And the quick conservative follow-up: I’m not racist, so my fellow travelers mustn’t be, either. If only that were true.
I foresee the shutdown going on for about 3 or 4 months, maybe longer. You guys have to remember: Republicans NEVER cave! It’s their thing, super power, and mutant ability. Democrats are in an unusual position of being completely 100% in the right, therefore, Democrats are morally tied to sticking to their guns. They can’t cave, either, because they’re in the right.
Eventually, Obama will have no choice but to use Executive measures to keep the government running. He’ll likely use the trillion dollar coin solution or he’ll monetize the nation’s gold supply (Eisenhower did this in 1954) to keep the government running. Simultaneously, he’ll call it a “constitutional crisis” and get a hearing with the Supreme Court who’ll find 6 - 3 that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional. The Republicans lose big in 2014 over this and we’ll have a Golden Age of Peace and Prosperity.
- Honesty
If by “some,” you mean an insignificant number of his opposition, sure. I mean, obviously the Klan doesn’t like him, but I don’t see how that’s relevant.
But your post demonstrates everything wrong with politics today. Liberals are just so incapable of understanding that people have legitimate grievances with liberal policies. They swear it’s just because he’s black and/or successful. Or maybe they hate his tie choices.
Can’t be because Obamacare is redistributive, can it? Can’t be because we look like ineffectual fools wrt Syria, can it? Can’t be because gun restrictions don’t work, can it? No, must be because he’s black. :rolleyes:
It’s just so childish. Liberals are incapable of acting like adults.
“Aha! That’s just what a racist would say!” ?
I meant to point out that some Republicans and some Democrats dislike him because he is of a different race.
I’m not into neon ties, either.
What does it mean, “redistributive”?
I want to leave Syria the hell alone, too.
What does it mean “Gun restrictions don’t work”? I’d just as soon keep mine in the dresser drawer witout the government having it on a list.
If you don’t like the Affordable Care Act, how can we see that the poor and unemployed have health care? “Let them get a job” is not a valid answer, for jobs are hard to find now.
What is is about Syria that makes us look like ineffectual fools? Is it because we let Russia play dealmaker, instead of going in there guns blazing and starting another pointless war generating even more ill will toward the U.S.
I disagree: I think YOUR post–specifically, the part quoted–is both highly ironic and indicative of why we can’t have nice things.
A government shutdown has zilch to do with the debt ceiling.
A couple of tweets from “an administration source” that some are interpreting as being indicative of a Grand Bargain either in the works or being seriously considered.
The Republicans are a deeply racist party; I guarantee that racism is part of their motivation.
Because those “reasons” are clearly delusional or outright lies. And because the Republicans are racist. Racism is a central feature of the Republican party and has been for decades.
Yeah, they have reasons to hate Obama. But they hated him first and then filled in the blanks under “Reasons”.
Or maybe it’s because liberals see conservatives shouting “Socialism! Redistrbiution! Let’s shut down the government!” after Obama adopts a health care strategy devised by the conservative Heritage Foundation and implemented by the GOP’s own 2012 nominee for president. That Republicans would be so pissed off over their own plan being implemented makes so little objective sense that there has to be something other than the policy itself that is provoking them.
(Personally, I go less for racism than “Damn, he got something past our vow to cockblock everything this administration tries!”)
I think it ends with a short CR, because I don’t believe Reid or Obama will negotiate at all as long as the shutdown is ongoing. They have shown some willingness to hold negotiations under the regime of a short CR. The GOP can go for that, because unlike a long CR where the President and Reid already have everything they want, under a short CR the Republicans still have ample pressure on the Democrats.
After that, I expect a one year delay in the implementation of the individual mandate, and probably not much else. I’d like to see nothing discussed about Obamacare at all and instead a return to a “grand bargain” on taxes and entitlements, but the President has shown he is philosophically opposed to a grand bargain because it hurts his ability to get on TV and insult Republicans and he feels he needs to be able to do that to win a House majority in 2014.
I think Democrats and even the President can sign off on a one year delay to the individual mandate because it is actually basically meaningless in 2014. The way they structured the individual mandate is it slowly gets larger over time. I think for most people who have to pay it at all (there are people who can get exemptions) it would amount to something like $95. Multiply that even by 15 million people and it’s basically “nothing” from a revenue perspective and you also can’t argue it will “damage implementation of Obamacare.”
No one who does not want insurance is going to feel they need to buy it for probably $50-200/mo over a $95 tax penalty. A few years down the road the mandate will be more important in making Obamacare “work” (if it ever does “work”), but the first year it’s so low that it really doesn’t matter.
Let’s be clear that the baseline right now, a clean CR, is very very far from everything Democrats want. It is much closer, in fact, to everything Republicans want, from a budgetary perspective.
That’s what’s so wild about this. The Republicans have re-defined the status quo as being what Democrats demand! In fact, the status quo is a sequester that Democrats oppose and Republicans have come to reluctantly support.
In fact, the compromise is the clean CR. What the Republicans want is even more than they’ve already won.
This is just partisan nonsense. The collapse of the Grand Bargain was not entirely Boehner’s fault, but it was mostly Boehner’s fault. He can’t deliver his caucus, so there is no one to negotiate with.
Republicans give reason after reason, but they’re lies. They say they hate him for his foreign policy failures, but that can’t be the reason, because his foreign policy has been hugely more successful than Bush’s. They say they hate him for ramming legislation down the throat of an unwilling nation, but that can’t be the reason, because the legislation in question was debated for months, was the central issue in the election he won, and every feature of it is supported by a supermajority of voters in polls. They say they hate him for using a teleprompter, but that can’t be the reason, because all politicians use teleprompters, and Obama uses them less than most. Hell, they even say the reason they hate him is that he stays under an umbrella when he’s out in the rain. Well, OK, he does do that, but… What?
So, can you give us any reason for hating Obama other than his race, that actually makes sense?
Though you’re technically correct, I lump them all in the same box. The box is labeled, “Self-Manufactured Crises by Congressional Republicans.”
- Honesty
No way this’ll happen. The President has made it emphatically clear that delaying or defunding the ACA is off the table.
- Honesty
Agreed. There is zero chance that the ACA is not happening. People are already signing up for the thing, for God’s sake. I know a lot of Republicans have hung their political hats on the idea that they will do whatever it takes to stop Obamacare, but dude. They lost. It’s happening. It’s time to move on.
Besides which, Obama caving in on this issue would set an absolutely horrific precedent that if one party doesn’t like a particular piece of legislation, they can just shut the entire government down by refusing to pass a budget until the legislation gets revoked. You think it’s hard for the government to get anything accomplished now? Give that nuclear bomb to the hands of the petulant children we like to call Congressmen, and see what happens.
As to the op, I have no friggin’ idea how this ends.
Obama and the Senate Democrats cannot set up a precedent that holding a gun to the head of the country, driving towards the cliff edge, is a way to get anything.
The Tea Partiers are true believers and would believe that Obamacare is an existential threat to this country and worth risking economic collapse over. Or at least some of them are. Establishment leadership has no sway over them.
The less extreme of the GOP in the House fear the consequences of siding up with the Democrats against the larger and more powerful/active segment of their party.
Boehner will have to fall on the sword eventually I’m guessing and then what? Cruz as speaker? That bodes well.
As to the racist charge … yes it is easy to be against Obama without being racist and it makes perfect sense. I happen to agree with him and his somewhat finessed approaches but many see leadership as acting decisively first and see thinking and analysis as over rated. They see his collaborative approach to international affairs as weak. They honestly do believe that Obamacare is an existential threat to our economy. They detest his positions on gun control, immigration, and a host of other issues. He won the election, they believe, not because most agree with him but because Romney ran a poor campaign, and even if 54% did disagree with them they still believe what they believe, minority opinion or not, and minority of this country or not they are the majority of the opposition.
Race may be a factor for some but to their are lots of other reasons that make sense for those whose core beliefs are not the same as yours.
I work with a lot of tea-party republicans (that ironically receive their paychecks and livelihood from the gov’t) and the hatred they have for Obama is frightening. And the thing is, I can’t get them to give me any specifics on anything he has done to deserve the hatred. They have a picture painted of him that does not reflect reality at all. They feel he is fundamentally changing this country and giving out handouts for votes and that he truly wants everyone to be completely dependent on the government. Regardless of anything Obama says, they always explain it by what he REALLY means and what his evil intentions are. It’s mind blowing. These are the people that feel like Obama is literally the anti-christ and will admit it.
Yeah, I don’t know if it’s racism or what, but it’s not rational, whatever it is.