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[smjjames]

Theres going to be a forum and three democratic debates (including one in Iowa) and three months before the Iowa caucases, so, anything could happen or change between now and then.

Celebrity endorser would like to chew your ear off about Donald Trump.

Heh, saw the article title in RCP saying that Mike Tyson is endorsing Trump, didn't look at the article itself as I wasn't interested.

Also, while getting Iowa will be crucial, and is pretty indicative of the eventual winner, it's not 100% predictive.

[Reelya]

Let's run America like a business

Ok, like a business, where you basically lay off anyone who's not making you a profit and outsource everything where you can get it cheaper elsewhere. People have tried the "government is a business" model before, it doesn't work because you can't "lay off" your citizens without being labelled a monster. Treating the government as a self-interested corporation which needs to turn a profit is not a good model.

[smjjames]

Let's run America like a business

Ok, like a business, where you basically lay off anyone who's not making you a profit and outsource everything where you can get it cheaper elsewhere. People have tried the "government is a business" model before, it doesn't work because you can't "lay off" your citizens without being labelled a monster. Treating the government as a self-interested corporation which needs to turn a profit is not a good model.

Not to be that guy, but your quote is slightly out of context, he said "Let's run America like a business, where no colors matter.".

Still, even WITH that context, it still sounds like he says what he says while trying to say 'lets end this partianship'.

Out of curiosity, could you give some examples of those who have tried to do the "government is a business" model?

[nenjin]

IIRC, Detroit fits the model although I don't think that supports Reelya's assertion right now. (Detroit is in recovery after being in the economic shit hole for years.)

The problem with Government As Business to me is that many parts of real life are made up of things of intangible value. Can you put a price on happiness? What is the happiness of a citizen worth?

It's easy to quantify losses in a monetary sense, but I think it's harder to quantify some gains the same way.

[Helgoland]

He might be referring to Argentina and the Chicago Boys.

[smjjames]

Huh, Carson released an ad saying 'lets drain the washington swamp' and says that it used to be on a swamp (pretty sure that area had lots of wetlands) and to basically drain it of corruption (not the actual words). The somewhat offbeat-clever way the ad was made made me think of Herman Cains ads. Though it's nowhere near the strangeness of Herman Cains ads (does anybody remember the one with the (fortunately) plush rabbit being launched into the air via catapult and then 'bloodily' exploding, like wtf even...), I can't help but compare it to those.

Though it's a pretty clever use of that swamp metaphor if anything.
At least

[Helgoland]

He stole it from the Simpsons, though.

[Frumple]

The problem with Government As Business to me is that many parts of real life are made up of things of intangible value. Can you put a price on happiness? What is the happiness of a citizen worth?

It's easy to quantify losses in a monetary sense, but I think it's harder to quantify some gains the same way.

*shrugs* Non-profits manage alright in a lot of places. S'fairly difficult to quantify happiness, but it's damn easy to quantify a lot of the behaviors exhibited by happy people.

Problem being most of the people talking about running government as a business are very much not talking about running it like a nonprofit one, heh. Weirdest thing to me is that people think that'll reduce the corruption in government, somehow. Always seems like it's one of those things that look appealing to somehow who has no goddamn idea how business tends to actually work. Or worse, does :V

[Baffler]

Cesspool! Cesspool! Cesspool!

And it saddens me to see Sanders losing support like this. I'm not willing to write him off, but I'm definitely concerned for him. MSNBC and CNN's pro-Clinton bias don't help either.

[sprinkled chariot]

If I had nine thousand votes to give, I would give them all for the Trump.

[Frumple]

Hey, get involved in the vote counting et al process. I'm sure if you weaseled into the right place you could fraud your way into giving trump 9k votes he wouldn't have otherwise had.

[RedKing]

So...John Boehner pushed through a budget bill that eases some of the austerity measures and raises the debt ceiling to 2017. It also sets the Federal budget levels for 2016 and 2017, essentially removing the two biggest find the Tea Party had.

Boehner troll is best troll.

[smjjames]

He stole it from the Simpsons, though.

So he doesn't get points for origionality. Heck, the words "Drain the washington swamp" are probably older than The Simpsons.

[TheBiggerFish]

So...John Boehner pushed through a budget bill that eases some of the austerity measures and raises the debt ceiling to 2017. It also sets the Federal budget levels for 2016 and 2017, essentially removing the two biggest find the Tea Party had.

Boehner troll is best troll.

FINALLY.

[smjjames]

Anyhow, I wonder if there will be any round table style debates where everybody is sitting down? I remember there being a couple during the past couple of cycles. It would be nice to mix up debate styles.

Edit: Probably not with that many people on the republican side though.