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The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

  • Thread starter Thread starter Priceless
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Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Priceless said:
No, actually that source says the LABOR FORCE was 153 million in Jan 2009, employment was 134,580,000 jobs. Close though.
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Better yet, it says 'Non Farm' employment was 134,580,000. The employment number I was looking for, to be consistent with the 2001 number, was 142,099,000 listed just below the civilian labor force. Sorry about that.
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

bronconick said:
Yeah, like your right wing leaders aren't going flip flop in 2 or 6 years and piously ask for their own ceiling hike. Put the Norquist book down and pick the other one that Republicans claim to follow, the part about removing the plank from your own eye first.
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Thats why we need a balanced budget amendment, neither side can be trusted
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

walrus said:
Thats why we need a balanced budget amendment, neither side can be trusted
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And once we do that we can look forward to even more "playing chicken" by the legislature. I think I understand now more than ever why the Soviet Union and Rome fell.
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

ScoobyDoo said:
And once we do that we can look forward to even more "playing chicken" by the legislature. I think I understand now more than ever why the Soviet Union and Rome fell.
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It couldn't have been the orgies.
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Foxton said:
You're not stupid because you're a republican, or conservative, or a tea bagger, or whatever ****ing label you apply to yourself. You're stupid because what you are saying is stupid. The major republicans were using this as a big grab to force spending cuts (except the military they get more) and now they're trying to play damage control and get their hardcore members under control so they can salvage their chances for the next election.

Anyone who thinks that this wasn't a big political exercise is a dumb.
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Amen. Backing the McConnell plan is an admission of defeat for the GOP. All I read leading up to crunch time was that the Republicans were all about cutting the deficit/budget. Now they're coming together on a save *** measure that cuts zilch? Can someone please tell me what the the Republicans in Congress actually stand for?

The problem for the country is that the McConnell plan does nothing to improve its finances. That's why Obama's wearing the white hat on this one. $4T dollars in deficit reduction, even if it means higher taxes for GOP campaign contributors, is the way to go and it has public support. Republicans now are turning into Democrats from a generation ago. A party too fixated on its shrinking base.
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Anyone want to make a bet that this whole thing will be used as an example of how uncompromising democrats are?
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Foxton said:
Anyone want to make a bet that this whole thing will be used as an example of how uncompromising democrats are?
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Nobody will take that bet. The GOP talking point is "the Dems are obsessed with raising taxes." It's an obsession to ask for 15% of a compromise from the Republicans, but asking for an 85% compromise from the Dems is just a neutral baseline. :rolleyes:

Outside the Echo Chamber, nobody is buying what the GOP is peddling. Even The Economist has said in so many words that the Repubs' rhetoric is either cynical or stupid. That's like Mother Jones coming out against the Dems.
 
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Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Kepler said:
Nobody will take that bet. The GOP talking point is "the Dems are obsessed with raising taxes." It's an obsession to ask for 15% of a compromise from the Republicans, but asking for an 85% compromise from the Dems is just a neutral baseline. :rolleyes:

Outside the Echo Chamber, nobody is buying what the GOP is peddling. Even The Economist has said in so many words that the Repubs' rhetoric is either cynical or stupid. That's like Mother Jones coming out against the Dems.
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Honestly, I don't think The Economist likes teavangelical Republicans any more than Mother Jones does.
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

The problem is accepting the 85/15 compromise pretty well addresses the deficit but eliminates it as a 2012 election issue to rally the conservative base of the party. It's the only possible reason I can come up with for the GOP leadership's rejection of the offer (well, other than pure stupidity/stubbornness).
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

amherstblackbear said:
Honestly, I don't think The Economist likes teavangelical Republicans any more than Mother Jones does.
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Nobody with a functioning cerebral cortex likes teavangelical Republicans, but The Economist loves Wall Street Republicans and they love monetary policy hawkishness, and they're freaked out that the Know Nothings are going to risk taking the whole world economy down.
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Kepler said:
Nobody with a functioning cerebral cortex likes teavangelical Republicans, but The Economist loves Wall Street Republicans and they love monetary policy hawkishness, and they're freaked out that the Know Nothings are going to risk taking the whole world economy down.
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They don't seem to dislike the Obama administration that much :D
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

TMW2011-07-20colorlowres.jpg
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

"Our stand on the debt limit has been clear: There can be no tax hikes because tax hikes destroy jobs," Boehner said.

Still most Americans, including Republicans, seem to disagree.

About 66 percent of Americans believe any final deal should include a combination of both spending cuts and tax increases. This includes 55 percent of Republicans, and 53 percent of tea party supporters.
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Of course, polls are unreliable unless they tell us what we want them to.
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Priceless said:
Of course, polls are unreliable unless they tell us what we want them to.
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A slim majority of Republican voters isn't going to motivate them to compromise on this. Keep in mind the remainder will be highly motivated to vote them out in the primaries, and if that fails, they simply won't show up for the general.
 
Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Bakunin said:
A slim majority of Republican voters isn't going to motivate them to compromise on this. Keep in mind the remainder will be highly motivated to vote them out in the primaries, and if that fails, they simply won't show up for the general.
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The flip side is these off-the-rails radical fires rarely rage for more than a couple years. They burn themselves out, with recursive purges to ensure greater and greater purity and ideological inbreeding. The spiritual ancestor of the Tea Baggers, The Terror, lasted just ten months from September 1793 to July 1794. Utopian schemers either break apart from repeated defeats, or luck into power and quickly prove themselves incompetent to govern.

If the GOP can get through 2012 paying lip service to the TBers, it will carry little weight in future elections except in the districts that are blood red anyway, and then we'll be back to the old conservative scam of Wall Street ginning up butt sex fears among the rubes to keep the cap gains tax low. That will go on until the last televangelist is strangled with the entrails of the last hedge fund manager.
 
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Re: The 112th Congress: Debt ceiling edition

Rover said:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=2&src=tptw
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Spot on. Suppose you have a Republican and an idiot...but I repeat myself... If they had accepted Obama's compromise, the liberal diehards would have directed their anger at Obama - or would at least have been ambivalent about his re-election, which would have translated into a lot fewer knockers-on-doors and the like. Now, liberals will be able to unite and rally their troops against the dangerous Republican monolith.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.
 
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