"Economy won't grow without deal on Fiscal Cliff"

I'm no economist but really?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/12/09/imf_chief_warns_about_us_economic_growth.html



More scaremongering I presume?

Libertarians don't usually bother me THAT much

Their economic policies/messaging suck but at least they aren't crazy/fanatical about social issues and mostly progressive (or at least "hands-off&quot about things like abortion rights, gay rights, etc. Unfortunately, where they go wrong for me is their belief that they can pare government back to next to nothing and still maintain a functioning society (maybe at one point in history but definitely NOT now), as well as their general Randian disregard for "others". I could just not be capable of being that cold and heartless so as to ignore the needs and suffering of others but it wouldn't be a bad idea to try to find common ground with them when we can. These are "Republicans" that I think that we have a better chance of dealing with IMHO.

I have had the same exact problem with them since President Obama was elected

They rate his promises as "broken" even if he tried to do something about it but was blocked by Congress (i.e. Gitmo). I have called them on it more than once but they just keep basically telling me that their standard for a "broken promise" is that something that he promised during his first campaign (or since then) doesn't happen or isn't likely to happen, not whether or not President Obama reneged on it, which is, for me, what actually constitutes a broken promise. Regardless about what anybody might think about President Obama, I don't think that anybody can realistically argue that he can make the Republicans (and a few Democrats) in Congress stop being a**holes about everything that he proposes (usually for the sake of being a**holes)!!


Occasionally, Politifact gets things right (most of their rulings on Mitt Romney were on target) but other times their rulings seem like one giant to me.

AGAIN?????

I think that this is the way we need to go

raising the debt ceiling NEVER used to be "leverage" for spending cuts and raising it passed nearly unremarked every time it was done in the past and you can bet that the instant we have a Republican POTUS it will never be mentioned it again, much less used as leverage against them by Democrats. Of course, as long as Barack Obama (or any Democrat) is POTUS, the Republicans will never give it up and they seem primed for a sequel to last year's debt ceiling debacle that has now lead to their new "Fiscal Cliff" crisis.


Might as well let the President have the power to do it- since Republicans want to use it over and over again to hold the country/economy "hostage" until they finally get the cuts to Medicare/Social Security they've been lusting over. If Congress wants to cut spending, fine, they should have that debate but raising the debt ceiling is paying for stuff we've already spent. We all can't spend money on a credit card and then refuse to pay for it eventually

Yeah

For something bad!!!!

When did it become "serious" or fashionable to do something that's going to unnecessarily make life harder for most people?

I don't know either

They spent all of last year throwing a tantrum over cutting the deficit and after a huge and completely unnecessary battle over the debt ceiling, they came up with a way to cut the deficit and Congress passed it and President Obama signed it into law that but now they're claiming that it's going to cause a disaster? If they knew it- along with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts- was going to create this "Fiscal Cliff", why didn't they come up with a different plan beforehand? Here's the bottom line from my perspective: Republicans never intended to honor either thing and were going to pass new legislating negating both things after they won the election this year, which, of course, didn't happen. They lost and now what they agreed to at the time will become law unless they work with President Obama to change things but so far they're strutting around acting like they won the election and President Obama has to bend to their will, which he obviously isn't going to do- and HE essentially doesn't have to lift a finger.

Thanks

I'm sure that she has some challenges ahead of her but, hopefully, feeling alone won't be one of them. She wants to hightail it to Canada when she gets done with College, which is sort of sad because she will be pretty far away from us- but if I were gay, I imagine that I'd be frustrated with the glacial pace of social change here in the red state hell known as Indiana where we just elected Mike Pence governor and our deep red legislature appears intent on pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (passed last legislature, needs to pass another one and then it comes to the voters as a referendum).


Interestingly, our leaders can't seem to figure out why we have such a huge problem with "brain drain" in our state. Maybe that's also why our politics are getting worse outside of a few progressive enclaves such as Indy, Bloomington, and some areas of northern Indiana (Lake County).

Very sad

What's even sadder is that there are some people out there more eager to protect bullies than the kids they bully over some crazy notion of ensuring the "religious freedom" of bullies and their "biblically-based bullying".


I have a stepdaughter and she recently came out as a lesbian and I'm extremely thankful that, so far, she has not had any problems at school as she seems to have a supportive circle of friends around her but I still worry about her. The wife and I are very supportive of her too.

Heaven forbid that some people care enough about democracy in this country

to encourage other people to get out and vote and participate in democracy. Of course, I know a group of people whom are pretty clear that they want as few people voting and participating in democracy: Republicans. Anybody remember what conservative activist Paul Weyrich said about voting:

"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

This is the Republican creed regarding voting, plain and simple.