Yeah, I'm rubbing it in a little bit for those of you who are clinging (probably bitterly) to the hope that the Democrats will hold the line against the GOP this year. But the facts and trends and polls are clearly favoring anyone with an R attached to their name. And in under two weeks, we're likely to see GOP gains in governors' races, the Senate, and a GOP majority in the House. If it's any consolation, Obama could take his cue from Bill Clinton, shift to the center, and survive (politically) to a second term.
But this is not about the stomping of that mudhole in the ass of the Democrat Party (I just like the title). It's about what the GOP faithful, the Tea Party movement, and the people who elect them do with our newly-elected representatives. Because if we just pull the lever for the GOP, we're not electing a representative, we're enabling rulers to empower themselves.
So the first things to do is to make those who we're re-electing and those we're electing with shaky records, as well as the new crop of Tea Party candidates, understand that we will be watching them hella-close and be ready to vote them out in 2,4, or 6 years as their term comes up if they don't stay the course on what they promised. And if that means giving the liberals another crack at the hopey changey shit, so be it.
But, on the assumption that the House goes GOP, here's the expectations I have:
1. Boot Boehner - As I've mentioned, I've had an ax to grind with the Boner of a minority leader who's district extends north of Dayton and a few miles west of me. Primarily this is because, in the name of bipartisanship" he enabled Bush and the Democrats, in the last two years, to start the orgy of spending that has only been exceeded by the Obama agenda (which, to his credit, he strapped on the porta-spine and opposed). So he needs to NOT be Speaker. I'll tolerate him hanging on in the leadership a bit, because there's always been some inbreeding in both parties. But the new Speaker of the House (being third in line for the White House) needs to be someone who's tried to move the country to a more limited government when he did have power. The name I've heard floated is Paul Ryan. I could live with that. As long as the leadership gets changed.
2. Kill Obamacare - There's been talk about not doing so. Ask RINO Scott Brown about how much people don't like the law. He was elected, in part, to stop that burgeoning piece of shit. How you fight to get rid of it is up to you. Even if it can't be done, the legislation to repeal it needs to be passed. By March. I'm not kidding there. It may die in the Senate, and if not, Obama will veto it, but at least we'll be able to ID Republicans that don't need to return to Washington after the next election and put everyone on record as to which direction they want the country to go. Now as to actually stopping the next entitlement of the damned, there are messy procedural ways to effectively kill it. It may piss some people off, but gridlock is better than intrusive government.
3. Stop Spending - At the End of the Clinton administration, the GOP congress was able to work with the President to stop the bleeding, at least in the short term. It needs to become more permanent. As in freeze spending. Cuts will come as time goes on. But we need to stop spending at, say, 2008 levels. No automatic increases. No budget tricks. No extra spending (short of something akin to 9/11). Remember that "party of No" thing? It's a good thing.
4. Toss Obama a Bone - Now if you have an urge to get sucked into the stupidity of "bipartisanship," pick something that won't expand government. A perfect example would be the "don't ask, don't tell" policy (because it will happen sooner or later (and it should be sooner)). If the Dems don't get it done in the lame duck session, go ahead and pass it sometime next year. Or overturn something small that makes libs get wet and makes the CHRISTIAN!!! conservatives foam. Nothing that adds to the size and/or scope of the government. There are plenty of moral issues that don't need government laws to enforce them that can be cleared out. You don't have to agree with the behavior. You just have to stand on the principle of limited government.
Now you'll notice I left out things like cutting taxes and such? This is because the priority is to make an effort to balance the budget. I understand cutting taxes does have a benefit, and the tax increase that will come with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will hurt. But in the spirit of "bipartisanship, don't push the taxes. Obstruct the spending first. And when we show we can do that, then sell tax cuts with more spending cuts.
In the end, the principle that has to be observed with a victory is that we are electing people to reduce the size and scope of government. Bills and laws and proposals that forward that are what will earn you reelection. If you get to Washington and start getting a taste for power and pork, don't unpack (unless you're in the Senate, in which case it's your ass in six years).
Now I bring this up before the election because there are RINOs running in various locations. If it means fewer Republicans elected because we stay home for their races, or vote third party or Democrat to just get rid of them (and I know of one state level race in Ohio I face that choice), so be it. If I'm going to be screwed, I'd prefer the screwing come form a Democrat (or a really hot chick that doesn't want to stay around after (yeah, I went there)). Plus, it saves us having to run you out of town later.
12 comments:
Shift to the center?? He couldn't be more center.
Obama care is power to the people and if you are worried about paying for uninsured drug overdoses and gun shot victims, don't worry, you are already paying for them only without insurance you are paying 3x as much as you would without them having insurance. It saves you money, lowers health care costs for the rest of us and ultimately will therefore reduce the deficit and the amount we all spend on health care. The only reason the bill still kind of sucks is because Republicans blocked everything else.
Don't give me that stop spending shit, the Government is the only one that is spending right now and you loved Reagan and Bush for it. Not that we should just spend for the sake of it and we should try to limit the growth of the government but as it is, the government accounts over 40% of our GDP. If you thought it was bad when the banks stopped spending...
Given the tenor of recent times, the GOP/Tea Party
has a maximum of two years to achieve full employment and balance the budget...
BB-Idaho:
Ha, funny, Republicans creating jobs and balancing the budget??? Good one....Oh and you forgot the most important thing...doing so by cutting taxes(on the rich).
Obama is firmly in the left, actually, when you measure from the political center (instead of counting ones own off-to-the-side view as being the center).
Toad then went on:
"Don't give me that stop spending shit, the Government is the only one that is spending right now and you loved Reagan and Bush for it"
Toad... I'm pretty sure I've seen Patrick criticize Bush and Reagan's overspending. Patrick, is that right?
BB said: "Given the tenor of recent times, the GOP/Tea Party
has a maximum of two years to achieve full employment and balance the budget..."
If they at least TRY to, they will be doing a lot more than Obama has done. He basically blew off the whole employment problem, and endeavored to make the budget problem much worse. I'm sure some actual effort will count, and go along way.
Toad then said:
"Oh and you forgot the most important thing...doing so by cutting taxes(on the rich)."
Actually, they are tax cuts for all taxpayers... only a minority of whom are rich. The "tax cuts for the rich" lie always bamboozles a few, but Obama's attempt to use it this campaign season is only having limited effect in appealing to the greedier elements of his base.
Obamacare is power to the people, alright. If the people happen to be the ruling elites. His health care plan is definitely a step in the direction of fascism.
Dmarks:
Yes, Patrick has bitched about Bush's spending in the past. He is one of a very few conservatives who realize that the debt and deficit was passed down from Bush to Obama and that BUsh learned it from Reagan.
However, both the Reagan tax cuts and the Bush tax cuts favored the rich by cutting their taxes by a larger percentage than everyone elses taxes were cut. So yes, tax cuts for mainly the rich.
George W. Bush learned it from Bill Clinton too, as Clinton also ran a deficit during every one of his years, vetoed the balanced budget amendment, and added $1.6 trillion to the total debt.
The Reagan and Bush tax cuts in fact did not favor the rich at all: after the cuts were put in place, the rich were still paying a very very high amount. AFTER the tax cuts, the rich are paying a skewed amount (as opposed to a fair flat rate). "So yes, tax cuts for mainly the rich." is a flat-out lie also, as most of the people who benefited by having less of their hard-earned money robbed by the government were the non-rich.
Where do you get this shit??
Clinton balanced the budget and ran a budget surplus, something neither Reagan, Bush or Bush could do.
Not only that, since 2001 we have borrowed $700 Billion to pay for Bush's tax cuts plus interest. And extending the tax cuts for the rich would cost nearly another $700 billion over the next 10 years. And you say you are for fiscal responsibility??
Since 1960, the top .1% of tax payers have seen their share of income paid in taxes drop from 60 to 33 percent.
Yes the rich are subject to a higher tax rate than you are but when you got a small decrease in your taxes they got a huge decrease. The top 1% of tax payers took 29.5% of the benefits from the Bush tax cuts and the top 5% took 44%.
YOU ARE BEING LIED TO!
Keep fighting for the millionaires, god knows they need your help. Maybe you could sponsor one like people do with Sally Struthers kids?? Would that make you feel better?
"Clinton balanced the budget and ran a budget surplus, something neither Reagan, Bush or Bush could do."
Check the federal budget figures. Clinton ran a deficit each year he was in office. He never balanced the budget. Would you like some links? I can give 8 years of Clinton deficit amounts.
"Not only that, since 2001 we have borrowed $700 Billion to pay for Bush's tax cuts plus interest."
Actually, Bush's tax cuts (mostly for the middle class) resulted in revenue growth. They HELPED fix the problem you mention (debt) and did not make it worse. Where Bush blew it was overspending. Patrick and I agree that this was a big problem.
"And extending the tax cuts for the rich would cost nearly another $700 billion over the next 10 years. And you say you are for fiscal responsibility??"
I am. Because "real world" economic figures show that extending the tax cuts (which are mostly for the middle class) would result in more revenue in the long term. The misleading "soak the rich" logic of yours might appeal to the jealous, but it simply harms the economy.
"YOU ARE BEING LIED TO!"
Perfect summary for your post. Especially the part where you lied Clinton's red ink into a "surplus".
While you lie, I tell the truth. Here is a graph in fact that shows the national debt under Clinton. It never went down. It might have gone up less at the end, but even then there were deficits adding to it.
Perhaps you might admit that you screwed up on this one, like I did on the trillion dollar defense budget one. But I doubt you will. At least you can drop it: you won't come across as bad.
"Keep fighting for the millionaires, god knows they need your help."
On these issues, I fight for everyone. Only a tiny minority of whom are millionaires.
And here are the links to put to bed the idea of a Clinton surplus:
Treasury Direct, a web page provided by the administration of President Obama. Not dittoheads, teabaggers, fair-taxers, or Republican millionaires. But by Obama's own regime:
Historic National Debt Outstanding:
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86 (most of Clinton's last year)
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38 (most of this period is Clinton's first year)
I suppose you might argue that Clinton undid 8 years of constant deficits totaling to a couple of trillion in debt spending by saying that Clinton wiped out the deficit between 9/30/2000 (the last day in the yearly total cycle above) and 1/21/2001 (Bush's first complete day in office), the same sight lets us zero in on that period:
What do we see? No surplus at all (and no balanced budget, of course), but instead we see an increase in the national debt of $53 billion during this time period. More deficit piled on until the very last day of the Clinton administration.
Now, using the same unadorned uncooked budget deficit and debt figures from Pres. Obama's own executive branch of the federal government, it might be interesting to look at more recent history:
Total debt of Pres. Obama's first year in office:
$1.7 Trillion.
Total debt of Pres. George W. Bush's 8 years in office:
$4.9 Trillion
Total debt of Pres. Clinton's 8 years in office:
$1.6 Trillion
----------------------
The rate at which Obama is accumulating national debt is an astonishing 8 times FASTER than how Clinton did, and more than twice the rate at which George W. Bush increased it.
At his current rate of "fiscal responsibility", Obama is set to add $13.6 trillion to the national debt if he serves for a full 8 years. That is a case of one President more producing more national debt than the cummulation of all Presidents before him.
Where do I get this shit? From the Obama Administration.
Tax cuts? Great way to pay off the debt: except for this chart
That chart uses cooked figures, and ignores the actual federal debt during the time periods. There was no Clinton-era surplus. How can there be when during every single year, the debt got deeper (spending more than we took in)?
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