Budget talks: This is getting nasty

There you go, underestimating the Tea Party. Like em or not, you have to respect their political clout considering that no liberal I know of thought Obama would be in the situation he's in right now three years ago.

 

Watching C-SPAN and they just announced that the House would recess and begin their August vacations tomorrow.

That just goes to show you how seriously they take all this. Self-focus first. They did something that they'll now send to their staff for spin to get re-elected, or try to. But God forbid they don't take advantage of their "entitlements" like a vacation. May all these hypocritical bastards burn in hell.

 

It passed by a large margin, 267-160.

Dems almost evenly split, with 93 voting in favor. Way more than the 50 votes I wanted to see out of them.

Republicans vote overwhelmingly in favor with 66 votes against.

I've got to believe that the Dems would not have agreed to provide even that many votes if it was a close call. This way, you can't hang the cote on any one or two members.

 

Giffords looks a lot better than I could have ever expected.

 

Updated tally is 269-161.

 

That's akin to saying you've gotta respect the pedophile's computer skills because he sure knew how to quickly download porn from tricky offshore servers.

 

This is what ticked me off most about Obama's handling of this thing. He gave up the ghost on the idea that we SHOULDN'T be cutting spending at all. He just accepted the premise that we need to cut spending (for some random, nebulous reason). Why, Obama? Why? I can't imagine this would have played out any worse if he refused to concede this point.

 

Yeah but -- A) we don't have to do it now, when it's likely to depress the economy in the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
And
B) Improving the economy takes care of a lot of that problem because it increases revenue, which eats into the debt.

So,
C) All this Sound and Fury wasted over the past few weeks should have been spent on trying to fix the damn economy.

 

Frankly, amreaeder, I suspect C was at the heart all along.

 

In regards to C)

1. Republicans (and probably many Democrats too) profess that the way to fix the economy is for the government to do LESS, to enact less legislation and otherwise get out of the way of businesses trying to make money. I don't necessarily agree with this, but that's what they profess.

2. Enacting truly meaningful legislation requires politicians to take risks, namely risks with their cushy, power-and-perk-laden jobs. Good luck with that. The watered-down, questionably effective health care reform and financial reform bills that the House and Senate passed last year are about as risky as members of the House and Senate are likely to get. The days of Congress having the courage to pass truly historic legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act and Medicare in the 1960s, are gone and not coming back.

 

I should know better than to argue with a sock puppet, but...

Dems referring to Republicans as terrorists and comparing them to pedophiles is ridiculous.

If that's how you view us, why should we compromise with you?

 

RE, taking this down to the wire: isn't this how most negotiations go?

It seems to me, the real objection is that anyone even made an issue of the debt ceiling.

All of you who support unions would never accuse a union of terrorist behavior for taking a negotiation down to the wire.