Awesome guys. Just fucking awesome:
One of the big victories by tea-party Republicans in the debt-ceiling measure signed into law Tuesday was securing a requirement that Congress vote later this year on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
The measure would need a two-thirds vote in each chamber, and then ratification by 38 states, to succeed. And most observers believe passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate is all but impossible.
Enter Sen. Mark Udall, the centrist Democrat from Colorado, who has introduced an amendment proposal and said Tuesday that Democratic leaders have chosen his legislation to be considered in the fall.
President Obama and other senior Democrats have opposed any balanced-budget amendment, but the idea is popular with many voters – particularly independents, who are growing more fiscally conservative.
Udall is up for reelection in 2014. Many of his Democratic co-sponsors – including Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Joe Manchin (W. Va.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) – are running this year and need support from centrists.
If Old Yeller was actually a story about putting down a rabid blue dog, it would be a heartwarming tale.
I’m beginning to think that centrist means “I can’t be bothered to know shit about what is going on, so I will just go with shit that sounds plausible and middle of the road.”
(via)
arguingwithsignposts
I vote we ban the words “many” and “some” from the journalistic dictionary/lexicon. They would not know what to write about.
Loviatar
Come on Obots,
Clap harder dammit, reality is starting to yell and you don’t want to hear what he has to say.
I’ll help you out.
CLAP
CLAP
CLAP
CLAP
kestral
So much for coming off of my self-inflicted media blackout. Back I go.
Jesus, the stupid with these people is just…
Corner Stone
What are you trying to say here Cole?
Corner Stone
I thought “Independents” were the people we needed?
Calouste
Ah, the balanced budget start-a-war-to-spend-whatever-you-want amendment. I’d start getting some long range missiles if I were Hugo Chavez.
Maude
The balanced budget amendment pops up from time to time as a solution to those tax and spend Dems. It always fails.
The blue Dems don’t want to have the trillions in US debt hung around their necks. They are trying to look responsible and as if they are looking out for the tax payer. In other words, they are full of it.
Maude
@Loviatar:
Try tetracycline.
And how do you know reality is a boy? Huh?
freelancer
Ze balloons, zey look green to meh.
13th Generation
“I can’t be bothered to know shit about what is going on, so I will just go with shit that sounds plausible and middle of the road.”
Sounds like most of the regular Obot commentators around here.
Brian R.
Who cares? The BBA will fail, as always.
John, go play with your pets for a while.
BlueDWarrior
Clearly this means we need to primary Obama, you know, to show those Blue Dogs whose boss.
No I don’t know how it’s supposed to show them whose boss, but damnit it’ll make us feel better, or at least it’ll make the emoprogs feel better.
Just Some Fuckhead
I dunno how a balanced budget law would work but I can’t dismiss something out of hand that has the potential to stop Republican borrowing and spending. We’re where we are now because Republicans have added over 10 trillion dollars to the national debt by being irresponsible stewards of the nation’s finances: profligate spending coupled with nonstop tax cuts.
JR (not the other JR)
Oh good God. It’s Christmas for trolls. If we kiss your genius asses, cry and tell you you were right all along, will you go the fuck away?
Citizen_X
Mark Udall. Jesus. Is there like a 20 pt. IQ drop per generation for dynasty politicians? Yes, I’m including the Qualyes.
Oh, and your boy Manchin is in on it, too! Hot diggity!
cathyx
And to finish the sentence; “and therefore, the president will be behind it and ask the democrats to vote for it anyway. ‘After all, it’s what the people want.'”
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m sure that the usual culprits will be in soon to point out that this is all the fault of that Obama guy.
ETA: I see that Lovitar dropped said number two at post number two.
boss bitch
These two— Manchin and Nelson are def. right wing Dems. The other two are just desperate.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT (sort of) Today I was looking for my coupon holder and I realized I could not find it. An icy hand gripped my heart OOOOOOH NOOOOOES I have lost my coupon folder (stuffed with about $300.00 worth of coupons for various things). I retraced my steps and realized that the last time I had used it was at Piggly Wiggly (where they do double coupons pretty much making four thingys of cat food free). After I got off work I sped to the Pig and as I walked in the door the girl at the checkout said to me “you are looking for your coupon folder aren’t you?” I grinned at her and sighed. She then said:
“Yeah we said last night when you left it behind, oooooh that belongs to the English Lady who buys wine and cat food” and I realized in that bright and clear moment that my entire existence can be boiled down to “the English Lady who buys wine and cat food” and you know what? I can live with that. It is funny how moments of your life can cut through all of the bullshit that you spend your life worrying about, fretting about, and losing sleep about, but in the end you end up being a cartoon character, an avatar if you will. I am not all of the other miriad of things I think I am, to the staff of Piggly Wiggly I am “The English Lady who buys wine and cat food”. It is amazing how an experience like that brings you right back down to Earth.
Citizen_X
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Hint: they all include the phrase “VOID IN CASE OF WAR.”
So, reining in idiotic spending? Not so much.
Cat Lady
And then there’s this traitorous asshole’s stink upon the land.
But hey let’s blame Obama! He didn’t fight for the public option! Bully pulpit!
Steve
Without reading the specific amendment Udall has proposed, it strikes me that there is room for moderate Democrats to vote for something called a BBA that is a lot less radical than what the Republicans will want to do, that will provide political cover by allowing those Democrats to show that they are not actually in favor of endless deficits, and which will not pass anyway so why even worry about it.
There is not really a “good” version of a BBA but there are certainly versions that are “less bad” than others, and since we are now forced to vote on one anyway, why not at least have an alternative that is less bad.
JonF
So, you slap some exception in it which renders it null and void. Even the tea bag version had a clause which could effectively render it null(language about how it didn’t apply as long as the US was involved in military operations against terrorism). Or Obama vetoes it. Or the states do(since it’ll hurt them also).
JR (not the other JR)
Also too: My scientifical research shows that “Independents” are nothing other than morons and/or attention whores.
Clever moniker
Serious questions:
Is this the
dealransom BBA, or another, new one?Will this actually get two-thirds?
cleek
i’m sure Obama has been pulling the strings on this from his dark and smoky back room, this whole time. it’s a Chicago thing, i bet. he’s super-powerful and his powers of persuasion are immense… except when they’re not. it’s hard to tell what he’s up to, unless you can read his mind – and, luckily, all good firebaggers are masters at that.
General Stuck
You are aware Cole, that there has been versions of balanced budget amendments to the constitution, going back decades, and some created by democrats of all stripes.
I think it is stupid these blue dogs feel they need to whip up one right now, to help themselves with the blue dog dem voters in their home states. But the BBA the wingers put out is likely the most draconian and insane one, that has ever been proposed. I suspect the senate blue dog one will be a counter to that one, with one that is not completely insane. In any circumstance the BBA, or any kind will get squashed just like all the other ones. Pol theater. But I agree not a good show at this time.
cathyx
@Litlebritdifrnt: So are you saying in summary, don’t worry about all this crap because we all boil down to being our own equivalent of the English lady who buys wine and cat food? If so, I will think about that.
Litlebritdifrnt
And now ON TOPIC. Sean Hannity (Moron) was espousing today about how a “wave of conservatism” was sweeping the US. It was a long and painful screed in which he offered no actual facts other than a single opinion piece by some fellow moron to support his argument. As is my wont, I screeched at the radio (an always satisfying experience) that in fact the country is actually if you look at it leaning heavily left particularly on social issues. There was a diary over at GOS a while back that showed that at least on social issues the country as a whole has lurched significantly to the left, on issues of Gay Marriage and Abortion the country basically shrugs its collective shoulders and says “meh”. The majority of this country is not radical RWNJ fundamentalist christians, the majority of us are “meh”. They should remember that when framing their message.
Alex S.
Oh well, 47 republican senators, so at least 44 republican votes for that, and it still needs 23 votes. I give you the Maine senators and Scott Brown, I give you Nelson, Nelson, Udall, McCaskill, Manchin and it’s still 15 votes short. Even if I give you Begich, Johnson, Pryor and Landrieu you need 11 more votes. I don’t mind symbolic votes that go nowhere.
WaterGirl
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I actually had a similar experience a few years ago. I was talking on the phone to the manager of a local bookstore. I gave my name and then said something like “you probably won’t know who I am, but..” and she said “I know who you are, you’re the blond woman with glasses”. That took me by surprise, because I have brown hair, though I do have highlights – and I thought I was wearing my glasses only for reading. I had to readjust my view. Edit: I guess I must have a lot of highlights!
Another similar incident was my interview for a school mentoring program. After the 15 minute interview the young woman said “You’re so down to earth and non-judgmental… I have the perfect girl for you.” I thought to myself “well, I guess I can live with that”. It really is interesting to get clues about how others see you.
Chris
@ 16 cathyx,
I remember catching the end of a West Wing episode once which I can’t for the life of me remember (anyone who does please do tell), where someone reads a poll number to Bartlet and he cuts him off by saying in essence “this is one of those times when you don’t care what the people want… The complexities of something like this [think it involved a nuclear arms treaty or missile defense or something] are things the voter doesn’t understand and has no idea how to handle.”
It was years and years ago. I remember being put off by the little speech, but it’s come back to my mind quite a few times lately. Face it, when the most popular media station in the country is Fox News and such a massive share of the voters think what they see there is the real world, your electorate isn’t equipped to be making decisions. At all.
(Not arguing for dictatorship or saying the government should just start summarily overruling them every time… It’s more of a comment of where the country’s headed with this kind of electorate choosing politicians. The downward spiral’s going to get worse and worse faster and faster, and countries that don’t live according to our delusions are going to step up to be what we once were).
Allison Wonderland
@cleek: From the article: “Enter Sen. Mark Udall, the centrist Democrat from Colorado, who has introduced an amendment proposal and said Tuesday that Democratic leaders have chosen his legislation to be considered in the fall.”
Mojotron
Blue Dog Centrist: a person whose solution to the abortion debate is going through with the birth and then chopping the baby in half. Which is pretty much what the BBA is.
DarrenG
Yep, this is all just theater.
The debt ceiling deal included a vote on a BBA, so some blue dogs are going to score some cheap points for their re-election campaigns by supporting something that has zero chance of passing either chamber by a 2/3 vote.
FlipYrWhig
You mean there are conservative Democrats who hold elected office in this country, and they tend to favor things like balanced budgets and spending cuts? Why were we not informed about this? It might have made it easier to understand why Democrats as a party don’t consolidate behind Keynesian ideas and speak up for them at every opportunity, and hence why Democratic presidents tend not to be able to get liberal economic policies put into place.
El Cruzado
While the house budget-government budget comparison is faulty, in this case it is a reasonably good way to explain to average morons why this is a bad idea.
Basically explain to them that a balanced budget amendment for their household would mean not having access to any credit EVER with terms longer than the current year.
Apparently people think they can buy a car or a house with a loan, but the government shouldn’t be able to do the equivalent.
Chris
In my unscientific opinion, they’re even dumber than the hard right, which is seriously saying something.
At least True Believing Conservatives have a consistent plan: cut cut cut cut taxes, and pay for it by abolishing the welfare state altogether. It’s an ugly ass plan that’ll screw the vast majority of the country a hundred years back, but at least it’s logically consistent.
Independents are the guys who vote for the teabaggers because they promise tax cuts, but aren’t willing to pay for it by cutting the welfare state and all the other goodies. It’s the “I can haz cake & eat it 2 plz?” idiocy that’s had the country stuck in cement for so long.
Comrade Luke
FTFY.
Davis X. Machina
While state legislators are, for the most part, chowder-heads taking a break between stints selling or defending the sellers of used cars, real estate, and cemetery plots[1] It’s going to be hard to find 38 states with a working majority of chowder-heads willing to throttle 1/4 to 1/3rd of their actual operating revenue off at the source.
[1] during stints ditto, if your state has one of those term-limited, part-time, paid-per-diem ‘citizen legislatures’ that are ‘closer to the people’.
Sko Hayes
Wow, did you even bother to read what he’s proposing? Hello?
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-democrats-unveil-balanced-budget-amendment-2011-8#ixzz1Tv3CyaWn
http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-democrats-unveil-balanced-budget-amendment-2011-8
He wants to exempt Social Security from the BBA and prevent rich people from getting tax cuts unless the budget is balanced.
What’s so bad about that?
freelancer
@Chris:
Here you go!
Comrade Luke
BTW, I think this statement is hilarious, given how many commenters here live and die by the theory that Obama is a centrist.
Felinious Wench
@Brian R.:
And that, my friends, is the best response I’ve heard to the whole BBA idiocy.
I will emote over the idiocy of the people who propose it, but not over fear that it will pass.
And the Blue Dogs continue to make me insane. And to wish for a sane Republican party they can go to.
Zach
To be fair, one could imagine a good balanced budget amendment that requires budgets to change laws in ways that will run no deficit over, say, a 10- or 20-year time period. In practice, most Congresses would run manageable deficits in the short-term, but the amendment would require Congress to actually make decisions that’d fix the medium/long-term budget gap.
I’m sure this sort of reasonable balanced budget amendment is exactly what Udall will propose.
Chris
@ freelancer
AHAHA… thanks! Not the one I was thinking of, but I loved that one too. (Especially the two Churchill quotes at the end).
Litlebritdifrnt
@cathyx:
Nope not saying that. What I was trying to say (and badly, probably) was that my own version of myself “anti birfer warrior” “obot” “pro liberal fighter” “mother nature defender” “eco warrior” etc., etc., etc., ended up for the people who interact with me every day as “English Lady who buys wine and cat food”. I just thought that it was interesting that I could be distilled to such a small description and to be honest I didn’t mind it, I actually liked it. I am sure that if I widened the field of the people describing me that I would get a whole nother set of descriptions “kick ass Paralegal” “ancient paralegal who will know how to do this cause I have no clue” “who to call when I need legal advice” “my tomatoes are not doing well I need to call” “what the hell is this caterpillar on my plants” “my crepe myrtles got frosted will they still bloom” (this was asked of me by an attorney in open court one day). There are lots of descriptions of us by lots of people but as I said when I heard this one? I actually liked it. I have actually always wanted to be known as “the dotty English Woman down the street that talks to her cats” and this was pretty close so I have achieved my ambition.
DarrenG
@Sko Hayes: Balanced Budget Amendments are horrible ideas in general, but yes, these jokers are crafting theirs in a way that guarantees few, if any, GOP votes for it all so they can go back home and run on a “fiscal responsibility” platform with their idiot constituents.
JGabriel
John Cole:
Beginning? Hasn’t that been evident for the last 32 years?
.
Davis X. Machina
And his name is Joe “Nighthorse” Manchin, people.
jl
Need to get 14 Senate, and over 50 House Democratic votes.
I think there are less than 30 self identified Blue Dogs since 2010 election.
What other Democratic congresspeople would vote for it?
I don’t see how any BBA that did anything would pass either chamber in this Congress.
Suffern ACE
@Sko Hayes: You mean a social security lock box?
Anya
@Loviatar: I am sure you’re trying for edgy and clever but you’re failing miserably.
PurpleGirl
@Cat Lady: If Joe wants to fight Islamist terrorists, he can ask Israel for some of the money (maybe all) we’ve given them back. It would be, I think, a tidy sum.
Keith G
As others have said no biggie at this point. IIRC there are GOPers who oppose BBAs as it might lead to tax increases.
Lawguy
We are on the edge of a precipice and we are about to be pushed over. This is really going to hurt.
burnspbesq
@Loviatar:
Idiot, show us your whip count. Show us 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate for a balanced budget amendment. Name all the names. If you can’t, then SDSU.
Lawguy
@burnspbesq: Are you as sure of that as you were sure that Obama wouldn’t cave when I pointed out that Obama was about to cave on SS, Medicare, and Medicaid?
Cat Lady
@PurpleGirl:
Maybe when he retires he’ll register as a lobbyist for Israel and make it official. That (I) next to his name isn’t for Independent.
ETA: Doesn’t Israel have universal health care? It’s good enough for Jews but not for US?
FlipYrWhig
@Lawguy: _Did_ Obama end up caving on SS, Medicare, and Medicaid?
burnspbesq
Comment 57 goes for you too, Cole. Except for the idiot part. If you want to freak out, find something real to freak out about.
Cat Lady
@FlipYrWhig:
No, but he wanted to.
/firebagger
burnspbesq
@Lawguy:
Yup. I was right about that (as you know but are too proud to admit), and I’m right about this too.
General Stuck
@FlipYrWhig:
You see, Mr Whig, in the ODS world, Obama caved the moment he so much as mentioned SS and medicare. That was sin enough to jump the shark of actually “doing” something to damage SS and Medicare. It is a shaky fusion between fantasy, desire, and reality. And they want to take us along their trip down the rabbit hole, for whatever utopia lies at the other end. If there is the other end.
aisce
cole, go back to your garden or some shit. you’re getting a little out of control here and saying uninformed things you’ll regret.
Jewish Steel
@burnspbesq: At this point you couldn’t get a constitutional amendment decreeing that the sky was up.
AlphaLiberal
I like to ask centrists what they stand for, anyway. They tend to be very confused by the question.
The story makes the mistake of treating Independents as monolithic. Recent polling shows they (we) are anything but and tend to align with parties, if not join up, etc. Whole lot of myth making under the “Independent” label.
aisce
@ lawguy
jesus fucking christ. it is to laugh.
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck: This is what I was talking about on one of the other threads… or, well, ALL of the other threads… there’s so much certainty about the terrible things that just happened, but where is it coming from, and where are they documented? I’d like to see a list of the impending cuts. Not speculation about what they must be, or probably will be, but what’s slated to actually happen and when. AFAIK we’re not even close to that point.
burnspbesq
@Jewish Steel:
Probably true.
Note to Loviatar: after you finish your whip counts, give us your list of 38 states that you contend will ratify a balanced budget amendment.
PurpleGirl
@Zach: Look at how state BBA have functioned. For the most part they require programs and people being cut from jobs when there will be a deficit situation. In most cases, there is little to no room to be flexible. That’s what is making things so hard on states now. They have no room to maneuver. I wouldn’t trust Congress to do a better job that state legislatures in writing a BBA.
Mnemosyne
@Lawguy:
And by “cave” you meant “cordoning off to protect it,” right? Because that’s how it works in the bill that actually passed, not the rumored bills that had emo-progs all aflutter.
burnspbesq
@AlphaLiberal:
I probably want just about all the things you want. The difference between you and me is (1) I know that some of them can’t be achieved in the current correlation of forces, and (2) rather than taking my ball and going home, I’m willing to do the work necessary to change the correlation of forces.
You need to do a better job of figuring out who your real enemies are.
Chris
@ AlphaLiberal,
I think the problem is that we tend to confuse the word “independent” with the words “centrist” and “moderate.”
There IS a mushy, can’t-we-all-just-get-along-and-ignore-the-guy-pointing-a-gun-at-the-other-guy’s-head Center, but it doesn’t correlate with people who register “independent” completely. Plenty of Independents are that way because they think their respective parties are too soft and not left/right wing enough, and plenty of centrists are registered Republicans or Democrats who just aren’t very ideological.
danimal
Jeez, pass a BBA and dare the red states to ratify. If they do, they’ll feel the brunt of the cuts.
Call the bluff; vote for the BBA. The GOP won’t be able to demagogue the issue with their fake posturing if the Dems vote for it.
PurpleGirl
@Cat Lady: I believe they do. Hell, we set up universal health care for Iraqies…
Mnemosyne
BTW, Jonathan Bernstein at Washington Monthly has an interesting post about why people are so much more disappointed in Obama than they were in Clinton. It even features a guest appearance in the comments by our new bestie, AlphaLiberal.
burnspbesq
Emobaggers remind me of Duke football fans. They can find a million spurious reasons why Duke isn’t winning, while either steadfastly ignoring or denying the existence of the one systemic problem that makes it almost impossible for Duke to win.
fasteddie9318
@Sko Hayes:
A BBA, any BBA, is epically bad policy.
Splitting Image
Centrist politician is a different animal from centrist voter.
Ben Nelson may be a preening jackass, but he isn’t stupid. He’s a clever politician who (possibly correctly) thinks the majority of voters in the state of Nebraska are stupid.
Centrist voters, on the other hand, are sublimely stupid, and no state has a monopoly.
boss bitch
@AlphaLiberal:
because most people know only three political labels – Dem, Independent and Repub. All these other labels thrown about in political circles really is just nonsense.
Anya
@FlipYrWhig: Some “progressives’ choose to believe that John Boehner saved SS and Medicare from the sell-out that’s masquerading as a Democratic President.
FlipYrWhig
@boss bitch: I slightly disagree. I’ve known a lot of people who say that they’re “fiscally conservative but socially liberal,” and thus “moderate.” I think they mean they have no problem with gay people, don’t go to church, enjoy weed, want low taxes, and hate having to wait in line at the DMV.
And Another Thing...
@Davis X. Machina: IIRC, Republicans took control of additional state legislatures in 2010, and they are very conservative legislatures…think Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, South Carolina, Oklahoma… I’m not at all confident that a BBA wouldn’t be passed by the states.
boss bitch
@FlipYrWhig:
fair enough. I just know that I get a lot of blank stares when I talk about the left or right wingers or any of the other labels you mentioned.
boss bitch
The last thing we need right now is for the left to start freaking out about shit that’s not going to happen.
burnspbesq
@And Another Thing…:
Here are 14 states that won’t vote to ratify:
Vermont
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
New York
New Jersey
Maryland
Ohio
Illinois
Colorado
New Mexico
Wahington
Oregon
California
Hawai’i
jenn
@boss bitch:
I’m A-ok with the left freaking out about shit that’s not going to happen as long as they freak out to their Senators and Representatives, and not confine said freak-out to blog comments. Pew’s latest poll has 20% of the Tea Partiers contacting elected officials about the debt ceiling legislation, and only 5% of folks opposed to the Tea Party Vision of Default and National Ruination. And that’s AFTER Obama’s plea for folks to contact their representatives. Right there, THAT is why we’re losing: only 5% of the sane portion of the electorate is engaging in the process. And the debt ceiling wasn’t even a liberal vs. conservative issue! How many of the 5% were non-insane Republicans?!
And Another Thing...
@burnspbesq: I found it easier to nominate states that with high probability wouldn’t ratify. My list is Calif, Conn, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Mass, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island & Vermont. New Mexico and Washington would be likely no votes. I counted 26 likely to ratify, mostly states with R majorities, which leaves some “swing” states like Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, etc.
If an amendment did make it to the states, it would be one hell of a BIG fight, and could swing control of some legislatures.
It’s a really easy issue to demagogue.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jenn:
Uh.. maybe they didn’t want a 4 trillion deficit reduction package that included cuts to Medicare and Social Security?
But even if that wasn’t the case, I didn’t see Obama’s speech as targeting us. He invoked Conservative Zombie Reagan and begged the far right not to torpedo a deal.
And Another Thing...
@burnspbesq: Our lists are quite similar, I think you’re right about Illinois, but I’m not confident about Ohio and even less so of Colorado. I think both are very unpredictable.
quaker in a basement
There’s no problem with Udall.
Colorado Dems primaried him last time and he just squeaked by. He needs the Dem base more than he needs the outland Tea Partiers for reelection. Read the bill and you’ll see he’s done some nice work.
jenn
@Just Some Fuckhead:
But that 5% is everybody opposed to the Tea Party debt ceiling hostage taking, balloonbagger, firebagger, and not-certifiably-insane Republicans, alike. Hate this debt ceiling bill with a fiery passion all you like, I’m not going to argue with you over it, it’s certainly not what I wanted, either!, but 20% vs 5% is a HUGE discrepancy. And if we on the left want to win some of these battles, we’re going to have to do a hell of a lot better. Everyone on this blog should have the phone numbers of the White House, and their Senators and Congressmen programmed on their cell phone, or taped next to their landline, and use it. Call every time they fight the good fight, win or lose. Say thanks from time to time, when they vote as we’d like.
burnspbesq
@And Another Thing…:
I think you’re right about Delaware. Pennsylvania and Connecticut are tough to figure out. There could be major swings in Wisconsin and Minnesota between now and then.
Admiral_Komack
“One of the big victories by tea-party Republicans in the debt-ceiling measure signed into law Tuesday was securing a requirement that Congress vote later this year on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
The measure would need a two-thirds vote in each chamber, and then ratification by 38 states, to succeed. And most observers believe passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate is all but impossible.
Enter Sen. Mark Udall, the centrist Democrat from Colorado, who has introduced an amendment proposal and said Tuesday that Democratic leaders have chosen his legislation to be considered in the fall.”
Don’t worry, The Progressive Left will be cheering Mark Udall on.
Bet on it.
Munira
I have a friend who’s always been a crazy lefty socialist and for some reason he’s decided that a balanced budget amendment is a great idea. He’s saying all the politicians should be prevented from creating one more penny of debt and he’s convinced that this will force them to end all the wars immediately and that will solve the deficit problem forever. I’m sure there’s some way to blame Obama.
Corner Stone
@Admiral_Komack: Because if there’s anything the PLO loves, it’s a “centrist”.
What a douche you are.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jenn: I don’t think it’s incumbent upon us to validate the President’s lousy choices. I think it’s on the President to give us better alternatives. I know that puts the onus on the person we elected to do the job we elected them to do- since we can’t- but it’s the weird way our government was set up and it’s all we’ve got.
jenn
@Just Some Fuckhead:
What the hell? Your response makes no sense. I’m not talking about validating the President’s choices. I’m not even talking exclusively about the fucking debt ceiling bill. Are you really this obtuse? Did you call to tell your elected officials what you wanted them to do during the debt ceiling fight? That includes telling your elected officials that “Obama’s option sucks just as much as the Tea Party’s”, by the way. Are you calling them to tell them what you want them to do on the other issues that are important to you? Yeah, the weird way our government was set up also includes OUR responsibility. And if only 5% of the non-batshit-crazy voters are contacting their elected officials to tell them their opinions, then our elected officials are getting a pretty warped sense of what the electorate wants.
Q
Might be time for some more Sully-bashing:
“This isn’t over. It’s barely begun. But nothing is going to be pleasant, because we have run out of money. At some point, those suffering Americans are going to have to be told that. If done honestly, I think they’ll rally.”
Yes, the poor and unemployed will ‘rally’ once they’re told that they’ll have even less money to live. That’ll work.
Have at it everyone!
Lojasmo
There is no senate blue dog caucus.
All you trolls who got trolled :golf clap:
Suffern ACE
@Q:
Christ. Would someone please take his god damned money from him and pay someone to be a productive member of society? It could be used to fund a government bloggers program for young people, the way the WPA hired artists and graphi designers to make murals and posters, we could hire college kids to fill the web with things to improve our lives rather than the thoughtless junk gets churned out as “thought provoking.” It could be run by the EPA as part of a toxic waste disposal program.
Mnemosyne
@jenn:
If they get 100 calls from teabaggers and 3 calls from progressives, politicians assume that their constituents are teabaggers because they’re not hearing anything else. That’s why teabaggers are constantly flooding their reps’ offices with calls.
JSF is one of those people who thinks that politicians can read our minds so we shouldn’t have to call and tell them what we think. If politicans do what the majority of the callers of their offices want them to do, in JSF’s world that’s only because they hate liberals and not because that’s what they think the majority of their constituents want judging by the phone calls they receive.
Monkey Business
Let’s ignore, for a second, the fact that a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution is a colossally stupid idea, won’t pass either house of Congress, much less the states, and the fact that it’s popular represents a profound and disturbing lack of understanding of economics by the average voter.
How do you even write that legislation without kneecapping Social Security, Medicare, and Defense? If you require Congress to balance the budget every year, and completely eliminate deficit spending, what happens when the Boomers begin to retire en masse and we have to deficit spend to pay out their Social Security and Medicare? How do you bring a Defense budget that directly affects constituents of every member of Congress in line?
If it passes, all that’s left to cut will be discretionary spending. Education, the EPA, NASA, the FDA, the FAA, the SEC. Basically every piece of legislation that’s been erected to keep the wolves of industry and finance at bay suddenly undone. States adopting religious, Tea Party-based education programs. Clean air and water gone. Space travel gone. Food safety gone. Air travel gone. Finance unregulated. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
You want to see revolution? Actual class warfare? Riots? All out Mad Max-style Thunderdome action?
Pass a Balanced Budget Amendment.
Danny
@Anya:
A one-sentence summary of the mindset of the emoprog movement. Beautiful.
Admiral_Komack
@Corner Stone:
Nope.
I’m nothing like you, douche.
Corner Stone
@Admiral_Komack: Thank God!
I’d hate to be such a useless douche. Going round sputtering the most wrongheaded and useless information. All bitter and shit about people who didn’t see life like you do. All defensive and looking to strike out based on demographics.
That would suck major balls. So thank goodness I’m nothing like you.
Another Bob
Yeah, it’s just like how the GOP tolerates that bloc of liberal Republican Senators who go around advocating tax increases and more regulations. And then conservatives argue amongst themselves about how insisting on party purity will only mean that their side never wins any political battles.
It’s just the flip side of how the Democratic Party takes its cue from the all-powerful Michael Moore (he got them all to sign an oath!) and Democratic congressional freshmen get away with issuing ultimatums to their leadership about their party’s legislative agenda.
Brachiator
But, but, the diehard Obots are insisting that every jot and tittle of this compromise was a masterstroke.
Obama opened the door wide, so why express astonishment when vermin rush in?
Danny
@Another Bob:
Hard to imagine that it actually was exactly like that only 40 years ago, huh? And then the bigots defected to the Republicans over Civil Rights and the New Left turned the progressive movement into a clown show.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Name one.
Admiral_Komack
107. Corner Stone – August 2, 2011 | 11:45 pm · Link
@Admiral_Komack: “Thank God!
I’d hate to be such a useless douche. Going round sputtering the most wrongheaded and useless information. All bitter and shit about people who didn’t see life like you do. All defensive and looking to strike out based on demographics.
That would suck major balls. So thank goodness I’m nothing like you.”
Project much, asshole?
Another Bob
@Danny
What, by advocating for outrageous lunacy like single-payer healthcare? Haven’t they learned that the only way to “win” is to adopt the guise, the rhetoric and much of the political agenda of the opposition party?
Corner Stone
@Admiral_Komack: No, not too much. Maybe you should run back to the safe, warm confines of weeseeyou.com ?
Mnemosyne
@Another Bob:
I wouldn’t mock Danny too hard since the New Left thought we would get to single payer by staging puppet shows.
No, that link is not a joke. I’m embarrassed for my state sometimes.
ETA: More single payer puppets.
Danny
@Another Bob:
Well starting with Pigasus they’ve been keeping us all entertained with their jolly pranks up until this very day.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone:
I’m with you. And the worst part is that people like that don’t even recognize it!
Just Some Fuckhead
@jenn: Sorry, I misunderstood you the first coupla times. I see what yer saying now. Yer prolly sadly right that we should micromanage our reps.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Thanks. I knew you’d understand.
Anonne
All this shows is how effective the Republican spin machine is. They convince the public of the direness of the deficit when it isn’t an immediate crisis, and we get ridiculous policy from Democrats wanting to appeal to “independents” so they can appear “fiscally conservative” just so they can get re-elected.
FlipYrWhig
@Anonne:
I fear you overestimate them. They don’t just cynically advocate bad policies to appear a certain way. Most of them really believe it.
But my non-snarky response is that even members of the Progressive Caucus believe that it’s important to bring down debts and deficits over the long term. I posted in one of these threads an exchange between Jake Tapper and Michael Capuano, D-MA — both alumni of my same college — where Capuano says that the deficit is the greatest threat to America. It’s not that deficits and debts aren’t a problem, it’s that they’re not an _immediate_ problem. But that’s part of why this whole thing flared up the way it did: Republicans of all stripes, conservative Democrat “deficit hawks” and even some liberal Democrats found unexpected common ground on the need to do something about deficits and debts. (And this is probably how cap and trade was supposed to go down, too.)
Another Bob
@Mnemosyne
Yes, complaining when your side capitulates to the opposition without hardly putting up a fight is exactly like putting on a puppet show. And the corollary is that disagreeing with Danny is wrong because some goofballs somewhere put on a puppet show.
Mnemosyne
@Another Bob:
No, disagreeing with Danny is wrong because people on the left spent 30 years putting on goofy puppet shows rather than working to elect representatives who would get the policies that they wanted made into law. At the same time, people on the right spent 30 years putting their operatives into every elected position they could get their hands on so they could get their policies made into law.
Who was more successful: the group who got their people into elected office and passed the laws that they wanted or the group who decided they didn’t need electoral politics and would do everything through nonprofits and action committees?
Complaining now that your elected officials aren’t doing what you want because they’re listening to the other guys who actually manage to put elected officials into office is about 30 years too late.
The Populist
Wow, and you are the one calling everybody names whenever the usual facts allude you. BAD TROLL!
Punk ass tard.
Danny
@Mnemosyne:
This, thank you. I’ll just let you do my posting from now on.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know. Blaming the New Left intellectuals can only get you so far. The suits, man. The Establishment of the Democrats have been pretty square in mobilizing their bases into a party. The New Left didn’t have much power. They just presented themselves as representing the future. Didn’t pan out. Hope we can get over it soon.
gwangung
@Suffern ACE: Well, the Progressive Caucus in Congress represents just 33% of all Democrats in Congress. It’s the largest caucus of Congress, but doesn’t necessarily mean that they set the agenda for the rest of the party. I would think they’d have more of a mandate if the were 50-60 percent.
Danny
@Suffern ACE:
This instinct to turn on our guys over every tactical loss or disappointment, that’s all of the New Left. One more fight against LBJ. Same with the cluelessness on how to reach out to the american people and pitch progressive ideas to them, and even unwillingness to try. It’s all preaching to the quire, while bitching and carping that the rest of the country doesn’t see the light. Thats all New Left and it’s alive and well in the lefty blogosphere.
Conservatives are only focused on how to win, beat us down, and get their way, and they’re willing to learn from their mistakes and work their ass off. Teabaggers made 66% of the phone calls to congress over the debt limit. We are focused on bitching at the President that he isn’t winning for us, beating down the republicans for us and getting us a pony. Make a funny puppet show, whine and bitch at the President ??? profit.
Dollared
66%. Link, Danny
Danny
@Dollared:
Sorry, I read it sloppily. It was polling, rather than a breakdown of actual calls. This is what it said (TPM):
But the picture isnt exactly prettier, it’s actually uglier than I thought…
Danny
Danny
That’s why I’m so pissed at FDL and the other nutrooters. They could actually be of use if they mobilized those of us who are most energized (or “pissed”) and focused our energy towards something productive (like, oh, organizing “independent teaparties for medicare” outside the Capitol) – instead of just one more iteration of the old shooting ourselves in the foot.
Lesley
I can no longer in good conscience support the democrats. Which means there’s no one.
Republicans are Orcs. Dems are Orc Lite.
What next?
Groucho48
I usually don’t comment on things that aren’t important to me, but, this is such and incredibly unimportant triviality I don’t understand how it got so many comments.
There are 2 million more important things liberals should be venting their spleens about. Unless there is a significantly more liberal guy/gal than this guy, ready, willing and able to run against him, and who has a decent chance of winning, stop scoring liberal points against him and focus on, first, vulnerable TP folks, second, other vulnerable Republicans, third, hard core Blue Dog Democrats, possibly including him.
Remember, our focus needs to be to defeat..
Tea Party Candidates
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Blue Dogs
Joaquin M.
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path…
Sko Hayes
Being from a red state, maybe because it’s being ruled by teabaggers, but Blue Dogs, for all their pain in the ass fiscal conservative posturing, still gave us a majority in the House. As someone mentioned above, there is no Blue Dog caucus in the Senate, and Mark Udall scores a surprising 89% lifetime progressive score from Progressive Punch.org.
It is nice to have a progressive majority House, but if we don’t have an overall majority, it doesn’t mean much.
Our biggest problem is the Senate.
But let’s be honest here, a lot of the candidates supported by progressives in 2010 (Joe Sestak, Bill Halter, etc) are not progressives. Just like the president is not a progressive. So they basically find someone slightly to the left of the current office holder and call them “progressive”, and donate money and time to get them elected. They ignore the signs that point to the fact this candidate is not a progressive (like they did with Obama), gloss over the little details, and get them elected, then scream and cry when that candidate doesn’t vote like a progressive or embraces some imagined “betrayal” that turn progressives against this candidate. Like a spoiled child, they turn away, “I’m never voting for Democrats again”, the republicans win, and we start the process all over again.
Samara Morgan
well….this is one time where both sides doo eet is true….and praps even president obama is guilty of this…but anglosaxon xianity and free market economics have gone from being the most successful global dominant fitness strategies to being a recipe for decline.
I have studied economics recently because people said i knew nothing, and this is what i learned– the “freed” market is teleogically incapable of improving the human condition. Empirically it only improves the condition of the overclass.
So outsourcing, regulatory capture, cartels, etc are not bugs, but features of the system, as are obese america, factory farms, profiteering on education, etc.
the other problem is the anglosaxon xian domination of the american electorate.
Bush’s evangelical xianity lead directly to the Epic Fail of the Manifest Destiny of Westernstyle (missionary) Democracy in Iraq and A-stan, to the expense of 4.4 trillion dollars in treasure and 7k soljah lives, and to the deaths of a million muslim moms and dads in Iraq, and the creation of ~5 million muslim orphans that are going to hate america for the rest of their lives.
You see…the only thing Americans need know about shariah law is that it forbids proselytization of the poor and ignorant. This is in the Noble Quran, but no ever talks about it. Juan Cole wont talk about, Dr. Moosa and Dr. Atran wont talk about it, my shayyk and my co-religionists at Talk Islam wont talk about it…and Pam Geller and Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes wont talk about it either.
Now freedom of speech LEGALIZES proselytization of everyone, including the poor and ignorant. This seems counterrational to westerners. But just as xians believe they have a RIGHT to be free to proselytize, muslims believe they have a RIGHT to be free from proselytization.
So this is why the Bush Doctrine, “democracy promotion” and COIN (which is the BD cut down to village size) could simply never work.
In Evolutionary Theory of Games terminology, Islam is an “uninvadable strategy”.
And the 4.4 trillion borrowed dollars (there were no taxes levied to support the two wars) and 10 years is what has destroyed the american economy.
No one in America wants to admit this, not even President Obama, but the global hegemon, the unipolar power, the last superpower is in decline.
America is still the largest economy in the world, but like any credit junkie, we are having trouble paying our bills.
When OBL junk-punched America in the economic nads– he targeted wall street, membah?…the house of cards shuddered, but Bush and Greenspan colluded to slash interest rates to prop it up for a while.
But only for a while.
Globalization and social media and peak oil have doomed the america anglosaxon freemarket paradigm….its just a matter of time.
Ramadan Kareem! im have to go eat breakfast while its still dark.
:)
Tuttle
Stupid liberals. The Democrats want your votes, not your voices. So shut up and get to the back of the god damned bus already and let them get down to the hard work of triangulating between profit, electability and the fucking crazy.
Needless to say, being “correct” need not apply.
Another Bob
@Mnemosyne:
Dude, what you’re doing in this discussion actually is kind of like putting on a puppet show, i.e. making up a silly fictional story about what “people on the left” supposedly all did to put us in this situation.
I’m not an extreme lefty by any means. I’ve supported almost exclusively mainstream Democrats in elections going back to when I could first vote. I don’t put on puppet shows, I don’t watch puppet shows and I wouldn’t consider them to be an effective campaign strategy.
It’s a silly spectacle how some people here immediately resort to mockery of “the left” whenever anyone dares to criticize Obama. Can’t you even have a respectful discussion? Does everything have to be black/white or one extreme vs the other?
Samara Morgan
look juicers.
there are TWO major types of political personalities.
that is what red/blue genetics theory is all about.
politics is the art of doing work while accomdating the the two different political tendencies.
this was not just the BEST deal Obama could work given the initial conditions, it was the ONLY deal.
America didn’t default. :)
valar dohaeris!
TK-421
I’m pretty dismayed that in a post about Blue Dogs doing something Blue Dogs tend to do, the response from many commenters here was to…bitch about liberals.
How very pragmatic and level-headed of you all. I’m so glad that liberals aren’t running the show, because then we’d all be in REAL trouble!
TK-421
This thinking reminds me of a story back in 2008, about Mitt Romney strapping his dog to the roof of the car. The dog shit himself and the shit streaked on the roof and down the rear window. According to the reporter, Mitt then (paraphrase) “calmly pulled over and hosed off the car, displaying his leadership under fire.” Or something like that.
Yes, Obama did the best he could, given his desire to attach unprecedented strings to what was previously a pro-forma vote that we all found out was, is, and will be extremely crucial to our overall economic health.
Uh yeah, he did a good job cleaning up the mess he had a hand in creating, just like Mitt. So…CLAP LOUDER DAMMIT!
liberal
@Sko Hayes:
I don’t like Blue Dogs, but a reasonable attitude about these things would be “what’s the best we could expect given the district/state”?
IMHO, by that standard, Nelson-NE is fine. I’d wager that in addition some of the other blue dogs are fine, some are not.
Carol from CO
And besides a balanced budget amendment, Udall’s other big concern is having safe shooting ranges for us voters.
I’m old and thought I had sworn off activism after having worked for Obama only to discover that he wasn’t at all who I thought he was. But I will work for and donate to anyone who runs against this fraud. I can’t believe our hard earned tax dollars are helping to pay his salary and benefits.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
Many problems with this; I’ll note just two.
First, there’s more than “two groups”.
Second, the mainstream Dems, the ones liberals like myself bitch about, dominate the party because of massive corporate contributions. Your version of it makes it sound like a bunch of folks who just rolled up their sleeves and got to work, which is only true if “work” means “call up bunch of rich people and banksters and ask for contributions.”
Another Bob
Good thing the Democrats give disproportionate power to a handful of weak “centrists” who are constantly allowed to interfere with passing what is supposed to be the party’s legislative agenda. And good thing that they constantly ignore and belittle their most liberal faction, because the Republicans just proved how giving their hard-core faction too much power is a recipe for failure:
Samara Morgan
@TK-421: /yawn
when you are done emocutting yourself you might have a glance at the facts on the ground.
firebaggers and teabaggers have one thing in common– and isnt critting the president.
its denying the evolution of demographics, and the end of american empire.
we need to adapt. Obama is adaptive and exploitive. He turn a flaw of divided government into a victory, if you would stop your poutrage breath-holding and foot-stomping long enough to read about it.
rickstersherpa
Something that no one in Lamestream Media will do, I will do: Here is the SJ-4, the proposed balance budget amendment offered promoted by Mark Udall (his Dad is spinning in his grave).
“JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which requires (except during time of war and subject to suspension by Congress) that the total amount of money expended by the United States during any fiscal year not exceed the amount of certain revenue received by the United States during such fiscal year and not exceed 20 percent of the gross national product of the United States during the previous calendar year.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission by the Congress:
`Article–
`Section 1. The total amount of money expended by the United States in any fiscal year shall not exceed the total amount of revenue received by the United States during such fiscal year, except revenue received from the issuance of bonds, notes, or other obligations of the United States.
`Section 2. The total amount of money expended by the United States in any fiscal year shall not exceed the amount equal to 20 percent of the gross national product of the United States during the last calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year.
`Section 3. Sections 1 and 2 of this Article shall not apply during any fiscal year during any part of which the United States is at war as declared by Congress under section 8 of Article I of the Constitution.
`Section 4. Sections 1 and 2 of this Article may be suspended by a concurrent resolution approved by a three-fifths vote of the Members of each House of Congress. Any suspension of sections 1 and 2 of this Article under this section shall be effective only during the fiscal year during which such suspension is approved.
`Section 5. This Article shall take effect on the first day of the first fiscal year beginning after the date of the adoption of this Article.
`Section 6. Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation.’.
Now was that not hard, just short search on “Thomas” and I found the actual thing which will be the law of the land. A couple of problems as I see it right off the bat. I don’t see any lock box for Social Security and I don’t seen any prohibition on tax cuts for rich people, just that spending can’t exceed 20% GDP. So I guess if a tax cut is passed, and there in no war, the spending cuts will be automatic and across the board. Grover must feel a thrill down his leg. Perhaps the Democrats will reintroduce an amended version with those things, but right now its not in Udall’s current proposal.
Another issue I see here is the spending limit on the GDP to 20%. As other blogs have pointed out (see Simon Johnson’s comment on the NY Times Economix), GDP is not a hard fast calucuation. It is an estimate. In fact, it turns out the U.S. GDP was a lot smaller in 2008, 2009, and 2010 then initally calculated. Do we go back and collect back all that illegally spent money? How? Do we cut current expenditures counter-act the earlier overspending.
Finally, Capitalist economies have had business cycles for 400 years. There are good times, when tax revenues are high, and bad times, when revenues fall, and where, if you are modern society, you have things like unemployment insurance, COBRA medical insurance for unemmployed persons, foods stamps, etc. Someone should ask Senator Udall when the next business cycle hits (and it looks like it is about to hit again), do we just tell people to go on a diet and live in their cars until we can find a war to start.
How I would phrase a poll question on a Balance Budget amendment. Would you support a Balance Budget Amendment to the Constituion if it means that with the next recession, you will face immediate reductions in social security checks and Medicare benefits curtailed?
TK-421
That is some awesome delusion there. The facts on the ground are that we are (still!) in the middle of the Second Depression, and both our political parties decided it was a good idea to make it worse. And you call that a “victory.”
Go ahead and argue this shit sandwich was the least bad shit sandwich we could hope for. You probably have a case, and I imagine there’s plenty of evidence to support such an assertion.
But that’s not what you did there. What you did was you insisted that this shit sandwich is actually a “victory” and is therefore not a shit sandwich. And then you dabbled in some ad hominem hippy punching. Well, that’s always fun.
I wonder what it’s like inside the brain of someone who insists that something bad is in fact NOT bad, but GOOD! As if making the argument that “the least bad option is the best option and we all just need to grin and bear it” is just too fancy or nuanced or french an argument to make or something.
As the political fortunes of President Obama have started to slip, this community has gotten very weird and irrational about liberals and liberalism. Um, liberals didn’t create or contribute to this mess, so I’m not sure why some people like to go out of their way to yell at them.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
RE: But, but, the diehard Obots are insisting that every jot and tittle of this compromise was a masterstroke.
Sorry, not playing that game. Just look at the rhetoric wars here, and the thread where someone argued that Obama won because he preserved Social Security from attack by the Republicans (which is a questionable conclusion, as far as I can see), and nothing else in the compromise matters.
On this morning’s Stephanie Miller Show, numerous callers kept insisting that the compromise was necessary, the best possible, or should just be ignored because the Republicans are so scary.
And then there is the commonly heard refrain that we should ignore what the Democrats actually do, and just keep electing them.
But none of this offers solace to many who are discouraged as they watch Obama and the Democrats (because it is not just Obama) seem to give up when they don’t have to, or why many (though obviously not all) of these “compromises” end up advancing the GOP agenda rather than any Democratic Party or progressive agenda.
@Another Bob:
The problem is that there is not much of a progressive faction in the Congress, just a bunch of people on the sidelines who keep insisting that they are the main base who should be influencing policy. And even here, much of what they want is neither practical, nor concrete, nor offers any road map on how to achieve the stuff that is reasonable.
Another Bob
@Brachiator:
Maybe part of your perception that there’s “not much of a progressive caucus” has to do with the fact that they’re never heeded and often belittled by the Democratic leadership. But in any case, there’s energy and ideas that could be used but are ignored in favor of pre-emptive surrender. For example why couldn’t the threat of single-payer or the public option have been used more ruthlessly, if only as a bargaining chip, to get a better health care reform bill? Why surrender without even bringing it to the negotiations? In contrast, the Blue Dogs are allowed to act as the foils in these negotiations, but not in a way that drives a more liberal outcome, but just the opposite. The Blue Dogs are used to extract concessions from Democratic supporters and more liberal congresspersons, just the opposite of what the Republicans do.
Samara Morgan
@TK-421: it is not a delusion.
Obama turned defense cuts into revenues. See Douthat.
Obama loosed a plague of lobbyists on the supercommittee. The SC choices are make up the deficit with revenues or cuts OR face automatic cuts to defense and medicare PROVIDERS. Lobbyists from the healthinsurance industry and the defense cons will have to duke it out.
all the dems on the committee need to do is….nothing. if they just say no, the defense industry and the healthcare industry get cut.
Obama prevented the teabaggers from crashing the economy via default, and moved out the next debt ceiling until after 2012.
those were his goals at a minimum.
and now the teabaggers are fighting the mainstream conservatives.
And they still have no candidate for 2012.
Samara Morgan
@TK-421:
that is not what i said. spending cuts are not good in a recession, even defense cuts will cost jobs.
But given that the country is still ~half bubba Obama made a lot of lemonade for our side.
He sneaked revenues onto the table when the GOP base and leadership insisted on no revenues on the table, he prevented a global economic crash, which is what the teabaggers REALLY wanted, and he pushed the next debt ceiling debate out to 2013.
n/e ways….whats the point of emocutting yourself naow? you should be looking forward in the gamespace to the next move.
Samara Morgan
@Brachiator:
oh bulshytt. we are still living in Distributed Jesusland™ until the demographic timer goes off. The country is still half bubba.
you are full of it.
ramadan mubarak!
:)
TK-421
And you called that a “victory.” Just to clarify, you do believe that victories are good things, right?
If you believe that these spending cuts represent a victory, then you contradict yourself when you acknowledge that these spending cuts are bad. Achieving something bad is not, in my opinion, a “victory.”
(side note: I don’t think we should argue in this thread anymore. I’m going over to Freddie’s post, because based on the teaser content I imagine a lot of moderates are going to yell at him for advocating for more primaries. Maybe I’ll see you, because our disagreement is probably still on topic over there.)
Samara Morgan
@TK-421: on it.
Brachiator
@Another Bob:
RE: The problem is that there is not much of a progressive faction in the Congress, just a bunch of people on the sidelines who keep insisting that they are the main base who should be influencing policy.
Who makes up this progressive caucus? How many are there in the House and Senate?
This is one of those things that drives me nuts. The health care plan is passed. To me the emphasis should be on how to apply, preserve and extend it, because the Republicans are dedicating themselves to eradicating it.
I don’t think the problem is just with the Blue Dogs, although it is reassuring to some people to believe this.
@Samara Morgan:
The Demographic timer is an illusion relied upon by those who are too exhausted, or lazy, or afraid, to fight here and now, today.
It also insults those covered by the supposed demographic timer by assuming that they live to save your ass, and think exactly the way that you want them to think.
Another Bob
@Brachiator
I’m just using health care as one example in a repeating pattern. It’s the same thing with the debt ceiling negotiation. Why does the Obama administration always begin negotiating from right-of-center, as by validating the right-wing bullshit about government debt being our biggest problem? Why were progressives forced to plead with the administration itself over cutting Social Security and/or Medicare? Progressive commentators were warning a year ago that Obama’s activities with the Catfood Commission and so forth would only play into the hands of Republicans, and so it came to pass. Why insist on a Grand Bargain that slashes the budget at a time when progressives were warning that fiscal austerity would only hurt the recovery?
Stubbornly refusing to see this pattern while blaming “progressives” or “the left” for these continual problems with negotiating tactics is what drives me crazy.
TK-421
For the record, the Progressive Caucus in the House is somewhere in the 70s, and is one of the larger caucuses (if not the largest) in the Democratic Party. On numbers alone, it dwarfs the Blue Dog caucus, and is often called upon by other Democrats for fundraising. I vaguely recall the Progressive Caucus donated several million dollars to the Blue Dogs for their reelection efforts. I don’t know what’s in the Senate, but I think it’s much less- like maybe a dozen. And feel free to doublecheck me, because these are just vague recollections.