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On August 15 2012 05:04 Mohdoo wrote:
Both candidates reluctance to give a totally clear budget makes me think there's actually no answer to the problem. I think that any solution will have really obvious draw backs, meaning that the first one to give the most info will receive the most backlash. There are obviously a lot of people on both sides trying to find good solutions, but I think everyone is stumped.
Yes. Voters want an easy fix (and many people believe we can balance the budget by cutting things that are actually a tiny % of the budget), but real austerity will be a painful transition.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
There will always be reluctance to give details in a budget during election time. Once details are given, you will know exactly who is going to get screwed/lose jobs, and in turn lose votes/financial and moral support. I really hate politics.
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On August 15 2012 05:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 04:47 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:22 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:08 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:55 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 03:21 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:06 aksfjh wrote:On August 15 2012 02:48 xDaunt wrote:I wasn't aware that anyone was going to take seriously a budget that had already been rejected by the senate 97-0. Who says there's no bipartisanship in Washington? EDIT: Sorry, it was Obama's 2012 budget that was shot down 97-0 in the Senate. Obama's 2013 budget was rejected 99-0 in the Senate and 414-0 in the House. While the Sessions and Mulvaney bills put forward the same topline numbers as those in the president’s budget, neither offered any specifics. The Sessions legislation was 56 pages long; actual budgets are closer to 2,000 pages long. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/house-and-senate-unanimously-reject-obama-budgets-or-do-they/Talk about not sharing the entire story xDaunt. I don't know why, but I expected more from you... Have you actually looked at Obama's budget proposal? It's a couple hundred pages, most of which is just filler and not something that would appear in legislation. Sessions and Mulvaney merely distilled the actual hard numbers from it and offered it as the bill. Don't blame them for Obama's trash. EDIT: Because I know reading comprehension is often low in this thread, let me make the bottom line explicitly clear: the reason why the republican bills have no "details" as Tapper writes in the blog is because Obama's budget has no details. Again, not true. The very difference between the Obama budget and the two republican bills is precisely that those two bills removed the details of the Obama budget (for example, whose tax breaks are ended, which programs are cut, etc.). It's close enough. The bottom line numbers are all in there. Again, no democrat bothered to fill out the details or even offer an alternative. If anyone liked the budget, they would have taken it up and turned it into the 2000-page behemoth that we're all used to seeing. No, it's precisely not "close enough" since the details that make it a Democratic/Obama budget instead of a Republican budget are not in it. If the democrats actually bothered to offer a real budget, I'd agree with you. Whether or not the Democrats offered "a real budget" is completely irrelevant in the context of this argument, which is about whether or not the republicans bills were Obama's budget. You argued that they were, it was shown that they weren't, and now instead of acknowledging that you were wrong you're trying to sidetrack the discussion. I think it's pretty clear that I've admitted that the budget that the republicans offered does not have all of the details that Obama's proposal have. Do you want me to get on my knees and offer you roses as well? Again, the budget offered by the republicans is close enough -- and I stand by that. I still believe that the 414-0 and 99-0 votes are significant because no democrat offered a fully-fleshed out version of Obama's budget. Circling back to the original point where all this came up, this means that no one should take Obama's budget seriously -- because no legislator is. I also stand by that point.
It doesn't have any of the details of Obama's budget.
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On August 15 2012 05:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 04:47 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:22 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:08 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:55 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 03:21 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:06 aksfjh wrote:On August 15 2012 02:48 xDaunt wrote:I wasn't aware that anyone was going to take seriously a budget that had already been rejected by the senate 97-0. Who says there's no bipartisanship in Washington? EDIT: Sorry, it was Obama's 2012 budget that was shot down 97-0 in the Senate. Obama's 2013 budget was rejected 99-0 in the Senate and 414-0 in the House. While the Sessions and Mulvaney bills put forward the same topline numbers as those in the president’s budget, neither offered any specifics. The Sessions legislation was 56 pages long; actual budgets are closer to 2,000 pages long. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/house-and-senate-unanimously-reject-obama-budgets-or-do-they/Talk about not sharing the entire story xDaunt. I don't know why, but I expected more from you... Have you actually looked at Obama's budget proposal? It's a couple hundred pages, most of which is just filler and not something that would appear in legislation. Sessions and Mulvaney merely distilled the actual hard numbers from it and offered it as the bill. Don't blame them for Obama's trash. EDIT: Because I know reading comprehension is often low in this thread, let me make the bottom line explicitly clear: the reason why the republican bills have no "details" as Tapper writes in the blog is because Obama's budget has no details. Again, not true. The very difference between the Obama budget and the two republican bills is precisely that those two bills removed the details of the Obama budget (for example, whose tax breaks are ended, which programs are cut, etc.). It's close enough. The bottom line numbers are all in there. Again, no democrat bothered to fill out the details or even offer an alternative. If anyone liked the budget, they would have taken it up and turned it into the 2000-page behemoth that we're all used to seeing. No, it's precisely not "close enough" since the details that make it a Democratic/Obama budget instead of a Republican budget are not in it. If the democrats actually bothered to offer a real budget, I'd agree with you. Whether or not the Democrats offered "a real budget" is completely irrelevant in the context of this argument, which is about whether or not the republicans bills were Obama's budget. You argued that they were, it was shown that they weren't, and now instead of acknowledging that you were wrong you're trying to sidetrack the discussion. I think it's pretty clear that I've admitted that the budget that the republicans offered does not have all of the details that Obama's proposal have. Do you want me to get on my knees and offer you roses as well? Again, the budget offered by the republicans is close enough -- and I stand by that. I still believe that the 414-0 and 99-0 votes are significant because no democrat offered a fully-fleshed out version of Obama's budget. Circling back to the original point where all this came up, this means that no one should take Obama's budget seriously -- because no legislator is. I also stand by that point.
No, it is not "close enough". Again, many of the details that are essential to making it a Democratic/Obama budget were removed by the republicans who made the bills. It's not a question of "a few details missing", it's a question of so many details missing that the budget proposal could be turned around to do exactly the opposite of the Obama budget. For example, an essential component of Obama's budget was the ending of tax breaks for millionaires. Since the republican bill does not mention this, the revenue objective could instead be achieved by raising taxes on the middle class, something Obama clearly said he opposed. Likewise, regarding the programs that could be cut to achieve savings, the wasteful programs Obama spoke about are not in the republican bill, meaning programs that are considered important to the Democrats and Obama could be targeted. The list goes on - the republican bills are certainly not "close enough" copies of Obama's budget.
And once again, what the Democrats have or haven't offered IS IRRELEVANT to the question of whether or not the republican bills were close to Obama's budget.
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On August 15 2012 05:00 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 04:47 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:22 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:08 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:55 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 03:21 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:06 aksfjh wrote:On August 15 2012 02:48 xDaunt wrote:I wasn't aware that anyone was going to take seriously a budget that had already been rejected by the senate 97-0. Who says there's no bipartisanship in Washington? EDIT: Sorry, it was Obama's 2012 budget that was shot down 97-0 in the Senate. Obama's 2013 budget was rejected 99-0 in the Senate and 414-0 in the House. While the Sessions and Mulvaney bills put forward the same topline numbers as those in the president’s budget, neither offered any specifics. The Sessions legislation was 56 pages long; actual budgets are closer to 2,000 pages long. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/house-and-senate-unanimously-reject-obama-budgets-or-do-they/Talk about not sharing the entire story xDaunt. I don't know why, but I expected more from you... Have you actually looked at Obama's budget proposal? It's a couple hundred pages, most of which is just filler and not something that would appear in legislation. Sessions and Mulvaney merely distilled the actual hard numbers from it and offered it as the bill. Don't blame them for Obama's trash. EDIT: Because I know reading comprehension is often low in this thread, let me make the bottom line explicitly clear: the reason why the republican bills have no "details" as Tapper writes in the blog is because Obama's budget has no details. Again, not true. The very difference between the Obama budget and the two republican bills is precisely that those two bills removed the details of the Obama budget (for example, whose tax breaks are ended, which programs are cut, etc.). It's close enough. The bottom line numbers are all in there. Again, no democrat bothered to fill out the details or even offer an alternative. If anyone liked the budget, they would have taken it up and turned it into the 2000-page behemoth that we're all used to seeing. No, it's precisely not "close enough" since the details that make it a Democratic/Obama budget instead of a Republican budget are not in it. If the democrats actually bothered to offer a real budget, I'd agree with you. Whether or not the Democrats offered "a real budget" is completely irrelevant in the context of this argument, which is about whether or not the republicans bills were Obama's budget. You argued that they were, it was shown that they weren't, and now instead of acknowledging that you were wrong you're trying to sidetrack the discussion. I think it's pretty clear that I've admitted that the budget that the republicans offered does not have all of the details that Obama's proposal have. Do you want me to get on my knees and offer you roses as well? Again, the budget offered by the republicans is close enough -- and I stand by that. I still believe that the 414-0 and 99-0 votes are significant because no democrat offered a fully-fleshed out version of Obama's budget. Circling back to the original point where all this came up, this means that no one should take Obama's budget seriously -- because no legislator is. I also stand by that point.
Well in the spirit of "circling" back --
The ORIGINAL REASON why Democrats and the Obama Administration are so annoyed and incredulous is that Republicans have had the audacity to repeatedly criticize Obama for raising the debt, while Bush raised the debt and deficit astronomically over the course of 8 years - and now they're making their own non-sensical budget proposals that do nothing to address the debt and catapult it into the stratosphere.
You're right, neither party has address the debt. But for Republicans to have the nerve to pretend they're 'addressing' any problem by cock-blocking routine business for the past three years and repeatingly angling to lowering taxes and standards for the extremely wealthy is beyond hypocritical. It's downright despicable, anti-democratic and hence anti-fucking-american.
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On August 15 2012 05:04 Mohdoo wrote:
Both candidates reluctance to give a totally clear budget makes me think there's actually no answer to the problem. I think that any solution will have really obvious draw backs, meaning that the first one to give the most info will receive the most backlash. There are obviously a lot of people on both sides trying to find good solutions, but I think everyone is stumped.
Check out my post above:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330491¤tpage=285#5693
It has Obama's 2013 budget proposal. It lays out pretty well what he intends to do, naming quite a few specifics. It may not explicitly say, "Raise rates on those making more than $250,000 to 38.6% to generate $343,839,329,487 over the next 10 years," but it gives reasonable guidelines (that aren't as impossible as Romney's supposed plan).
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On August 15 2012 05:38 Defacer wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:47 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:22 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:08 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:55 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 03:21 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:06 aksfjh wrote:On August 15 2012 02:48 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I wasn't aware that anyone was going to take seriously a budget that had already been rejected by the senate 97-0. Who says there's no bipartisanship in Washington?
EDIT: Sorry, it was Obama's 2012 budget that was shot down 97-0 in the Senate. Obama's 2013 budget was rejected 99-0 in the Senate and 414-0 in the House. While the Sessions and Mulvaney bills put forward the same topline numbers as those in the president’s budget, neither offered any specifics. The Sessions legislation was 56 pages long; actual budgets are closer to 2,000 pages long. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/house-and-senate-unanimously-reject-obama-budgets-or-do-they/Talk about not sharing the entire story xDaunt. I don't know why, but I expected more from you... Have you actually looked at Obama's budget proposal? It's a couple hundred pages, most of which is just filler and not something that would appear in legislation. Sessions and Mulvaney merely distilled the actual hard numbers from it and offered it as the bill. Don't blame them for Obama's trash. EDIT: Because I know reading comprehension is often low in this thread, let me make the bottom line explicitly clear: the reason why the republican bills have no "details" as Tapper writes in the blog is because Obama's budget has no details. Again, not true. The very difference between the Obama budget and the two republican bills is precisely that those two bills removed the details of the Obama budget (for example, whose tax breaks are ended, which programs are cut, etc.). It's close enough. The bottom line numbers are all in there. Again, no democrat bothered to fill out the details or even offer an alternative. If anyone liked the budget, they would have taken it up and turned it into the 2000-page behemoth that we're all used to seeing. No, it's precisely not "close enough" since the details that make it a Democratic/Obama budget instead of a Republican budget are not in it. If the democrats actually bothered to offer a real budget, I'd agree with you. Whether or not the Democrats offered "a real budget" is completely irrelevant in the context of this argument, which is about whether or not the republicans bills were Obama's budget. You argued that they were, it was shown that they weren't, and now instead of acknowledging that you were wrong you're trying to sidetrack the discussion. I think it's pretty clear that I've admitted that the budget that the republicans offered does not have all of the details that Obama's proposal have. Do you want me to get on my knees and offer you roses as well? Again, the budget offered by the republicans is close enough -- and I stand by that. I still believe that the 414-0 and 99-0 votes are significant because no democrat offered a fully-fleshed out version of Obama's budget. Circling back to the original point where all this came up, this means that no one should take Obama's budget seriously -- because no legislator is. I also stand by that point. Well in the spirit of "circling" back -- The ORIGINAL REASON why Democrats and the Obama Administration are so annoyed and incredulous is that Republicans have had the audacity to repeatedly criticize Obama for raising the debt, while Bush raised the debt and deficit astronomically over the course of 8 years - and now they're making their own non-sensical budget proposals that do nothing to address the debt and catapult it into the stratosphere. You're right, neither party has address the debt. But for Republicans to have the nerve to pretend they're 'addressing' any problem by cock-blocking routine business for the past three years and repeatingly angling to lowering taxes and standards for the extremely wealthy is beyond hypocritical. It's downright despicable, anti-democratic and hence anti-fucking-american.
Republicans have offered legislation that seriously addresses the debt (see Paul Ryan) and Democrats demonized them for it without offering any alternatives.
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What would we do without Biden?
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How is that playing the race card? He didn't make a single mention of race. Is being in chains a black thing? It wasn't even a black crowd. Its not a black term and its not a black crowd. How could that possibly be playing the race card?
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It's Virginia. It's implied with the territory, although I could see it being stretched as an "innocent" comment.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Around half of the crowd were African-American, and it's obvious he was inferring to slavery with the 'chains' comment.
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On August 15 2012 05:58 Mohdoo wrote:
How is that playing the race card? He didn't make a single mention of race. Is being in chains a black thing? It wasn't even a black crowd. Its not a black term and its not a black crowd. How could that possibly be playing the race card?
Which group of people were in chains to start with... so they could be put "back" into them? It wasn't white folk.
Do you live anywhere near Danville?
** and CBS news headline calls it an African-American audience.
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On August 15 2012 05:43 xDaunt wrote:
Republicans have offered legislation that seriously addresses the debt (see Paul Ryan) and Democrats demonized them for it without offering any alternatives.
But do we need to really be that serious about addressing the debt? Is worth all the sacrifices that the Ryan budget makes to get there? This isn't a question aimed at you. What do others think?
The Dems did have a budget proposal of their own, but they don't "seriously address" the debt as much as the Ryan Plan does. That's not good or bad, it just shows different priorities, methods, and schools of thought.
Democratic Budget Plan (article posted 3/26/12)
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Danville is not predominantly black by any stretch, although as usual, the vast majority of the still sizable black population are no doubt Democrats. As it was the last capital of the Confederacy, there are certainly historical implications. I guarantee that in Biden's mind, he was suggesting an equation of the Confederacy and Romney/Ryan's Pro-Business agenda. Personally, I like a bit of vitriolic rhetoric from a Democrat, better than Reid-esque passive aggression.
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On August 15 2012 06:04 RCMDVA wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 05:58 Mohdoo wrote:
How is that playing the race card? He didn't make a single mention of race. Is being in chains a black thing? It wasn't even a black crowd. Its not a black term and its not a black crowd. How could that possibly be playing the race card? Which group of people were in chains to start with... so they could be put "back" into them? It wasn't white folk. Do you live anywhere near Danville? ** and CBS news headline calls it an African-American audience.
He was clearly referring to the American public being in chains under the big banks controlling everything and getting away with robbery. You think he went from talking about banks to talking about slavery? Good lord. Biden has had his share of gaffes, but that would be so utterly stupid that I don't think any politician is capable of it. I think you're trying too hard to spin this.
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On August 15 2012 05:32 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:47 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:22 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:08 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:55 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 03:21 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:06 aksfjh wrote:On August 15 2012 02:48 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I wasn't aware that anyone was going to take seriously a budget that had already been rejected by the senate 97-0. Who says there's no bipartisanship in Washington?
EDIT: Sorry, it was Obama's 2012 budget that was shot down 97-0 in the Senate. Obama's 2013 budget was rejected 99-0 in the Senate and 414-0 in the House. While the Sessions and Mulvaney bills put forward the same topline numbers as those in the president’s budget, neither offered any specifics. The Sessions legislation was 56 pages long; actual budgets are closer to 2,000 pages long. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/house-and-senate-unanimously-reject-obama-budgets-or-do-they/Talk about not sharing the entire story xDaunt. I don't know why, but I expected more from you... Have you actually looked at Obama's budget proposal? It's a couple hundred pages, most of which is just filler and not something that would appear in legislation. Sessions and Mulvaney merely distilled the actual hard numbers from it and offered it as the bill. Don't blame them for Obama's trash. EDIT: Because I know reading comprehension is often low in this thread, let me make the bottom line explicitly clear: the reason why the republican bills have no "details" as Tapper writes in the blog is because Obama's budget has no details. Again, not true. The very difference between the Obama budget and the two republican bills is precisely that those two bills removed the details of the Obama budget (for example, whose tax breaks are ended, which programs are cut, etc.). It's close enough. The bottom line numbers are all in there. Again, no democrat bothered to fill out the details or even offer an alternative. If anyone liked the budget, they would have taken it up and turned it into the 2000-page behemoth that we're all used to seeing. No, it's precisely not "close enough" since the details that make it a Democratic/Obama budget instead of a Republican budget are not in it. If the democrats actually bothered to offer a real budget, I'd agree with you. Whether or not the Democrats offered "a real budget" is completely irrelevant in the context of this argument, which is about whether or not the republicans bills were Obama's budget. You argued that they were, it was shown that they weren't, and now instead of acknowledging that you were wrong you're trying to sidetrack the discussion. I think it's pretty clear that I've admitted that the budget that the republicans offered does not have all of the details that Obama's proposal have. Do you want me to get on my knees and offer you roses as well? Again, the budget offered by the republicans is close enough -- and I stand by that. I still believe that the 414-0 and 99-0 votes are significant because no democrat offered a fully-fleshed out version of Obama's budget. Circling back to the original point where all this came up, this means that no one should take Obama's budget seriously -- because no legislator is. I also stand by that point. No, it is not "close enough". Again, many of the details that are essential to making it a Democratic/Obama budget were removed by the republicans who made the bills. It's not a question of "a few details missing", it's a question of so many details missing that the budget proposal could be turned around to do exactly the opposite of the Obama budget. For example, an essential component of Obama's budget was the ending of tax breaks for millionaires. Since the republican bill does not mention this, the revenue objective could instead be achieved by raising taxes on the middle class, something Obama clearly said he opposed. Likewise, regarding the programs that could be cut to achieve savings, the wasteful programs Obama spoke about are not in the republican bill, meaning programs that are considered important to the Democrats and Obama could be targeted. The list goes on - the republican bills are certainly not "close enough" copies of Obama's budget. And once again, what the Democrats have or haven't offered IS IRRELEVANT to the question of whether or not the republican bills were close to Obama's budget.
Gotta jump in on this. The Republican presentation of Obama's budget onto the floor wasn't a serious bill and it got no support from Democrats for that reason. But at the same time, there is a message there that this isn't entirely the fault of Republicans, that Obama's budget efforts haven't been serious either but rather equal attempts to paint the GOP as purely obstructionist. Democrats won't move from certain places and just spike the ball when negotiations get stiff.
Look, if they don't agree with a principle, they're not going to vote for it. That's the whole essence of having a vote. But that's also why we have political compromises, something Obama has not been willing to do since facing a Republican House. You can argue that Republicans just gobble up concessions and ask for more, but the other side of the story is that Obama simply won't budge and he's only throwing out token concessions.
I think it's worth pointing out that Congress wasn't that much more productive in the first half of his administration when there were Democratic majorities. As for slow appointments (a common complaint), Obama has a pass rate about the same as Bush and Clinton but he's nominated fewer judges and officials. For whatever reason, he's been a lot slower and more selective about his nominations.
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On August 15 2012 06:10 farvacola wrote:
Danville is not predominantly black by any stretch, although as usual, the vast majority of the still sizable black population are no doubt Democrats. As it was the last capital of the Confederacy, there are certainly historical implications. I guarantee that in Biden's mind, he was suggesting an equation of the Confederacy and Romney/Ryan's Pro-Business agenda. Personally, I like a bit of vitriolic rhetoric from a Democrat, better than Reid-esque passive aggression.
Personally, I prefer neither. Crap like that is why politics is a shitfest right now and our country is so divided.
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On August 15 2012 06:27 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 05:32 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:47 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:22 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:08 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:55 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 03:21 xDaunt wrote:Have you actually looked at Obama's budget proposal? It's a couple hundred pages, most of which is just filler and not something that would appear in legislation. Sessions and Mulvaney merely distilled the actual hard numbers from it and offered it as the bill. Don't blame them for Obama's trash. EDIT: Because I know reading comprehension is often low in this thread, let me make the bottom line explicitly clear: the reason why the republican bills have no "details" as Tapper writes in the blog is because Obama's budget has no details. Again, not true. The very difference between the Obama budget and the two republican bills is precisely that those two bills removed the details of the Obama budget (for example, whose tax breaks are ended, which programs are cut, etc.). It's close enough. The bottom line numbers are all in there. Again, no democrat bothered to fill out the details or even offer an alternative. If anyone liked the budget, they would have taken it up and turned it into the 2000-page behemoth that we're all used to seeing. No, it's precisely not "close enough" since the details that make it a Democratic/Obama budget instead of a Republican budget are not in it. If the democrats actually bothered to offer a real budget, I'd agree with you. Whether or not the Democrats offered "a real budget" is completely irrelevant in the context of this argument, which is about whether or not the republicans bills were Obama's budget. You argued that they were, it was shown that they weren't, and now instead of acknowledging that you were wrong you're trying to sidetrack the discussion. I think it's pretty clear that I've admitted that the budget that the republicans offered does not have all of the details that Obama's proposal have. Do you want me to get on my knees and offer you roses as well? Again, the budget offered by the republicans is close enough -- and I stand by that. I still believe that the 414-0 and 99-0 votes are significant because no democrat offered a fully-fleshed out version of Obama's budget. Circling back to the original point where all this came up, this means that no one should take Obama's budget seriously -- because no legislator is. I also stand by that point. No, it is not "close enough". Again, many of the details that are essential to making it a Democratic/Obama budget were removed by the republicans who made the bills. It's not a question of "a few details missing", it's a question of so many details missing that the budget proposal could be turned around to do exactly the opposite of the Obama budget. For example, an essential component of Obama's budget was the ending of tax breaks for millionaires. Since the republican bill does not mention this, the revenue objective could instead be achieved by raising taxes on the middle class, something Obama clearly said he opposed. Likewise, regarding the programs that could be cut to achieve savings, the wasteful programs Obama spoke about are not in the republican bill, meaning programs that are considered important to the Democrats and Obama could be targeted. The list goes on - the republican bills are certainly not "close enough" copies of Obama's budget. And once again, what the Democrats have or haven't offered IS IRRELEVANT to the question of whether or not the republican bills were close to Obama's budget. Gotta jump in on this. The Republican presentation of Obama's budget onto the floor wasn't a serious bill and it got no support from Democrats for that reason. But at the same time, there is a message there that this isn't entirely the fault of Republicans, that Obama's budget efforts haven't been serious either but rather equal attempts to paint the GOP as purely obstructionist. Democrats won't move from certain places and just spike the ball when negotiations get stiff. Look, if they don't agree with a principle, they're not going to vote for it. That's the whole essence of having a vote. But that's also why we have political compromises, something Obama has not been willing to do since facing a Republican House. You can argue that Republicans just gobble up concessions and ask for more, but the other side of the story is that Obama simply won't budge and he's only throwing out token concessions. I think it's worth pointing out that Congress wasn't that much more productive in the first half of his administration when there were Democratic majorities. As for slow appointments (a common complaint), Obama has a pass rate about the same as Bush and Clinton but he's nominated fewer judges and officials. For whatever reason, he's been a lot slower and more selective about his nominations.
I haven't really been following this too closely, but I gotta take exception to this. While I am Canadian, I was sort of listening to the debate about the healthcare bill in the U.S. I actually felt that Obama compromised too far. He removed the public option after a large outcry from the Republicans and various right-wing factions, and that's a HUGE compromise (I actually feel it gutted the bill). The removal of the public option was not just "token". It meaningfully changed the potential impact of the bill, and seemed like it was done largely as an attempt to generate compromise.
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On August 15 2012 06:27 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 05:32 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:47 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:34 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 04:22 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 04:08 xDaunt wrote:On August 15 2012 03:55 kwizach wrote:On August 15 2012 03:21 xDaunt wrote:Have you actually looked at Obama's budget proposal? It's a couple hundred pages, most of which is just filler and not something that would appear in legislation. Sessions and Mulvaney merely distilled the actual hard numbers from it and offered it as the bill. Don't blame them for Obama's trash. EDIT: Because I know reading comprehension is often low in this thread, let me make the bottom line explicitly clear: the reason why the republican bills have no "details" as Tapper writes in the blog is because Obama's budget has no details. Again, not true. The very difference between the Obama budget and the two republican bills is precisely that those two bills removed the details of the Obama budget (for example, whose tax breaks are ended, which programs are cut, etc.). It's close enough. The bottom line numbers are all in there. Again, no democrat bothered to fill out the details or even offer an alternative. If anyone liked the budget, they would have taken it up and turned it into the 2000-page behemoth that we're all used to seeing. No, it's precisely not "close enough" since the details that make it a Democratic/Obama budget instead of a Republican budget are not in it. If the democrats actually bothered to offer a real budget, I'd agree with you. Whether or not the Democrats offered "a real budget" is completely irrelevant in the context of this argument, which is about whether or not the republicans bills were Obama's budget. You argued that they were, it was shown that they weren't, and now instead of acknowledging that you were wrong you're trying to sidetrack the discussion. I think it's pretty clear that I've admitted that the budget that the republicans offered does not have all of the details that Obama's proposal have. Do you want me to get on my knees and offer you roses as well? Again, the budget offered by the republicans is close enough -- and I stand by that. I still believe that the 414-0 and 99-0 votes are significant because no democrat offered a fully-fleshed out version of Obama's budget. Circling back to the original point where all this came up, this means that no one should take Obama's budget seriously -- because no legislator is. I also stand by that point. No, it is not "close enough". Again, many of the details that are essential to making it a Democratic/Obama budget were removed by the republicans who made the bills. It's not a question of "a few details missing", it's a question of so many details missing that the budget proposal could be turned around to do exactly the opposite of the Obama budget. For example, an essential component of Obama's budget was the ending of tax breaks for millionaires. Since the republican bill does not mention this, the revenue objective could instead be achieved by raising taxes on the middle class, something Obama clearly said he opposed. Likewise, regarding the programs that could be cut to achieve savings, the wasteful programs Obama spoke about are not in the republican bill, meaning programs that are considered important to the Democrats and Obama could be targeted. The list goes on - the republican bills are certainly not "close enough" copies of Obama's budget. And once again, what the Democrats have or haven't offered IS IRRELEVANT to the question of whether or not the republican bills were close to Obama's budget. Gotta jump in on this. The Republican presentation of Obama's budget onto the floor wasn't a serious bill and it got no support from Democrats for that reason. But at the same time, there is a message there that this isn't entirely the fault of Republicans, that Obama's budget efforts haven't been serious either but rather equal attempts to paint the GOP as purely obstructionist. Democrats won't move from certain places and just spike the ball when negotiations get stiff. Look, if they don't agree with a principle, they're not going to vote for it. That's the whole essence of having a vote. But that's also why we have political compromises, something Obama has not been willing to do since facing a Republican House. You can argue that Republicans just gobble up concessions and ask for more, but the other side of the story is that Obama simply won't budge and he's only throwing out token concessions. I think it's worth pointing out that Congress wasn't that much more productive in the first half of his administration when there were Democratic majorities. As for slow appointments (a common complaint), Obama has a pass rate about the same as Bush and Clinton but he's nominated fewer judges and officials. For whatever reason, he's been a lot slower and more selective about his nominations.
Here is the Obama budget proposal. It needed to go through committee to make it a legal document, but it's rather fleshed out.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2013/assets/budget.pdf
As for the charge that Obama hasn't actually gone to the table with real compromise, you have to look at what the Republicans have done in response. We have plans coming from people like Ryan and Romney, that state the primary objective of lowering the deficit, but, in reality, slash taxes enourmously and the government even more. It's pretty obvious that slashing taxes isn't the best way to lower the deficit, which hints it's just a sideshow for them. So, when Obama comes out targeting the deficit in a budget or spending proposal it gets shot down despite showing a real effort to hit deficit goals. It's like the Democrats are trying to legislate with xDaunt here. They make gains, carry the ball 10 yds, then the Republicans come back and say, "lol, but we're playing hockey!"
As for the first 2 years of Congress, he had the majority in both houses, but Republican opposition was in such unison that it was impossible to get any of their support on legislation. I knew I saved this for a reason.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/things-wrong-with-hassett-hubbard-mankiw-and-taylor-the-romney-program-for-economic-recovery-growth-and-jobs.html
There were at least seven Democratic senators in 2009-2010—Baucus, Landrieu, Lincoln, Bayh, Nelson, Pryor, Spector, Webb—who were “professionally bipartisan” in that they would not vote for cloture in any but the most extraordinary circumstances without Republicans voting by their side. Unless the Democrats could peel off a Collins, a Snowe, or a Voinovich, they had not a filibuster-proof working majority of 60 but rather a filibuster-vulnerable working majority of 53.
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