Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Whatever percentage of the voting public is made up of the Tea Party/Ex-Birthers/folks like Carlton, that is the percentage that very much does want it to go over a cliff, because they would rather have a disaster that gets Obama out of office than a solution that keeps him there. Sad, really.

 

Unfortunately none of these people are Republicans in Congress.

 

This.

As noted earlier, the Republicans in Congress -- and I can broad-brush this, because the moderates have been flushed out of the party long ago -- would rather blow up the economy and throw millions out of work than make the compromises necessary to get a deal done.

It's very simple. Repeal the Bush tax cuts on the top earners. It should have been done already.

 

Breaking news: Politicians care more about power than doing what's right! Why has no one mentioned this before? A visionary take, indeed.

 

First of all, the Bush Tax cuts expired. President Obama extended them. They're his now.

The Democrats owned both chambers of Congress and the White House. They did not address the deficit. They didn't address spending. They didn't raise taxes. They didn't even pass a budget before the midterm elections.

If not for the "Tea Party" Republicans, no one would be talking about the debt right now. The debt ceiling would have just been raised. Maybe some Senators -- like a certain one in '06 -- would have made a statement or two citing the irresponsibility of it, but it would have been voted on, and it would have passed.

Now, maybe that's preferable. But to those of you who are demanding a "fix" to the problem and have decided that higher taxes are the "fix", even you should be thanking the "Tea Party" folks for turning this into a national debate. Without them, it wouldn't be.

As for why some members of Congress are holding out for spending cuts and resisting tax increases, let's consider their point of view for a minute.

They ran on a pledge to reign in spending. They promised to shrink government. They ran against tax increases. And they were elected in large numbers. This just happened. We had an election in '10 and this was the winning platform.

In the last budget debate, they were promised spending cuts, but when you got around to the fine print, it turned out it was mostly smoke and mirrors.

So, now they have some leverage to insist on being heard and and to get their point across.

And, they're being told that not only should they back down and increase the debt ceiling, but they should raise taxes to boot. They're not going to do that. It's the very antithesis of what they ran on.

Now, maybe they'll be blamed and punished for this stance, but it's an honest one. Like Dems who were voted out after voting against guns, they are sticking to their principles.

They deserve credit for that, not scorn. If I was President Obama, or Speaker Boehner, I wouldn't "call their bluff".

They can get a deal done without them. But that would mean doing a deal with a lot of Democrat votes in the House, and Pelosi isn't willing to whip votes in her caucus and liberal Dems won't vote for a deal that cuts entitlements. The Dem caucus is every bit as dug in in their position as the "Tea Party" Republicans.

So, do a deal without them, or do a deal with them, but don't expect them to cave. They're not going to.

 

So I am clear, they deserve "credit" for spending the money and then holding the economy hostage by refusing to pay the bills?

And this is the "conservative" position?

 

I'm not sure how you think members elected in '10 can be defined as the ones who spent the money.

Maybe Plato can explain it for me.

 

No. It's about them voting for exactly what they said they would in an election that was just held.

If President Obama and Nancy Pelosi don't want to go through them, do a deal with Democratic support and pick off enough Republicans to pass it.

It could be done, but there aren't enough Dems who will vote for entitlement cuts, just like there aren't enough "Tea Party" folk who will vote to raise taxes.

 

With the impending end to the NFL lockout and the strong possibility that debt ceiling will be raised, I just can't wait till next week. Our duel national nightmares will be over. Happy days will be here soon.

 

Well, first off, incumbents win around 95 percent of their elections, so the vast majority are the same fucking people.

Second, whether they approved the spending or not, the United States is required to meet its legal financial obligations.

 

YF -- John Boehner was not a Tea Party candidate, nor were hundreds of other Republican reps. To turn around your Obama '06 reference, Boehner is a person that has been more than happy to blow the hell out of the debt limit for as long as he has been in Congress. He, and dozens of other congressmen, made no such promises to get elected and have no history or prior statements that would make them look hypocritical by voting yes to raising the debt limit.

And you know what? Things change. People who thought in 2010 that the debt needed to be contained at all costs are now revisiting that opinion as they are being educated on what the costs would be. Polls consistently show that a majority of GOP voters favor higher taxes on the rich.

So the party is adamantly defending a position that its own base no longer agrees with.

 

The debt ceiling was raised 10 times during the Bush administration.

If they gave a fuck about spending, they could, I dunno, spend less. They control the House. Every penny that gets spent needs their approval.

As Bubbler adroitly points out, the vast majority of Americans want this deal fucking done a month ago. The GOP is catering to the batshit 27 percent of Americans, and they've painted themselves into a corner. If the thing doesn't get done in time, they will get the blame.