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On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns.
I'm pretty sure its impossible to have a strategy with the "non-big government" Republicans, since all they want to do is defund things and bitch about the ACA. And try to defund the ACA every chance they get, even though it would never happen. And they kept threatening to remove him if he worked with the Democrats.
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On September 26 2015 03:31 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns. I'm pretty sure its impossible to have a strategy with the "non-big government" Republicans, since all they want to do is defund things and bitch about the ACA. And try to defund the ACA every chance they get, even though it would never happen. And they kept threatening to remove him if he worked with the Democrats.
The tea party strategy is, and was, perfectly viable had leadership understood it and executed it. Just Artillery and Armored personnel carriers.
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On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns.
You can not form a coalition within your own party when they are not interested in the actual consequences of there actions because they refuse to accept the reality of what said actions will cause and you can not realistically form a government with the democrats (well you could try but it has never been attempted in the history of the US) so basically his job was that since he knew there was a democratic president he could afford to appease them by letting them vote on pointless things that had no effect and going to the brink to make them feel like he was fighting for them but in the end he knew and in the past couple years the other side knew he would cave because its the right thing to do.
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kwark where you when i was talking about catholic-buts a few pages ago? and why isnt everyone copy-pasta links about no true scotsman at you because thats what happens on internet forums
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On September 26 2015 03:35 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:31 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns. I'm pretty sure its impossible to have a strategy with the "non-big government" Republicans, since all they want to do is defund things and bitch about the ACA. And try to defund the ACA every chance they get, even though it would never happen. And they kept threatening to remove him if he worked with the Democrats. The tea party strategy is, and was, perfectly viable had leadership understood it and executed it.
Expect for the those pesky Democrats and little President and his veto power. And those Republicans who's constituents are not tea party members and don't want that. And the Senate. But sure, beyond those things it could have worked.
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On September 26 2015 03:40 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:35 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 03:31 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns. I'm pretty sure its impossible to have a strategy with the "non-big government" Republicans, since all they want to do is defund things and bitch about the ACA. And try to defund the ACA every chance they get, even though it would never happen. And they kept threatening to remove him if he worked with the Democrats. The tea party strategy is, and was, perfectly viable had leadership understood it and executed it. Expect for the those pesky Democrats and little President and his veto power. And those Republicans who's constituents are not tea party members and don't want that. And the Senate. But sure, beyond those things it could have worked.
I don't think you actually understand the strategy, or its outcomes. First, the strategy is essentially the same as the Democratic strategy. It does not mean you do not end up compromising in the end (in fact you do) it means you do not bargain against yourself to start off. If Boehner had pretended to be a hardliner and McConnell publicly supported Ted Cruz's tactics the government would likely have shut down less, passed more legislation, and passed actual budgets instead of the disgraceful continuing resolutions we have been operating on since, essentially, 2006.
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On September 26 2015 03:45 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:40 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:35 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 03:31 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns. I'm pretty sure its impossible to have a strategy with the "non-big government" Republicans, since all they want to do is defund things and bitch about the ACA. And try to defund the ACA every chance they get, even though it would never happen. And they kept threatening to remove him if he worked with the Democrats. The tea party strategy is, and was, perfectly viable had leadership understood it and executed it. Expect for the those pesky Democrats and little President and his veto power. And those Republicans who's constituents are not tea party members and don't want that. And the Senate. But sure, beyond those things it could have worked. I don't think you actually understand the strategy, or its outcomes. First, the strategy is essentially the same as the Democratic strategy. It does not mean you do not end up compromising in the end (in fact you do) it means you do not bargain against yourself to start off. If Boehner had pretended to be a hardliner and McConnell publicly supported Ted Cruz's tactics the government would likely have shut down less, passed more legislation, and passed actual budgets instead of the disgraceful continuing resolutions we have been operating on since, essentially, 2006.
That would involve supporting Cruz, the Republican that most other Republicans hate. The problem with your plan is that you assume the other people in congress and the people that elected them want what the Tea party is selling. And rather than worth together, the Tea Party has taken the "if you're not with us, you're against us" route. They only want to work with Republicans who do exactly what they say.
And then there is the fact that they don't have a super majority or the ability to over ride vetoes. So all those plans to defund the ACA wouldn't have gone anyplace.
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I sometimes think I'd like to separate the ideological part of government from the pragmatic part. To maintain social order, its important that people feel listened to, so there needs to be a mechanism whereby all (most) groups can have members somewhere; even if those groups have nonsensical and false ideas, having them feel listened to is good for social order (I might be wrong ofc).
But I'm not sure what exactly the group of people elected to serve that purpose would do; in order to have power they must have authority over some money or something; but since many of them would be, by definition, ideologues not so good at tracking reality we don't want them setting policy
I'm sure this is not that clear; I'm mulling through design issues in my head and trying to write down some to work it out.
We also need a design that makes sure someone is in a position to do unpopular things that must be done.
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On September 26 2015 03:51 zlefin wrote:
I sometimes think I'd like to separate the ideological part of government from the pragmatic part. To maintain social order, its important that people feel listened to, so there needs to be a mechanism whereby all (most) groups can have members somewhere; even if those groups have nonsensical and false ideas, having them feel listened to is good for social order (I might be wrong ofc).
But I'm not sure what exactly the group of people elected to serve that purpose would do; in order to have power they must have authority over some money or something; but since many of them would be, by definition, ideologues not so good at tracking reality we don't want them setting policy
I'm sure this is not that clear; I'm mulling through design issues in my head and trying to write down some to work it out.
We also need a design that makes sure someone is in a position to do unpopular things that must be done.
You just described the US government when it is working well. There is no system you can design to deal with the fact that government is made of people. When it has good people, it works. When it has shitty people, it fails.
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On September 26 2015 03:50 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:45 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 03:40 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:35 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 03:31 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns. I'm pretty sure its impossible to have a strategy with the "non-big government" Republicans, since all they want to do is defund things and bitch about the ACA. And try to defund the ACA every chance they get, even though it would never happen. And they kept threatening to remove him if he worked with the Democrats. The tea party strategy is, and was, perfectly viable had leadership understood it and executed it. Expect for the those pesky Democrats and little President and his veto power. And those Republicans who's constituents are not tea party members and don't want that. And the Senate. But sure, beyond those things it could have worked. I don't think you actually understand the strategy, or its outcomes. First, the strategy is essentially the same as the Democratic strategy. It does not mean you do not end up compromising in the end (in fact you do) it means you do not bargain against yourself to start off. If Boehner had pretended to be a hardliner and McConnell publicly supported Ted Cruz's tactics the government would likely have shut down less, passed more legislation, and passed actual budgets instead of the disgraceful continuing resolutions we have been operating on since, essentially, 2006. That would involve supporting Cruz, the Republican that most other Republicans hate. The problem with your plan is that you assume the other people in congress and the people that elected them want what the Tea party is selling. And rather than worth together, the Tea Party has taken the "if you're not with us, you're against us" route. They only want to work with Republicans who do exactly what they say. And then there is the fact that they don't have a super majority or the ability to over ride vetoes. So all those plans to defund the ACA wouldn't have gone anyplace.
Here is another inside source on why Boehner had to leave: Redstate TLDR: Boehner was rude, cloistered, and whenever someone disagreed with him he kicked them out of prestigious positions.
Also, I agree that defunding the ACA is not going to be the end result of anything so long as Obama is in office, instead, I am simply saying that even if Boehner thinks as you do that people don't want what the Tea Party wants, he still must posture in that way in order to get what he thinks people want (a center-right outcome).
Edit: Also, the Planned Parenthood fiasco we currently are having is an obvious outgrowth of the Boehner "ignore them" strategy.
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On September 26 2015 03:54 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:51 zlefin wrote:
I sometimes think I'd like to separate the ideological part of government from the pragmatic part. To maintain social order, its important that people feel listened to, so there needs to be a mechanism whereby all (most) groups can have members somewhere; even if those groups have nonsensical and false ideas, having them feel listened to is good for social order (I might be wrong ofc).
But I'm not sure what exactly the group of people elected to serve that purpose would do; in order to have power they must have authority over some money or something; but since many of them would be, by definition, ideologues not so good at tracking reality we don't want them setting policy
I'm sure this is not that clear; I'm mulling through design issues in my head and trying to write down some to work it out.
We also need a design that makes sure someone is in a position to do unpopular things that must be done. You just described the US government when it is working well. There is no system you can design to deal with the fact that government is made of people. When it has good people, it works. When it has shitty people, it fails.
just because any system can ultimately fail with sufficiently bad people, does not mean you can't design mechanism that will make it work better overall, and fail less frequently; I'm trying to find such mechanisms.
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On September 26 2015 03:59 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:50 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:45 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 03:40 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:35 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 03:31 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns. I'm pretty sure its impossible to have a strategy with the "non-big government" Republicans, since all they want to do is defund things and bitch about the ACA. And try to defund the ACA every chance they get, even though it would never happen. And they kept threatening to remove him if he worked with the Democrats. The tea party strategy is, and was, perfectly viable had leadership understood it and executed it. Expect for the those pesky Democrats and little President and his veto power. And those Republicans who's constituents are not tea party members and don't want that. And the Senate. But sure, beyond those things it could have worked. I don't think you actually understand the strategy, or its outcomes. First, the strategy is essentially the same as the Democratic strategy. It does not mean you do not end up compromising in the end (in fact you do) it means you do not bargain against yourself to start off. If Boehner had pretended to be a hardliner and McConnell publicly supported Ted Cruz's tactics the government would likely have shut down less, passed more legislation, and passed actual budgets instead of the disgraceful continuing resolutions we have been operating on since, essentially, 2006. That would involve supporting Cruz, the Republican that most other Republicans hate. The problem with your plan is that you assume the other people in congress and the people that elected them want what the Tea party is selling. And rather than worth together, the Tea Party has taken the "if you're not with us, you're against us" route. They only want to work with Republicans who do exactly what they say. And then there is the fact that they don't have a super majority or the ability to over ride vetoes. So all those plans to defund the ACA wouldn't have gone anyplace. Here is another inside source on why Boehner had to leave: Redstate TLDR: Boehner was rude, cloistered, and whenever someone disagreed with him he kicked them out of prestigious positions. Also, I agree that defunding the ACA is not going to be the end result of anything so long as Obama is in office, instead, I am simply saying that even if Boehner thinks as you do that people don't want what the Tea Party wants, he still must posture in that way in order to get what he thinks people want (a center-right outcome).
I'm not saying he was good at his job, because I don't think he was great. I'm just pointing out that a very real number of Republicans want nothing to to with what the Tea Party is selling, which is why they hate Cruz for trying to slam it down their throat. Case and point, they are willing to shut down the government over PP because of an edited, borderline fabricated, debunked video that was obtained by people committing fraud and forging documents. And the majority of Americans agree with the PP, but they still are willing to shut down the government.
On September 26 2015 04:04 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:54 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:51 zlefin wrote:
I sometimes think I'd like to separate the ideological part of government from the pragmatic part. To maintain social order, its important that people feel listened to, so there needs to be a mechanism whereby all (most) groups can have members somewhere; even if those groups have nonsensical and false ideas, having them feel listened to is good for social order (I might be wrong ofc).
But I'm not sure what exactly the group of people elected to serve that purpose would do; in order to have power they must have authority over some money or something; but since many of them would be, by definition, ideologues not so good at tracking reality we don't want them setting policy
I'm sure this is not that clear; I'm mulling through design issues in my head and trying to write down some to work it out.
We also need a design that makes sure someone is in a position to do unpopular things that must be done. You just described the US government when it is working well. There is no system you can design to deal with the fact that government is made of people. When it has good people, it works. When it has shitty people, it fails. just because any system can ultimately fail with sufficiently bad people, does not mean you can't design mechanism that will make it work better overall, and fail less frequently; I'm trying to find such mechanisms.
And people, who are free thinking and capable, will find a way to work around it. The key is to have good people and create systems to remove bad ones.
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They don't automatically get to find a way to work around it; there are limits, there are trends and percentages. Basically, I just want to think about the problem, you seem to be needlessly naysaying.
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On September 26 2015 04:08 zlefin wrote:
They don't automatically get to find a way to work around it; there are limits, there are trends and percentages. Basically, I just want to think about the problem, you seem to be needlessly naysaying.
I am naysaying your abstraction and assumption that the current system is inherently flawed and must be replaced. I work in the legal system and how well it works comes down to people. There are sections of our state where you can't collect credit card debt because the local sheriff refuses to "do the bidding of banks". The legal community can't remove him because he is appointed and the local government likes him. That doesn't make the entire court system flawed, just that one guy causes problems.
The same goes for all government. There is not magic wand where you create the perfect system that prevents abuse. Because people can just ignore the parts that create that abuse(see the Bush administration). Government only works when the people in government respect and do their jobs, and understand the limits of what they are empowered to do. Because government is a social construct, nothing more. It only works because we place faith in it.
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your are denying the possibliity of making a slightly better system with a slightly lower chance of failure.
You are strawmanning. I never talked about making a perfect system, only an improved one.
Also, of course there are inherent flaws, one can argue how serious they are, and how fixable they are, but one can't argue that there are no inherent flaws.
I am quite well aware of the point you seek to make, you have made it, and I would like to move on now with my thinking and discussion of it.
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On September 26 2015 03:59 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 26 2015 03:50 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:45 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 03:40 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:35 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 03:31 Plansix wrote:On September 26 2015 03:25 cLutZ wrote:On September 26 2015 02:58 Adreme wrote:On September 26 2015 02:35 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 26 2015 02:15 Adreme wrote:
I kind of regret that Boehner is resigning and think a lot of people are being far to harsh on his job as speaker. I disagreed with him on most things but he was still one of the only people actually trying to actually get things done despite a majority of his caucus just wanted to basically do things that would tank the american economy and did not really care that it would do that. I am hoping someone else can step up and try to keep the crazy parts of that caucus in line. I don't feel sorry for him. He should have seen this coming when the GOP decided to ride the Tea Party wave as hard as it could in 2008. He probably felt they were a lot like the wave of 1994 where they were loud and obnoxious and not above sometimes shooting themselves in the foot but in the end didnt neglect basic government responsibilities for there own political ends. However his wave was nothing like that and was largely lead by a bunch of know nothings who basically ignored anyone who didnt tell them exactly what they wanted to hear and could not accept that driving us over these cliffs would have irreparable consequences because they didnt want to believe it so they listend to the echo chamber that told them that it would not. Denial of facts or to be more specific only listening to people who tell you what you want to hear and only believing them while never listening to people who challenge your worldview is a pretty big problem with the typical voter but is a massive problem if you are a member of congress and being properly informed is 100% of your job. In short there is no way Boehner could have understood the level of insanity that the Tea Party would bring. He probably thought it was mostly bluster since he lived thru something similar before. I think you all are giving Boehner way too much credit. He never had a coherent strategy, nor did he ever seem to understand the actual situation in the House of Representatives. First, he appears to have desired to have his reign as Speaker be an "establishment" style. So he wanted to fill bills with pork, and grow the budget at a moderate rate, slower than perhaps Democrats would like, and hold the line on tax cuts. This was doomed to failure because this plan has less than 100 votes in the House. He might have assumed he would get votes for these plans from centrist Democrats, but he should have recognized that almost none exist in the House. Had he recognized this (Im not sure he has yet) he would realize that he either needed to pursue a fiscally conservative path and create a coalition in his own party, or a liberal path and take his 100 Big Government Republicans and form a coalition with the Democrats. Instead what he did was take the route of attempting to build a coalition within the Republicans without ever having a strategy to implement the goals of that coalition. He reminds me a lot of the French/British generals early in WWI who did not understand the power of artillery and machine guns. I'm pretty sure its impossible to have a strategy with the "non-big government" Republicans, since all they want to do is defund things and bitch about the ACA. And try to defund the ACA every chance they get, even though it would never happen. And they kept threatening to remove him if he worked with the Democrats. The tea party strategy is, and was, perfectly viable had leadership understood it and executed it. Expect for the those pesky Democrats and little President and his veto power. And those Republicans who's constituents are not tea party members and don't want that. And the Senate. But sure, beyond those things it could have worked. I don't think you actually understand the strategy, or its outcomes. First, the strategy is essentially the same as the Democratic strategy. It does not mean you do not end up compromising in the end (in fact you do) it means you do not bargain against yourself to start off. If Boehner had pretended to be a hardliner and McConnell publicly supported Ted Cruz's tactics the government would likely have shut down less, passed more legislation, and passed actual budgets instead of the disgraceful continuing resolutions we have been operating on since, essentially, 2006. That would involve supporting Cruz, the Republican that most other Republicans hate. The problem with your plan is that you assume the other people in congress and the people that elected them want what the Tea party is selling. And rather than worth together, the Tea Party has taken the "if you're not with us, you're against us" route. They only want to work with Republicans who do exactly what they say. And then there is the fact that they don't have a super majority or the ability to over ride vetoes. So all those plans to defund the ACA wouldn't have gone anyplace. Here is another inside source on why Boehner had to leave: Redstate TLDR: Boehner was rude, cloistered, and whenever someone disagreed with him he kicked them out of prestigious positions. Also, I agree that defunding the ACA is not going to be the end result of anything so long as Obama is in office, instead, I am simply saying that even if Boehner thinks as you do that people don't want what the Tea Party wants, he still must posture in that way in order to get what he thinks people want (a center-right outcome). Edit: Also, the Planned Parenthood fiasco we currently are having is an obvious outgrowth of the Boehner "ignore them" strategy.
He has no other play but to ignore them. He cant exactly banish them from congress which sort of leaves either ignore them and try your best to manage the messes they create or you can try and work with them and join there side. However when you know the consequences of what they are trying to do or you know that there plan wont work then you are basically forced to well go back to the first option of ignoring them and trying to manage there messes.
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I'm glad Boehner is finally gone. This is the man who was caught handing out bribes from tobacco companies to his fellow congressmen on the floor of the house. He never even apologized for being a tobacco lobby shill. Instead, he only apologized for doing it on the floor.
He has been bought by so many different lobbies that I don't think he still owns a shred of himself. Guys like him are the reason why the Tea Party gained power in the first place. People were sick of all the corruption in government and wanted a smaller government instead. Then all the dissatisfied and unrepresented ideologues jumped onboard and we have the party of crazy killing our government from the inside.
If guys like Boehner would have been run out of office when his corruption was discovered, the Tea Party might not have ever existed. Instead, he became the Speaker of the House. What a joke.
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Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on Friday unveiled a proposal that would give a tax break to employers offering their workers paid family leave.
The Florida senator announced his plan at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, an annual meeting of social conservatives. Under Rubio’s proposal, businesses that provide at least four weeks of paid family leave would be given a 25% tax credit.
“This won’t solve every scheduling conflict between work and family life. No policy can,” Rubio said.
“But it will help ensure that our people don’t have to sit behind a desk while the most profound moments of their lives pass them by. And it will help our businesses expand and create new jobs by allowing them to keep more of their money rather than send it to Washington.”
Rubio’s plan – the first such proposal released by a Republican candidate – is based on legislation in the Senate known as the Strong Families Act and co-sponsored by Senator Deb Fischer, a Republican from Nebraska, and Angus King, an independent senator from Maine.
The tax break under Rubio’s proposal would be capped at 12 weeks and $4,000 per employee, according to a fact sheet released by his campaign. The tax break would also be adaptable to part-time work and other employee arrangements, the release said.
Source
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United States43677 Posts
That sounds like a good policy.
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I like the policy but how exactly does he plan to pay for it.
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EPT
