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On January 15 2021 09:02 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 08:59 Zambrah wrote:
Biden's 2,000 dollar checks are down to 1,400 dollar checks now, apparently the last bill's 600 dollars is counted as part of the total 2,000 dollars. Lots of people are pretty pissed off, I actually found out a few days ago on the irs website, so I was prepared, but it feels very shitty to have someone say, "2000 dollar checks!" and then go, "1400 dollar checks!" and try and count it as a 2000 dollar check. By this logic why not give everyone 200 dollars. That math checks out, 1200 + 600 = 1800, 2000 - 1800 = 200 dollars, that would still count as a 2000 dollar check right!
I haven't been following closely since most of it doesn't directly affect me, but who was it who said the underlined? Did the misleading language actually come out of Biden and his direct representatives? I wouldn't be surprised if everything he and his team has done has been accurate (not misleading), but has been improperly paraphrased by reporters or others.
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1348430675238678528?s=20
From his twitter account, "we need 2,000 dollar stimulus checks."
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United States24741 Posts
Hm yeah I agree that was misleading and hurts both the plan and the administration. He should have said "we need to raise it to 2000" or similar.
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On January 15 2021 09:05 micronesia wrote:
Hm yeah I agree that was misleading and hurts both the plan and the administration. He should have said "we need to raise it to 2000" or similar.
Its the kind of thing thats REALLY going to be the downfall of Democrats in 2022. These kind of dumb PR blunders might pile up and make the Biden administration and Congress by association look disingenuous and callous. This is the kind of thing hes going to have to redeem by additional Covid action, and make the expectations about that very clear going forward.
I'm a little worried about that because Biden has signaled hes interested in bipartisanship in this Covid relief bill (which may be why we're seeing the 2000 dollars dropping to 1400 on a technicality here) that we're going to see a bunch of these sorts of half-assed Republican sabotaged efforts in lots of other arenas.
I was and am direly hoping that this "unity" talk going to apply to unifying the American populace and not unifying with Congressional Republicans who have time and time again proven to have nothing but contempt for Democrats and the idea of good faith bipartisanship.
Bipartisan will be the ship Biden goes down on imo.
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On January 15 2021 04:34 micronesia wrote:
The FAA has said it will never have an age limit for being cleared to fly recreationally because there is no age where people go from being capable to incapable. Some people just don't have the mental facilities to be a pilot. Other people do when they are young but by 50 they probably shouldn't be flying for safety reasons. Some people at 85 are as capable mentally as I am right now while I work on advanced ratings. Generally you only get worse as you get older, but if your ability started at a high level, and decayed very slowly, you could be quite old and still reasonably capable.
The same principle should apply to holding public office. However, if someone has last the mental ability to do the job, they shouldn't do it. Just don't set an arbitrary age deadline.
I don't like this logic for a couple reasons:
1) The lack of a deterministic point where people go from capable to incapable does not prevent you from setting an age limit. Even a probabilistic one allows you to set such a cutoff. If 10% of 60-year olds are cognitively incapable of performing the tasks the office requires, and 90% of 80-year olds are cognitively incapable of performing those tasks, it still makes sense to set an age cutoff in between. The fact that it's possible to have an incapable 60-year-old or a capable 80-year-old doesn't mean that it isn't sensible to set a cutoff once it becomes more likely than not that someone of that age is incapable.
2) Similarly, cognitive ability is not a binary trait. It steadily declines with age. Someone doesn't just jump over from being capable to incapable. In most cases they progressively decline over many years. Even mild cognitive impairment is something that I would consider to be immensely disqualifying for holding public office, outside of some pretty significant extenuating factors. Ideally the democratic process should take care of this (i.e. people just don't vote for people who seem less cognitively capable), but this obviously isn't happening.
3) It's a job. It's much more important to screen out incapable candidates than to screen in every capable candidate. There's much more to be lost by having a cognitively incapable candidate hold office than there is to be lost by having a capable candidate fail to make the ballot.
I think in general, people largely overestimate older politicians' cognitive ability based on public appearances. As someone who's worked with older patients in various stages of cognitive decline, it can be very easy to mask cognitive deficits if certain aspects of cognition are not actively being challenged, or through patterning/strong routines--things that can easily be rehearsed for a canned speech. Stressors like lack of sleep can also significantly affect someone with cognitive function that's already challenged, and candidates often won't be exposed to specific stressors until they're already in office.
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Maybe it would be worth doing that after a certain age threshold you're required to go through yearly or biyearly cognitive health screenings? Like, at say 65 or 70, you just go in for your tests every now and then and if you're found to be cognitively impaired enough to be unfit for your position you get retired. If you pass and keep passing into your hundreds or whatever then you keep your seat.
This sort of thing would have to be universal, mandatory, and frequent though, at least partially to prevent an 80 year old holding up their one pass for a decade 'til they're basically utterly out of it. The podcast Grumbels linked had some frankly horrifying cases of judges who were completely unfit for their positions. I mean there was a judge who let their clerks run the show and wear the god damned robes?! That person was being allowed to decide matters that directly impacted peoples lives, that is some scary, scary shit.
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Bisutopia19299 Posts
On January 15 2021 09:11 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 09:05 micronesia wrote:
Hm yeah I agree that was misleading and hurts both the plan and the administration. He should have said "we need to raise it to 2000" or similar. Its the kind of thing thats REALLY going to be the downfall of Democrats in 2022. These kind of dumb PR blunders might pile up and make the Biden administration and Congress by association look disingenuous and callous. This is the kind of thing hes going to have to redeem by additional Covid action, and make the expectations about that very clear going forward. I'm a little worried about that because Biden has signaled hes interested in bipartisanship in this Covid relief bill (which may be why we're seeing the 2000 dollars dropping to 1400 on a technicality here) that we're going to see a bunch of these sorts of half-assed Republican sabotaged efforts in lots of other arenas. I was and am direly hoping that this "unity" talk going to apply to unifying the American populace and not unifying with Congressional Republicans who have time and time again proven to have nothing but contempt for Democrats and the idea of good faith bipartisanship. Bipartisan will be the ship Biden goes down on imo.
If Biden performed a miracle and got Dems and Republicans to vote on bills together, I’d vote for that ship in the next election.
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On January 15 2021 09:30 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 09:11 Zambrah wrote:On January 15 2021 09:05 micronesia wrote:
Hm yeah I agree that was misleading and hurts both the plan and the administration. He should have said "we need to raise it to 2000" or similar. Its the kind of thing thats REALLY going to be the downfall of Democrats in 2022. These kind of dumb PR blunders might pile up and make the Biden administration and Congress by association look disingenuous and callous. This is the kind of thing hes going to have to redeem by additional Covid action, and make the expectations about that very clear going forward. I'm a little worried about that because Biden has signaled hes interested in bipartisanship in this Covid relief bill (which may be why we're seeing the 2000 dollars dropping to 1400 on a technicality here) that we're going to see a bunch of these sorts of half-assed Republican sabotaged efforts in lots of other arenas. I was and am direly hoping that this "unity" talk going to apply to unifying the American populace and not unifying with Congressional Republicans who have time and time again proven to have nothing but contempt for Democrats and the idea of good faith bipartisanship. Bipartisan will be the ship Biden goes down on imo. If Biden performed a miracle and got Dems and Republicans to vote on bills together, I’d vote for that ship in the next election.
No no no. You can't have bipartisan bills. Only one sided bills. That's the whole reason Dems were elected. To ram through unpopular but smart bills, regardless of the public outrage. Bipartisan 'rona relief bills? No sir. Must be all dems. All the time. (tm)
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On January 15 2021 09:30 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 09:11 Zambrah wrote:On January 15 2021 09:05 micronesia wrote:
Hm yeah I agree that was misleading and hurts both the plan and the administration. He should have said "we need to raise it to 2000" or similar. Its the kind of thing thats REALLY going to be the downfall of Democrats in 2022. These kind of dumb PR blunders might pile up and make the Biden administration and Congress by association look disingenuous and callous. This is the kind of thing hes going to have to redeem by additional Covid action, and make the expectations about that very clear going forward. I'm a little worried about that because Biden has signaled hes interested in bipartisanship in this Covid relief bill (which may be why we're seeing the 2000 dollars dropping to 1400 on a technicality here) that we're going to see a bunch of these sorts of half-assed Republican sabotaged efforts in lots of other arenas. I was and am direly hoping that this "unity" talk going to apply to unifying the American populace and not unifying with Congressional Republicans who have time and time again proven to have nothing but contempt for Democrats and the idea of good faith bipartisanship. Bipartisan will be the ship Biden goes down on imo. If Biden performed a miracle and got Dems and Republicans to vote on bills together, I’d vote for that ship in the next election.
Id like to dig into this, because while I understand the face value appeal of bipartisanship given the polarized nature of American politics and the way Republicans have basically ruled Congress with a hyperpartisan fist under The Grim Reaper himself, I ask what you hope bipartisanship is meant to achieve with the Republican party we've seen?
I fully acknowledge in an ideal world both parties would have visions of how to improve the country based on what their constituents want, they'd come together, settle on something that pleases both sides and their constituents, and we'd see positive compromise more or less.
However, Republicans have shown that they have no values and are basically playing politics as a power game, what is there to be gained from bipartisanship with people who have no values other than winning? Their primarily goal is going to be sabotage in order to make Democrats look bad and incompetent, and thats not going to benefit any bipartisan legislation, its just going to doom it into inadequacy.
In the absolute abstract I see why bipartisanship is appealing, but what appeals to you about bipartisanship between Democrats who have a habit of ineffectual mediocrity and Republicans who have a habit of brutal political gaming?
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United States24741 Posts
On January 15 2021 09:22 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 04:34 micronesia wrote:
The FAA has said it will never have an age limit for being cleared to fly recreationally because there is no age where people go from being capable to incapable. Some people just don't have the mental facilities to be a pilot. Other people do when they are young but by 50 they probably shouldn't be flying for safety reasons. Some people at 85 are as capable mentally as I am right now while I work on advanced ratings. Generally you only get worse as you get older, but if your ability started at a high level, and decayed very slowly, you could be quite old and still reasonably capable.
The same principle should apply to holding public office. However, if someone has last the mental ability to do the job, they shouldn't do it. Just don't set an arbitrary age deadline. I don't like this logic for a couple reasons: 1) The lack of a deterministic point where people go from capable to incapable does not prevent you from setting an age limit. Even a probabilistic one allows you to set such a cutoff. If 10% of 60-year olds are cognitively incapable of performing the tasks the office requires, and 90% of 80-year olds are cognitively incapable of performing those tasks, it still makes sense to set an age cutoff in between. The fact that it's possible to have an incapable 60-year-old or a capable 80-year-old doesn't mean that it isn't sensible to set a cutoff once it becomes more likely than not that someone of that age is incapable. 2) Similarly, cognitive ability is not a binary trait. It steadily declines with age. Someone doesn't just jump over from being capable to incapable. In most cases they progressively decline over many years. Even mild cognitive impairment is something that I would consider to be immensely disqualifying for holding public office, outside of some pretty significant extenuating factors. Ideally the democratic process should take care of this (i.e. people just don't vote for people who seem less cognitively capable), but this obviously isn't happening. 3) It's a job. It's much more important to screen out incapable candidates than to screen in every capable candidate. There's much more to be lost by having a cognitively incapable candidate hold office than there is to be lost by having a capable candidate fail to make the ballot. I think in general, people largely overestimate older politicians' cognitive ability based on public appearances. As someone who's worked with older patients in various stages of cognitive decline, it can be very easy to mask cognitive deficits if certain aspects of cognition are not actively being challenged, or through patterning/strong routines--things that can easily be rehearsed for a canned speech. Stressors like lack of sleep can also significantly affect someone with cognitive function that's already challenged, and candidates often won't be exposed to specific stressors until they're already in office.
Your logic seems to be more or less applied for airline pilots and a few related jobs. Why risk the lives of hundreds of people when the alternative is merely questionably legal age discrimination? I think this is driven more by increased risk of sudden physical failures rather than general cognitive decline which can be screened out every year or two fairly easily as others have suggested.
Holding a public office is not like flying a large airplane. If you suddenly keel over it's not going to cost hundreds of lives. It will be inconvenient to get a replacement for you but that can be worked around fairly easily. It's true that cognitive decline will make it harder to do a good job in the long run. However, it can be screened out. Why discriminate against a group of people for a fear that can be screened out? There's enough age discrimination in the workforce as it is.
Perhaps you think it would be easier to implement an age limit than to implement effective cognitive screening for powerful people... that I might not disagree with, but the voter can also help with this by not voting someone in who is obviously unfit.
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Bisutopia19299 Posts
On January 15 2021 09:41 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 09:30 BisuDagger wrote:On January 15 2021 09:11 Zambrah wrote:On January 15 2021 09:05 micronesia wrote:
Hm yeah I agree that was misleading and hurts both the plan and the administration. He should have said "we need to raise it to 2000" or similar. Its the kind of thing thats REALLY going to be the downfall of Democrats in 2022. These kind of dumb PR blunders might pile up and make the Biden administration and Congress by association look disingenuous and callous. This is the kind of thing hes going to have to redeem by additional Covid action, and make the expectations about that very clear going forward. I'm a little worried about that because Biden has signaled hes interested in bipartisanship in this Covid relief bill (which may be why we're seeing the 2000 dollars dropping to 1400 on a technicality here) that we're going to see a bunch of these sorts of half-assed Republican sabotaged efforts in lots of other arenas. I was and am direly hoping that this "unity" talk going to apply to unifying the American populace and not unifying with Congressional Republicans who have time and time again proven to have nothing but contempt for Democrats and the idea of good faith bipartisanship. Bipartisan will be the ship Biden goes down on imo. If Biden performed a miracle and got Dems and Republicans to vote on bills together, I’d vote for that ship in the next election. Id like to dig into this, because while I understand the face value appeal of bipartisanship given the polarized nature of American politics and the way Republicans have basically ruled Congress with a hyperpartisan fist under The Grim Reaper himself, I ask what you hope bipartisanship is meant to achieve with the Republican party we've seen? I fully acknowledge in an ideal world both parties would have visions of how to improve the country based on what their constituents want, they'd come together, settle on something that pleases both sides and their constituents, and we'd see positive compromise more or less. However, Republicans have shown that they have no values and are basically playing politics as a power game, what is there to be gained from bipartisanship with people who have no values other than winning? Their primarily goal is going to be sabotage in order to make Democrats look bad and incompetent, and thats not going to benefit any bipartisan legislation, its just going to doom it into inadequacy. In the absolute abstract I see why bipartisanship is appealing, but what appeals to you about bipartisanship between Democrats who have a habit of ineffectual mediocrity and Republicans who have a habit of brutal political gaming?
I completely agree with what your are saying and I see zero chance a bipartisan bill will ever happen with the usual gang of idiots that represent both sides. So, if Biden somehow unstupifies Congress and gets their act together, I’d vote for him in a second. I primary voted John Kasich when he ran because he said in the national debate he wanted to work with the other side of the aisle and didn’t waste time talking about walls or carpet bombing the Middle East.
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On January 15 2021 09:46 micronesia wrote:
Holding a public office is not like flying a large airplane. If you suddenly keel over it's not going to cost hundreds of lives. It will be inconvenient to get a replacement for you but that can be worked around fairly easily. It's true that cognitive decline will make it harder to do a good job in the long run. However, it can be screened out. Why discriminate against a group of people for a fear that can be screened out? There's enough age discrimination in the workforce as it is.
Perhaps you think it would be easier to implement an age limit than to implement effective cognitive screening for powerful people... that I might not disagree with, but the voter can also help with this by not voting someone in who is obviously unfit.
Suddenly keeling over is not the fail case, though. Slowly deteriorating and becoming increasingly ineffective at your job, while your existence blocks anyone else from being effective either... that's the fail case.
And at this exact moment in history, it is abundantly clear that this can cost more lives than an airplane going down.
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On January 15 2021 07:29 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 07:12 Nevuk wrote:
The issue with term limits for legislatures is that when they've been tried, what actually happens is that rather than the lobbyists just having outsized influence, they start literally writing the bills because no one in the legislature has enough experience to actually write good laws (this is what happened in Michigan, for instance). It's like any other job : you want well qualified and experienced people in those positions.
Most of the worst issues really could be resolved by increasing the size. I've talked about it a lot of times, but the reapportionment act of 1929 really is what I'd blame for the dysfunction and lack of representation in the house for the non-wealthy.
Do you think theres any political reality to increasing the size of the House? Does that potentially neutrally affect Republicans, or is that one of the things thats going to help Democrats so Republicans wont sign on and when Republicans dont sign on Democrats wont sign on? Same question about gerrymandering tbh. With control over the House, Senate, and Presidency do Democrats have the power to address the grotesque gerrymandering situations around the US? I'm honestly curious if there are major changes to the US electoral power structure that can/would potentially be done with the 2 years of confirmed Democrat control we see. Is all of it theoretically possible, but going to be blocked by Manchin, or is it something thats generally not within Congressional/Presidential power?
It is unpredictable and I'm not sure the house would ever vote for it. The reason is that it is literally a vote to reduce the power of each individual member. It can be done with a trifecta and simple majority vote - it isn't an amendment or anything. It is the easiest way to reduce GOP electoral college advantage, but that only matters for the next 5-6 years - predicting voting patterns past that is impossible. Republicans wouldn't like it, but leadership in general wouldn't like it. I have seen some intellectuals pushing for it as a way to reduce gerrymandering, but not sure if anyone in congress is looking at it.
I would call this one of the obvious mistakes in the constitution, along the lines of the VP being the loser of the election. It sidesteps the principle of balance of power.
Some other things that people think of as mistakes like that aren't really - congress can set their own wages, but they can set everyone's wages and a wage raise has to be signed off by the president or a super majority. (And the actual congressional salary is just OK for their region. Most freshman congresspeople have to share apartments since they also have to pay for their house on their own district. The only way they're making money is by insider trading)
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United States24741 Posts
On January 15 2021 09:53 Belisarius wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 09:46 micronesia wrote:
Holding a public office is not like flying a large airplane. If you suddenly keel over it's not going to cost hundreds of lives. It will be inconvenient to get a replacement for you but that can be worked around fairly easily. It's true that cognitive decline will make it harder to do a good job in the long run. However, it can be screened out. Why discriminate against a group of people for a fear that can be screened out? There's enough age discrimination in the workforce as it is.
Perhaps you think it would be easier to implement an age limit than to implement effective cognitive screening for powerful people... that I might not disagree with, but the voter can also help with this by not voting someone in who is obviously unfit. Suddenly keeling over is not the fail case, though. Slowly deteriorating and becoming increasingly ineffective at your job, while your existence blocks anyone else from being effective either... that's the fail case. And at this exact moment in history, it is abundantly clear that this can cost more lives than an airplane going down.
I can see this argument for 6 year terms. For 2 year terms not quite as much. On the other hand, given the apparent inability to remove a president early no matter what, my thoughts that we should just have a mechanism for removing senile people are probably no longer helpful. I'm starting to think that a republican office holder going into a no-recovery coma would not be removed even with several years remaining on their term. They might even get re-elected. The Democrats aren't too far behind either.
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On January 15 2021 09:51 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 09:41 Zambrah wrote:On January 15 2021 09:30 BisuDagger wrote:On January 15 2021 09:11 Zambrah wrote:On January 15 2021 09:05 micronesia wrote:
Hm yeah I agree that was misleading and hurts both the plan and the administration. He should have said "we need to raise it to 2000" or similar. Its the kind of thing thats REALLY going to be the downfall of Democrats in 2022. These kind of dumb PR blunders might pile up and make the Biden administration and Congress by association look disingenuous and callous. This is the kind of thing hes going to have to redeem by additional Covid action, and make the expectations about that very clear going forward. I'm a little worried about that because Biden has signaled hes interested in bipartisanship in this Covid relief bill (which may be why we're seeing the 2000 dollars dropping to 1400 on a technicality here) that we're going to see a bunch of these sorts of half-assed Republican sabotaged efforts in lots of other arenas. I was and am direly hoping that this "unity" talk going to apply to unifying the American populace and not unifying with Congressional Republicans who have time and time again proven to have nothing but contempt for Democrats and the idea of good faith bipartisanship. Bipartisan will be the ship Biden goes down on imo. If Biden performed a miracle and got Dems and Republicans to vote on bills together, I’d vote for that ship in the next election. Id like to dig into this, because while I understand the face value appeal of bipartisanship given the polarized nature of American politics and the way Republicans have basically ruled Congress with a hyperpartisan fist under The Grim Reaper himself, I ask what you hope bipartisanship is meant to achieve with the Republican party we've seen? I fully acknowledge in an ideal world both parties would have visions of how to improve the country based on what their constituents want, they'd come together, settle on something that pleases both sides and their constituents, and we'd see positive compromise more or less. However, Republicans have shown that they have no values and are basically playing politics as a power game, what is there to be gained from bipartisanship with people who have no values other than winning? Their primarily goal is going to be sabotage in order to make Democrats look bad and incompetent, and thats not going to benefit any bipartisan legislation, its just going to doom it into inadequacy. In the absolute abstract I see why bipartisanship is appealing, but what appeals to you about bipartisanship between Democrats who have a habit of ineffectual mediocrity and Republicans who have a habit of brutal political gaming? I completely agree with what your are saying and I see zero chance a bipartisan bill will ever happen with the usual gang of idiots that represent both sides. So, if Biden somehow unstupifies Congress and gets their act together, I’d vote for him in a second. I primary voted John Kasich when he ran because he said in the national debate he wanted to work with the other side of the aisle and didn’t waste time talking about walls or carpet bombing the Middle East.
Well I think bipartisan bills will come out, my problem with them is that when they come out they're going to be internally hamstrung by that flawed positions Democrats are going to start with and the intentional sabotage Republicans will demand be inflicted on it. I have almost no doubt Biden could deliver a flurry of bills through Congress with Republicans, my issue is they're likely to be god awful bills because of the nature of our two god awful parties, lol
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On January 15 2021 10:00 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 09:51 BisuDagger wrote:On January 15 2021 09:41 Zambrah wrote:On January 15 2021 09:30 BisuDagger wrote:On January 15 2021 09:11 Zambrah wrote:On January 15 2021 09:05 micronesia wrote:
Hm yeah I agree that was misleading and hurts both the plan and the administration. He should have said "we need to raise it to 2000" or similar. Its the kind of thing thats REALLY going to be the downfall of Democrats in 2022. These kind of dumb PR blunders might pile up and make the Biden administration and Congress by association look disingenuous and callous. This is the kind of thing hes going to have to redeem by additional Covid action, and make the expectations about that very clear going forward. I'm a little worried about that because Biden has signaled hes interested in bipartisanship in this Covid relief bill (which may be why we're seeing the 2000 dollars dropping to 1400 on a technicality here) that we're going to see a bunch of these sorts of half-assed Republican sabotaged efforts in lots of other arenas. I was and am direly hoping that this "unity" talk going to apply to unifying the American populace and not unifying with Congressional Republicans who have time and time again proven to have nothing but contempt for Democrats and the idea of good faith bipartisanship. Bipartisan will be the ship Biden goes down on imo. If Biden performed a miracle and got Dems and Republicans to vote on bills together, I’d vote for that ship in the next election. Id like to dig into this, because while I understand the face value appeal of bipartisanship given the polarized nature of American politics and the way Republicans have basically ruled Congress with a hyperpartisan fist under The Grim Reaper himself, I ask what you hope bipartisanship is meant to achieve with the Republican party we've seen? I fully acknowledge in an ideal world both parties would have visions of how to improve the country based on what their constituents want, they'd come together, settle on something that pleases both sides and their constituents, and we'd see positive compromise more or less. However, Republicans have shown that they have no values and are basically playing politics as a power game, what is there to be gained from bipartisanship with people who have no values other than winning? Their primarily goal is going to be sabotage in order to make Democrats look bad and incompetent, and thats not going to benefit any bipartisan legislation, its just going to doom it into inadequacy. In the absolute abstract I see why bipartisanship is appealing, but what appeals to you about bipartisanship between Democrats who have a habit of ineffectual mediocrity and Republicans who have a habit of brutal political gaming? I completely agree with what your are saying and I see zero chance a bipartisan bill will ever happen with the usual gang of idiots that represent both sides. So, if Biden somehow unstupifies Congress and gets their act together, I’d vote for him in a second. I primary voted John Kasich when he ran because he said in the national debate he wanted to work with the other side of the aisle and didn’t waste time talking about walls or carpet bombing the Middle East. Well I think bipartisan bills will come out, my problem with them is that when they come out they're going to be internally hamstrung by that flawed positions Democrats are going to start with and the intentional sabotage Republicans will demand be inflicted on it. I have almost no doubt Biden could deliver a flurry of bills through Congress with Republicans, my issue is they're likely to be god awful bills because of the nature of our two god awful parties, lol
On January 15 2021 09:54 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2021 07:29 Zambrah wrote:On January 15 2021 07:12 Nevuk wrote:
The issue with term limits for legislatures is that when they've been tried, what actually happens is that rather than the lobbyists just having outsized influence, they start literally writing the bills because no one in the legislature has enough experience to actually write good laws (this is what happened in Michigan, for instance). It's like any other job : you want well qualified and experienced people in those positions.
Most of the worst issues really could be resolved by increasing the size. I've talked about it a lot of times, but the reapportionment act of 1929 really is what I'd blame for the dysfunction and lack of representation in the house for the non-wealthy.
Do you think theres any political reality to increasing the size of the House? Does that potentially neutrally affect Republicans, or is that one of the things thats going to help Democrats so Republicans wont sign on and when Republicans dont sign on Democrats wont sign on? Same question about gerrymandering tbh. With control over the House, Senate, and Presidency do Democrats have the power to address the grotesque gerrymandering situations around the US? I'm honestly curious if there are major changes to the US electoral power structure that can/would potentially be done with the 2 years of confirmed Democrat control we see. Is all of it theoretically possible, but going to be blocked by Manchin, or is it something thats generally not within Congressional/Presidential power? It is unpredictable and I'm not sure the house would ever vote for it. The reason is that it is literally a vote to reduce the power of each individual member. It can be done with a trifecta and simple majority vote - it isn't an amendment or anything. It is the easiest way to reduce GOP electoral college advantage, but that only matters for the next 5-6 years - predicting voting patterns past that is impossible. Republicans wouldn't like it, but leadership in general wouldn't like it. I have seen some intellectuals pushing for it as a way to reduce gerrymandering, but not sure if anyone in congress is looking at it. I would call this one of the obvious mistakes in the constitution, along the lines of the VP being the loser of the election. It sidesteps the principle of balance of power. Some other things that people think of as mistakes like that aren't really - congress can set their own wages, but they can set everyone's wages and a wage raise has to be signed off by the president or a super majority. (And the actual congressional salary is just OK for their region. Most freshman congresspeople have to share apartments since they also have to pay for their house on their own district. The only way they're making money is by insider trading)
Honestly Im not even interested in predicting voting patterns, my concerns are basically setting up a fairer less viciously gamed election system as best we can and basically praying it turns out for the better, lol
Its sad that it seems like its a hopeless goal then, because Im not sure how the US survives long term if its tripping over the constant failure of its own institutions and the people with the power to change it are so fearful of losing their own power they refuse to do anything to fix it.
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United States43232 Posts
On January 15 2021 09:58 micronesia wrote:
They might even get re-elected. The Democrats aren't too far behind either.
Democratic primary would be a contest between the guy in a coma and Bernie and the party leadership would argue coma guy has a better chance of beating the Republican front runner, mecha-Hitler (Hitler’s brain in a 300ft fusion powered robot body). Coma guy would barely win and nobody would learn anything from the experience.
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From the beginning its been known that the $600 counted towards the $2000 so this should be known. Also Im not sure if everyone got their checks yet so if they havent they actually would get the $2000 at once.
I dont think this will hurt politically at all.
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Mecha Hitler would win over literally anyone though, so it's a bit moot
Like how would America not vote for that
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Bisutopia19299 Posts
On January 15 2021 10:09 Sadist wrote:
From the beginning its been known that the $600 counted towards the $2000 so this should be known. Also Im not sure if everyone got their checks yet so if they havent they actually would get the $2000 at once.
I dont think this will hurt politically at all.
My family has not received ours. Our income was to high in 2020, so we are in the later waves. My wife has since stopped working at the hospital to raise our kids. A much better choice considering the horrific environment in hospitals these days.
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On January 15 2021 10:09 Sadist wrote:
From the beginning its been known that the $600 counted towards the $2000 so this should be known. Also Im not sure if everyone got their checks yet so if they havent they actually would get the $2000 at once.
I dont think this will hurt politically at all.
Yup. I think this is like people going after reactions to the Capitol Hill attack nitpicking about the difference between zip ties and zip cuffs. Yes, they're technically right, but they're being a dickwad and it's obvious.
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EPT
