I agree. gonzomax, you have been told over and over again that you can’t do this.
I did not say it. Krugman did. I did however suggest there are people on the board who act exactly like Krugman said they do. When I suggested that, I knew someone would prove the case. But Marley, i called nobody a name. i was careful not to. Good luck following the discussion.
Krugman said nothing about how anyone is acting. He said “My hypothesis is maybe this is an ideology that only fools and clowns can actually believe in, and this is the Republican problem.” Linking and quoting from that article is fine because the statement is from Krugman and he’s not speaking about anyone specifically. When you quoted emacknight and saying “Thank you for proving Krugman is right .” it was pretty obvious that you were calling emacknight a fool and a clown, and that is plainly against the rules. If you want to argue about that, start a thread in ATMB and don’t post about it again in this thread.
As far as I can tell, the simple reason it failed is that the Republicans won’t sign on to a deal that doesn’t extend the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000, and the Democrats won’t sign on to a deal that isn’t better than letting the Bush tax cuts all expire and the cuts in the trigger take effect. It’s not really in either party’s interest to reach a deal, at least as long as the GOP thinks it can get a better deal after the 2012 elections. I’m going to say that the few of us who were saying that Obama got a good deal out of the debt ceiling standoff are being proved right. He got a deal that’s good enough to keep the Congressional Democrats from jumping at whatever scraps the GOP might offer. If the Democrats can look likely to stay in power long enough to let the Bush tax cuts expire, maybe the GOP will offer up a better deal than the cuts in the trigger.
So in other words, you don’t like the topic of discussion, so you complain that it’s not the topic of discussion? What do you think a discussion is, if it’s not the questions people are asking?
Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you offer a solution for any problem in Great Debates, except to lay a blanket of blame over everyone in the country. How helpful is THAT?
If it was only a stalling tactic, if that’s all it ever was, then good. Sort of. The Pubbies were determined to assume the role of the alpha lemmings and stampeding straight over the edge. This winsome fantasy of super-duperness didn’t fool anybody, but at least the guy got talked down off the ledge for a while. And we can’t say for sure what the guy will do tomorrow, because the guy’s nuts. Under certain desperate and trying circumstances, an unworkable scheme is better than all the other options, simply by buying time.
Achmed the Sneaky was condemned by the Caliph to early retirement. Just before he was to be led away, he cried out to the Caliph: “Great One, it is a terrible waste to execute the only man who knows how to teach a horse to sing!”
“What nonsense is this?”
“It is true, Great One. You are widely known for having the finest stables in the world, think how much more admired you might be if your horses could sing!”
“And how long would this take?”
“Six months, Great One, and your stable will sound like a heavenly chorus!”
“Very well. The sentence is postponed for six months. If, at the end of that time you have taught my horses to sing, the sentence will be voided. If not, then it will proceed.”
His brother soon heard the news, and rushed to the stables.
“What have you done, you fool! You cannot teach a horse to sing, not in six months, or six years, or six lifetimes! No man can do that!”
“Probably so. But in six months, the Caliph might suddenly die, and the new Caliph declare an amnesty. Or perhaps after a few months, they will stop paying attention to me, and I can make myself scarce, and then altogether absent. Or perhaps I can find a way to make myself valuable to the Caliph.”
“And if none of those things happen?”
“Then perhaps I can teach a horse to sing.”
Yes, as a matter of fact, the electorat has become very disconnected from the process. This is no surprise, it happens all over the world.
In your example, however, you would not assign any blame to the republicans for proposing that arsenic should be put in the water supply. That is the fundamental problem (and it applies to both sides, btw).
This is silly. The Republicans have been quite vocal for years about their intent to manufacture a deficit crisis in order to force their legislative agenda. That’s what “Starve the Beast” means – slashing revenue to the point where popular programs must be eliminated through fiscal necessity, not because the voters want them eliminated.
So, yes, of course the Republicans are responsible for this situation. They’ve been working to bring it about for decades. That’s why they’ll never compromise. They’re not interested in “solving the problem” because the whole point of creating the problem was to give them an excuse to do away with government spending that benefits the poor and middle class.
Even the push to do something about the deficit RIGHT NOW is part of this plan. We’re in the middle of a recession. We SHOULD be running a big deficit right now to help get us out of it. The only reason the Republicans want to do it now is that with tax revenue down because of the poor economy, they know they can use the numbers to call for deeper cuts.
I notice that Mr. Night is a fan of the rhetorical question but, were we in the Pit, I might paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen and write, “emack, You’re no Socrates.”
I agree that the Demos can’t even seem to convince people about arsenic. Rational and progressive thinkers regard this as sad for America. Some right-wing hypocrites view it as reason for glee.
If the automatic cuts don’t happen, it is all for the best. I personally would like to see defense slashed, but we need work. We need jobs. That is why we should spend half the defense money in NASA and research. Create jobs and build for the future.
No, right now, everyone is voting on a different issue. People are convinced that the Democrats are right–the polls say so. But, for some reason, they keep voting in people who disagree. Logically, there must be something else they like about them.
Weird. The deficit was caused by waging 2 unpaid for wars, cutting taxes on the rich, and an enormous giveaway drug program for the drug companies. The solution: cut Medicare and Social Security.
The crash was a product of the banking giants and financial packages like CDOs and SWAPS. The solution: cut Medicare and Social Security.
Oh yes, I forgot. Cut taxes. We don’t need no stinking revenue.
Agreed.
So the Democrats’ idea of a compromise is to raise taxes and increase spending by $300 billion overall, and thereby cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion.
I agree - “silly” is the word.
Regards,
Shodan
I would like to see the same thing from Democrats. For as steadfast the Republican party is against raising taxes, the Democratic party is just as steadfast against (meaningful) cuts to entitlement programs. So, please, spare us the usual “Democrats = good, Republicans = bad” line that gets used often around here.
But it takes energy to go out and shake that tree to collect and deliver the apple. So you have to eat at least some part of the two that you have in order to obtain the additional apple. Only now you have to plan ahead because it’s not just the one apple you need, but also the eaten portion of the two you started with. And the more apples you plan on bringing back, the more you need to eat up front so as to have the energy to procure and deliver them. In fact, if you borrow more apples to fuel up with, you can potentially bring back even more apples. Of course, all of this nonsense can be foregone if you simply make no trips to the orchard, eat the apples you have, plant the seeds and leave instructions for your children to pay the debt when the trees start bearing fruit.
Never mind the kids won’t have anything to eat in the meantime.
The greater burden on solving the deficit problem should surely be on the Republicans, given that they’re the only one saying there is a deficit problem to begin with. The problem that the Democrats are trying to solve is that the economy stinks right now, and the solution to that is government deficit.
I was hoping that this thread wouldn’t be the typical partisan one, but I was wrong. I think that this stalemate will continue until both parties are honest and bulldog their way to victory.
The Republicans need to stop the garbage about “saving” entitlements and admit that they want a quasi-libertarian, pre-1932 small federal government limited to constitutional functions, except for a much larger defense system. They want the feds out of most everything.
The Dems need to stop this “paying their fair share” argument and admit that they want a quasi-socialist country with government providing cradle to grave social services funded by confiscatory taxes on the wealthy and deficit spending.
Almost as sickening as the false rhetoric on each side is the lack of any will to do anything. I follow politics, but didn’t realize until last week that these spending cuts don’t kick in until January of 2013. A full year!
So, what did the Republicans get out of the deficit deal in August? A debt ceiling increase with no cuts in spending.
What did the Dems get? Just what they wanted. Maybe Obama wasn’t so spineless after all, and maybe the Tea Party was right for urging “no” votes?
That’s pure bullshit. The left is specifically against deficit spending. It’s the right that wants to cut taxes to make up for deficits.
As for the other nonsense about cradle-to-grave and confiscatory taxes, that’s simply a straw man view of the left’s agenda as granted by the right-wing misinformation bubble.
The left in this country wants to bring us into the 21st century, with the other first-world economies.
I wonder what what have to happen in order for people to stop accepting “both sides are equally guilty” as a law of nature. If one side started raping babies to death on live TV, would people still react by saying “YEAH BUT A BLOGGER ON YOUR SIDE SAID SOMETHING BAD ONCE, EQUAL!!!”