Boehner gives up

[WIP]

The irony is this is a group formed out of public outrage at government bailouts of Wall Street which has morphed into Wall Street's main protector. if the Tea Party had its way there would be no corporate or business taxes, and no regulations on business. They'd get the money by eliminating all kinds of "entitlements" like pensions and medicair and welfare and education.

Well, it seems to me that the entire libertarian argument of a need to be free from government interference which forms the economic framework of modern conservatism, has been nothing more than a ruse by business and the rentier class to disarm the only institution (government) that can limit their powers.

Wall Street has even bigger friends in the Democrats, including Hillary Clinton. Wall Street is American business...public outrage doesn't mean much when the golden geese are involved.

Which is neither here nor there! Should we be surprised that Big Money bought the other political party also? That's how they hedge their bets. On many issues, a good argument can be made that it's the Democrats who perform a more useful service of advancing the corporate agenda than the slavish devotees of the oligarchs in the Republican Party, because the Dems disarm...or at least attempt to disarm populist opposition from the left, to get the objectives of banks, oil, weapons manufacturers, big pharma etc. past all the government hurdles that need to be cleared.....Obama pushing harder to pass TPP than so many issues he has claimed to be concerned about.

[cybercoma]

he's simply stating an opinion, nothing more.

And so was Argus.

[Black Dog]

The Tea Party types are none of the above. They're zealots and ideologues with narrowly focused agendas on hot-button religious/social issues they think they can manipulate, or appealing to people's selfish greed. Many of them are paranoid if not outright delusional in terms of their fear of and distrust in government. Some are borderline anarchists, in my opinion, and almost all of them seem to have no problem using their fundamentalist religious beliefs as a club to beat everyone else with.

You forgot the other piece: obsessive about small government and low spending except on when it comes to the military and prisons, two bloated institutions that serve as de facto welfare programs for the American underclass.

[Argus]

You forgot the other piece: obsessive about small government and low spending except on when it comes to the military and prisons, two bloated institutions that serve as de facto welfare programs for the American underclass.

I didn't forget it because it's not true. The Tea Party doesn't give a crap about the military beyond making the mandatory mouth noises and holding their hand over their heart when talking about 'our heros'. They'll gladly cut the military budget to the bone if it means tax cuts for billionaires. As for prisons, just jam people in, five, ten, fifty to a cell, they don't care. But don't ask for more money.

[dre]

©onservative, to me, is someone who values solid, traditional polices and programs that work and work efficiently, and wants all government to do the same. A conservative is more than willing to pay for what the government needs to do, but doesn't want the government to do what it doesn't need to do unless it can be fully demonstrated that additional things are not only well worth doing, but will help the citizenry more than leaving them with more of their own money. A conservative is careful, pragmatic, solid, dependable and reliable, and doesn't get enthusiastic about every new idea that comes along because he's seen how many of them fail. He thinks long term and big picture.

THats a mythology that exists only in your head much like the views you have on liberals. Really nothing more than your own projection.

[WIP]

THats a mythology that exists only in your head much like the views you have on liberals. Really nothing more than your own projection.

I'm not a liberal, but off the top I notice that conservative governments have blown holes in the budgets of both Canada and the United States, which the liberals are tasked with rebalancing afterwards. Money is no object, when the spending is on military and other conservative wet dream projects. But, when it comes to any sort of domestic programs that might benefit average people: how are we going to pay for that?

[Argus]

THats a mythology that exists only in your head much like the views you have on liberals. Really nothing more than your own projection.

Yes, yes, I know. You would simply define conservatives as evil people who refuse to give their money to the people you feel deserve it more. Selfish bastards.

[Argus]

I'm not a liberal, but off the top I notice that conservative governments have blown holes in the budgets of both Canada and the United States, which the liberals are tasked with rebalancing afterwards. Money is no object, when the spending is on military and other conservative wet dream projects. But, when it comes to any sort of domestic programs that might benefit average people: how are we going to pay for that?

So the way it works is Trudeau quadruples spending and runs up a huge debt. Mulroney comes in, with interest rates in the teens, and high unemployment, and because of the high debt payments the debt increases even more.

And you blame HIM and not Trudeau, right? Because he didn't magically bring in a balanced budget, which would have required massive cuts to spending in the middle of a terrible recession.

[dre]

Yes, yes, I know. You would simply define conservatives as evil people who refuse to give their money to the people you feel deserve it more. Selfish bastards.

No thats my stuff right out of your head. Im sure theres some conservatives like that, but most of the conservatives I know are just people that trust the government marginally less to do certain things. They certainly arent evil. Ill leave those kind of stupid generalizations to people like you at either end of the spectrum.

[dre]

So the way it works is Trudeau quadruples spending and runs up a huge debt. Mulroney comes in, with interest rates in the teens, and high unemployment, and because of the high debt payments the debt increases even more.

And you blame HIM and not Trudeau, right? Because he didn't magically bring in a balanced budget, which would have required massive cuts to spending in the middle of a terrible recession.

I wouldnt blame either of them really. Canadas national debt is pretty much bi-partisan. If you plot it on a historical graph you will see that it follows a fairly linear curve and the trends hold true across periods of both liberal and conservative administration. You will also see that the graph looks very similar to that of the US and other western countries.

Blaming the massive orgy of borrowing that the western world embarked on following the collapse of Bretton Woods on each others politics is fun for mindless partisan hacks, but not good for much else.

[Argus]

No thats my stuff right out of your head. Im sure theres some conservatives like that, but most of the conservatives I know are just people that trust the government marginally less to do certain things. They certainly arent evil. Ill leave those kind of stupid generalizations to people like you at either end of the spectrum.

Right, because those kinds of 'stupid generalizations' just don't happen around here.

[Michael Hardner]

Back on topic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/us/politics/house-speaker-vote.html?_r=0

Kevin McCarthy has dropped out of the race, leaving no clear successor. The situation is being described as 'chaos' by several news organizations.

[Argus]

Back on topic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/us/politics/house-speaker-vote.html?_r=0

Kevin McCarthy has dropped out of the race, leaving no clear successor. The situation is being described as 'chaos' by several news organizations.

It's a very hard job. You can't lead when a significant number of congressmen and senators don't care what you say, can't be disciplined, and consider any kind of cooperation or compromise with the Democrats to be akin to tongue a tongue wash with Satan.

[Smeelious]

It's a crappy job. It doesn't help that the Republicans are fractured right now. Sure, you could be third in line to the throne as it were, but you still have to try to get things done in an atmosphere of "We do nothing".

I'm trying to imagine a parallel scenario, and I'm coming up blank.