Budget talks: This is getting nasty

BrianGriffin · Aug 2, 2011

suburbia said:

MisterCreosote said:

Nice little summary of why Americans are disgusted:

http://news.yahoo.com/mutually-assured-revulsion-why-americans-hated-debt-debate-110000209.html

In other words, leaders of both parties were able to shore up their bases, even as they repulsed the country. Which is a pretty neat summary of national politics these days. Appeal to the base, alienate your opponents, and hope the political center is so turned off it doesn't even bother coming to the polls.
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Couldn't have said it better.

Of course, that outcome benefits Republicans, because the demographic groups making up their base are more reliable at voting than the demographic groups making up the Democrats' base.
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What base did the Democrats target? Seems like they alienated their base.

LongTimeListener · Aug 2, 2011

LeCranke said:

suburbia said:

MisterCreosote said:

Nice little summary of why Americans are disgusted:

http://news.yahoo.com/mutually-assured-revulsion-why-americans-hated-debt-debate-110000209.html

In other words, leaders of both parties were able to shore up their bases, even as they repulsed the country. Which is a pretty neat summary of national politics these days. Appeal to the base, alienate your opponents, and hope the political center is so turned off it doesn't even bother coming to the polls.
Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better.

Of course, that outcome benefits Republicans, because the demographic groups making up their base are more reliable at voting than the demographic groups making up the Democrats' base.
Click to expand...

Anyone who thinks any Democrat, particularly Obama, appealed to his base is an outright fucking moron.
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Agreed. I imagine I will vote for Obama in the next election because his and his party's policy views are closer to mine. But I will do it with no real conviction, and hoping not that he can actually accomplish anything but that he can just contain the damage done by the other side.

YankeeFan · Aug 2, 2011

It would have been nice if this had been discussed a little more (including in the press) during the negotiations.

Binyamin Appelbaum in the Times:

There is something you should know about the deal to cut federal spending that President Obama signed into law on Tuesday: It does not actually reduce federal spending.

By the end of the 10-year deal, the federal debt would be much larger than it is today.

Indeed, both the government and its debts will continue to grow faster than the American economy, primarily because the new law does not address federal spending on health care.

That is the reason that the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s and its rivals still are threatening to remove the United States from their lists of risk-free borrowers, although the other agencies, Moody’s and Fitch, both said Tuesday that they would watch and wait for now.

It is also the reason that many conservative Republicans refused to vote for the agreement, calling it a grossly inadequate answer to a pressing problem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/us/politics/03spend.html?_r=1&src=tp
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YankeeFan · Aug 2, 2011

More:

The problem facing the nation has been clear for some time. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the federal debt is likely to exceed 100 percent of the nation’s annual economic output by 2021, largely because of the rising cost of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Americans will face higher taxes, particularly as investors begin to demand higher interest rates. Economists disagree about the amount of debt a nation can safely carry relative to the size of its economy, but there is widespread concern that 100 percent is too much, and that the weight of debt would begin to suppress economic activity.
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YankeeFan · Aug 2, 2011

Tom Coburn on Morning Joe this morning:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43984532#43984532

“Well, I think the politicians won, and America lost,” the Oklahoma Republican said today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“I don’t know of any program that was eliminated. I don’t know of any duplication that was eliminated. I don’t know of anything that’s set in stone that it can’t be reversed with a vote of 60 people in the Senate,” Coburn said, adding that “98 percent of this thing, nothing happens on for another year and five months. We didn’t cut spending to increase the likelihood we can protect our debt limit. I think [for] the politicians it was great theater, but in the long run, the country lost.”

Coburn went on to say there are no real cuts in the deal and that it just plays with the numbers.

“There’s an $830 billion increase in discretionary spending over the next 10 years under this — $830 billion — almost a trillion dollars more we’re going to spend,” he said. “So we’re playing the Washington game again, where we call a cut a slowdown in spending versus what America thinks of a cut, that I am going to spend less next year than I did this.

“And so if $830 billion — and by the way, with our economic numbers looking the way they are, our pinch is going to get tougher, not easier — I think we just ought to be dead honest with the American people and say there is just a lot of things that we are not going to be able to do,” Coburn said.

“There’s not one tax expenditure eliminated in this,” he said adding that none of the loopholes that address a “select few” are addressed in the deal.

The problem with tax loopholes is that they prompt people to misdirect capital, which gives less benefit to the country as a whole in job creation, he said.

“When you’re directing capital to lessen somebody’s tax liability, versus increase the return on that capital from its employment, we actually hurt everybody — those that are paying taxes and those that aren’t,” he said. “Because we eliminate opportunity.”

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Coburn-debt-limit-deal/2011/08/02/id/405732
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Starman · Aug 2, 2011

YankeeFan said:

Tom Coburn on Morning Joe this morning:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43984532#43984532
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"Morning Joe," otherwise known as Comcast's rug-crawling effort to get with the Uncle Rupert program.

Happily I'm rarely if ever up early enough to watch it, but if I wanted to watch Faux Fascist Propaganda, I'd just watch Faux Fascist Propaganda.

Point of Order · Aug 2, 2011

LeCranke said:

suburbia said:

MisterCreosote said:

Nice little summary of why Americans are disgusted:

http://news.yahoo.com/mutually-assured-revulsion-why-americans-hated-debt-debate-110000209.html

In other words, leaders of both parties were able to shore up their bases, even as they repulsed the country. Which is a pretty neat summary of national politics these days. Appeal to the base, alienate your opponents, and hope the political center is so turned off it doesn't even bother coming to the polls.
Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better.

Of course, that outcome benefits Republicans, because the demographic groups making up their base are more reliable at voting than the demographic groups making up the Democrats' base.
Click to expand...

Anyone who thinks any Democrat, particularly Obama, appealed to his base is an outright fucking moron.
Click to expand...

Newbie nails it.

zimbabwe · Aug 3, 2011

Coburn: The problem with tax loopholes is that they prompt people to misdirect capital, which gives less benefit to the country as a whole in job creation, he said.

1. Isn't this an argument for closing loopholes?
2. Does government "prompt people to misdirect capital," or is it capitalist self-interest?

DanOregon · Aug 3, 2011

I'm still waiting for a Republican to step up and offer to eliminate some of the federal presence in his or her district or state.

Ben_Hecht · Aug 3, 2011

Point of Order said:

LeCranke said:

suburbia said:

MisterCreosote said:

Nice little summary of why Americans are disgusted:

http://news.yahoo.com/mutually-assured-revulsion-why-americans-hated-debt-debate-110000209.html

In other words, leaders of both parties were able to shore up their bases, even as they repulsed the country. Which is a pretty neat summary of national politics these days. Appeal to the base, alienate your opponents, and hope the political center is so turned off it doesn't even bother coming to the polls.
Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better.

Of course, that outcome benefits Republicans, because the demographic groups making up their base are more reliable at voting than the demographic groups making up the Democrats' base.
Click to expand...

Anyone who thinks any Democrat, particularly Obama, appealed to his base is an outright fucking moron.
Click to expand...

Newbie nails it.
Click to expand...

Damn straight.

Obama needs to think through towards a couple of worthwhile fights he knows he can win against the tools and yahoos, rubbing their noses in it while winning them. Tit for tat, and all that. And then, he can have a happy 51st year on this earth.

Get to work, Bam. You can do it.

deskslave · Aug 3, 2011

The signature accomplishment of the first two years was health care reform, and as watered down as it turned out to be, I would hardly call it red meat for the base. More ... a veggie burger for the base.

(Of course, that's what much of the base wants. So maybe the analogy's less than apt. )

Azrael · Aug 3, 2011

MisterCreosote said:

Obama and the Democrats threw plenty of red meat to their base in his first two years . . .
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Such as?

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Budget talks: This is getting nasty

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Budget talks: This is getting nasty

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