Isn’t it likely that GOP fat cats will cough up the money the GOP will need to compete in the forthcoming elections - at the pres and congressional levels? The party’s asking for a mere $120 mil for the fight against Obama. What will they need for congressional elections?
Those are Minnesota Lutherans. That’s the communist branch of the church. 
You don’t get to be a fat cat writing checks for Quixotic causes. Contributing money for the party that is most likely to lose isn’t cost-effective. Thats the Democratic Leaderships whole shtick: by being Republican Lite and turning away from those disgraceful anti-business leanings of us radical moonbats, they invite far more fat cat grease, the hedging of bets.
But Obama isn’t beholden to them, he gets a whole lot of money from…(gasp!)…the people! 10, 20, $50, its like a year long PBS pledge week, and its working. That alone is enough to bring the tiniest glimmer of hope to my jaundiced outlook.
No it’s not. That’s merely a hijack of the term progressive. Progressive means that you believe in using the government to create progress in society. Just because some people have romanticized it into certain agendas doesn’t mean that progressivism will always follow that sort of agenda. Nation-Building is about as progressive an agenda as can be found.
Wow! All these years I thought I was a progressive, and it turns out I’m not! I guess I should be grateful…
I think you made this up. Progressivism, as per its roots in the American Progressive Party, was largely built on workers’ rights and social justice. The APP advocated corporate regulation, stiff anti-trust laws, and federal environmentalism. This is not just “changing society via government” but an actual legislative and ideological program.
Okay.
I’ll just quietly pray that you and BG are right and comes November, we sweep the bad guys out. 
I’ve taken to using Republican rhetoric against them. Like when people bitch and moan about liberals, gays, MTV or whatnot, I ask them, “Why do you hate America?” The same should work for this. Just pre-empt them and start talking about big goverment Republicans.
And that’s the old Progressivism, 1890s-1920s. Nowadays the word means “left-liberal” and nothing else.
Alright, fair enough. I take it back.
I’m not sure I understand this. Of course the political pendulum will swing, and Republicans will be back in the acsendency eventually (“permanent majority”, um, not so much). But I don’t think that health care will be the Democrats downfall. If anything, conservatives need to be mighty afraid that meaningful reform will get passed. Has any democratic government ever made the switch to a more nationalized health care plan, only to get tired of it and demand that another party come in and get rid of it? I mean, it’s not like Republicans can get elected by promising to eliminate Social Security or Medicare - why would national health care not become another “third rail” of politics?
As I said The National Taxpayers Union Foundation’s (NTUF’s) candidate cost analysis for the GOP candidate John McCain called for spending hikes of $6.9 billion. Dated March 3, 2008 Page Not Found - Search - National Taxpayers Union NB I don’t know if NTUF based the cost analysis on McCains current website.
Of course! All businesses reduce costs while increasing income so should the US government. The House Republicans generally like to empower the individual, local, and state governments to solve problems as they are closer to most problems, DUH. The feds responsibility is to provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and **our Posterity **and not much else but a little income redistribution from time to time is necessary to fix particularly egregious or time critical problems. Thats why Republican and Democrat synergy has worked so well in the past.
Now I have annotated the list with my opinion of how McCain should finance the things on “The American Families Agenda”. I will review McCain’s agenda on his website and see how it jives, See http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/4dbd2cc7-890e-47f1-882f-b8fc4cfecc78.htm.
Budget negative means either increased revenues, (read my lips no new taxes) or reduced costs.
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Lower gas prices and energy costs – McCain getting elected will reduce gas prices. History is repeating itself with this election. See File:Oil Prices Since 1861.svg - Wikipedia Gas prices spiked before the 1976 elections and again in the middle of Carters term. Then as soon as Reagan was elected the gas prices came down. budget minus
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Provide for a family-friendly work week – Any one of the legislative ideas here http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/792/context/archive would not cost the government and would have little effect on price of doing business as the management of the responsibility to provide for a family-friendly work week is placed on the employer, budget neutral
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Grow our small businesses – Additional Tax revenues recoup the cost of incentives, budget negative
*Allow workers to take their benefits with them when they change jobs – Small regulation of the insurance companies is needed. budget neutral
*Take care of our parents and grandparents – Is obvious that all should respect our elders. Legislation, TBD
*Assure health care for all – Assure early detection and diagnosis. When the number of patients requiring extraordinary procedures is significantly reduced then health insurance costs are significantly reduced and will be within reach of most peoples budget. Budget positive.
*Make prevention a national priority – Devise legislation for mandatory exercise in the workplace is required in conjunction with family-friendly work week, budget neutral
*Crackdown on child predators and gangs – Is obvious legislation, budget neutral
*Provide health care for our neediest children – The Missouri MC+ is a model seems to work and probably could be tweaked, legislation **TBD **
*Reduce the costs and burden of college tuition – Full tax credit with maintained GPA of 2.5 (my idea). Budget positive.
*Ensure every child in America can read and write - Local funding of NCLB, budget neutral
*Increase local control – You bet, **budget neutral
**
Ensure our schools perform for our children – Local oversight of NCLB, budget neutral
*Take care of our troops, veterans and their families – For a job well done, Budget positive
*Win the war on terror – Reduce troop strength in Europe to 60,000 by 2015 from 100,000 in 2006, eliminate 14,500 civilian slots in Europe. See http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54317&archive=true. This reduces costs but necessary wars and occupations are costly, Budget positive
*Secure our borders – More debate regarding a national policy is necessary. Certain States are taking steps to restrict employment and benefits of illegal immigrants and maybe the best near term solution, budget neutral
I have worked in the government before. I would add one item to the list.
*****Reduce the budget of every agency of the federal government by 10% every 5 years forcing those agencies to review their priorities and refocus on their most essential missions.
But, but… the Reps aren’t about small gummint anymore–Homeland Security alone increased the size considerably. Why do people still believe that? And when will the Dems ever grow a set and attack the GOP, instead of letting the GOP set the agenda?
I listened to part of the NPR bit on this topic today (from Talk of the Nation):
TalkoftheNation
Now, maybe they went on to provide nuts and bolts solutions and strategies after I turned off the radio, I don’t know. I do know that I heard nothing substantial, nothing new, and nothing heartening in the least. The congresswoman blathered on, hitting all her talking points, but not addressing the questions put to her. Then another man came on (not sure if it was The Standard guy) and talked with a vet who had called in. His response to this vet was awful. He was glib, uncaring and dismissive. Basically he said that we’ve never had a good track record of treating our vets well (true enough, although the GI bill did a lot of good for many). He went on to say that some of the news was positive: our survival rates for combat were much improved. This is disingenuous as hell, IMO. Survival, yes–with your remaining limbs and your PTSD. The pysch care for the vets sucks in a big way. He also tried to minimize the topic by shoving it off onto Walter Reed (as army, not vets. Neil Cohen pointed out that the VA had many of the same troubles, to no avail). The vet tried to call him on it, but the guy cut him off and they moved on. I was so incensed, I turned it off.
I really don’t see how the GOP can rebrand itself. It is so entrenched with the religious right. It made its bed with some strange bedfellows, and now it has to figure out how to end it.
But you’re still a pinko commie deviant, and really, that’s all that you could hope for. Why get greedy?
-Joe
Because it’s the big lie that’s been repeated over and over. Reread my first post. You know it’s true.
-Joe
You then went on to post a whole bunch of stuff as though you were quoting **sqink[/b–stuff that no one has posted in this thread.
I presume you know better than to tamper with other posters’ quotes so I would be interested in what you were doing. If it was a coding error, I can fix it.
[ /Moderating ]
twas a coding error, pls fix. I was just quoting from MTU. I missed it during proof read or got interrupt by the little girls.
Doh!
Let’s get it correct! The reps are big on security, someone has to be. The dems are big on gummint social programs, some has to be. A match made in heaven but a whole lot of trade offs amongst us mortals and some are eeeeeeeexpensive.
I’m gonna guess that this amount does not include the cost of spending the next 100 years in Iraq.