First of all, don’t say ‘you’ are hypocrites because I’m not a Republican, I’m an independent. I probably have more liberal positions than conservative ones, in fact. It’s just that this board has so many uberlefty whackjobs (like, for example, Dio, who I still suspect is a Rovian plant to make the left sound stupid) so I appear otherwise; as one poster here has said, if you’re in Hawii, even California looks East.
Where was the Republican health plan? Last I checked, this plan was built in Harry Reid’s conference room table. If it had GOP inputs it would have tort reform, more free market solutions, and would have been more honestly accounted for cost-wise.
If you want an alternative plan, check out the Bennett-Wyden plan, which went nowhere because it had no public option.
Look, it’s simple: you don’t pass a bill with this monumental of an affect on the citizenry without doing it a) in the sunlight, and b) on a bipartisan basis. Hell, you couldn’t even get the Maine Senators to vote for it, and they’re practically Democrats. Violate this rule and there’s hell to pay (a la last Tuesday)
The performance of the economy is almost always the primary way to determine whether the incumbents will be elected or not, and the actual root causes for the bad economy seem irrelevant.
Even if you were to credit the republican anger over democratic policies for the resurgence, it’s still primarily based on lies. The death that the health care reform is going to create death panels and bankrupt the country (when the CBO says it’s money saving and… well, death panels are a complete fabrication), the idea that this is somehow now Obama’s recession (I bet in 5 years Iraq will be remembered by the right as Obama’s war) is silly. The idea that Obama/Pelosi/Reid are the prime movers behind the record-breaking deficit is incorrect, with new spending only making up less than 8% of the deficit. The idea that health care reform was “shoved down our throats” unilaterally when it was actually debated for weeks with republicans invited at every step of the process and even with 500 of their amendments accepted. The entire OMG HYPERLIBERAL SUPERCOMMUNIST hyperbole thrown at them is just silly.
So even if I were to say it weren’t primarily the economy, but rather the belief the right has about the policies of the democrats, it’s still mostly based on lies. I’ll check out the Bennett-Wydett plan, but, before I do - are you talking about the 3 pages of platitudes without any specific proposals or actually laws that was trotted out as the republican’s health care plan in the middle of the debate?
Then it would have been a far more equal opportunity asswhuppin. It wasn’t.
I don’t care how uberlib you or anyone else is, there really isn’t an alternative explaination that survives the laugh test. Go read Kraut’s article that I linked to. He is right- American politics is best played between the 40 yard lines. This administration, without a doubt, passed more legislation that increased the government footprint in our lives than any other.
When your country is a moderate-conservative one, that’s a real bad idea, job security-wise.
Yeah, I feel much better about the Patriot Act than something designed to increase availability and decrease costs of medical care. This administration is the worst ever!
Hell, nothing this administration has done yet can even touch medicare part D alone yet for long term cost.
Your lies that this administration is omg super left and omg most intrusive government in history!!! may be part of the reason why the republicans regained so much ground in the mid-terms, but again, as I already covered, it’s mostly based on lies. So if you’re gloating about how widely the lies were believed, leading to the ascension of your favored political group, well kudos to you. I’m sure you’re doing God’s work.
Bush inherited no deficits, full employment and a robust economy. What did he leave, huge deficits, 2 unfunded wars, a deregulated economy that was crashing and a terrible redistribution of wealth. I suppose Obama should have hit the fix button.
Hooch? I don’t understand, unless you were referring to legalized marijuana. FWIW, the pot measure may have been defeated, but the loss was far less of a rout than in the past. IIRC, there was a similar proposition once or twice in the 1970s, and it failed miserably. If anyone remembers what the proposition number and year were, I’d appreciate a PM, because I’ve been trying to research this and haven’t been able to Google it up.
Again, I’ll ask - it’s all Bush’s fault. None of it was the fault of Congress, which was controlled (pretty handily, I might add) by Democrats.
By the way, you uberlefties need to stop talking about unfunded wars. When you’re deficit spending, everything is unfunded to an extent - if you feel the war is needed, then it’s no more or less unfunded than any goverment program.
FWIW, the pot measure wasn’t very popular with the pot-growing ‘establishment’ in California. Apparently the measure put some specific regulations on how pot could be grown (like 25 sq ft plots max) which pot growers worried would decrease the variety of strains available to be grown… somehow. I don’t fully understand the details, but the impression I got was that the pot chiefs were not pleased and told their indians to vote against the measure and wait for a better one.
1.) What you feel “general welfare” means, along with some examples of things you believe fall under this heading that are current federal powers; and
2.) How health care is different from these other, accepted forms of “general welfare.”
1.) *My *county voted overwhelmingly (~75%) for Barrett and Feingold. I have no means of easily traveling to other counties in Wisconsin, since I don’t drive.
2.) I had no idea that attitudes had shifted so far in other areas of the state or I would have tried to find some time to volunteer if I thought it would have made a difference.
3.) Disappearing from the SDMB wouldn’t do shit for my ability to volunteer, since I work a typical 9-to-5 office job and post from there.
Well, yeah, they cost like $5 at Staples. What kind of fucking slacker is he, anyway?
I missed CM’s post the first time around. It certainly seems to me that, no matter how narrowly one would define “general welfare,” healthcare qualifies. “If X qualifies as welfare, anything does” certainly counts when you’re trying to make the argument that, say, everyone needs a 4-door sedan to survive, but it kind of baffles me that healthcare would not be considered general welfare.
Just when I was starting to think “if you get sick, die quickly” really was a distorted strawman…
You didn’t accomplish anything other than broadcasting Lobo’s shortcomings one more time. If he wants to make a fool of himself in public, he’s free to do so. I personally don’t feel the need to put up with his childish insults any longer, but if you want to play in his sandbox, knock yourself out.
General welfare is an issue of intent rather than of power granting. It means you’re supposed to create laws in the interest of the general welfare and not specific interests. You can’t pass a law taxing everyone to give money to guys whose last name start with the letter A - laws have to be written in the internest of the general welfare.
If you interpret the general welfare clause to mean “the government can do whatever it wants so long as it says it’s in the interest of the general welfare”, the ENTIRE REST OF THE CONSTITUTION IS RENDERED MOOT.
The modern (especially liberal) interpretation of the constitution is exactly what the constitution was designed to prevent. It has turned from “here are your specific powers, this is what you can do” into “well, if it’s not against the first fourth fifth and six amendments, go nuts”
Edit: Really, further discussion of this should probably go into another thread since it’s clearly a seperate argument. But I wanted to clarify what Crafter Man is getting at.
That’s the funniest thing you’ve posted since