Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Actually, Watergate proved that the Constitution does work. A president was driven from office by it.

The crisis now is much worse. The sustainability of our country is much more in doubt now. We have a president and a party in control of the Senate that either can't see the problem or they're too chicken to do something about it because they're too beholden to the entitlement class. Unless something changes quickly and drastically, what started with the downgrade Friday (not even counting that the Dow went down 560 the day before that) is just the beginning.

 

The GOP needs to realize that taxes need to be raised and the Dems need to see that programs need cut to get us out of the this mess.

Tony, I don't the GOP was willing to raise taxes for anyone or anything.

 

Relatively speaking, the recession of the 70s was probably a lot more fun. Sure, you were broke and desperate. But you also had the beginnings of punk, all the casual sex you wanted and got to be an eyewitness to historic events. Do you think we're going to bore the grandchildren with tales of the EU bailing out Greece for the fourth time?

 

Here's why we differ: I agree that all the Watergate-related crap was terrible. But we had (and have) laws to deal with that. We don't have laws to stop a president and his cronies from spending the country to the brink of utter disaster. They just go on their merry way, and while everything is crashing down around them and they show their utter incompetence, we have people (like many at this board) who blindly follow them and place the blame everywhere but where it belongs. There are millions of people who can't wait to fill Obama's campaign coffers and vote for him again in 2012.

Tell me about who would have voted for Nixon in 1976 (had he been eligible to run again).

 

The Tea Party freshmen came to Washington with a MANDATE. They ran on a platform of cutting spending and people being "Taxed Enough Already." You do know that is where the TEA came from, right? So, no, they are not going to turn around and do EXACTLY the thing they were sent to DC to put an end to. I don't think it is very complicated to understand why they will not, under any circumstances, vote to raise taxes. They all ran on a platform of "smaller government, fewer taxes" and were asked to violate that platform. They stood their ground. Call them terrorists if you want, what they did was honorable because they kept their word.

 

So will this logic get us out of the budget mess?

 

If Watergate happened today, nobody would blink twice.

I'm not advocating what happened almost 40 years ago, but if it happened today, people would barely care.

 

I agree, but a big finger can be pointed at today's media as the cause.

There is so much BS out there, the real story would get diluted.

 

They also represent a fraction of the population. That's where I have an issue: With their acting as though they represent the collective will of the people. They don't. They never have, and they never will. Maybe it was on other people to tell them to shut the hell up. But it would be nice if they were self-aware enough to know that their manic visions of government-free utopia aren't shared by the rational majority.

18% support is not a damn mandate.

 

No mention of Richard Nixon can be made without giving a shoutout to Bill Clinton.