This thread has got me wondering why the SDMB does not have a “Humor” forum. This is exactly what we went through some years ago when Republicans were helpfully offering Democrats the advice that the way for the Democratic Party to gain votes was to become more Republican.
We followed that advice; many Democrats were elected to the Senate and the House in '06 and '08 that were virtually indistinguishable from Republicans–indistiguishable to such an extent that they did not support Democrat stances that might cause them to lose their seat. Which they lost any anyway; voters said, “Why not elect a real Republican?”
We got our ass kicked last year. Yet here we are, criticizing the stances of the Republican party that kicked our ass and suggesting that if they want to kick our ass in future, they need to change their policies from those that demonstratively worked to kick our ass six months ago.
Humor, indeed. Bitter humor, but still . . .
Let’s offer our positives instead. Let’s say, “We are Democrats; this is what we stand for; this is what we will do.” Then do it.
(At this point, I’m hoping that most of the racist, homophobic, christian nuts decide to collectively off themselves in an attempt to hasten the rapture and then maybe we can get shit done.)
Well, yeah, except that I’m plainly saying this would be a good and brave thing for the Pubbies to consider for the country, if they’re serious about returning to debating policies rather than nutjob personal stuff*, and only incidentally not such a terrible thing for the Republican party.
Keep in mind that many of us are not happy with what some conservatives have done with our party. I’d like to see us getting back to offering constructive government.
And regained control of the House, and picked up several seats in the Senate.
Maybe this thread would have made sense if it were started in 2006, or 2008, or 2009, or before November 2010.
You may be right, but I suspect that has much more to do with the advantages of being the incumbent than this stuff about how the Tea Party is evil and rotten and all that shit.
Don’t know about the 'not working" part. Thirty years ago that evil extremist Reagan was President, and most sensible people agree that that worked out pretty well, for the country and the GOP. Bush Sr., a more moderate Republican, did not work out quite so well - once Reagan’s coattails wore off, he lost. So did another moderate Republican, Dole.
Then another evil extremist - Gingrich - became the most powerful Republican in the land, and the evilextremistblahblahblah Republicans took over the House and Senate with their Contract with America. And balanced the budget, passed welfare reform, etc.
The difficulty with this analysis IMO is that the biggest problem facing the country is one that only grown-ups can solve. It’s the deficit, and Obama and the other Democrats are not trying to solve it. The Tea Partiers are, and the great danger is that spendthrifts like Obama and Co. will regain enough control to be able to undo the very minimal amount of progress that has been made.
The problem Shodan is that I think a political party should represent something more than the ability to win elections. It should represent the ability to run a country and I think we’ve lost that.
I don’t think Reagan was a good President or a good influence. He started the idea of denying reality which has become a pillar of the party - the confusion between saying something that’s believable and saying something that’s true. Reagan was believable but he wasn’t true.
It remains to be seen if either the GOP or the Democrats can govern like adults. That why I mentioned the deficit.
The deficit has to be dealt with, and mostly by entitlement cuts. No matter who makes those cuts, it will hurt them politically. But they have to be made.
The SDMB is more or less correct when they say “you cannot balance the budget with tax cuts”. But they are wildly wrong to say that “we can balance the budget by taxing the rich”.
We have to raise taxes on the middle class, and/or cut entitlement spending on the middle class. That means that, whichever party does it, has to do it to the very people who voted them into office. Obama and the Dems took over on the premise that they were going to borrow and spend a whole shitload of money, and then, when the recession was over, mumblemumblemumble… Well, the recession is over, and the only thing they have done is pass Obamacare, which will be deficit neutral, providing they cut Medicare by very significant amounts. The Medicare Sustainable Growth Act has been ignored for the last eight or nine years, no matter whether the GOP or the Democrats control Congress.
The Tea Party is the only group that is (IMO) acting like grown-ups. The Dems didn’t even pass a farging budget for 2010. Because it was an election year. That’s not acting like a party that represents more than winning elections.
I can certainly see a scenario where the Tea Party makes a lot of painful cuts. And the Dems attack them for it, and the MSM does the same, and the extreme lefties blow a gasket screaming. And then the Dems take Congress back. And start restoring all the cuts, at least those that affect their constituents.
No, actually, that’s NOT the biggest problem facing the country. The biggest problem facing the country is that we’re in the middle of the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.
And you know what ended the Great Depression? Massive deficit spending by the government … aka, World War II.
There’s a time and place for getting the deficit under control. Now is not it.
Speaking as a definite and lifelong admirer of Reagan, his 1980 and 1984 platforms would get him laughed out of today’s Republican primaries. In today’s context, he is utterly milquetoast, and neither evil nor extremist (he wasn’t then, either, except in the minds of furious left-wing idiots–the same type of idiot with reversed polarity as the Tea Party is now).
It’s no longer an issue of cutting government spending. The money has already been spent (with a lot of that spending coming from Republicans so let’s not point fingers). So now the issue is paying for what we spent.
And why is it unthinkable to raise taxes on the rich back to pre-Reagan levels? Because rich people say it is? Lowering taxes on the wealthy was one of the main factors in creating the deficit, so I don’t see why restoring those taxes should be off the table as a solution to eliminating the deficit.
So how about a little economic compromise? The current top income tax rate is 35%. We won’t raise it back up to its historical high - 91% (1950-1963) - but we’ll take it back to 70% (1965-1980). And we’ll restore the top capital gains taxes - currently zero percent - back to Reagan’s 1981 rate of 21% (still lower than its highest rate of 49.88%). And we’ll make dividend earnings fully taxable again (1985-2002) rather than only 15% liable to taxation (post 2002). And we’ll restore the top corporate tax rate from its current 35% back up to 42% (still lower than it was from 1951 to 1986).
Now we’ll only do this until the deficit is paid off. Then we’ll address government spending. I think the key factor is identifying the sources of big government programs - to me the two biggies are wars and economic crises. I don’t want to cut in to foreign policy by reducing our ability to fight a war so let’s focus on economic crises. The three big economic crises of this century were the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the S&L crisis of the eighties, and the economic crisis of 2008. All of them resulted in a massive government recovery program (and a Democratic presidency replacing a Republican one). And all of them followed a period of financial de-regulation.
So my suggestion is that we enact a realistic program of financial regulation. Not designed to burden good financial institutions but designed to keep the bad ones from running wild. Thereby avoiding economic crashes, reducing the need for government spending (allowing us to lower taxes without going into debt), and keeping more Republicans in office.
We can be the party of fiscal responsibility again.
Nonsense. We were doing something about the deficit in the 90’s when the economy was booming. In fact, it’s far EASIER to do something about the deficit when the economy is booming. Doing something about the deficit now is like deciding to replace your roof in the middle of a thunderstorm.
