Matt Stinson builds the case against the fiscal conservatives in Congress.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.
“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
Come on, man.
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
Infrastructure week. at last.
I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
You cannot shame the shameless.
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
Hot air and ill-informed banter
I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.
No one could have predicted…
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.
Krista
He’s absolutely right in this. I think it’s disgusting how much extra legislation gets stuffed into other bills, and winds up receiving little to no scrutiny.
srv
Matt and others have been, and continue to kid themselves. The Republican Party wasn’t fiscally conservative 20 years ago, and it isn’t now.
Suggestion for reform: Reform Yourselves. You are in the wrong party. Vote libertarian.
ppGaz
Well, that’s idealistic, but impractical. The actual job of running this huge gummint could not be broken down into individual, granular parts that wer exposed to floor votes, and/or public scrutiny. It would be impossible even if the Congress were in session 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
So the process has to be practical. In the course of making it practical, lawmakers have also made it congenial to their own interests, naturally. Reelection takes precedence over the country. That’s where the impetus for term limits came from. And we’ve seen how well they can hold to that discipline, and what difference it makes.
The fact is that the constitutional mechanism is no longer working. The interests of politicians and lobbying sponsors have overshadowed the interests of citizens and the country.
I have no idea why people dreamed that the GOP would somehow rescue us from this quagmire. What they’ve done is exactly what could have been expected …. sold us out and harnessed the contraption for their own purposes.
Steve S
This appears to be a bad episode of “PUNK’D!”? Or are you serious? You thought the Republicans cared about fiscal discipline? Amazing!
Go back, look at the REpublican party circa William Taft to understand who they are. They haven’t changed, they just put on a new dress and some makeup.
Take the issue of protectionist tariffs. Democrats argue for ’em in a misguided effort to try to save jobs… but Republicans want ’em to protect corporate profits.
That’s just one example. But you can go from there. Regulations? Yeah, sure, the accepted wisdom is they reign in companies. So why are republicans for them? Because they also act as a barrier to entry for startups.
I can go on from there. You name an issue, you give me what you think Republicans stand for, and I’ll point out the truth. It’s generally either to protect wealth from competition, or to bugger over ignorant morons to vote for them.
TarHeelCP
Stinson is right, the system is setup to be abused by members of congress. They are supposed to advocate for their constituencies and that means trading favors and votes. I firmly believe that was the system that the founding fathers envisioned. The budget process has worked for a number of years.
The real break-down in the last 5 years has been in the White House. We all (albeit we don’t directly vote for) are represented by the President. It’s his job to veto pork laden bills that do little for the common good of the entire American public. Bush is governing to a small constituency, much like a congressman, and has ignored the role laid out to him in the Constitution. He is yet to veto a bill, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. He certainly has had some whoppers land on his desk that he happily signed into law.
If Stinson is looking for a place point the finger for Republicans unrestrained spending, he should point it directly at the White House!!
So I would say to fiscal conservatives that wish to restrain spending, to be more prudent in their primaries in 2008 and make sure they are nominating a (wo)man with the backbone to stand-up to Congress when it sends him/her a barrel of pork.
jobiuspublius
Good point, Steve S. We are getting played folks. The system is broke for us. Has been for a long time.
ppGaz
Note to self: Never pay any attention to this guy again.
Are you frigging kidding us? The budget process has worked well? It’s totally corrupt and has been for all of my lifetime, which goes back to WWII.
Jesus.
TarHeelCP
I would have gone back to the 70’s. But my main point is that the President was intended to use his veto to reign in unecessary spending. Dubya is hardly the first President to be asleep at the wheel on this one.
ppGaz
You are right about that, THCP.
Clever handle, too.
Davebo
Dubya is hardly the first President to be asleep at the wheel on this one.
Well, perhaps not the first but he’s taken ignoring his responsibilities with the veto pen to a whole new level.
TarHeelCP
I’ll drink to that!
John S.
I don’t even think he knows where his veto pen is, let alone be aware that he has the responsibility to use it when necessary.
Barry
“we have to be familiar with one of the main narratives of the conservative movement from the 1960s into the 1990s: the idea that the Democratic Party cannot be trusted to manage the nation’s budget, that Democrats in Congress are unscrupulous mandarins, who, by their very nature, are prone to grow the government and are thus disinclined
towards austerity.”
As a ‘narrative’, it’s good. As a description of reality it is, of course, a lie. The GOP definitely stopped worrying about fiscal reality with Reagan.