Other people’s sacrifice is conservative.
I don’t think there is any such thing as “Obamanomics” in a distinct sense. Barry Obama is the very soul of compromise & bipartisanship, he couldn’t maintain an economic ideology in the face of anything resembling serious opposition. And in fact people do appear to want affordable health care & decreased deficits. So you’re wrong.
We’re paying for your stupid fucking wars. Shut the fuck up with the “leave me out of it” bullshit. You can’t drag everyone into the mud and then claim some moral high ground.
I should note that’s not why* I* think Carter lost (it was mainly the economy). Rather, it’s the political conventional wisdom that states this. Politicians want to win elections and that means not doing and saying things that remind people of things losing candidates and “failed” presidents did and said (even if the particular thing the losing candidates and “failed” presidents did and said had nothing to do with why they lost).
Interesting. How many Representatives and Senators voted against the AUMF in 2001?
How many Representatives and Senators is Mosier?
Oh, please. Afghanistan, I’ll give you, as that had broad support. But for Republicans to try to weasel out of responsibility for Iraq is both laughable and appalling. We absolutely would not have gone to war with them without the zealous push by both the Republican administration and Republican majority in both houses of Congress. That most of the minority Democrats voted for it in the end out of political necessity is cowardly, to be sure, but takes not one drop of the responsibility away from the Republicans: they initiated a push to invade Iraq which directly led to the invasion of Iraq. Said invasion would not have happened otherwise.
Plus some of them thought that the President of the United States wouldn’t be lying through his teeth so soon after 9/11. Foolish of them to be sure.
Tell you what. Why don’t you and your anti-tax friends get together and raise some money to pay unemployment, give health care to those who don’t have it, and feed the hungry. Since it won’t be going through the government, it should be ten times more efficient, right? Since you are sure voluntary donations will do the trick, problem solved, and the deficit will decrease because of reduced need for these payments.
This was the system in the 19th century, after all, and there were no deficits and hardly any poverty back then, right?
Any raise of taxes is on the Republicans hands. They are the ones that set a tax cut with an expiration date. If they wanted their tax cuts to be permanent maybe they should have done a better job convincing the guys on the other side of the isle to pass a tax cut the government couldn’t afford.
My opinion is let all the tax cuts expire. It’s being sold as if everyone is suddenly going to have to pay taxes beyond their means. The increases isn’t enough to force people any further into debt then they already are. The middle class they are so desperately trying to save are looking at having to pay less then a weeks salary in increased taxes.
Allowing irresponsible tax cuts to expire will suck, but not nearly as bad as is being sold. We can afford it and people interested in Americas future should be willing to pay it.
Their is plenty of wasted tax dollars and it is unfair to just keep raising taxes to pay for programs but those programs are already their and the government has to pay for them. If you want lower taxes, go after those things first. Cut taxes based on those savings.
Until we have paid off or debt their shouldn’t be any talk of tax cuts, we owe money, the only discussion involving taxes should be proposed increases to balance the budget.
It’s a good question. I am guessing part of the answer from the wonk perspective might be that the Bush tax cuts have a bigger effect and that it’s all irrelevant compared with the importance of long run cost controls on health care.
Politically, an anti-war stance isn’t a guaranteed vote winner, because few want to back a wimp. Besides, the Dems are pretty hawkish by international standards anyway. Gore would have invaded Afghanistan and Clinton won a number of wars during his administration, partly because he didn’t thumb his nose at our allies. But modern US conservatives are temperamentally inclined towards hysteria. Remember all the teeth gnashing that occurred here in the Spring of 2001, after the Chinese captured some US Navy airmen? Seems like small potatoes now, but it’s a glimpse of an alternative history, had the 9/11 plot been foiled by Richard Clarke et al. Modern conservatives predictably choose hyperventilation over a serious-minded management of the US’s security challenges.
True, but I’m not talking about people pointing their fingers and saying “it’s the wars that are the reason we’re in a deficit, so it’s your fault, jerkbag!” It’s more that we’re in the midst of two wars, and there’s all this discussion about how we could be running up such a huge deficit and yet they never even really get mentioned (that I’ve seen). You don’t have to assign blame or argue that we should cut spending there, but at least acknowledging them as a large factor in the current budget situation would make sense, right?
It is odd. I guess the 2 wars are treated as security issues or as a force of nature, but not budgetary ones.
But it is a budgetary issue of course. The special ops boys desperately want a win for themselves, and Afghanistan is as good a venue as any to demonstrate their prowess. Maybe they can do it. But as long as we deny Bin Laden a base in that mountainous country, it’s not clear whether preventing a civil war there is worth the cost in US treasure, never mind blood.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2009/11/special-ops-commanders-want-large-deployment-to-afghanistan/
Scissorfight ftw!
Well, I’m shocked, simply shocked, to discover that smiling bandit hasn’t returned to explain how he has solutions to the nation’s budget problems beyond “hurr, you can pay more taxes yourself if you love paying taxes so much!”
I may have to sit down.
I’d be all for a tax increase, after we exhaust all possible cuts.
I actually just first want to see the cuts that the new health care plan calls for done.
What cuts are “possible”? :dubious:
I guess, That, is the crux.
Sam Stone laid out a pretty comprehensive post that called for cuts in a lot of Entitlements, Defense and other governmental agencies. I agreed with a majority of what he said. I’ll try and find the post to link to.
Missed the edit window but I did find the link : http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=587296&page=4
If you seriously think taxes should be higher, have you refused to accept a refund, favoring instead to cut an extra check to the treasury?