You sure are good for a laugh. Obama will have to face the issue of raising taxes in order to pay for all of this. Not just on those making $250k a year, but on the middle class. At that point, people will see their smaller paychecks and may vote their economic interests. I make significantly less than $250k a year, I reasoned long ago that it is a matter of time before my paycheck shrinks and the amount going to Washington will grow. Perhaps I will be wrong. Also, perhaps we will get wiped out by an asteroid tomorrow and none of this will matter.
They may and they may not it really depends. A month ago I heard a conservative complaining about why Obama was spending so much time on health care when people didn't have jobs. I point out to him that people still need health care even when they don't have a job, the flu isn't going to stop because the economy is down. He didn't have much of a response to that. My point is that I don't think the next congressional or presidential election will be as simple as taxes.
This may be true. glynch's point was that people would vote for the Dems out of their economic interests. I merely posted the counterargument to that (IMO presumptuous) argument.
I'm not defending Batman's point of view, but your comment is just not true. Time and time again, I and other posters on this board have shown you multiple examples of Tea Baggers displaying the most reprehensible behavior you can imagine, and time and time again you rationalize their behavior. How many hateful words, how many racist signs, how many shouting matches, how many examples of the misguided malice will it take before you finally admit that the "party" with which you've aligned yourself isn't what you think it is? Or could it be that they are EXACTLY what they appear to be and you secretly agree with their agenda of hate and intolerance?
It's one of the big issues Dems face... Repubs routinely wreck the economy, drive up deficits, and neglect basic infrastructure and other problems. Dems have to fix what the Repubs broke and push forward some basic no-brainer stuff at the same time. The problem for Dems, with the stimulus and with health care and other things, will always be to explain that without a certain action, things would be worse. That approach does not lend itself to a soundbite, while the opposite does. Also, I'm not sure you're correct on the tax issue, but let's assume you are. Is it better to pay extra taxes for health care or pay increasing costs for health care? Look at the projections for the status quo over the next 10 years... it is unsustainable and will bankrupt many, many families... bit if you raise taxes a bit for that, there will be a huge outcry from the wingnuts. It's sad, but in this country today, we have a responsible, though often ineffectual party and a completely irresponsible party that is somehow effective in obstructing and messaging.
Maybe in recent years, but I do not think it is fair to blanketly say that as an absolute. Oh, well let's just have them sainted while we are at it. Sorry, I just don't buy it. The Dems are into pushing an agenda and perpetuating their own power just like the Repubs. As the graphical economic analysis just before and during the Great Depression shows, sometimes an action actually makes things worse. I just have no faith in any of the people that would be responsible for it on either side of the aisle. I really preferred the notion of the co-ops, but creative solutions be damned I suppose. As with anything else, it may be raising taxes a bit for a while. Once costs continue to increase (and they will...just the nature of things), government will simply increase taxes to pay for the costs. At some point, taxation becomes oppressive in and of itself. Remember, we have yet to deal with a largely insolvent Medicare and Social Security system. This is going to get bad. To describe politicians of either party as "responsible" is simply laughable.
Maybe, but my party has been right on all the big things over the last 100 years... from child labor laws to WWII and from women's rights to civil rights and from eliminating the deficit to opposing the Iraq War, my party gets it right... sometimes after much struggle and sometimes to the detriment of their near-term political fortunes... but they do end up on the right side of the big issues. Republicans, eh, not so much.
I think the overreliance with simplistic dogma is really killing it with me and American Conservatism. Any party that enables the likes of Palin, Bachmann, or Tancredo with explicitly damaging platforms as "conservatives" makes the other party look saintly. There are some on the other side of the aisle that give government responsibility a bad name, but I'm not going to flip back a few pages of the history book and bank on Conservative/Randian rhetoric that the only solution(s) to it is some radical transfer of government responsibilities to private industry. Conservatives over rely on it to the point where as we've seen with Dubya, they'll purposely weaken and siphon government agencies to the detriment of the public. "The proof that Big Government fails is because we made it fail." It's reasonable for people to share concerns of government overreach or waste, but where I disagree is how they act these concerns out. The idea that elected politicians can sit on their ass and box themselves out instead of putting their name on the record with thought out counterproposals is un-American. They want to "bring American exceptionalism back"? Then be the first to take accountability. Be the first to be the bigger party and work to fix things instead of playing the hurtful victim. Maybe then I'll start to pay attention again. P.S It wouldn't hurt to denounce and shun Glen Beck.
thumbs, we may disagree on a few things, but my hat is off to you. You are one tough hombre if you are walking around a hospital during your colonoscopy. I haven't had one of those yet, but I've heard most people stay pretty motionless. EDIT: I mean, I can't say it's an image I cherish, but can we not respect an American who will wander the halls of hospital, gown akimbo, apparatus hanging from his nether regions and dragging the floor behind him, with a 'don't tread on me' sign in one hand, and a clipboard in the other, just looking for another doctor to question?
