long term income tax reform, for one. I think there is a lot of revenue out there on high income earners. I’m a Republican, but I tend to think anyone making over $1m a year should pay at a minimum, roughly the top marginal rate on their income over $1m/year. Right now, even with this change, a lot of people earning over $1m a year will still be able to get their income tax very low, easily down to 20% for people who load their income with dividend and capital gains income. Even less than that for people who load up on municipal bonds (interest on munis is tax free.) There’s a difference between “socialism” and “paying for a bunch of shit we’ve already bought.” I’m even in favor of mild forms of socialist activity, like the negative income tax for low earners (and that’s a Friedman thing, and he’s as far from socialist as you can get without getting into Austrian School territory), but we need to get back to the place where politicians don’t think of tax rates as some sort of universal moral issue. Probably the best thing that has come out of all this is Grover Norquist’s influence has waned, but I still hope to see him rendered wholly irrelevant at some point soon. At the end of this thing, it looks like Obama did as decent a job as could be expected, and sent Biden in to close all of this out. Considering Boehner couldn’t reign in his caucus at all I don’t think Obama bears much blame for the cliff getting this far along. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/90 "2013-01-01T03:07:03Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Does the new Congress take over Jan 1? I’m a bit confused how this would work. All of the negotiations have been with the old Congress. When do the new folks take over? That wasn’t covered in your college class? I’d look for a refund. And I’d turn off the Talk Radio. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/91 "2013-01-01T03:12:18Z")
I agree with **Martin Hyde** ’s analysis generally although Milton Friedman supported the negative income tax as a replacement for various government social welfare programs. The main question now is if the House can cobble together a majority to vote on this. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/92 "2013-01-01T03:22:50Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > That’s a major sidetrack for this thread, but the simple truth is the policies and strategy that attracted Southern voters were **not** racist strategies. Oh, please; political advertisements showing black hands grabbing money from white hands aren’t racist? Yeah, suuure they aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![PandaBear77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/93 "2013-01-01T03:57:01Z")
**Are we paying the price for such an inexperienced President?** Ya think? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/94 "2013-01-01T04:17:59Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Since Newt Gingrich (formalized by Dennis Hastert) GOP Speakers have followed a rule by which they will not allow a vote to come to the floor unless a majority of the majority is going to vote for it. Why not? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/95 "2013-01-01T04:28:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Why not? So as not to yield any power to the minority party. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/96 "2013-01-01T04:34:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Why not? It’s known as the Hastert rule because Hastert basically said once, “My job as Speaker is to insure that I have the support of a majority of the majority, and anything we do reflects what the majority of the majority wants.” Basically, he was against deals where a small number of the majority, joined by a a huge portion if not all of the minority party, can pass legislation. But Newt Gingrich actually followed this technique during his Speakership, he just never formalized it or mentioned it so explicitly to the press. The Hastert rule still has real political muscle, Hastert mentioned it in reference to Boehner and the fiscal cliff just the other day in an interview. The truth of the matter is the Hastert rule _is_ a very good way to keep your speakership, because you as speaker are basically binding yourself to never do something your caucus disapproves of, but it’s also sort of abrogating your larger responsibility as Speaker, that’s supposed to be a national legislative leadership role. As was alluded to but not explained in this thread, the Speaker is not a despot. Under House rules he actually does not have the power to block legislation with majority of the House support just on his own and just because a majority of his caucus opposes it. But if the Speaker doesn’t allow something to be brought to the floor, it can’t be brought out of committee or directly submitted as legislation without a discharge petition. Discharge petitions once filed require a majority vote to pass, and then the issue comes up to a full house vote. But most Speakers vehemently oppose discharge positions because it undermines their authority. Further, I think only a handful have ever succeeded out of hundreds filed. I think the last one we’ve had succeed was actually for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill and before that it was in the early 90s. A long time ago, discharge petition votes were pseudo-anonymous (in that if you voted for one but it didn’t pass, the vote was kept secret, but if it passed, your vote became public…so you wouldn’t end up having to publicly support a discharge petition that failed, which is the worst case scenario if you’re bucking a Speaker from your own party) but now they are fully open and the political consequences for going along with one against your party are grave. The last one to pass for McCain-Feingold I believe resulted in some Republicans losing committee positions. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/97 "2013-01-01T05:14:53Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I’d be more willing to acknowledge some validity to the argument about immigration law, but less so on voter registration law changes. That’s just typical vote suppression and while I don’t like it I think there is clear evidence that Democrats love to gerrymander districts and stack the deck in their favor whenever possible. In this case Democrats historically have a better get out the vote mechanism, so they don’t have to use the legislature, but Democrats still do stuff all the time at the State and Local level to keep Democrat votes coming in over Republican votes, some of it of dubious morality. I find this section on the Democrats loving to gerrymander districts amusing. This last election, the people of this country voted for Democrats more than they voted for Republicans to represent them in the House. By several million. But the GOP barely lost any seats. I read one claim that if the house districts had been the same this year as they were in 2008, the Democrats would have taken back the House, but I have not seen any actual figures to back that up. I do know that there are 3 districts here in Ohio that carve up Toledo. 2 of them take a chunk of the inner city and dilute it with huge swaths of the GOP dominant rural areas to make districts that are just over a safe majority for the GOP. The third gets all the rest of the Dems in the inner city, then stretches along Lake Erie (at one point, the district is literally the width of the road as it goes over a bridge that crosses a bay on the lake) to take a huge chunk of Democrats from Cleveland.It is something like 95% Democratic. So instead of the 16 Representatives from Ohio being evenly split between the two parties, the way the state actually is, there will be 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats going to Washington. Can’t imagine why the GOP here in the state wants to change our election laws so that our Electoral votes are apportioned according to the way each district votes, rather than the way the entire state votes. Instead of 18 Electoral College votes, Obama would have only gotten 4, despite more than half the people in the state voting for him. Yes Democrats also gerrymander. We really need to fix it so that neither side can do so so easily. But don’t act like they are the only ones, or that the GOP isn’t perfectly willing to do a lot of things that are of dubious morality when it comes to staying in power. ---
**Author:** ![Randvek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@Randvek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randvek)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/98 "2013-01-01T06:03:13Z")
> [@Lok](#): > > Yes Democrats also gerrymander. We really need to fix it so that neither side can do so so easily. But don’t act like they are the only ones, or that the GOP isn’t perfectly willing to do a lot of things that are of dubious morality when it comes to staying in power. Gerrymandering varies state-by-state, but it’s typically the state legislature that runs the whole charade. Republicans do far more gerrymandering than Democrats by the simple fact that they typically control more legislatures; it’s 27/17 in favor of Republicans atm, for example(with 6 split or non-partisan). Gotta take control from the states if you ever want to see change there. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/99 "2013-01-01T06:24:01Z")
Something else to toss on the fire, which makes it harder for Speaker Boehner to get folks in line, is the death of earmarks. Before, when the Speaker might have earmarks to dole out and pork to get out there, recalcitrant members could at least bring home bacon for their vote. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2013, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510/100 "2013-01-01T08:42:04Z")
> [@Randvek](#): > > Gerrymandering varies state-by-state, but it’s typically the state legislature that runs the whole charade. Republicans do far more gerrymandering than Democrats by the simple fact that they typically control more legislatures; it’s 27/17 in favor of Republicans atm, for example(with 6 split or non-partisan). Gotta take control from the states if you ever want to see change there. OK, so, let’s do it [the way the Canadians do.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_Canada) Don’t mean ya gotta eat poutine. :eek:☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-paying-the-price-for-such-an-inexperienced-president/645510.md?page=6)