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[SealyStar]

@MetalSlimeHunt:

I agree. The moderate and left Democrats function perfectly well together, and their representative makeup is a pretty healthy mixture. The moderate and right Republicans, however, have a huge rift that's putting their party through shit. Their leadership as a party is torn, too; they have to decide between courting the middle or appealing to their vocal rightist minority, given Romney didn't do very well at either.

@Helgoland:

Yes, FDR was rather authoritarian. Four terms was because he was popular, but his policies were decidedly heavy-handed. And most of them (exceptions being internment camps and stuff) were reasonably justified, given that the country went through the largest economic collapse and deadliest war in history under him.

[RedKing]

I suppose my minor quibble there is that the mainstream GOP isn't upset at the fringe ruining their attempts at bipartisanship, but rather for constraining their tactical options, which makes it easier for them to fall prey to a well-planned political trap and means they can't take advantage of opportunities. Boehner could have given up the tax hike on $250,000 after token resistance, and then put the onus on the Democrats to match that "huge" sacrifice with more draconian cuts than they were comfortable with. But he never could have sold that to the Tea Party.

From where I'm standing, that is bipartisanship.

So bipartisanship is both sides trying to play the other? I suppose it is, but that's a pretty cynical version thereof.
I think of bipartisanship as something both sides can get behind in unison. Like "Eating babies is bad" or "We like bacon."
Or "The country is sad about something so we haz sad too."

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So bipartisanship is both sides trying to play the other? I suppose it is, but that's a pretty cynical version thereof.
I think of bipartisanship as something both sides can get behind in unison. Like "Eating babies is bad" or "We like bacon."
Or "The country is sad about something so we haz sad too."

Both of those are bipartisan, and both come with the territory. Pragmatic cooperation leads to greater understanding, and eventually genuine cooperation. The opposite is nothing getting done and the United States going straight over the fiscal cliff, or worse, shit like the Patriot Act getting passed because everyone immediately bows to whomever is willing to "take the most DRASTIC MEASURES FOR OUR SAFETY" in a crisis.

[Trollheiming]

So, in the midst of describing the Republicans as nihilistic sociopaths, you allege that Obama is playing the fiscal cliff like a hot potato, putting it into the hands of the Republican house and using the resulting damage to get everyone to blame the Republicans for the ensuing national misery. Interesting. And would not that political gain from sparking another recession be a little bit... nihilist or sociopathic, in itself? Is Obama somehow purer despite the rather chilling and unpatriotic motives that you impute to him, which sound a lot like the same motives that you impute to the Republicans?

Um no.

Obama is getting Republicans blamed for being irresponsible legislatures.  If the republicans want him to stop all they have to do at any time whatsoever is stop their shit.  If they don't want to be spited for refusing compromise then all they need to do is stop refusing compromise.  You are just blaming Obama for pointing out that the political faction you support doesn't want to play nice.

Sounds like an irresponsible executive that would use the country's health to expose irresponsible legislators. It's almost like he's the same. It's almost like it takes two to tango.

I'm imagining the old movie trope where the hero and the villain are in a mexican stand-off, then the villian grabs the hero's lover and threatens to shoot her unless the hero drops his weapon. What does the hero do?

Well, if he's your particular hero, he taunts the villain that everyone will know that he wasn't responsible for his girlfriend getting her head blown off. Interesting plot twist, but I'm not sure it makes the hero look better than the villian. I've never seen that particular movie at the local cinema, so maybe it just doesn't play well outside the kool-aid krowd?

[DJ]

It's more like the villain is telling the hero to shoot the girl or he'll shoot her.

[Trollheiming]

It's more like the villain is telling the hero to shoot the girl or he'll shoot her.

The "hero" is putting everything on the line, including America itself, to make sure that the rich get taxed a little more and government can still spend increasing amounts of borrowed money. Without that stubborn insistence, no one gets hurt.

So your modification to the analogy fails. The hero wants the villain to take the fall for shooting his girlfriend.

[Sheb]

Well, what should he do? Let the Republicans wreck the country? You don't negociate with terrorrists. Obama let the GOP have most of their way for the last debt ceiling, and now they want more. What he is doing is making sure the government is not taken hostage every 6 months.

[Trollheiming]

Well, what should he do? Let the Republicans wreck the country? You don't negociate with terrorrists. Obama let the GOP have most of their way for the last debt ceiling, and now they want more. What he is doing is making sure the government is not taken hostage every 6 months.

Okay, so we take on face value that the Republicans and half the country are all terrorists. What is their moon laser? What is their dastardly plot to destroy America that must be confronted by stubborn resistance, which by the way also greatly harms America?

If a debt ceiling is being broken every six months, the problem is probably not the debt ceiling.

[Sheb]

They're not litteral terrorrist. What we mean is that the same principle apply. If you reward dangerous behaviour, they'll continue. Giving up mean they'll do it again in a few months (By the way, if the debt ceiling is broken every six months, it's because the result of the last deabt ceiling crisis was that the GOP only agreed to rise it by a small amount so that we'd face the same problem again now).

The fact is that whether or not America has a debt crisis (I don't think there is one short-term), it should not be solved this way, by threatening default twice a year. And the only way to make this insanity stop is by holding firm once and letting the GOP (and future Democrat majorities under Republican president) learn that this is not the way to do politics.

[GreatJustice]

So what's your solution then?

The Republicans aren't willing to consider anything that majorly increases taxes, true, but then the Democrats aren't willing to consider anything that majorly decreases spending, either, and spending is the far greater problem right now. Neither is willing to cut from what counts though, so as parties they "should" be blamed about equally, since all they've been doing is shuffling the hot potato around to make the other party look bad.

[Sheb]

That's stupid and you know it. There is nothing like a Norquist pledge not to decrease spending on the Dem's side. The Dems ARE okay to decrease spending, and all their proposals added a large share of spending cuts to tax rise (Even the progressive caucus and their tax-raising budget wanted deep cuts... in defense).

Also, the view that spending is a far greater problem right now is your opinion. Again, America has no short-term debt problems. People like your debts so much than you can borrow for free or near. What you should be doing is borrow a whole lot of that nearly-free money and use it to invest in infrastructures and educations and other long-term investment.

You do have a longer-term problem, which is that the government promised much more money in Medicare and Social Security payment than it can afford. But the GOP is not ready to cut any of these either (Remember the ads attacking Obama for "cutting" billions out of Medicare?).

[SalmonGod]

It doesn't help that no one can agree on facts.  Both sides produce their own information that's completely different, and accuses the other of lying.  And there's no impartial source anywhere.  So arguments like these are doomed to flutter in raging circles of source denial.

The one thing that can't be denied is we have shitloads of resources that are going to waste for no other reason than big imaginary number game says so.  Big imaginary number game needs to either get a lot more generous with what it has under its control or go the fuck away.  There's just no practical reason for there to be 3x as many empty homes as homeless people.  There's no reason for so many competent and willing people to be unemployed while infrastructure crumbles.  If something like a social program to put those wasting things to use is going to break the big imaginary number game because "omg spending"... then fuck it.  The game is already broken anyway, and doing more harm than good.  All this bickering over the crunchy details of some obviously completely disconnected shit is wasting away unfathomable amounts of potential.

[GreatJustice]

That's stupid and you know it. There is nothing like a Norquist pledge not to decrease spending on the Dem's side. The Dems ARE okay to decrease spending, and all their proposals added a large share of spending cuts to tax rise (Even the progressive caucus and their tax-raising budget wanted deep cuts... in defense).

Also, the view that spending is a far greater problem right now is your opinion. Again, America has no short-term debt problems. People like your debts so much than you can borrow for free or near. What you should be doing is borrow a whole lot of that nearly-free money and use it to invest in infrastructures and educations and other long-term investment.

You do have a longer-term problem, which is that the government promised much more money in Medicare and Social Security payment than it can afford. But the GOP is not ready to cut any of these either (Remember the ads attacking Obama for "cutting" billions out of Medicare?).

Yes, but again, neither is willing to make "deep" cuts. Defense spending would be a great start, but even the Democrats aren't willing to cut it to the degree that would make a significant difference. Letting it get bigger to invest in long term government projects won't pan out for a variety of reasons, not in the least because other countries are rapidly losing their enthusiasm for Treasury bonds that aren't getting paid back. There are exactly two reasons why the US isn't in a sovereign debt crisis like Europe is now: one, the Greenback is presently being used to back just about every other currency, and two, the Federal Reserve is buying up bonds like crazy to make up for the lack of international enthusiasm. Neither of those "benefits" are going to last forever without additional issues, and the less willing the US appears to start paying back, the less time the US will have before it loses them.

Also, why do you keep saying "you"?

[Trollheiming]

That's stupid and you know it. There is nothing like a Norquist pledge not to decrease spending on the Dem's side. The Dems ARE okay to decrease spending, and all their proposals added a large share of spending cuts to tax rise (Even the progressive caucus and their tax-raising budget wanted deep cuts... in defense).

Also, the view that spending is a far greater problem right now is your opinion. Again, America has no short-term debt problems. People like your debts so much than you can borrow for free or near. What you should be doing is borrow a whole lot of that nearly-free money and use it to invest in infrastructures and educations and other long-term investment.

Spending is hard to cut. I'm not sure America has ever truly cut spending, just the rates of increase in spending. Let's find a chart.



Here it is. Since 1965 at least, annual spending has never been cut significantly. Taxes have been raised, but in point of fact, overall spending has never actually been cut. Certain areas of the budget were scaled back occasionally, but that didn't actually change much. Total spending rose elsewhere to fill the void each time spending cuts were made in one area.

You act like agreeing to spending cuts is the easy part. It's the part that has never been accomplished in modern history. Tax raises at least have a historical precedence. We know that they do happen. We also know that the additional revenues are never sufficient to dent the deficit spending. If tax policy and debt ceiling extensions are agreed before spending cuts, spending cuts will once again slip quietly into oblivion.

Also, investing in infrastructure has uses in less developed countries, where roads and cable are obvious investments, but there simply isn't any more infrastructure development in modern America that can pay back the effort used in building it. High-speed rail loses money. As for building human capital through better education, American education is quite expensive enough, and half the graduates can't get jobs. This is the job market informing people that white-collar work has jumped the shark. We need people who can actually accomplish things other than shuffling papers.

The one thing that can't be denied is we have shitloads of resources that are going to waste for no other reason than big imaginary number game says so.  Big imaginary number game needs to either get a lot more generous with what it has under its control or go the fuck away.  There's just no practical reason for there to be 3x as many empty homes as homeless people.  There's no reason for so many competent and willing people to be unemployed while infrastructure crumbles.  If something like a social program to put those wasting things to use is going to break the big imaginary number game because "omg spending"... then fuck it.  The game is already broken anyway, and doing more harm than good.  All this bickering over the crunchy details of some obviously completely disconnected shit is wasting away unfathomable amounts of potential.

If you've got savings in the bank, that's the imaginary numbers game. Your parents' pensions and 401k investments, also the numbers game. The numbers game vanished in Zimbabwe last year. I don't think the outcome will be to your liking on closer perusal. The numbers game is keeping score; and without a score, people stop participating. The numbers game is why someone who makes food on a farm, a solid line of work in even the worst catastrophe, feels like working an extra hour to feed someone who produces essay papers in a university, a career that has little meaning when the shit hits the fan.

[DJ]

You have to adjust the spending to the GDP to get a meaningful graph. And there is a slight dip in ~1987