Republican Party has evolved into something very dark

Republicans have house majority, sure Democrats have senate majority... by the tiniest of margins.

 

Here comes the backtrack and/or the fervent displays of ad hominem.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU LIBERAL SICKOS?"

 

This forum has gone to the dogs.

 

Sooner or later I think a Democrat will arise who will refuse to take corporate money and that will be a big big selling point as peope get sick of the increasinlgy naked selling of political influence and the libertarian/fmarket fundie spin will not hold.

When she or he wins it will be a new day and probably as in the past with massive corruption we will have reforms and probably go to government funding of elections which cuts down on such obvious buying of politicians. It will be similar to when government civil service was instituted which was put in to tame the practice of compelling government workers at all levels down to clerks who had patronage jobs and were compelled to work for the reelection of their bosses or lose their jobs.

Sorry market fundies whether conservatives or libertarians and mindless government haters but private buying of political offices does not lead to a decent society. And, no, libertarians fantasies of doing away with nearly all government as the cure for the problem is not the answer.

 

Sure you can cite a few examples to support your belief. Facts are more than 80% of the time the person with the most money wins an election.

Trying research and facts before having beliefs is often important..

 

Won't they be cut down by their party though?

 

A fan of Ayn Rand novels?

 

Elininate the need for candidates to raise money from people which usually means wealthy people or corporations in the age of the Republican S Ct and their baby Citizen's United.

Pay politicians well.

Restrict they and their key staffers from going into any industries that they have legislated on or regulated for maybe 10 years or more. Have crimnal statutes for those who violate this. Maybe make it a crime to hire somebody who is in this banned period. As we see when Repubs especially gutted the IRS and SEC enforcement bureaucracies this needs to be inforced.

Perhaps term limits,but they may not be needed if challengers can have the same amount of money to spend on their campaign as incumbents as more money is often why potentially unpoular or deadbeat incumbents are so hard to defeat.

 

Perhaps if it is just an isolated charismatic loner who wins, but if it is the result of a trmendous surge of popular disgust with the naked buying of offices and influence reforms the disgust will will lead to making such buying of office illegal.

Will the wealthy try to subvert or defeat these efforts? Of course. They want to invest in politicans who give them tax breaks, or reductions of pollution controls as we see with the Koch bros, which lead to returns higher than all but the best stock plays.

 

You do realize that WAY more than half of that debt was incurred during Republican administrations, right?

 

I understand that conservative media tries to make it appear that's the case, but it is false. Democrats have actually moved to the right, not the left.

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Both parties have been on a move to the right. It isn't as if both parties are getting more extreme. They aren't. The Republicans are becoming more extreme, and the Democrats are moving more to the right.

 

The Republican House has passed plenty of budgets which have all been killed in the Senate, making your comment incredibly stupid.

 

The GOP has moved so far to the "corporate right", it has allowed Democrats to also move right and still look good in comparison. That is the essential problem in American politics today.

 

I think I agree. Though ideally (IMHO) Democrats wouldn't be moving to the right at all. Sadly they have.

It's strange when Democrats have to be glad that they were able to pass a Republican health care bill.

 

glynch, I have nothing against you. But I must confess to something: I seek out your posts in the D&D for laughs. That there are people out there who actually think it's the libertarians who are in power, or even have influence of any kind within the federal government, is a joke. Literally -- it's used as a joke at some libertarian gatherings.

As for thread topic... of course the Republican Party is dark, but this is not a recent development.

 

1) You do not note that it has been the GOP who has run up most of the debt. It was Bush II who frantically got rid of the Clinton surplus by having a large tax break which was ovewhelminngly for the wealthy. Of course no need to think of how the debt runs up when you just had a near total collapse caused largely by one of the principle conservative talking points i.e. deregulation put into effect in the financial sector.

2) You note that the Dems buy vote with public handouts -- like public education I suppose.. You do not mention handouts for corporations which if you include a couple trillion given to private war profiteers probably exceeds "entitlements" in your use of the word. Of course a couple of trillion was added to the debt when taxes were reduced for the wealthy, but the hoax of supply side economics another conserrvative talking point failed again.

3) I suppose social security and medicare are just handouts. Do you really feel that people are not entitled to the services even though they paid for them out of their paychecks for years and years?

4) You can bold 16 trillion and put it in color but that does not change the fact that it is not a problem that can't be worked out and that the US has worked its way out of debts just as big IN TERMS OF NATIONAL GDP so it could be 18 TRILLION and would not be the extreme problem that seems to panic you.

 

Alan Greenspan who was the principle guy behind deregulation of the financial markets and market fundamentalism wrt to banking and finance went to Ayn Rand study groups as a kid in her apt. The GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan cited her as his principle influence for going into politics. Just saw Rand Paul on Face the Nation pushing the simplistic meme over and over that government has nothing to do with creating private jobs.
Yet for you to 'actually think it's the libertarians who are in power, or even have influence of any kind within the federal government, is a joke"

I do agree the little naive guys and I suppose the odd woman at your meetings have little influence on the federal government.

I know the guys at your meetinngs probably claim to have your own version of "libertarianism" unknown to outsiders and that has nothing to do with Ayn Rand, Hayek and other Euro elitists, the principle intellectual founders of lbertarinanism or the principle money men for the movement like the Kochs etc.

 

LOL. You are correct that the budget starts at the House but what you fail to state (or maybe do not know) is that the House has passed several budgets that would lower the deficit that have been stonewalled in the Democrat controlled Senate. The Senate has not passed a budget since April 29, 2009 despite that fact the Dems controlled BOTH houses of congress until January 2011. So the last federal budget was passed in 2009 even though the Dems had total control in 2010.