Democratic response

[ScreamingEagle]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58998-2005Feb2.html

It was negative as expected. Harry Reid was boring and Nancy Pelosi looked quite peeved or maybe it was the botox. She said we were an "occupying force." Noticed they both mentioned God.

 

[-Cp]

*yawn!*

 

[ScreamingEagle]

It's obvious the Dems just don't want to play ball. Here's some more "smart" responses from different Democrats:

WASHINGTON — If President Bush was hoping in his State of the Union address to win Democratic support for his second-term agenda -- including his plan for overhauling Social Security -- he appeared to have made little progress.

Congressional Democrats repeatedly erupted into cries of "No!" whenever Bush suggested that the Social Security system was bankrupt. They sat stonily when he discussed allowing younger workers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in private investment accounts.

And when the speech was over, they attacked him for failing to offer a "clear plan" for ending the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

"I believe we need to begin to talk about an exit strategy, and I didn't hear that tonight," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas.

Democrats have shown in recent weeks that they have no intention of backing off on challenging Bush -- and perhaps even taking a more aggressive posture toward him -- after the party's losses in last fall's elections.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, delivered a nationally televised response to Bush's speech. Reid pledged to work with the president "when we believe the president is on the right track. But when he gets off track, we will be there to hold him accountable."

So far, Democrats have put up fights over Bush's nominations of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to be secretary of State and White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales to be attorney general, though Rice won confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate and Gonzales is expected to be confirmed Thursday.

Reid has declared that no Senate Democrat will back Bush's proposal for Social Security investment accounts. And Democrats have signaled they will continue to oppose the confirmation of judicial nominees whom they regard as too conservative. Ten of the president's 34 appellate court nominations, for example, were blocked by Democratic filibusters during the last congressional session.

"Beyond any doubt, the Democrats are signaling that they intend to contest President Bush on big issues, especially Social Security and Iraq," said Don Kettl, a University of Pennsylvania political scientist.

"On Social Security, they smell blood in the water and will circle like sharks, intent on nipping away pieces of Bush's plan and hoping to take it down," he said. "With even fellow Republicans nervous about the plan, they think they can stop his signature second-term plan. And if they can do that, they believe they can send him quacking quickly back to Crawford as a lame duck."

And while Democrats pledge to hold Bush accountable, Kettl added, "it's not clear they have the strategy or the muscle to do so."

Reid likened Bush's speech to the movie "Groundhog Day" -- "the same old ideology that we've heard before, over and over again."

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said, "When it came to specifics of a domestic program, they just weren't there."

Democrats reserved their sharpest criticism for Bush's Social Security proposal.

Bush has said that allowing workers to invest a portion of their payroll taxes into personal investment accounts will fatten their retirement nest eggs while shoring up the Social Security system. Democrats contend that the proposal will deplete the Social Security trust fund of money, forcing the government to cut retirement benefits or go deeper into debt.

"I had no idea W stood for Wall Street," said Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York. Sen. Charles Schumer, also of New York, declared: "We will not allow the President to play retirement roulette and turn Social Security into social in-security."

Rep. John Dingell of Michigan said Bush's Social Security proposal reminded him of "that New Coke from the 1980s -- the name on the can was the same, but nobody could stomach what was inside."

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who represents a state that Bush won in the presidential election, said he needed to hear more specifics. "I haven't gotten the details," said Nelson, who plans to meet with Bush on Friday during the president's visit to the state to garner support for his Social Security proposal.

Several Democrats said that Bush failed to offer any details to convince them that his proposal would not lead to cuts in Social Security benefits or increase the government's debt. Because payroll taxes from today's workers finance the benefits for today's retirees, critics of Bush's plan say the government would have to borrow as much as $2 trillion over the next decade to replace the money diverted to private accounts.

"President Bush delivered a speech with lots of applause lines but I wonder how much applause he would have gotten had he mentioned the true costs of his policies," said Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, which will write Social Security legislation.

Reid equated Bush's proposal to "taking Social Security's guarantee and gambling with it ... and that's coming from a senator who represents Las Vegas."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...3feb03,0,7702519.story?coll=la-home-headlines

 

[acludem]

I heard an exchange between Joe Scarborough and Robert Reich in which they both agreed that the Democratic strategy against the Bush Social Security plan will be the same as the Republican strategy used against Bill Clinton's health care plan, just say no. The other thing that's going on is that four Republican Senators (Snowe, Collins, Specter, and Chaffee) are on the verge of leaving the GOP. I fully expect Chaffee to leave, he's up for reelection in a solidly blue state (Rhode Island). Arlen Specter I'm less optimistic about. Sens. Collins and Snowe I think may come over the Democrats as well. Maine is a Blue state, too, and the Republicans don't want moderates.

acludem

 

[Avatar4321]

What is so messed up is after all we have done in Iraq, Democrats still want us to worry about how we are going to run away. Hello we have an exit strategy. its called victory.

 

[5stringJeff]

I heard an exchange between Joe Scarborough and Robert Reich in which they both agreed that the Democratic strategy against the Bush Social Security plan will be the same as the Republican strategy used against Bill Clinton's health care plan, just say no. The other thing that's going on is that four Republican Senators (Snowe, Collins, Specter, and Chaffee) are on the verge of leaving the GOP. I fully expect Chaffee to leave, he's up for reelection in a solidly blue state (Rhode Island). Arlen Specter I'm less optimistic about. Sens. Collins and Snowe I think may come over the Democrats as well. Maine is a Blue state, too, and the Republicans don't want moderates.

acludem

Chaffee might leave, but the others aren't going to. That's just the DU Kool-Aid getting to your brain!

 

[spillmind]

the big question is:

HEY CHIMP, WHY'D YOU BLOW THE SURPLUS, DUMBASS?!

i swear ADD is a country wide disorder -_-*

 

[no1tovote4]

the big question is:

HEY CHIMP, WHY'D YOU BLOW THE SURPLUS, DUMBASS?!

i swear ADD is a country wide disorder -_-*

No, the question is how did people get fooled into believing there was a surplus? ADD is indeed a country wide disorder that both major parties seem to fall subject to. It appears the Democrats have forgotten that their party used to correctly diagnose this "surplus" as fake and now attempt to claim it as a great thing that Clinton was able to create. The only difference between then and now is that they want Clinton to have a "legacy" and hope to rewrite history. Unfortunately they don't realize that the internet doesn't have ADD and we can find out what they wrote in their own words.

Clinton, the DNC, and the Congressional Republicans pulled the wool over your ADD encrusted eyes Spilly.

http://baltimorechronicle.com/fake_surplus.html

 

[Avatar4321]

the big question is:

HEY CHIMP, WHY'D YOU BLOW THE SURPLUS, DUMBASS?!

i swear ADD is a country wide disorder -_-*

Concuring with what the previous poster said. How did you get fooled into thinking there was a surplus.

You see the so called surplus was projected surplus. This surplus was calculated based on the assumption that the economy would continue growing at the same rate as it was at the heart of the 90s Boom. However, The Clinton administration graciously left us with a recession, corporate scandals to clean up, and misrepresented the economic figures of his last two years of office. Because of the recession, which was made worse by 911 the surpluss that was projected with faulty numbers never existed.

I know that the concept that the surplus never existed is difficult to liberals who seem to think President Clinton was the greatest thing since sliced bread and cant comprehend anything that would show the man who has destroyed the Democrat party in a bad light, but the fact is there was never a surplus. So take your head out of your butt and stop worrying about things that never happened 5 years ago so you can help the rest of America prepare for the future.

 

[tim_duncan2000]

My favorite parts were when the Democrats booed and pretty much behaved childishly during a few parts of his speech. That tells me a lot about them right there.

You see the so called surplus was projected surplus. This surplus was calculated based on the assumption that the economy would continue growing at the same rate as it was at the heart of the 90s Boom. However, The Clinton administration graciously left us with a recession, corporate scandals to clean up, and misrepresented the economic figures of his last two years of office. Because of the recession, which was made worse by 911 the surpluss that was projected with faulty numbers never existed.

Great post. I'm tired of hearing all this bullshit about how great everything was when Clinton was in office.

 

[dilloduck]

My favorite parts were when the Democrats booed and pretty much behaved childishly during a few parts of his speech. That tells me a lot about them right there.


Great post. I'm tired of hearing all this bullshit about how great everything was when Clinton was in office.

Agreed Tim---while I know its a regular practice, the partisan non hand-clapping bunch were a hoot. I think they outta make a commercial out of all the Dems sitting on thier hands while Bush was pushing for SS reform to help the YOUTH of America. Young voters may need to be reminded of this one day !

 

[theim]

Did the Dems actually boo the president? That would be too stupid even for them. Imagine the Republican campaign comercial a few years from now:

Bush: "Freedom and liberty for all!"
Dems: "Boooooo!"

And yeah, we HAVE an exit strategy. Kill the f'n terrorists. This ain't Vietnam for Christs sake that was 40 goddam years ago. Almost 2 years in Iraq now and we have yet to pass the death toll from ONE DAY OF ONE BATTLE in WWII. we have lost something like 1400 soldiers last I heard? Sorry, I really am. But over 8000 brits got mowed down in one day of Market Garden.

Freedom isn't free.