I understand your reluctance to go there. It is a losing argument for you.
The problem is, it’s pretty much a given that raising taxes means more unemployment. The time to do this was when unemployment was at 5%, not now. That’s why Obama agreed to keep them where they were, why he wants to extend further the payroll tax ‘holiday’.
You’d have to let all the Bush tax cuts expire to get any benefit. But since most of the lefties on this board will vote for him again regardless (any libs here willing to say they’d vote for Romney/Bachmann instead as a protest vote?), he knows that his best chances to keep the indies (like me) are to say one thing and do another.
So does cutting spending. I don’t see you shying away from that on account of more unemployment.
And it didn’t work that way in the boom years of the 90’s and 50’s, either. But don’t let facts, etc.
Wonder why you’d object to the extremity of your false equivalence being explained? If your position is indefensible, don’t try to defend it. Easy.l
Actually, the largest part of the deficit is from Bush’s tax cuts, which Obama tried hard to repeal but your guys refused to.
Can you *try *to be a little less childish? At least for your own sake? :rolleyes:
I’m not going to try to morally equate fiscal discipline with the pros or cons of death and destruction. You feel free though, Elvis.
PS Not my guys
PPS Bullshit, the Dems had complete control for 2 years, he could have repealed them if if he wanted to go to bat.
PPS On a more mature note, a lefty blogger in the WaPo brings up the chances for raising taxes.
Anyone want to bet that the lefties will bitch that the GOP won’t let them let the cuts expire, after putting forth a token effort - blaming others, raising money for elections, etc etc.
No, it’s not.
American corporations are cash rich. Bush tax cuts did little to improve unemployment.
We have ten years of provably failed republican policy here. Give the rich and corporations a tax break and they bank it. They do not run out and hire new employees. They save the money.
There is no evidence that your assertion is true. None at all. All evidence points the other way.
Taxes are at an all time low in the US. Show me the improved job market because of it.
J.P. Morgan has admitted most of its profits have come from laying off workers.
GE’s CEO, Jeff Immelt, who is head of Obama’s job council, is moving jobs to China.
HSBC is planning to slash 25,000 jobs globally. They made $11.5 billion in profits this year.
It goes on and on.
Bullshit. Democrats have never had complete control of the Senate. Republicans obstructed everything with tyranny by the minority.
I think it is apparent Obama is a conservative pretending to be a liberal.
He will roll over and allow the tax cuts to be extended while mumbling he had no choice.
I have no faith in the guy anymore.
ahhh, but assuming you are Americano, who will you be voting for?
By that measure, you cannot complain about anything the GOP did during the W years.
I am praying someone credible will primary Obama and beat him. I am willing to bet if Hillary Clinton ran again she’d have a good shot.
Longshot I know but a guy can hope.
Honestly I would consider voting republican if they had anyone remotely normal running. I have never voted a straight ticket in my life.
If McCain of 2000 was running I’d vote for him (sadly after that I think he lost his way…McCain/Palin of 2008 no way…largely due to Palin on the ticket but McCain was not the guy I liked in 2000 either).
These days it’s like asking me if I’d rather vote for Stalin or Hitler. (Just an example…I am not meaning to say anyone in US politics is like Stalin or Hitler…I merely mean to portray how I view my choice as one I do not like either way).
Do you believe Democrats used the filibuster roughly the same amount as Republicans? Yoiu would be spectacularly wrong.
You don’t know that the Senate had 60 Lefty votes in 2009, enough for cloture? Really?
You didn’t know Minnesota Republicans held up seating Al Franken until June? Really?
Not to mention Blue Dog Democrats.
You’ve talked about things Democrats would have done in the past, had conditions been different, things Democrats would have done, except Republicans beat them to it, and now things you think Democrats might do in the future.
Could we dispense with the hypotheticals for a while? I prefer to make my decisions based on things that happen in the real world.
May I ask, how can one count Ben Nelson, Jim Webb and Joe Lieberman as “lefties?”
Add Max Baucus and Blanche Lincoln (and maybe a few others like Ron Wyden and Mark Pryor…I think there were more than that too).
IIRC the Blue Dogs got creamed in the last election (as they should…stake your claim and live and die by it…do not expect success by pretending to be something you aren’t).
Is using the debt ceiling for negotiations now completely on the table for future increases? In much the way that the Senate now needs 60 votes to pass anything, is this the new normal?