General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumscongressional leadership: RESIGN NOW
the dems say the gop wont compromise. the gop says the dems wont.
maybe this is whats needed.
Im calling for harry Reid,mitch McConnel,Nance Pelosi and John Boehner to resign.
they are the leaders of congress. the have all failed to lead.
so resign. now.
The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)rdking647
(5,113 posts)yes the GOP has been worse but the dems arent any saints. kick all 4 out and elect new leadership
ProSense
(116,464 posts)parroting the GOPMSM's bullshit false equivalency claims.
Reid: We Agree On How To Resolve 97-98 Percent Of Fiscal Cliff
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021809162
Go Nancy!: "Pelosi threatens discharge petition to force vote on middle-income tax cut extension."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021907202
Obama offers GOP an ambitious, progressive debt-reduction plan
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021905787
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)/me checks his troll list... nods...
TexasProgresive
(12,165 posts)If what you say is correct then it won't make any real differences.
Personally I say stick with Harry and Nancy. As far as the pukes it doesn't make any difference.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)not work at all with the democrats. I know that it is popular to say throw them all out, but they do not share equal blame.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)And be specific.
Alternatively, stop believing the RW bullshit that "both sides are to blame". That's just their attempt to avoid accountability for their actions.
The Magistrate
(95,268 posts)You have won the honors for the most blitheringly idiotic post of the day, and are in strong contention for most blitheringly idiotic post of the week....
kentuck
(111,111 posts)CreekDog
(46,192 posts)11 Bravo
(23,928 posts)I'll listen to David Gregory.)
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Now the rethugs are butthurt because they're not getting concessions.
We had an election. Democrats won. Repubs lost. Now it's time for the Repubs to get lost!
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)JBoy
(8,021 posts)fredamae
(4,458 posts)Last edited Fri Nov 30, 2012, 06:43 PM - Edit history (1)
if you look at raw facts...It's Not always a shared blame. We the people have spoken and those who are on the more Democratic/Liberal side of all things govt and all issues right now are saying We Are Not Moving Further To The Right and We Have Already (been) Compromised All We Are Going To Allow. Do Not Error in Denying Consideration For That Which We Have Already Given. For (Just One) Example: We bear the Extra burden of paying for the last 2 Years of BushCo Tax Cuts...because the GOP held all of us hostage.
If you review the bills that have been denied passage, consideration and due process-We would not need this conversation today If what the Dems have tried to do for us-would have passed.
I do reject that opinion of this being the fault of both sides.
Enough. Off the cliff we go.
Filibuster Harry
(666 posts)How can you say all have failed when you have a senate minority leader stating that our job is to make Obama a one term president? That is not his job. His job is to help govern this country not block every legislative issue with those damn filibusters. And Boehner -- since he became speaker what jobs legislation has he passed? Job bills dealing with Abortion or Obamacare?
Southerner
(113 posts)Inflation from 2005 to 2012 was 18%.
Spending increases for some of the major functions of government between 2005 and 2012.
Defense +44%
Education/Training/Social Services +42%
Medicare +62%
Social Security +49%
Veterans Benefits +86%
Dept of Energy +4500%
Natural Resources/Environment +54%
Commerce and Housing +1000%
Transportation +52%
International Affairs (State Dept?) +60%
Justice Department +55%
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist03z1.xls
Federal government outlays as a percentage
of Gross Domestic Product (our total economy size):
2005: 19.9%
2012: 24.3%
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/hist01z2.xls
ProSense
(116,464 posts)The OP is about Congressional leadership.
Still, what are you trying to show with those numbers?
The Magistrate
(95,268 posts)On stuff....
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Southerner
(113 posts)They should all resign for not only overspending that much, but then now failing to agree on how to STOP overspending that much.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)2005 to 2012. Does the name Bush ring a bell?
He's the fucking one who left the mess. He's the fucking one who started two wars, one illegal, and the other neglected due to incompetence. He's the one who ran the economy into the ground, prompting the federal government to have to do everything to rescue it from lapsing into a depression.
Want to talk about stopping the overspending: President Obama has done more to rein in deficits than nearly every other President.
"I agree with the OP"
Yeah, typical RW bullshit!
The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)The Magistrate
(95,268 posts)Southerner
(113 posts)They are straight from the white house budget office records. Nearly every category has increased spending twice, three times, and four times the rate of inflation.
It is most definately a spending problem. Raising the taxes on the rich is a good thing but it only gets us part way there in balancing the budget. That is truth - and something many just don't want to hear.
The Magistrate
(95,268 posts)Your argument amounts to claiming a disequilibrium can be addressed only from one side, which even a moments reflection will disclose is false. In this instance, the record low proportion which taxes collected bear to economic activity strongly suggests the proper direction from which to approach the matter.
Southerner
(113 posts)...huge drops in revenue due to the recession? We just have to pay for them. It's that simple?
Let's hear your plan for coming up with $1.3 trillion in new revenue per year. I'm all ears.
The Magistrate
(95,268 posts)As are all competent economists ( a category which does not include free-marketeers and austerians, and similar Randite trash ). It is not good policy at present to reduce deficits or reduce expenditures.
In future it will certainly be advisable to increase revenue, even over the increases that will occur in consequence of improved economic conditions. The best routes to this would be increasing progressivity of the income tax, increasing the rate on capital gains, restoring the estate tax, lifting the 'cap' on the FICA levy, and instituting a transaction tax on the sale of capital instruments.
Southerner
(113 posts)When and where in history has any of that worked?
The Magistrate
(95,268 posts)The current market rate for Treasury paper is sufficient to demonstrate the inanity of pretending the country faces a great crisis over debt.
One illustration you will not want to face of the efficacy of deficit spending in times of high unemployment and slack economic activity is the period 1940-1945. There is absolutely no difference economically between running a deficit in war and in peace. Put bluntly, another such is the Reagan period, illustrating what has been referred to as 'military Keynesianism'. The economic growth from a recession base-line in the Reagan years owed to the colossal increases in the nation's debt he wrought, not to his jiggering the tax code to benefit the wealthy.
To pretend it is not possible to tax people of wealth is nonesense; all that is needed is the will to enforce tax laws, and to jail and break wealthy persons who violate them. A government which set out on such a course would find doing so generated tremendous popular support....
Southerner
(113 posts)The national debt in 1945 was about equivalent to where we are now a little bigger than the total GDP. The spending by the federal government was 41% of the economy in 1945 and dropped to only 11% by 1948. It was possible to pay back the debt at that point with the massive spending cuts. Today we are spending at 25% of the economy and our party is proposing very few spending cuts. I have looked into what the tax increases on the wealthy our party has proposed will bring in and it hardly makes a dent in the annual deficit.
Post Reagan we never did pay off the debt he accumulated. We just added to it.
I never said it is not possible to tax people of wealth. Of course it is and we should. It isnt going to get us very far.
You write very well and use some fancy words but nothing you say is backed up by historical evidence. Whenever I go looking I just dont find it.
Back up what you say with hard evidence.
The Magistrate
(95,268 posts)A new study by the International Monetary Fund raises a further warning flag for fiscal cliff negotiators in the U.S. In what it bills as the first-ever study of its kind, the fund analyzed decades of data on the worlds major industrialized countries to estimate how changes in government spending or revenue affect economic output.
The news isnt good. Given current circumstances, with a U.S. economy that is growing but still trying to make up lost ground from the 2008 crisis, a one dollar change in government spending could knock as much as $1.80 in output from the economy what fund researchers called a statistically significant and sizeable outcome.
One brighter spot that could also influence negotiators: the growth impact of a tax hike is estimated to be negligible. The list of measures that automatically become law absent an agreement include both spending reductions and tax increases. While the spending cuts would comprise a heavy drag on growth, the fund paper suggests that a one percent rise in tax revenue would knock just 0.1 percent from gross domestic product.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)Worked every time.
You INCREASE deficit spending during down economic times. When the economy comes back, you cut back on spending and pay down the debt. Bush II failed to do this when he took over and instead he spent like a drunken sailor when he inherited a budget surplus.
Southerner
(113 posts)Tell me when it "worked every time". I would love to be wrong and actually find a case where lots of increases in government spending directly led to a recovery and then the debt was repaid.
RomneyLies
(3,333 posts)READ!
It's there.
Just look at how we got out of the Great Depression. Deficit spending is REQUIRED during economic downturns. the mistake was made by Bush when he took a budget surplus and squandered it on tax cuts and two wars. When you have good economic times, it is time to pay off the debt.
Sheesh, use your friggin' brain.
Southerner
(113 posts)I google and I find a thousand articles just like this one:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123353276749137485.html
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)CreekDog
(46,192 posts)FSogol
(45,593 posts)More both-parties-are-the-same nonsense.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)democratic leadership wasn't in a side room at the last inauguration plotting to keep President Obama from achieving any positive results in his first term. That among much other rethug thuggery, I will NEVER forget till the day I die! You're off on the blame thing.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)told the media that they won't compromise.
You're nuts!
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Red State is that way. ->
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)It's unclear whether there are any quantitative realists in Congress.