December 26, 2006
"In terms of practical politics, the reality is this: We have to be on good behavior so we have a chance to win the presidency."
Says Jim Cooper, one of the 44 conservative Democrats in the the House "Blue Dog Coalition." I think he's right, but I also suspect that the Democrats' talk about "fiscal responsibility" is just a setup to demagogue about the war.
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45 comments:
A chance?
Ann, wake up and smell the outrage.
Also, I think you meant "Democrats' talk about fiscal responsibility..."
Finally, what the hell does "demagogue about the war" mean?
One last thing... the Blue Dogs are ignorant posers.
"I also suspect that the Democrat's talk about 'fiscal responsibility' is just a setup to demagogue about the war."
Well - that, and just a setup to raise taxes: "Pelosi is promising that ... Democrats will roll back the Bush tax cuts and focus on deficit reduction. Who wants to set the over-under on how long it takes them to find some pressing need that overrides deficit reduction? ... [W]hat most liberals care about is rolling back the Bush tax cuts, not cutting the budget deficit. Why do I say this? Because they supported John Kerry's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts, and replace them with new spending on health care."
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. I maintain that credit belongs to Congress for the balanced budgets in the late 1990s, because Congress ultimately controls the purse strings; I also maintain that blame lies with Congress for the glut of spending that has overtaken us since Bush took office; hence, I must also credit the Dems if they take office and really do go after debt reduction and balancing the budget, and if they accomplish that without raising taxes. But I'll bet my 2008 tax rebate that they won't.
Doyle:
"the Blue Dogs are ignorant posers."
Number of Blue Dog Coalition members in the 110th United States House of Representatives: 45. Breadth of Democratic Party majority in the 110th United States House of Representatives: 31. Smartness of pissing up the leg of a block of votes that you need to get anything you want through the House of Representatives...?
Democrats are still looking for heretics rather than converts.
Well at least you neocons are looking t the democrats for answers after having NO ANSWERS from the GOP for years.
Your ilk stinks of hypcrisy. Go talk you your filthy richer and gettting richer franchise voters...all 1% of them...I'm sure they will agree with you. It is the rest of us who carry the burden of this idiot president and the republican majority who have spoken and we are clearly telling you that your ideas, your inability to govern, your inability to formulate any coherent policy, foreign or domestic, tossed you out of office.
I wonder what passes for reality in your dimwitted minds.
Dear God, I hadn't done the math! Is a Democratic legislative agenda still salvageable, now that I've pissed off the BDC? I sure hope so.
Any Democrat who's talking about what the Dems need to do to have a chance at winning the presidency needs to drop the slave mentality.
It's the Republicans that need to be on their best behavior to have a chance.
Hillary beat McCain in the most recent Newsweek head-to-head, and Obama's now the frontrunner in NH.
Plus the Republican field is in a shambles (i.e. it's chock full of at least onetime social liberals).
"Go talk you your filthy richer and gettting richer franchise voters."
What are the two things that Barbra Streisand, George Clooney, George Soros, John & Theresa Heinz Kerry, and Katie Couric all have in common?
1) They're filthy rich; and
2) They're Democrats.
"just a setup to demagogue about the war."
That makes no sense. Everyone is for "fiscal responsibility". Most congresscritters left and right strive for the label "fiscal conservative, social progressive"
Though the majority of the American People are against the war, voting against the war is still a very difficult step to take.
Your logic is reversed.
If being on good behavior means a BDC is timid and afraid of Rush and Bill and Sean and Karl than we've already lost.
Dems were voted in to give a chance to lead. If they are afraid to lead, especially now as we drift with no one at the helm, there is little reason to think the public will give them a second chance.
A congressman that worries about health care costs and says "We have a chance now of having a new Democratic Party that supports the middle class and has middle-class priorities at heart" should be thinking of how to support business AND people and should now be talking up a universal health care plan.
Take health care woes off the table for America and off the backs of business.
Honestly, can anyone tell me one thing we have achieved for spending $300,000,000,000, in Iraq (other than strengthening the hand of Iran)? They now have a government dominated by Iranian-friendly Shiite fundamentalists so that the rights of women (half the population) are actually less in terms of matters like inheritance, marriage, divorce, custody, etc. than they were under Saddam Hussein.
Just yesterday they were reporting on how many Christians in Iraq (3% of the population) stayed home out of fear on Christmas. Even under Saddam Hussein they had more freedom to practice their religion.
Maybe a little 'fiscal responsibility' would do some good there, as in the 'fiscal responsibility' of withdrawl.
Also, Simon: Pelosi isn't planning to raise taxes (Bush wouldn't sign a tax hike anyway). The Bush tax cuts are due to expire, and she probably won't bother to pass any legislation that extends them past their original expiration date. Considering that we have a massive deficit (even without taking into account Iraq) it's hard to argue against such a plan being fiscally responsible.
Also, letting the sunset clauses expire and having the taxes return to where they were during the Clinton years isn't 'raising taxes.' Congress in 2001 passed temporary cuts. What about the word, 'temporary' don't you understand?
In fact, Simon (as a follow up to the question I asked you in the last post):
If you go back to spring 2001, George W. Bush, ever the gambler, had two choices. He could have had a smaller tax cut and had it be a permanent reduction. He opted for a larger tax cut with a sunset provision (frankly because of fiscal conservatives who were concerned about what it would do to the deficit.) He gambled that sometime over the next few years he could maintain a GOP house and his own popularity, and get the lower taxes made permanent.
He lost that gamble. Deal with it.
HDhouse posted: "I wonder what passes for reality in your dimwitted minds."
Wow, you must know it all HD! Is it a gift or a burden to be so much smarter than the majority of humanity?
Trey
The way the Democrats act in Congress will at best marginally affect the 2008 Presidency. The main thing that will affect the 2008 Presidential election is: who each party nominates, the state of the economy, and Iraq.
That said, Democratic behavior in Congress will to a certain extent affect their ability to retain the Congress in 2008. Blue-dog Democrats mainly reside in districts that could go Republican in any election cycle. I think Cooper's comments are bit misleading as what he is really saying if "we are not on our best behavior some of us might be out of a job in 2008." However, he has included this bit of self-interest under the broader rubric of Democratic chances in '08, I guess in the hopes that the Democratic party will not veer too far to the left on issues like guns that will make Cooper and other Blue Dogs vulnerable.
BTW, HDhouse and anyone who wants to call other people a "neo-conservative" which has become the equivalent of a four letter expletive in American political vernacular, please look up the origins of the term. It seems many don't understand what a neo-conservative is. Tom Delay, for example, is not a neo-conservative.
"neo-conservative"... has become the equivalent of a four letter expletive
As well it should. It doesn't help that even the original Wise Men like Perle and Feith are scurrying like cockroaches to avoid blame for this mess.
jakemanjack:
Everything the Democrats do is a calculation for more power.
And that isn't true of the Republicans?
If anything, one reason the Democrats have power now is because the whole DeLay-Abramoff scheme to maintain their majority at all costs ended up blowing up in their faces and taking several congressmen and at least one Senator down with it.
Regarding the Bush tax cuts, Eli Blake says: "What about the word, 'temporary' don't you understand?"
Well, if the Dems in the majority in Congress refuse to extend the tax cuts, as they currently say they will, perhaps the Dem remmant, newly returned to minority status, will have reason to address the same question to their leadership after the voters are so vividly reminded of the reasons why they tossed the Dems out in the first place.
Of course Democrats will have to be on good behavior to have a chance to win the presidency, as the electorate didn't elect Democrats as much as they fired Congressional Republicans; no one associated with Bush is running; the electoral math cuts in favor of Republicans; Democrats have an empty suit and unlikable socialist scold running for president; finally, Democrats yearning for defeat in Iraq will hardly bolster their pathetically weak national security credentials.
Similarly, Blue Dog Democrats will have to defend Pelosi's tax increase if they wish to win re-election, as failure to stop tax increases will be tantamount to imposing tax increases. Republican congressional candidates will relish the spectacle of Blue Dogs lecturing their constituents on the meaning of "temporary," and why that makes their higher taxes o.k.
What do the Blue Dogs think they'd accomplish by electing a Democrat president, if he or she isn't also a Blue Dog? The reason they're in the majority now is that conservative voters were annoyed that Bush didn't veto the pork-laden bills passed by his own party. Are they going to oppose their own president, like so many Republicans did before losing the last election? If they do, what makes them think their party will hold either Congress or the Presidency? And if they don't, what makes them think they'll hold their own seats?
hd house: In the interests of clarity for any discussion that ensues here, your definition of "neo-con," would be appreciated. You toss that phrase aound a lot. It would be most helpful if you could cite specific examples of how Althouse qualifies under your undoubtedly unique definition.
jakemanjack wrote:
Everything the Democrats do is a calculation for more power.
Is this supposed to news? Or do you believe the apparent alternative, that nothing the Republicans do is a calculation for more power?
It seems to me that it would be more accurate to aver that everything any political party does involves a calculation for more power.
Just wondering.
I think it's more like:
"Every so often, the Republicans act on principle, instead of a naked calculation for power."
Wow, lot of fairly bilious left-wing trolls infesting the joint lately. Wassamater, trolls? Working on turning the comments section here into Balloon Juice II - The Re-Embiggening?
On the merits, the comment about the Dem base being more concerned with heretic hunting is pretty much spot on. Keep on working to enforce left liberal philosophical purity, folks. Maybe the Big-L Libertarians Ann has been fraternizing with lately could give you some insight on how well the ideological loyalty oath crusades have worked out.
Al Maviva:
Define, 'troll.'
I'm one of those left wingers, and I've been posting on Ann's blog for about a year. The reason is because there is rational and reasoned discussion here, not the usual 'us good, them bad' kind of stuff I see.
laugha:
Like when?
Name me one vote this year when that was true.
The closest you could cite would be the immigration vote that directly cost at least two Republicans their seats in heavily hispanic districts in Texas and Arizona, but I would still posit that they honestly believed that having a hard line stance on immigration would play to their base and help them get elected. (and it did turn out the base, just it ticked off a group of swing voters who had been trending towards the Republicans-- the GOP dropped 14% among Hispanics this year compared to 2004.)
No need to worry about dave's stale "brownshirts" whine. It's pretty much meaningless from overuse by a lefty bereft of real argument or class.
Lower-case d dave is most interesting when one inserts blah blah blahhhh whenever encountering his posts. The wisdom gained is equivalent, and the reading faster.
I also suspect that the Democrats' talk about "fiscal responsibility" is just a setup to demagogue about the war.
And/or to redirect the spending to favored programs. And/or to raise taxes. And/or to...but you get the idea.
They always talk pretty when they're asking for your vote.
Hi, dave--
I hope you and your inflatable friend had a Merry Christmas.
TMink said...
HDhouse posted: "I wonder what passes for reality in your dimwitted minds."
Wow, you must know it all HD! Is it a gift or a burden to be so much smarter than the majority of humanity?"
Not much of a burden TMink. i would think it is rather more of a burden to have things spelled out to you in Ned in the Third Reader formats. That must embarrass the hell out of you at parties.
jakemanjack said...
HD House--
You could not be more wrong.
The top 1% of income earners carry the largest tax burden.
The Bush tax cuts cut the lowest income earners off the tax rolls entirely.
Did Clinton do that? NO.
Show me a wage earner who does not have tax withheld. I am curious how that happens in your world. they may get a fraction back on filing but no where near the fraction that the 1% get. don't you also find it odd that 1% of the people, after deducting everything that applies to that income level STILL pays half the tax revenue? Does that tell you anything about the concentration of wealth? guess not.
ohhhh and to the neo-con definition.
Frankly I divide the republicans into three camps: 1. neo-cons 2. evangelical blowholes and 3. felons
"felons"
A category soon to include William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, (D. La.) resoundingly re-elected in keeping with the time-honored traditions of the urban Democratic party.
Re: "Frankly I divide the republicans into three camps"
With that clarification, one can be sure that when encountering the introductory phrase hdhouse said, the ensuing text can be skipped entirely, as it will be surely comprised of nonsense, twaddle, bile, and glaring intellectual errors in equal measures.
My hat is off to hdhouse, for making his brand so easily recognizable; the blog version of the Yugo.
Of course I wouldn't group you with the trolls, Eli. How would I define trolling? How about
I wonder what passes for reality in your dimwitted minds.
or
Your ilk stinks of hypcrisy. Go talk you your filthy richer and gettting richer franchise voters
or from other adjacent posts:
Like most of the knuckle- draggers. . . (referring to commenters who disagree)
and
wadda fatuous bint.
plus a bunch of marginal stuff.
Come to think of it, hdhouse and a couple others are responsible for most of the line-crossing stuff, and Doyle is responsible for a lot of stuff that sort of dances on the margins of trollery. Eli, given that you practice argument, I expect that you know the difference between insult and argument.
Eli: RE: Trolls. I thought that was pretty easy to define, but perhaps it is yet another "know it when I see it" thing.
Offhand, I'd say dave (from the East Bay), hdhouse and reality_check fit the average person's definition of a troll to "T" (although I'd prefer the phrase "a fare thee well" in their case and their subsequent departure ;)
There is a reason that doyle has a blog called "straight flushing," BTW - because he so rarely does while his verbal diarrhea overflows.
It will be very easy for Republicans to strike a comparison to the 1994 Republican Congress. The incoming Republicans did a lot in their first two years. They cut spending by a full % of GDP from 21.8% to 20.8%. They passed welfare reform, the huge crime bill, both of which have been very successful. They passed the $500 child tax credit, and reformed the whole house committee system (which the dems have already started to dismantle). The Republicans were also younger and more energetic. Contrast Gingrich age 62 with Pelosi age 67. Or the E&C committee Republican Bliley age 63 with Dingle age 80. Pathetic.
When the smoke clears on the dems there will be more spending, more tax increases, and little to no meaningful legislation other than a pay increase for teenage workers.
Maybe the dems can blame Bush and the senate for filibustering, their proposed legislation, but that won't work because the 1994 Congress had Clinton in office.
In the end, all the dems will have will be the war. They can hark on that for two years. But, Bush will not be running in 2008. Poor dems - worthless ideas, worthless party.
So, now, Ann knows other peoples' motives. She will speculate darkly about the Democrats and run them down based on no evidence whatsoever.
But will she utter words critical of Republicans? Well, she may have, but I've never seen it.
Fact: Democrats have a solid record of fiscal discipline. See the balanced budget of the Clinton years, blown by the Republicans when they had one party control.
Fact: Discussing the war is not "demagoguery." Sadly, little the Dems have done on the war has been demagoguery. The situation cries out for some demgaoguery! (See: all the dead and maimed people).
Meanwhile, the right wing attacks anyone who disagrees with the Republican line for war, war and more war as traitors, appeasers and worse (rather than address arguments head on). Where is Ann ALthouse's denunciation of this demagoguery!?! (a little, hmm, "ironic," shall we say?)
The Iraq War is now costing upwards of $500 billion dollars, but any criticism of that waste of treasury, deems the blog diva wannabe, is demagoguery! (Eeek! Hide the children!)
And you wonder why people criticize you, Ann?
I don't get this idea that low wage earners should not be paying payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are supposed to be an forced government investment in retirement savings. If low wage earners did not pay such taxes, then they payments they would deserve nothing in retirement and anything they received form the government would be 100% welfare. No abled bodied individual is entitled to live off the state in old age.
shanna said:
"Oh come on! You could just as easily (more easily) credit the balanced budget of the 90's to the Republicans as the Democrats and everything else the Democrats ever do or say is that they want more taxes and more spending. "
Shanna, were you paying attention in the 1990s or are you just responding based on deeply ingrained biases?
The Democrats passed budgets to trim spending, restore taxes on the wealthy (which the Republicans falsely claimed would bring the economy crashing down), and bring the deficits down which he inherited from Reagan and Bush.
When Clinton left office, the US had a large surplus in the treasury. Bush and the Republicans have trashed that surplus to give us deficits even beyond the record deficits left by Reagan and Bush Sr.
The record of the past 25 years is very clear - Republicans leave massive deficits. Democrats reign in those deficits. Those are the facts, though I doubt many Republicans will yield to reality on this score.
Oh, and "tax and spend" is far better than "borrow from the Chinese and spend."
(I'm sorry, Ann. is it demagoguery to disagree with Republicans? You honestly do seem to think so! )
Shanna:
You have confused Republicanb efforts to privatize Social Security with efforts to cut spending. They are two different things.
You're speaking on the basis of Republican spin, not the historical record. Yes, I know the Republcians say the Democrats just "want to raise taxes." Guess what? That's bunk. No-one goes to Congress just to raise taxes. There is no "raise taxes" movement.
At any rate, it's not demagoguery to press for fiscal discipline and I think Ann Althouse very clearly demonstrates her Republican sympathies with this post and lack of criticism of the very ample Republican demagoguery.
Well, this is why Democrats should probably not make a priority of fiscal discipline. They won't get any credit for it anyway! So, no political benefit to doing so.
What's worse, the Republicans won't lift a finger to help and will just fritter away whatever fiscal gains are mnade, as they've done now under three Presidents, each of whom left successively higher deficits! So, no policy benefit to fiscal discipline.
And, Shanna, Newt didn't control Congress, just the House. "Congress" includes both chambers. And, Newt was one of those crying in the early 1990s that restoring taxes on the wealthiest would bring the economy crashing down. He was, you might say, demagoguing the issue. And he was very wrong.
---------------------------
Remember the Althouse Rule!
Republican Demagoguery is okay.
Democratic Demagoguery is bad, bad, bad.
Shanna, no reason to engage in name-calling. You put Newt in charge of Congress. He was never so in charge.
Remember when Newt shut down the federal government over the budget? Well, that was because he wanted massiv ($200B) tax cuts, not because he was trying to balance the budget! (tax cuts increase deficits when not coupled with like spending cuts). Clinton veto'ed these budgets.
Dick, who -- exactly -- says the decifit was gone by March, 2001? Got a link?
I don't recall that being the case. Like you say, it took Bush around 12 months to screw everything up. (Though Bush ignored the very clear warning about an al Qaeda attack within 8 months.)
Also, to Althouse's attack on Democrats, it is worth noting that Blue Dog Democrats are conservative Democrats and most, if not all, voted for the war and have been among the last to oppose it.
So the idea that the Blue Dog Democrats are going to demagogue the war is just plain silly. Please, Ann, leave the partisan politics to the partisans.
But I'm sure Ann will heave another volley at the Democrats before long.
HDhouse, the brilliant, responded when I asked him if it was difficult being the only intelligent person in the world thus:
"Not much of a burden TMink. i would think it is rather more of a burden to have things spelled out to you in Ned in the Third Reader formats. That must embarrass the hell out of you at parties."
Heh, except I have a BA, an MA, and a PsyD. See, the facts just continually trip up you lefties. Wait a sec, how did the most intelligent person in the world not know my academic background?????
And just what does "Ned in the THird Reader" mean? I googled it and found one obscure reference. And there are more than one format???
You are so much more intelligent than I, what does it mean great sage? Tell us, tell us! We are waiting for more words of wisdom to spill from your lofty perch!
Trey
Alpha liberal:
Shanna and others are correct. Clinton had a balanced budget for maybe 3-6 months of his 96 month term. And don't ask me for a link; I am sure you can find it yourself by just doing the googles on the internets.
Lynch, actually, the federal government under Clinton ran a surplus for 3 of the 8 years he served. So, i guess you may be right that it was only "balanced" for a while.
My point remains true, that three Republican Presidents ran up record deficits. Massive deficits. but conservatives just don't mind because they're strongest trait is playing "Follow the Leader"!
TMink said...
HDhouse, the brilliant, responded when I asked him if it was difficult being the only intelligent person in the world thus:
"Not much of a burden TMink. i would think it is rather more of a burden to have things spelled out to you in Ned in the Third Reader formats. That must embarrass the hell out of you at parties."
Heh, except I have a BA, an MA, and a PsyD. See, the facts just continually trip up you lefties. Wait a sec, how did the most intelligent person in the world not know my academic background?????"
"And just what does "Ned in the THird Reader" mean? I googled it and found one obscure reference. And there are more than one format???"
Well well well as old Donny Rumsfeld would say.
1. Degrees obviously do not an intellect make...and a PsyD to boot. lol Doctoral thesis on the use of candles and incense in the dirt floor meditation sequence of suburban neurotics....
2. TMink....try going to a library will real books instead of googling everything.
But that is the problem isn't it. You are all surface. You read the keyword synopsis of everything don't you. You just get the Internet equal of the soundbite. No research, no examination, just mindless lemming in the moonlight of half truth and half shadow.
spin and dream - spin and dream.
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