Freudian typo?
Because it won’t stop there. They’ll make more and more demands each time this comes up until they have their way 100%. There’s a reason that police don’t give in to hostage taker’s demands. It only encourages the behavior. We do not want this behavior to be encouraged. You wouldn’t want the democrats to do this same thing when they run the house would you?
Perhaps this concession or something like it will be negotiated once the government is funded.
You have to look at the bigger picture. If the democrats allow the republicans to push their agenda this way - then it will soon become the established norm in this country that the party that controls congress will push their agenda through each time a fiscal bill comes up by threatening the defunding or default of the government.
Regarding this, realize that congress already approved the programs for this budget - they are now just not funding it. If they want to close parks they should put a bill forward to close parks, not just cut all funding to parks. And so on for all the ‘non essential’ programs. If you want to avoid debt ceilings, put forward bills that cut programs enough so that we don’t hit the current ceiling. But they are not doing that.
Also, the republicans will not control congress forever. Gerrymandering makes them look safe for the time being but the Dems controlled it for almost the entire 20th century and things will change someday. So if Republicans were not short sighted they would realize that establishing this type of governance will come back to haunt them too.
The comparison to union negotiation is quite silly. With union contracts, labor and management are in adversarial relations but both realize that the company has to be able to survive. Often, the company will open its books to demonstrate what it can and can’t afford. They work it out and enter into a freely negotiated settlement that gives both sides something. The unions aren’t threatening to burn the plant down because they don’t want it burned down.
Republicans have decided that elections only matter when they win them and believe that by threatening to burn down the govenment they can get repeal of any law they don’t like. If they get their way with Obamacare, Medicare will be next. Then Social Security. The Civil Rights Act. The 20th Century. Democrats have never said “Oh, boy! The debt ceiling is coming! We can make this Republican president dance to our tune or we’ll just let her burn!” Obama has to stand tough- to give in to GOP terrorism now would mean the end of democracy.
I’d just like to point out that a business conducting a lockout – as opposed to workers going on strike – is the more appropriate comparison here.
Why shouldn’t Boehner just put the clean bill up to a House vote, and *not *sabotage a popular law, given that he’s failed to do it so far by honorable and democratic means?
If Obamacare really is so bad (for the country, not just for the GOP’s electoral prospects), what real good would a one-year delay do, anyway? (Yes, we know what’s behind that, let’s see if you do too).
Not strictly fair to call the law “popular”. It isn’t, its more popular than it was, true, but that isn’t the same thing. I would entirely agree that the lack of popularity is largely due to a hysterical campaign of disinformation, but that’s the cause, not the fact.
Yes.
There’s a different alternative as well. Republicans had the chance to debate the Affordable Care Act before its passage, and to fight for provisions within the law that would have made it more to their liking. If they felt it was unconstitutional, they were free to challenge it in the Supreme Court, which is tasked with deciding such matters. If they thought it was unpopular, they were able to challenge it in the only poll that really matters; but we’ve had elections since then and the people have spoken. That’s the process that has served us for a couple hundred years, and those are the alternatives the Republicans had open to them.
It’s substantially more popular than unpopular, as we’ve discussed many times - despite the campaign of lies the Republicans, their sponsors, and their propaganda arms has been strenuously engaged in for, well, decades.
I’ll concede the point if only because I hate, hate, hate semantic arguments. Always leads to somebody posting a dictionary definition like that proves something.
*What *semantics? We’re only talking about polls - and whether or not they include “doesn’t go far enough” as an option.
Good news, everyone! Several of the smartest Republican evah! have discovered that a failure to increase the debt ceiling is not big deal! Yay!
You can find substantiating quotes here:
Warning! Daily Kos contains corrosive facts and disagreeable truths. Tighty Righties are advised to proceed with shields up!
Why, yes, put it that way! And if you take a sufficient dose of cyanide, you can prevent premature aging! Or any aging at all, for that matter! The American public will say that’s a pretty reasonable idea! From Rand Paul, the intellectual powerhouse of the Republican Party!
“You just keep thinkin’, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.”
Moody’s agrees with them.
Great, so they don’t actually have any leverage then, correct? So we can end this all right now? What’s that, they claim to know that it won’t be a big deal, yet they still want to extort using it? It can’t be possible that Republicans are talking out of both sides of their mouth can it?
So which is it? Not a big deal, therefore no leverage, or big deal therefore leverage?
Pick one. Can’t have it both ways Hoss.
What, no quotes from the citation? Here, let me help you out…
And Moody’s take on that may well be true, so long as everybody takes a “We’ll just muddle through this, and eventually everything will be fine” approach. But the financial systems are made up of people, and people are not strictly rational. So we will be putting ourselves in the position of crossing our fingers and praying to Mammon that nobody panics. Lovely.
You endorse that position, do you? Or is this one of those "just sayin’ " sort of things?
Yes. It might have been.
Oh, just havin’ some fun with you, Slim. I knew what you were saying, and that’s all that counts.
Factually it may not be big deal. But the market is not always rational.
OK, so the money Republicans are yanking the chain. Is there anybody left on the other end?