If they’re attaching riders to spending bills that undercut fundamental laws and agencies, then we’re in a budget crisis and face shutdown.
There is no two ways out of it, they’re acting like children. And for what? What are their policies, really? Cut taxes on the rich and large businesses, ignore global warming, put priests in charge of public school curricula, outlaw abortion wherever possible, fuck the EPA, fuck the FDA, fuck the regulators of Wall Street, fuck minimum wage, fuck the poor, slash food stamps, slash Medicare, slash Social Security, build more tanks, jets and aircraft carriers, though.
Spending on what? What do you both want cut and expect your team to keep cut?
They could hardly be less productive.
The one thing they’ve shown themselves to want done is to repeal Obamacare (they don’t even mention replacing it anymore, but you do). That’s not on the list of things you want done and expect them to do, though.
You’re not making a case that convinces even yourself that the team you root for deserves to win. Ir really is all about that for you and nothing more, isn’t it?
You can accuse me of being an optimist if you want, but I actually think they’ll do a good job, at least from my perspective, if they win. I’m not supporting them just to get them the bauble that is the Senate.
We’ve seen what your perspective is, that is what is worrying us. Your idea of a good job means more people do worse so a small number can do better. No thanks.
Yes, operating under budget rules passed in 1993 without a single Republican vote. Once they had the power to override it, they did, and deficits started climbing again.
True. Having control of all the branches corrupted them. But if I had to choose, I’d rather they had Congress than the Presidency, which means they kinda need Congress. The Democrats can have the Presidency. It’s all they care about anyway, seeing as how it’s the only office Democrats actually turn out to vote for.
Corrupted? Yeah, some outside force seduced them and planted the idea of tax cuts for millionaires in their heads. They just couldn’t help themselves and it’ll never happen again.
Yet you can’t provide any actual example of something with actual experiential support behind it that qualifies. You’ve been patiently and repeatedly asked for the actual reasoning and principles behind your cheerleading, some broader vision of why the nation and the world would be better off under Republican control. Those requests were under the generous assumption that there is some, out of the hope of fighting some ignorance here. But at some point, the lack of any substantive response can only be taken as evidence of lack of any substance. Can you understand that, at least?
A bauble? Now that they’re slipping away from you, those grapes are sour?
The money that the Republicans are refusing to spend will eventually have to be spent. It will simply cost us more to spend it, and will be less productive.
First and foremost, infrastructure. Those bridges will not heal, we cannot carry them to Lourdes to pray for a miracle, they will have to be fixed. When the economy was in the shitter, we could have borrowed money more cheaply. Steel, concrete, and other vital stuff was cheaper, and we needed a way to hire people for needful work.
We’re still going to have to, but now we’ll have to spend more to get less. Penny wise, pound foolish.
…There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.
Elucidator and BRicker, I agree on infrastructure, but the vast majority of spending isn’t infrastructure. If it’s so all-fired important, money can be moved from less essential things the government does into repairing bridges and highways.
Another problem is that we’re talking about politicians here. It’s not that money hasn’t been available to repair our infrastructure, it’s that politicians like ribbon cutting ceremonies and the jobs provided by new projects. Maintaining the old stuff is boring and doesn’t do much to benefit politicians.
It’s not a matter of “they have to spend the money eventually”, so much as “how will the money be raised?” Democrats approach the issue of new spending by simply raising revenues, and if the job doesn’t get done after a few years they raise more revenues, and if the job still isn’t done, they raise more revenues. Republicans, at least the competent ones, look for areas of the budget that shouldn’t be funded at all, or could be funded at much lower levels, to raise money. There is always waste in the budget, and I’m not talking about waste in the most literal sense, as in “money appropriated that disappears or is spent for dumb purposes”, but waste in that “does the government really need to do this?”
So, how much money do we need properly repair and upgrade our infrastructure? Would $100 billion per year be enough?
What other functions of government would you want more money spent on?
It’s easy and even fun to simply whine that “the government spends too much money”, but it’s also pointless without specifics, including numbers. Is it simply the easy and fun part that you find so attractive? And does it happen when your guys get voted into power anyway?
OK, the *competent *Republicans look for real, identifiable items to cut. Great. Who are these people, just a few names, and what have they found that can be cut? I’ll be disappointed, although not surprised, if the only thing you can list is Obamacare, which actually saves money.
Tom Coburn was a hero in that regard. It was he who ordered a GAO report asking about duplicate programs. It’s amazing that the majority of politicians aren’t curious about such things. John McCain has always been a great anti-pork crusader.
As for what the government can spend less on, for starters, they can eliminate duplicate programs. They also need to hold spending increases to inflation+ population growth among all agencies. That’s what was done during the Clinton years and it worked out great. Budget discipline was entirely forgotten during the Bush years and the first two years of the Obama administration. Now it’s back, and hopefully it will be even better if the GOP has the Senate.
And what did he find? What legislation did he push to correct the problem? Or is asking someone else to go fishing for him enough to make him a “hero” in your eyes, as long as he’s a Republican?
The jokes just keep coming, don’t they?
For instance?
Even though the world keeps changing and needs keep evolving. Ri-i-i-ght. It’s bad enough for conservatives to inherently fear change, but denying it is going to happen anyway is beyond that.
A fair(er) tax system had a lot *more *to do with it.
So you can’t actually name anything you think needs to be cut, just “everything”? That’s it? You claim to admire competence and responsibility in your politicians, but you have no fucking clue what those things even are, do you?
Don’t feel too bad Bricker, most or at least many 1950s - 1970s Republicans would have grasped that argument with ease. It was during the 1990s that Bill Clinton moved into the sound government part of the ideological map and the Republicans abandoned it. Not coincidentally, Republicans used to have a lock on the professional class. No longer and that group has been trending Democratic for decades.
Now you’re just being ignorant. McCain’s history as an anti-pork crusader earned him the hatred of a lot of Republicans, especially Ted Stevens
see the 364 programs at the above cite.
the world keeps changing and needs keep evolving, but this does not mean that overall federal spending must always take an ever-increasing share of the economy. Obsolete programs can be eliminated. Such as:
Nope. Revenue under Clinton rose from 17.4% to 20%. But spending fell from 22% to 18.5%. If spending had remained constant we would have averaged a deficit of 2% or so. If Clinton hadn’t raised taxes but still cut spending, then our deficit would have averaged about 1.5%. Spending restraint did more of the heavy lifting than revenue increases. And there has never been a path to budget balance that primarily relied on revenue increases. Our deficit is falling today primarily due to the fact that the budget hasn’t seen an overall increase since Republicans took over Congress.
Actually, spending has dropped by $100 billion.
The President wants an increase of $400 billion in the 2015 budget. Ha ha ha.
Social Security and Medicare will have to be cut. Medicare already has been, and will be further. Social Security will see its CPI calculations changed to chained CPI.
All domestic programs should be frozen at current levels, with increases only approved if inflation is significant or there is something specific they need to do which is an overwhelming need. All duplicative and obsolete programs should be eliminated immediately. All programs not absolutely necessary, such as arts funding, corporate welfare(like the Ex-Im bank), gone. The government has too many missions, and as this President has proven, it’s too much for it to handle.
