McConnell’s First Test

That clip did not sound like a victory lap. Quite right about McConnell though. His side is in an ugly mood but one should never overplay their hand. So far he’s been very good. Harry’s Saturday vote was nothing more than a hissy fit. He’s a putz.

Thanks, Jay. Given your past trips to Kentucky, how would you size up Rand Paul as far as toeing the R line when he arrives. Do your tea leaves professional judgments see him as sticking to his cut-all-costs / slash-all-programs pledges, etc. at all costs, even one-man filibusters (like McConnell sorta did with UI benefits, but I digress)? Or might he cave? Yes, it’s okay to give a punditry-esque opinion here (or more like professional judgment). If other commenters complain they can blame me. I’m used to getting chewed out. Thanks again for your thoughts, Jay.

So now that the GOP voted to add another $3T to the Federal debt, nobody in the press will ever again call them “fiscal conservatives” or “deficit hawks,” right?

Here’s hoping every Democratic Senator defects. I’d rather have my taxes returned to the pre-tax cut rate than to see tax cuts for the rich extended.

And I don’t see why Mitch McConnell can’t herd snakes. He’s such a charmer.

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

I want one (because that’s all it takes) democratic Senator to tell the republicans they can suck on his left nut and tell them their tax cuts are off the table.

I absolutely agree. As a member of the middle class significantly below the $250,000 benchmark, I would consider it my patriotic duty to support ending this ideological/impractical tug o war over the extension of the tax cuts. I don’t remember being especially burdened by federal income tax before the cuts, and only vaguely remember receiving a check for a couple hundred dollars (?) when they were instituted.
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Time to end the right wing nonsense of holding the middle class and unemployed hostage to protect the interests of people who have more money than they know what to do with. Just let the cuts expire across the board. The whole debate and exercise has become one of mindless and destructive (to all concerned) ideological posturing.

I hope all the libtards on this site get their wish and the tax cuts are not pushed through or extended. I truly do. I think we are missing one of the greatest opportunities of all time to shove these butt-holes down into the recesses of hell where they belong once and forever.
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Make Jimmy Carter proud, Obama. Show them what a real liberal, progressive President can do!!!

“This deal will be as big a test of McCconnell’s ability to deliver his conference … … as it is the Administration’s bipartisanship and base-management skills.”
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Wow Jay, you really like poking this crowd with a sharp stick don’t you? And the Christians wouldn’t have been eaten by the lions if they had just honed their negotiating skills and reached across the salivating jaws.
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Has anyone in the press explained how cutting taxes for people that don’t know what a coupon is pays for unemployment benefits and how someone using government money to pay their mortgage is having less of an economic ripple effect on the US economy than someone who bundles away their excess cash in overseas investments… on speculation…

See job chart….see Dick and Jane go without a job for the next 5 years if the Demwits get their wish and the tax cuts are not extended.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336078/Post-recession-unemployment-scariest-job-chart-worst-WW2.html

“I hope all the libtards on this site get their wish and the tax cuts are not pushed through or extended. I truly do. I think we are missing one of the greatest opportunities of all time to shove these butt-holes down into the recesses of hell where they belong once and forever.”.
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I agree – I hope they won’t extend the tax cuts either so we can start paying down the deficite. And you’re right; if we do extend it we’re fracked sooner than later.

Jay Newton-Small:
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You write:
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“The deal purportedly on the table is a two-year extension of all of Bush’s tax cuts coupled with an extension of unemployment benefits.”
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Is there any evidence at all to suggest that the Administration is not simply following the advice of Pete Orszag when he wrote in the NYTimes this September?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/opinion/07orszag.html
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One Nation, Two Deficits
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By PETER ORSZAG
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Published: September 6, 2010
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In the face of the dueling deficits, the best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.
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¶ Why does this combination make sense? The answer is that over the medium term, the tax cuts are simply not affordable. Yet no one wants to make an already stagnating jobs market worse over the next year or two, which is exactly what would happen if the cuts expire as planned.
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¶ Higher taxes now would crimp consumer spending, further depressing the already inadequate demand for what firms are capable of producing at full tilt. And since financial markets don’t seem at the moment to view the budget deficit as a problem — take a look at the remarkably low 10-year Treasury bond yield — there is little reason not to extend the tax cuts temporarily.
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¶ A benign bond market, however, is a luxury we won’t enjoy forever if we fail to tackle our long-term fiscal problem. What’s more, losing the confidence of the bond market could prove painful, since it is widely known that our fiscal trajectory is unsustainable and market sentiment may therefore shift quickly and unpredictably. In any case, as the economy recovers, the dominant problem will move from depressed demand to excessive budget deficits.
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¶ Despite a dire fiscal outlook, many progressives want to make the tax cuts permanent for all but the very highest earners. Many conservatives are even worse: they’d make the tax cuts permanent for the likes of Warren Buffett, even though he’d prefer they didn’t. Making all the tax cuts permanent would expand the deficit by more than $3 trillion over the next decade.
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¶ Both approaches lock us into a budget scenario out of which there are few politically plausible routes of escape. Although hardly anyone wants to admit it, we’re not going to solve our budget problem over the next decade unless revenue is part of the equation.
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Senate Democrats and Republicans almost never come together anymore. This month, they should fight the dual deficits rather than each other. Let’s continue the tax cuts for two years but end them for good in 2013.

For all of the talk on the Hill of “caving,” isn’t the most likely scenario that the Obama Administration is negotiating to achieve exactly what they –as evidenced by Orszag’s public telegraphing– view as good policy and politics?
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What leads you to believe that this compromise is not exactly what the President wants to achieve in political and policy terms –precisely the reason that it “was negotiated over the heads of Senate Dems” who might feel some weird compulsion to go along with majority sentiment in the country?
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Is this capitulation, Jay Newton-Small, or is it more likely that this is the Administration doing what they wanted to do all along, and therefore testing their “base-management skills,” as you accurately put it?

Since oil has hit $89.00 dollar a barrel, and if the tax RATES are not kept, do you suppose we can just cut the jobs of all liberals and give their jobs to conservatives?
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/watch-sen-john-kyl-repeatedly-correct-bob-schieffer-on-tax-cuts/
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The issue at hand is not one of raising or lowering taxes. The problem at hand is spending. Some libtards simply do not get it.

If the media were permitted they should laugh in McConnell’s face the next time he, or any other Republican or right-wing Democrat mention the term “fiscal responsibility.”

You just don’t get it newfree! It ain’t about Dick and Jane getting jobs, It’s about them getting their unemployment checks. Pay attention, figure it out, and then explain it to me in on it cuz I’m so confused…

oops, a couple of extra words there that don’t belong.

So in order to get 55 billion for unemployment for 10% of the unemployed, we need to give 700 billion to 2% of the wealthiest.
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What a deal!

So now that the GOP voted to add another $3T to the Federal debt, nobody in the press will ever again call them “fiscal conservatives” or “deficit hawks,” right?

************************************************

Art, context matters. Here is the new reality. Higher taxes bad, really bad – higher spending, unthinkably bad. Allowing productive Americans to keep more of the money THEY EARNED is not a budget issue. It’s a fairness issue. We are not going to raise taxes in a jobs recession.

You have no idea how badly Obama screwed this up. Because his stimulus program failed so totally and it was so liberal, so big govt, you’ve lost a generation of support. It’s the exquisite irony of politics. The liberal President did far more damage to liberalism than any conservative could hope for. Two years after Obama is elected employment is at a 30-yr high.

Are you kidding me?

One little problem with your fairytale scenario. You are NOT “giving” anything. What you want them to do is TAKE. But, that is the way of the libtards. TAKE TAKE TAKE. Not much giving about it.
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Then when they TAKE TAKE TAKE, the next cry from libtards is to SPEND SPEND SPEND!!
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It is a vicious cycle. One that needs to end permanently.

JNS makes a very, very important point that ought to be paid very close attention to:
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“If lefty anger continues to mount, enough Democratic senators could defect to bring it down.”
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Keep in mind, GOPers:
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What you can do with 42 or 43 we can CERTAINLY do with 53…

Even when you reduce it into pictures and graphs they can’t get it.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336078/Post-recession-unemployment-scariest-job-chart-worst-WW2.html
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I think it is so funny to watch them all abandon Obama. Just like rats off a sinking ship, they run as fast as they can away from him. Unreal.

In case you hadn’t noticed, a large number of polls center on Americans being approximately 70% in favor of letting taxes for millionaires lapse.
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Don’t take the election as a Teabagger Approval Referendum. It wasn’t.
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It was a referendum about the general direction of this country, and NOT a blanket approval of the conservative agenda!

Rusty:
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The revolt against Obama could leave your treasured deal in a lurch.
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See my post at 15, and, if I were you, I would avoid attaching your wagon to the unhappiness on the left with Obama.
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They are not rooted n the same cause…

Pretty pretty please do it. Please advocate for your demwitted Senators to pass the rate hike of our taxes. I would love to see this passed across the board or allowed to simply run out of time.
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The economy will tank. We will be pushed into a major Depression. More jobs will be lost. Obama will look like the biggest fool since Carter. Pressure on interest rates will sky-rocket. Not just inflation, but HYPERINFLATION.
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Please, and then in less than 2 years we can welcome President Palin to the White House.
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Enjoy!!

When did you become an economist. The “hyperinflation” theory of yours doesn’t even pass econ 101.
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It’s only an openion and is not grounded in fact, Rusty.
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Make wild claims if you want, but most of us have heard that the sky is falling before.
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If a Dem revolt takes place, All taxes will return to old levels, and I will gladly pay my share, just to see you whine.
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Soldier up…

Stuartzechman,
Orszag isn’t a very popular guy at the White house these days, so I’d guess they’d vehemently deny any such suggestion. I have one word for what this is: triangulation.
JNS

A lowzy deal for all. We need revenue, and that is where the revenue is…

Palin in the White House? Under the desk, maybe. But behind the desk? Dream on.

I think that the deal beng “negotiated” might even be less popular than Orszag…

Yea Rusty that is why it is called temporary.

I like how condescending “lefty” sounds…. : )

Thanks so much for responding to commentary, Jay Newton-Small, it’s very much appreciated.
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Very interesting call, too. I’m going to have to try to get some more information on the contours of that relationship in terms of policy.
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Thanks again, Jay Netwon-Small.

Soldier up? Rusty isn’t patriotic. I thought we’d been there and done that. Its all “what my country can do for me.”

Jay Newton-Small:
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Not that I’m arguing with you for its own sake (or expect further response, you’re a busy person), but when you say “Orszag isn’t a very popular guy at the White house these days,” I’d counter with Greg Sargent’s post “Peter Orszag clarifies “rift” with Obama admin over Bush tax cuts” from September 8.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/09/peter_orszag_clarifies_rift_wi.html
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Yesterday, former White House budget director Peter Orszag made big news by appearing to break with the Obama administration over the Bush tax cuts in an Op ed for The New York Times. Orszag argued that we should “extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether,” a claim that was widely interpreted as being at odds with Obama‘s desire to end them now.
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But in a quick interview with me just now, Orszag clarified his position in a way that suggests talk of a rift may be overblown.
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“If the price to be paid for that a temporary extension of the upper income tax cuts, my view is that we should reluctantly accept that,” Orszag continued. “I would prefer that that not be the price that is paid.”
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This is, to be sure, slightly at odds with Obama’s position — but less so than yesterday’s coverage suggested. In his speech today, Obama will come out against a compromise, insisting that we let the tax cuts for the rich expire right now. Orszag, by contrast, is willing to support a compromise if it’s the only way to obtain a deal on ending the tax cuts.
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But, in truth, there’s not too much daylight between the two positions. In the real world, the White House can’t come out for a compromise right now, because it needs to stake out a tough negotiating position. Orszag, by contrast, isn’t constrained by that imperative. In reality, his position is largely in line with that of the administration — both want to end the tax cuts for the rich, though there’s a bit of disagreement over how to get there.

It now appears that whatever “rift” there might have been could not possibly have been over policy, since the position the Administration now is taking is exactly that which Orszag editorialized in September.
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When Sargent says the “rift” was most likely the result of the White House needing “to stake out a tough negotiating position,” he’s probably correct.
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Ultimately, though, Sargent’s update

UPDATE, 1:02 p.m.: To be clear, there’s still a policy difference here, at least in public: Obama won’t support a compromise extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich for two years, while Orzag does support it. The clarification is a matter of nuance: Orszag wants it clearer that he only supports a compromise extending the tax cuts for the rich if it’s absolutely necessary…

reflects political reality, except that it’s now the exact opposite from what had been declared by the Administration at the time, just three months ago.
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So the “rift” doesn’t look like a rift anymore, and the Administration’s position on tax cuts seems to have completely flip-flopped…into Orszag’s position.
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I sure wish I could be as “unpopular” as Pete Orszag is with the Administration –maybe they’d do a complete 180-degree turn, and completely embrace my policy, too.

As all the bobble-heads grunt and moan. I am serious. Please call your Democrat Senators right now. Burn up the Capitol switchboards demanding the tax rates be hiked on everyone, or even just those making over $250,000 per year. I beg you to do it.
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Here is a link to all the phone numbers.
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http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Reader from across the pond here – you guys need to all lighten up! Jeez!! All this name-calling, be easy.

Look compromise is required, and you have to work within the political system as it is – not as you wish it to be. Its as if you guys are crying for a China type scenario – speak and it is law! And no right-’wingers’, your country is not on the way to ‘socialism’ or God forbid ‘communism’, do you guys even know what those systems are like?

And don’t forget folks of the left, Pelosi in all probability designed the political template the Republicans are using now, i.e. keep saying no to the ruling party and you’re good for the next electoral cycle, kinda hurts now don’t it? Doesn’t mean it will work though, at least not in the long term.

There’s a deal in there, and when its done you guys should just be glad you have a political system that works. It should work for the people, not be a hissing contest for another two years.

Art.
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Money not collected from tax cuts does NOT add to the ‘debt’. Real American’s know that it is in fact Real American’s money is stolen by the federal government to protect the spotted tree otter or some such liberal nonsense.
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Money not collected by the government is more like ‘Freedom Credits’. It makes more free because then we’re not dependent on the government for food or shelter or health ‘care’. If you’re not dependent, then you’re free. See how that works!
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Besides, being hungry, sick, and homeless is great motivation to sell your welfare cadillac, get off your lazy liberal butt, and get a job!

We saw this in real time last Thursday, when Olivier Knox, Hill correspondent for AFP, couldn’t join us at Virtually Speaking because he was waiting on these senate votes.
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Ironically, one of the things I wanted to discuss with him was the ability of the GOP leadership to hold the tea partiers and their allies.
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We did get telegraphic updates via email, which was kinda exciting. But if Mitchipoo cannot make a deal (dirty as this one is) with Reid, then he may have problems.

New Freedom is fast becoming my favorite common sense dispenser! In vino veritas, New Freedom!
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Ha! Jimmy Cater! I… hahaha…I’m still laughing! Jimmy Carter!
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Just wait until all these libtards are dependent on the government for being ‘fed’ or having ‘jobs’ or health ‘care’! They won’t be free then, will they, New Freedom lover? Then they’ll miss the Freeness!
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Freeness, poeple! Use it or you’ll lose it!

thanks for replying JNS.
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What is it you mean by “triangulation” here?
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Here’s wiki:
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Triangulation is the name given to the act of a political candidate presenting his or her ideology as being “above” and “between” the “left” and “right” sides (or “wings”) of a traditional (e.g. UK or US) democratic “political spectrum”. It involves adopting for oneself some of the ideas of one’s political opponent (or apparent opponent). The logic behind it is that it both takes credit for the opponent’s ideas, and insulates the triangulator from attacks on that particular issue. Opponents of triangulation[who?], who believe in a fundamental “left” and “right”, consider the dynamic a deviation from its “reality” and dismiss those that strive for it as whimsical.
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Do you think this really applies here? Do you think Obama will get credit for his opponent’s ideas? Do you think he will get votes from conservative blue collar democrats based on this position?
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I can see triangulation making sense in the context of ending welfare as we know it. I cannot make it make any sense in the context of preserving historically low tax rates on a few hundred thousand extremely wealthy households.

I’d love to call my democratic senator, except they’re both republicans. Trying to get my republican senators to do something that doesn’t favor the rich is like trying to get Lindsey Lohan to fly the straight and narrow. It’s not going to happen. They’re f**king lapdogs for their masters.

I don’t think anyone needs to.
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Take a look at this:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/06/obama.taxes.debates/index.html
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Obama may appear to be caught in the middle, but, you know, one of the media perceptions most bandied about is that everyone loses.
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Hell no!
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I’ll pay more in taxes, and so will you!
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To me, it costs me, but its a win/win even though Obama doesn’t know it.

Sometimes, as in this case, inaction may be the best course of all.
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At least we’ll be getting badly needed revenue and I for one don’t mind stepping up…

Just a small correction to your statement, as I made the other day to another consumer of the Murdoch parts of the British press and Sky News — Nancy Pelosi did not design[ed] the political template the Republicans are using now, i.e. keep saying no to the ruling party and you’re good for the next electoral cycle.
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It was the Republicans in the Senate led by Mitch McConnell who implemented that strategy and because the Senate has very different procedural rules than the House, was successful in stopping almost everything — and what they didn’t stop, they changed to the point of making it weaker.

Easy as American Pie, 2/3s of a rock (I’m assuming the government taxed the other third!)
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There are more people than there are jobss. If you pay the people who couldn’t get jobs, they just take the money and spend it on cadillacs and hip hop records. If you don’t give them any money, they have to go out and get a job. Thus, jobs are created! So easy even the libtardest of libards should be able to get it!.
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Maybe, onethirdshort, they’re afraid of the Freedom! Maybe they have Freedomaphobia!

gumonshoe:
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Good observation. My hope is that when the Bush Tax Cuts sunset at the end of this year, the GOP throws an everlivin’ hissyfit.
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But the nice thing about it is that we who are tired of Obama negotiating away everything is to just sit on our hands and say, in the words of Arkele:
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Wasn’ me!
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It’s the best solution of all, because once it sunsets, as long as the economy remains bad, another similar substitute will absolutely never have a chance of passing.
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And Rusty will be back to threatening to avail himself of his 2nd Amendment rights…

therealistamerican:
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Hate to clue you in, but the bulk of the Americans on unemployment are not interested in “…Cadillacs and hip-hop music…”.
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It must be, of course, that you mixed up on which culture was which. I’m sure that that must be it.
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Because if it wasn’t an accidental bout of forgetfulness about whose culture is whose, you would be a slut for xenophobia.
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And nobody wants to think that of you, do they? After all, you’re a real American, right?…

“Please advocate for your demwitted Senators to pass the rate hike of our taxes.”
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That “rate hike” was already passed, by a Republican Congress, and signed into law by George W. Bush.

Jab with elbow in stomach
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Actually, ahem.
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The budget isn’t toted up that way. Whatever you think realamerican about it, it has no relevance.
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They are not going to use your system, ergo:
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Tax revenues count!
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Sorry to bust your burble, er, um blast your bobble, er, uh, I mean burst your bubble…

I am 100% for that!

It’s p!sses me off how much the democrats are just rolling over for the republicans. It’s starting to put a crimp in my holiday cheer. I think I need another break. See you guys (and gals) sometime around Christmas. Have fun folks.

Just a reminder.
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Not a single Republican Congress, Republican Senate, Republican president, nor, governments where the US had all three in place has ever proposed a budget smaller than the year before.
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This idea that republicans spend, support smaller government or care about deficits one whit more than Dick Cheney did (as reported by the SecTreasury) is just one big lie. Having learned from Lenin and Stalin, conservatives repeat this lie over and over and over and over and over.
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But it is still a lie.

See you sacred. I’m disappointed as well. I’m a ridin’ a different trail, an I hopes we meet up agin’ under yonder skies beyond that pass in better weather.
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Spurrng horse, as it turns, shakes it’s head, and snorts
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Giddyap!…

kisses…

Welfare Cadillac?
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Never heard of that make.
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What options does it have? Why are you only talking Cadillac s? Most of the people out this way that are out of work drive smaller cars.
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Do you hate Cadillac s for some reason? They are one of the best made American cars out there! You don’t like on of the most successful of American auto manufacturers?
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What’s wrong with you?

Do check back later, sacred. And 53, hope you don’t run into black knights while riding…
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(I wish the D’s had any of the BK’s fighting spirit.)

Gamesmith94134: Tax Fear May Move Bonuses Earlier

Everyone deserves what he or she contributed including the financial professionals; but over a year, our employment did not improve at all nor is our economy largely. How do they get bonus? Our Congress may not accuse them for being lazy or a culprit to our financial disaster, but it is our claim on their failure that cost us billions.

Stop the tax cut, get them.

May the Buddha bless you?

Gamesmith94134: It’s the Big Questions That Slow Growth

Bernanke Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is stepping up his defense of the Fed’s $600 billion Treasury bond-purchase plan, saying the economy is still struggling to become “self-sustaining” without government help. Also, “Congressional Budget Office projections show that the current budget trajectory is grossly unsustainable. The tax changes required to balance the budget in the future could be modest or enormous, depending on what happens to spending.” Christina D. Romer indicated the budget and spending are relatively interactive; and the budgetary policy must return to the economic value system to make America prosperous.
At present, our economic policy ran on the system that value is relatively dependent to our governmental projection; otherwise, our value system is not sustainable. Especially, the States are at the brim of bankruptcy, and unemployment is up by 0.5% last month and more to come. It is true based on the macroeconomic that the imbalance is inevitable that Americans spent more than they gained; and investors saw devaluation on housing, and shrinkage on the budget. Then, consequently the result by our value system would be negative, if more credit or politics must apply to keep our economy going.
In order to improve the budgetary policy, it must sustain a positive gain on the revenues to advance in the value system. Perhaps, it is not relatively bigger earning accompanies a bigger spending if the revenue can be improved with more tax and projections are frozen at certain point. Many may argue more tax can sabotage growth; but with less of it, more unemployment will come off the States that cut spending and workers. At least for the image wise, it is better off because the Federal can assist the States more efficiently with better ammunition. It can stop further perplexity from the investor or corporations which are deciding to expand its investment once they see the change is made—improvement on the value system with less deficit.
How efficiency work with our present value system? I heard the story from my dentist and pharmacist. My dentist charged me two thousand dollars on his twenty minute work on my filling. He explained that the insurance will only pay about sixty percents of it and it comes late after seven months. And, the pharmacist said my drug was sold in Canada at 66% discount because our insurance and Medicare pay only so much and the patent would come five to ten years after, so I must pay for advertisements in between the golf tournament; that is the assurance of the higher cost to the claims before it is patented. They may sound irrelevant in correction to our budget now, but it is how efficient we are opened on the dependency of our government that we can change.
At present, I think those at the Congress are irritated by the changes to cut spending and saving employment; and I am not promoting the austerity program on the economy since it have suffered enough. I wish them to focus on the revenues that made the value system sustainable and try to put on a show if they will. They can improve the value system and it is sustainable if revenue is not made into both stick and carrot and tax is the assurance the Wall Street and the world can sense. The deficit is sustainable and is under controlled by not compromising on luring investors or corporation to make their moves. Our Congressional Budgetary Committees should emphasize on future tax cut would elude the value system and everyone is loitering in the mine fields to invest. Our government has its limits and principles that they can count on; and the economy will revive itself from the result of their decisions on restoring the value system. Everyone would develop on the principle of economic and sticks and carrot does not apply.
It is revenues, revenues, revenues; not budget, spending, revenues to apply.
May the Buddha bless you?

Oh no, 53_3, Poe’s Law has struck again!

53_3, which I’m sure is some sort of liberal code, I only listen to one musician: Toby Keith. “Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue” is the single greatest song in recorded music history.
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He should change his name to Toby Freeth! He’s THAT good!

It’s interesting that many country musicians lean conservative …with the notable exception of the Dixie Chicks, which explains their still-lingering lack of air time after the Bush war criticism.

Jay can read us like a book. Too bad she hasn’t written her book yet (same for KT, sigh).

I’m lost.
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What’s Poe’s law?

Never mind. Google is my freind….

Well, you couldn’t be more clear!
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I’m glad that you’re not trying to be a xenophobia slut.
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Tell me, why is it that only arseholes want the freedom to be arseholes?

Stabbed, shot, wounded, hacked to bits, what’s the diff?
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As long as a chunk of me can still sit a horsie…

You know what’s funny decon?
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He thinks he loves this country more than I do.
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He couldn’t be more wrong!
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I love America more than he does. Red, white and blue are colors.
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I salute a flag, not a party…

Great points 53, but are you talking about rusty or the realestamerican? I may be wrong but am guessing there’s a Colbert-esque satire to TRA or simply Hyperbole 101. In rusty’s case, yeah, I think he’s that crazy stubborn and implacable. And yes on the colors. Those alone don’t make us unique: UK, Russia, France, and the Netherlands share them too, so can’t they call themselves the RW+B too? (And I wondered for a long time why the Dutch claim orange as their color: it used to be in their flag + William of Orange but red later replaced it.) But the RW’ers need to know we love our country too.

waya12,
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Thanks for your insightful and thoughtful comments. You are correct. Compromise is a necessary part of Democracy.
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Unfortunately as you can see from the other replies to your post that our leftist do not believe in compromise. They are so positive they are right, it’s either their way or the highway. They truly believe that their fellow citizens, who do not share their Liberal views, are evil. It is very difficult to debate people who are simply Partisan-Ideologies.
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I believe we should debate the issues with passion but that we should not demonize the people with a different view than our own.

53-3,
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“We need revenue, and that is where the revenue is…”
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Back in the 1930s, the famous Gangster John Derringer was asked by a reporter, “Why do you rob Banks”. Derringer’s answer was “Because that’s where the money is”
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53 are you saying that there is a correlation between John Derringer and our Federal Government or is it that you personally support Derringer’s approach to wealth creation.

As an aside, the Dutch use orange because it is the color of the royal family. It’s pretty much ingrained into Dutch culture that orange=super patriotic, much the same as red, white and blue here in the US.
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During the world cup I was backing the Dutch team, (what’s not to love about a team in orange and blue?) and found this interesting bit of info: it’s said that many of the players and fans don’t know the entirety of the the national anthem (much like most Americans don’t know the extra verses) but can sing Wij houden van Oranje, (We love the Orange) a soccer song first popularized in the late 80s, in its entirety.