The Official 2010 Election Thread

[Balloon guy 158]

Seriously, bury your head deeper in the sand. The Kool-Aid gets better the deeper you drill.

Says the guy who thinks republicans are beholden to supporting SS and Medicare...And uses a nonsensical mixed metaphor to further muddy the water.Try as you might to snap your fingers and hope we look away from the real trick, we are on to your lies and misdirections.The democrats got beat, because we are sick of them being in the pockets of unions and lawyers. And the fiscal abortions that they have spawned for government employee unions will be the catalyst for the complete and utter destruction of any chance this country has to get its financial house in order.

[Balloon guy 158]

Nah, you guys get credit for the lie that Freddie and Fannie were the keys to the mortgage crisis though. Possibly the biggest pile of BS ever....typical conservatives trying to excuse the giant, crushing mistakes made by private industry.

So if there were no government programs making financial guarantees for bad loans...the housing crisis would have happened exactly the same as it did?

He also had the guts to try compromise immigration reform. Too bad he failed miserably at everything. I think his heart was in the right place but his head was not up to the task. In fairness, on both issues there are just so many wildly unreasonable people who wield too much power that came down on him like a ton of bricks.

Which is why my idea to have one person rule the world will work.ESPECIALLY if I am that man. ( First rule, no women can EVER be that man )

[CaneBrain 95]

So if there were no government programs making financial guarantees for bad loans...the housing crisis would have happened exactly the same as it did?

Absolutely since this problem happened in the private sector on an infinitely wider and more expensive scale with monoline insurers (private companies) making those guarantees for private banks....except the loans were for much higher amounts.And again, Fannie and Freddie were not involved in any way with securitizing these deals and insuring those securitizations which turned a normal housing bubble into a globe-toppling crisis.Taking Fannie and Freddie out of the equation might have mitigated the housing crisis by 5%. At most.I love the idea though that Republicans oppose lawyers and are not beholden to SS and medicare. If only said opposition ever led to action.

[Balloon guy 158]

Absolutely since this problem happened in the private sector on an infinitely wider and more expensive scale with monoline insurers (private companies) making those guarantees for private banks....except the loans were for much higher amounts.And again, Fannie and Freddie were not involved in any way with securitizing these deals and insuring those securitizations which turned a normal housing bubble into a globe-toppling crisis.Taking Fannie and Freddie out of the equation might have mitigated the housing crisis by 5%. At most.

Pretty sure that 5% number isn't just made up, its practically propaganda.Was the democrat run house of freddie and fannie the only cause? No, was it a major player in the beginning? Yes.Without the very program of "give loans to people who would never meet real standards set by the banking industry" the beginning of this convoluted and complex problem only had a 14.6% chance of arriving at the place it did.

I love the idea though that Republicans oppose lawyers and are not beholden to SS and medicare. If only said opposition ever led to action.

Never said republicans are not also scared of angering the silver headed voters...just pointing out the blatant falsehood MK is trying to pass as support for his failed loyalties to the liberal democrats who are ruining this country by implying that it not the democrats who have no ideas or plans and are strictly voting to keep their failed programs afloat because it anchors large sections of the voting populace to them, like slaves (which republicans freed once and will be forced to free again )

[akoff 0]

Well you guys were in charge for 2 years, complete and total charge...and you did nothing.Trying to blame us now isn't exactly going to work.Especially for that pesky little fact that even though we thrashed your side, WE HAVEN'T TAKEN OFFICE YETBut it is the only thing you guys have ever done, blame someone else for the utter and complete failures of everything you touch.and by you guys I mean liberals and democrats, not Jews and Lawyers....because you know...

this is signature worthy!!!!!

[Balloon guy 158]

After doing a little listening to radio and reading the 'news' I understand Cane's point.The democrat spin machine has put out the bullet points for the dems to try to salvage their utter embarrassment last week by crying like little girls about how hard it is and there is nothing they could do.So the word is out: "Demand that the right tell us exactly what they are going to cut right now to fix the problem we didn't even address for 2 years"The willing media is helping them get the message out."Stop them from being successful and helping this country or else we will lose again in 2012"America first? Not from the left!

[CaneBrain 95]

To help this country, they need a plan instead of cool soundbites. We would just like to hear that plan.....you know with details not empty platitudes.And, yeah the GOP really went out of their way to help Obama, supporting him at every turn.Remember, if you completely disagree with the other party it is ok to be obstructionist.....and that works both ways.

[mk 11]

Says the guy who thinks republicans are beholden to supporting SS and Medicare...

Whenever they hold power they fail to make the cuts they claim to desire. If you want to label those actions as being beholden to something, then ok.It is certainly no falsehood that whenever it comes down the real shit (and not just spewing empty rhetoric) they chicken out like little bitches, and because they combine the lack of cuts in federal programs with things like unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy (har har they'll pay for themselves) and unfunded wars, that's why we had a federal deficit which skyrocketed under Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43.BUT I SUPPOSE YOU DISAGREE WITH THIS BASIC, OBVIOUS PREMISE BECAUSE NO REPUBLICAN HAS EVER DONE ANYTHING MILDLY OBJECTIONABLE IN THE SAND-BURIED HEAD OF BG

[Balloon guy 158]

To help this country, they need a plan instead of cool soundbites. We would just like to hear that plan.....you know with details not empty platitudes.And, yeah the GOP really went out of their way to help Obama, supporting him at every turn.Remember, if you completely disagree with the other party it is ok to be obstructionist.....and that works both ways.

The democrats never needed one single republican vote for ANYTHING to pass. They had all the votes, controlled all the committees and decided all agendas.So exactly what did the republicans stop Obama from doing?But at least you are being consistent in your hypocrisy."Obama has only been in office for a year, give him a chance" has now turned to "The republicans have been in "planned future" control of the house for a week now, WHAT HAVE THEY DONE FOR US?"

[Balloon guy 158]

Whenever they hold power they fail to make the cuts they claim to desire. If you want to label those actions as being beholden to something, then ok.It is certainly no falsehood that whenever it comes down the real shit (and not just spewing empty rhetoric) they chicken out like little bitches, and because they combine the lack of cuts in federal programs with things like unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy (har har they'll pay for themselves) and unfunded wars, that's why we had a federal deficit which skyrocketed under Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43.BUT I SUPPOSE YOU DISAGREE WITH THIS BASIC, OBVIOUS PREMISE BECAUSE NO REPUBLICAN HAS EVER DONE ANYTHING MILDLY OBJECTIONABLE IN THE SAND-BURIED HEAD OF BG

Your inability to understand basic concepts is mind bottling.The 'skyrocketing' deficit had an interesting little indicator: When democrats control spending, the spending goes up. When republicans control spending, the deficit goes down.Pesky little constitution giving congress the purse strings.http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/article/61454

Obama Defeats FDR (in Spending Other People’s Money)Wednesday, February 17, 2010By Terence P. JeffreyListen to Commentary PodcastsAfter he signed a law last week authorizing the U.S. Treasury to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion, President Barack Obama delivered a characteristically sanctimonious speech. It was about his deep commitment to frugality. “After a decade of profligacy, the American people are tired of politicians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk when it comes to fiscal responsibility,” he said. “It’s easy to get up in front of the cameras and rant against exploding deficits. What’s hard is actually getting deficits under control. But that’s what we must do. Like families across the country, we have to take responsibility for every dollar we spend.” To put Obama’s Olympian hypocrisy in perspective, one need only examine the federal budget tables posted on the White House website by Obama’s own Office of Management and Budget. They reveal these startling facts: When calculated by the average annual percentage of the Gross Domestic Product that he will spend during his presidency, Obama is on track to become the biggest-spending president since 1930, the earliest year reported on the OMB’s historical chart of spending as a percentage of GDP. When calculated by the average annual percentage of GDP he will borrow during his presidency, Obama is on track to become the greatest debter president since Franklin Roosevelt. Obama will outspend and out-borrow the admittedly profligate George W. Bush, a man Obama and his lieutenants routinely malign for fiscal recklessness and who, when in office, was often hailed even by his allies as a Big Government Republican. Obama will even outspend—but not quite out-borrow—his fellow welfare-state liberal FDR, who had to contend with both the Depression and World War II.ARTICLE CONTINUED AT LINK ABOVE

[mk 11]

Your inability to understand basic concepts is mind bottling.The 'skyrocketing' deficit had an interesting little indicator: When democrats control spending, the spending goes up. When republicans control spending, the deficit goes down.

O RLY? IS IT MIND BOTTLING IN YOUR OPINION?EXPLAIN THIS GRAPH TO THE REST OF THE FORUM PLZ BG

[CaneBrain 95]

The democrats never needed one single republican vote for ANYTHING to pass. They had all the votes, controlled all the committees and decided all agendas.So exactly what did the republicans stop Obama from doing?But at least you are being consistent in your hypocrisy."Obama has only been in office for a year, give him a chance" has now turned to "The republicans have been in "planned future" control of the house for a week now, WHAT HAVE THEY DONE FOR US?"

Instead of stopping him, they lied about everything he did, made up stories about his past and generally gave him the middle finger as often as possible. And no it's "What is the GOP's plan" beyond "tax cuts good, government bad". I am still waiting to hear how the GOP will reduce the deficit by cutting nothing and lowering taxes. I am sure the explanation will be awesome....

[LongLiveYorke 38]

OK, lets cut Social Security and medicare.

SS will be fine. It's pretty easy to keep that sustainable until well into the next century. One simply needs to enact the same sort of reforms that were done in the early 80s by Greenspan, et al.And to completely solve our long term budgets, all we'd need to do is to find a way to spend as much per person on health care as many European nations. Then we'd be looking at massive budget surpluses:http://www.cepr.net/calculators/hc/hc-calculator.htmlSee, isn't that fun?

[Balloon guy 158]

O RLY? IS IT MIND BOTTLING IN YOUR OPINION?EXPLAIN THIS GRAPH TO THE REST OF THE FORUM PLZ BG

Pretty sure you mean explain it to you, because you fail to understand the purpose of this type of graph.This graph is a propagandist tool by the left to try to make the connection that Reagan and Bush are bad, and democrats are good.In order to get the gullible to believe it, they must add a little raw meat: Oh look, we would be so much better off if Bush and Reagan had just left everything alone as indicated by this line of make believe candyland.In the mean time let's add the TARP money to Bush's deficit numbers so President Obama doesn't look as bad. ( Ohhh let's also put the paying back of those funds onto Obama's ledger to subvert the truth even more. )Democrat propgandist #1: Will anyone actually buy this graph and our lies?Democrat propogandist #2 : I'm sure there's someone gullible enough to use it.

[strategy 4]

republicans aren't fiscal conservatives. sorry.

[JubilantLankyLad 1,957]

In order to get the gullible to believe it, they must add a little raw meat: Oh look, we would be so much better off if Bush and Reagan had just left everything alone as indicated by this line of make believe candyland.

It's not a coincidence or "raw meat" that the Bush/Reagan/Bush years are flat in the green line part of the graph. Do you understand that?

[AmScray 355]

Those PUSSIES. I need to be able to shoot as many people as quickly as possible JUST IN CASE the government turns tyrannical AMIRITE

God forbid, but lets say that some whacko manages to sho0t Obama... You live in Chicago.What do you think might happen?

[hblask 1]

Republican: The most important issue for us is the deficit.Government: Okay, name some programs you want to cut.Republican: All of them, except for defense, Social Security, Medicare...Government: Okay, that's pretty much everything. Instead of cutting, let's raise the taxes on the wealthiest percentage, which is the easiest and most effective to earn government revenue.Republican: No, because the most important issue for us is cutting taxes. We demand tax cuts across the board. You can't raise taxes.Government: Okay, fine, we won't raise taxes. So, we can't cut anything and we can't raise taxes. Then, they only thing we can do really is to print money. Let's do that.Republican: No, because the most important issue for us is preventing inflation. Printing money makes inflation. You can't do that.Government: ...

I know that's how the left likes to portray it, but a lot of Republicans are pushing for serious cuts. Look at the response to Obama's deficit reduction commission's preliminary report. The left has already jumped all over it, saying it's impossible, it can't be done, blah blah blah. The right is saying "OK, that looks promising, let's see details."

[hblask 1]

Find one sitting GOPer to agree to say this out loud and that's a start. Because it has to be done.

Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, to start. Paul Ryan has been pushing his plan for a year, and the Dems won't even consider because St. Krugman says that it would kill elderly people and use their bones to beat the poor.

[hblask 1]

Nah, you guys get credit for the lie that Freddie and Fannie were the keys to the mortgage crisis though. Possibly the biggest pile of BS ever....typical conservatives trying to excuse the giant, crushing mistakes made by private industry.

And yet the only people who saw the crisis coming warned that the moral hazard of Fannie and Freddie would lead to the exact result that happened. But sure, the people who said there was no problem at all and blocked reform are the ones we should believe now.

[hblask 1]

Enough on the 2010 election, time to look forward to 2012:Alvin Greene pondering run for presidencyCould we get a dream team?:The lapel sticker

[hblask 1]

In the wake of the Tea Party's mild successes in this election, a CNN writer penned the following, which pretty much sums up my position on the Tea Party: "Good for you, now put up or shut up".http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/11/10/frie...rf.johnson.gop/(CNN) -- Approach a Tea Party supporter, compliment his "Don't Tread On Me" T- shirt, and ask what motivates his activism. The federal government is always growing, he might reply, as is the financial burden it imposes. We're borrowing more money every year, mortgaging our children's future, and little by little, we're ceding our very liberty.If the Tea Party wants to win enough converts to effectively govern, it must persuade more voters that this kind of rhetoric is offered in earnest.Skeptics of the Tea Party note that the right never organized in opposition to the profligate spending of the Bush administration. They wonder why a movement so vocal about liberty focuses exclusively on the economic variety, and suspect that if the GOP is returned to power, government won't grow smaller or less intrusive so much as serve different masters.Come 2012, however, there is one Republican who'll be uniquely positioned to win over these skeptics: former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a long-shot candidate whose success in the presidential primary would signal, as nothing else could, that the principles espoused by the Tea Party really changed the GOP.A self-made entrepreneur who founded one of the most successful construction businesses in his state, Johnson has vetoed more legislation than any other governor in America, successfully reduced spending during his tenure, and handily won re-election in a state where a majority of registered voters were Democrats.On fiscal matters, he is as uncompromising as any Republican -- certainly more so than Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin, whose brief tenure as governor was a big government bonanza by comparison. Unlike former Gov. Palin, he is neither disliked nor mistrusted by independents, being relatively unknown.Most importantly, no one would be better at persuading disaffected Republicans, jaded libertarians, and right-leaning independents that when he talks about a principled commitment to American liberty, he really means it. I include myself in that group -- though I fear the small-government right is again setting itself up to be co-opted by the GOP establishment. I'd support Gary Johnson in both a primary and general election, despite my doubts about the Tea Party.Asked why he can be trusted to steward taxpayer dollars better than the typical Republican, Johnson can point to his isolationism and distaste for spending money on foreign wars of choice. Questioned about whether economic liberty is the only kind that interests him, he can reply that he's long favored ending the war on drugs, a policy that costs billions, infringes on states rights, erodes protections embedded in the Constitution, and is nevertheless supported by most GOP officials.ARTICLE CONTINUED AT LINK ABOVE

[Balloon guy 158]

It's not a coincidence or "raw meat" that the Bush/Reagan/Bush years are flat in the green line part of the graph. Do you understand that?

I'm confused, the green part is make believe, where the people who made up this fictional graph get to play pretend.The green line is the propaganda.

[AmScray 355]

Skeptics of the Tea Party note that the right never organized in opposition to the profligate spending of the Bush administration

What the **** do you think the tea party is?

[LongLiveYorke 38]

Look at the response to Obama's deficit reduction commission's preliminary report. The left has already jumped all over it, saying it's impossible, it can't be done, blah blah blah. The right is saying "OK, that looks promising, let's see details."

I think this will be a good litmus test for how serious both sides are about deficit reduction. There are some good ideas in there that will turn into real savings. Both sides should take them seriously. I'd be very disappointed by either side if the debate became bogged down by silly name calling or head burying.This is why this sort of thing must be done by a committee behind closed doors, not via the full congress and public debate. I'm curious to see how it'll turn out.