It is interesting how folks are pulling out of the stock market and into the bond market. Those crazy investors investing in those really crappy US bonds, what do they know??
I see. So when Democrats have voted against debt ceiling increases, it’s all been symbolic and pointless and non-harmful posturing. But when Republicans did it this year, then they’re being spoiled children? Never mind the fact that doesn’t make any sense, why are you ignoring the fact that the Democrats were unequally as willing to compromise as you believe the GOP to have been?
[QUOTE=Shayna]
On the day that Bush was sworn into office, the national debt was $5.73 trillion.
On the day Barack Obama was sworn into office, the national debt was $12.037 trillion.
[/QUOTE]
And you don’t think this is being a bit disingenuous in return? The Democrats voted for both of those wars…and even if you think that Bush pushed through everything he wanted over the combined wills of the Democrats, there is the little fact that the Dems controlled the House and Senate after 2006.
Well, leaving aside the fact that the Congress controls the purse strings, ISTM that the math is a bit murky, but that ‘Obama’ (since we are blaming the President for debt) is not doing too badly with keeping up with Bush…he’s raised the debt a bit over $2 trillion in 3 years and done so without the benefit of getting us into 2 very costly foreign wars. By my back of the book calculation he is on target for raising the debt by something over $5 trillion by the time he leaves…so, not exactly in Bush’s league, but a close second. Not exactly something to take pride in. 
(most of the above was tongue in cheek, but if you are going to toss out numbers and say the math is clear then you should really look at those numbers more closely…and also realize that there is nothing to say that the deficit might not increase greatly in the next 5 years, assuming the Left doesn’t eat Obama and cause him to lose his re-election bid).
-XT
Because it was the Democrats who attempted to negotiate, made offers, and finally did compromise to prevent the default, while the Republicans did none of those things? I’m not seeing how any comparison makes sense here. You can’t apportion blame anywhere near equally when one side won’t come to the table even when the other side is picking it up and carrying it over to them.
Aren’t Social Security and Medicare sacred cows to the GOP base, too?
To wit:
And although it probably should be, Medicaid is not sacred to their base because working-class Republican Daydream Believers foolishly presume that their upstanding Protestant work-ethic and their daily regimen of “own-bootstrap-pull-ups” will keep them from ever coming down with a nasty case of the “poor bug”.
The irony is— the Tea-Stained GOP congressfolks in the House are so hellbent on brutally squeezing the working-poor and middle class that many of the knuckleheads that elected them will end up needing Medicaid.
“As you make your bed (that good work-ethic again), so must you lie upon it.”
Republicans - Bad because they wouldn’t budge on tax increases.
Democrats - Good, even though they wouldn’t budge on cuts to entitlement programs.
Yet you say Democrats were willing to compromise and Republicans weren’t? You’re going to have to explain this one to me.
You mean those entitlement programs that the Republicans wouldn’t budge on either?
That’s exactly what happened. Reality, liberal bias, etc.
Not too far back, I asked “what happens if nothing happens?” by which I meant what happens if the economic fallout turns out to be fairly trivial. Is there a temptation to be even more intractable next time around?
Yes.
I have a hard time figuring out what the Republicans’ actual plan with this whole thing was. The Democrats were willing to raise taxes, and not willing to cut Social Security and Medicare, and the Republicans were not willing to raise taxes and were also not willing to cut Social Security and Medicare.
All I can come up with was that they wanted to use this juncture to undo the recent Health Care legislation or just cut all the policy programs they don’t care for. Not that that would actually be enough money to close the deficit, but it would be a major political victory. Or maybe they wanted the Democrats to propose the cuts to SS and Medicare?
Thank goodness you were being “tongue-in-cheek” so I don’t have to waste any time showing where you’re wrong. Appreciate you saving me the typing.
You know, it really doesn’t reflect well on your argument when you resort to reframing ours with terms that were never used by us.
First, going back to this “democrats have voted no on the debt ceiling increase before” canard, I’m going to reiterate the fact that at no time did they ever do so when they KNEW they would ACTUALLY cause a default with those ‘NO’ votes. It was largely symbolic at the time, even if every single one of them did it. There was NEVER A RISK that it would actually result in a default. It was a “safe” ‘NO’ vote.
This time the majority party, the ones who could actually, in reality cause a genuine default, did “hold the country’s reputation hostage.”
You can’t hold someone hostage who you don’t actually have in your grasp, with the means to make good on your threat to slit their throat if the ransom isn’t paid.
Democrats = Never used that threat at a time when they had the power to make it reality.
Republicans = Did exactly that. They held a knife to the throat of the United States’ good name and actually used it, even if they didn’t cut deeply enough to get the carotid artery gushing like they wanted to.
As for the Dems good/Reps bad thing. Please. We’re not talking good or bad, we’re talking about sense vs nonsense, right vs wrong.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans want to cut Medicare benefits. Both are right in holding this position. Republicans, on the other hand, love to make brash accusations about how Medicare spending is out of control and those big, bad Democrats won’t let us touch it, thereby making Democrats look like the bad guys, even though they don’t really want it touched, either. Barack Obama handed John Boehner the chance to have cuts to all 3 if he’d agree to tax revenues and Boehner balked. So don’t get all high and mighty about being above the fray on that one. And at least the Democrats are willing to stand up and tell the truth; that entitlement programs are high dollar expenses but they are necessities that Americans rely on to survive and we don’t want to touch them. Republicans believe that, but lie and say they don’t.
As for a willingness on the part of Democrats to compromise and an unwillingness on the part of Republicans, I’m finding it terribly hard to imagine that you’re this stupid.
Cuts in Medicare spending were put into the trigger option and left ON the table for the Super Committee to consider during negotiations by the Democrats.
Republicans have steadfastly held to the no revenues, at any time, under any circumstances, arrived at in any way, stance. Period. And even after the country lost our AAA rating, that fucking schmuck Eric Cantor is still telling his party not to “cave.” Here, I’ll let him tell you himself:
So, he acknowledges that the entity with control over how our solvency is seen by the lending community and the world at large, has said outright that increased tax revenue will have to be part of any deal in order to restore confidence and return us to our AAA rating. But the jackass is still digging his heels in and saying NO!
How in the ever loving bloody fuck can you call this good governance?
Oh, the Pubbies would be fine with cutting Medicare, some of them would be fine in wiping it out altogether. They would simply prefer to nail thier pecker to a tree than go out and campaign on having cut Medicare. At the very least, they want to get some Democrat fingerprints on the cut.
Not at the expense of OMG tax revenue! Nope. 'Tisn’t that important to them or they’d’ve taken the deal when it was handed to them on a silver platter. They only – only – want to pin the destruction of Medicare on Democrats.
This is a crock of bullshit. Republicans control the House. Democrats control the Senate. When the House passed a debt ceiling bill, the Democrats in the Senate voted it down. Tell me, how many Senate Democrats said they’d accept a plan with cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security? It’s funny how you talk about “holding a country’s reputation hostage”, yet you completely discount any of the demands Democrats were making. How does that work?
If Senate Democrats are refusing to budge on the entitlement issue, how is that not “holding the country hostage”? I really want to know.
Except in 2011.
And so did the Democrats.
Anyway, what are you talking about? Neither party could raise the debt ceiling by themselves. Someone from the other party would have had to vote for it. Republicans were against tax increases and Democrats were against cuts to entitlement programs. How on Earth you lump the entire blame onto Republicans when Congressional Democrats refused to budge on entitlements is beyond me.
What we seem to be talking about is you giving the Democrats a pass while heaping 100% on the blame on Republicans, which is nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.
Republicans don’t want to cut Medicare? Really? Remember the Paul Ryan budget plan that got balked at and used by Democrats for their own purpose? I don’t know where you’ve been for the past decade or so, but it’s clearly not anywhere on this planet.
Let me reiterate this for you.
THERE. ARE. NO. CUTS. TO. MEDICARE.
None. Congressional Democrats were steadfast in there being no cuts to Medicare, and there being no cuts to Medicare-- or any entitlement program-- was one of the reasons for the S&P downgrade. A fact, mind you, I saw you totally ignored. To quote S&P:
What you are talking about are across the board 2% cuts to everything should Democrats and Republicans fail to reach a deal-- something everyone here knows won’t happen. It was added in, along with the Balanced Budget Amendment thing-- in order to appease some House Republicans.
Funny thing. You didn’t read any of that link, did you? The GOP continues to oppose tax increases for the reasons highlighted in that link you didn’t click on. To summarize:
But yeah. Ignore that.
…Oh, and for the record, S&P didn’t say that increased taxes had to be a part of the deal. They said significant spending cuts, especially in entitlement, or increased taxes would have to be implemented. But continue to be a selective reader and believe that S&P was heaping all the blame on the Republicans.
Shot down because Republicans were not willing to move one centimeter off their no tax increase pledge. You can argue about the past, but there’s no doubt that the current dysfunction in government is 100% the responsibility of Republicans. In their mind, simply raising the debt limit counts as compromise.
Why ? S & P did that if you read the report.
And understand it.
So the Republicans got 100% of their demands met without making any concessions at all?
DUDE, what fucking deal are you looking at? Because there ARE cuts to Medicare in the trigger and they are ON THE TABLE for the Super Committee to consider for the balance of the cuts.
The fact that you KEEP IGNORING THIS when it’s been pointed out to you over and over and over and over makes you one of the most despicable debaters I’ve ever seen in my 12 years on this board.
It’s really easy to run around the country proclaiming the virtues of some freakazoid plan you KNOW there’s no way in bloody fucking HELL will EVER get past either the Senate or the White House, so you can APPEAR to look like the party that’s willing to make sweeping changes, when in fact, if Democrats called their bluff they’d run screaming to their mommies.
You. Are. Wrong. Let me reiterate this for you. YOU. ARE. WRONG.
Not only are there cuts to providers of Medicare services, but ENTITLEMENTS. ARE. ARE. ON. THE. TABLE. FOR. SUPER. COMMITTEE. BUT. REVENUES. ARE. NOT. NOT.
DUDE, how do you think I PULLED OUT the portions I quoted if I didn’t, you know, READ THROUGH IT?
You’re a fucking idiot, you now that?
DUDE, Cantor himself ACKNOWLEDGED that S&P is EXPECTING tax revenues in the next phase of the deal. Not “OR”. They specifically, BY NAME, called out the “BUSH TAX CUTS” that they no longer had confidence would be allowed to sunset.
Talk about selective reading.
Fuck you are stupid.
By George, I think he’s got it!
[QUOTE=Shayna]
Thank goodness you were being “tongue-in-cheek” so I don’t have to waste any time showing where you’re wrong. Appreciate you saving me the typing.
[/QUOTE]
Why yes, looking over your other fine contributions to this thread it definitely IS a good thing I spared myself and the rest of the folks reading along the wasted electrons in proving my obviously wrongectitude when regurgitating your own figures back at you. I thank the gods above and below that I’ve spared you AND me from your razor like talons of truth, justice and baby puppies being burned down in the laser shark headed light of your…something.
Thank you…from the bottom of my top! Feel free to continue your fascinating discussion with our purported black conservative friend there…it’s truly dizzying.
-XT
Well what the hell fun is the 'Pit if I can’t make a few folks dizzy? If I leave the 'Pit and I haven’t shredded someone a new asshole with my prickly prose, I haven’t done my job.