How Do You Find Middle Ground With a Party That Has No Plan?’

[Avorysuds]

He said that on the same day that he voted against the Ryan "plan". Paul's budget was voted down 16-83. The parties agree basically on one thing; that Paul's budget sucked.

So instead of voting for a budget that would balance it in 5 years they voted for the budget that added massively to the deficit and got the country downgraded. Good move….

 

[bripat9643]

The Democrats have no plan to fix any of our big problems why would anyone vote for them?

Democrats have a plan, you simply don’t like it for subjective partisan reasons.

What's the plan then?

[And republicans are on the record for refusing to compromise, in addition to offering poorly conceived plans predicated on failed policies.

Republicans have compromised repeatedly on the amount they have agreed to cut spending. When have Democrats ever compromised on anything?

 

[Avorysuds]

The OP is wrong. The Democrats have a plan:
1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Increase taxes to pay for it
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Bush

Wrong as always.

The list is more like this:

1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Cut taxes while talking about raising them.
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Bush

Now here is the Republican plan, just going from when they last had a super majority and a President in office...

1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Cut taxes and attack anyone who talks about paying for their expensive new policies and programs.
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Democrats


Of course maybe you can show me where I'm wrong and you're right. Maybe you should be happy we have that libertarian branch of the Republican party that you can cling to when they actually put up balanced budgets and constitutional bills.

 

[bripat9643]

I know Rand doesn't have a reputation for being the brightest bulb in the box but he should at least try to follow current events.

The Democrats passed a slate of Medicare reforms over two years ago: Affordable Care Act Title Three. For a deeper dive into select individual pieces, see: Medicare Implementation Briefs

You have to be joking. That was nothing smoke and mirrors. the ACA will increase government spending, not reduce it.

A few days ago, S&P released their healthcare economic indices data through March. Medicare cost growth continues its impressive slowdown, now 2+ plus years in. Still hanging down in the low single digits..

Growth rates in Medicare claim costs rose by 2.41%, down from February’s +2.72%, according to the S&P Healthcare Economic Medicare Index.

In March 2012, the Professional Services Medicare Index hit its lowest rate in more than two years, +2.99%. This is down more than a half a percentage point from February’s +3.55% rate. The Hospital Medicare annual growth rate was also down in March, to +1.80% from its February rate of +1.94%.

Meanwhile private insurance spirals out of control.

Furthermore, none of the measures the Dems passed regarding medicare have even taken effect yet. These cost decreases have nothing to do with the ACA.

 

[bripat9643]

Smart folks believe the exact opposite of anything Ayn Rand Paul says.

No, that's what stupid turds like you believe.

 

[NYcarbineer]

What sacrifices (since sacrifices HAVE to be made) by the Rich are the Republicans willing to support

to reach this 'middle ground'?

What sacrifice are you willing to make?

I'm willing to see SS and Medicare made actuarily rational, which will undoubtedly cost me some money. For starters.

Now back to my question, which obviously you can't answer. I rest my case.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The American people are paying 4.4 trillion in taxes already,when you add Federal,State,City and County.
You can't get blood out of turnip. Especially during a recession.
Feds get 2.2 trillion and spends 3.6 trillion. It's an out of control spending problem and not a tax problem.

That's the GOP's argument. It's wrong and it dodges the question.

Which tax increases are the Republicans willing to support in order to reach the 'middle ground'?

If there is no proposal from the Democrat Party either the bewb in the White house or the Slackers in the Senate, how do you determine where the middle ground is?

Almost all Republicans are bound by a no tax increase pledge, and every Republican plan for the budget I've seen includes TAX CUTS.

Therefore we know where the middle ground ISN'T. It isn't even under consideration on the GOP side.

 

[NYcarbineer]

That is incorrect. The Republican's plan, while flawed, provided for more prosperity and growth than anything the current President or his Congress has provided in the last 3.5 years.

That's nonsense.

From where we were when this president took office, we are currently seeing approximately an 900,000 per month job growth improvement, and an 11 percentage point improvement in GDP growth.

Are these 3 and a half year totals? If yes, that's really disappointing.

Show me which presidents have done better.

Start from what they inherited, and show where they were 3 1/2 years later, and show us that their gains were bigger than what I cited above.

 

[JoeB131]

Make sure you let me know when you are mocking something and when you mean a serious post. Yours are so stupid and ill-informed I can't tell the difference.

So I'm responsible for your lack of reading comprehension skills now, Clem?

Did get around to teaching you that in Home Skule?

 

[Billo_Really]

Now post one with Obama as the model IF you wish to be honest LoinBoi

Why? The point is, that applys to all politician's. The only differences are the company's and the size of their donations. Some even have the same sponsors.

Obama's the same corporate bitch Bush was. He said a lot of nice ear candy during his campaign, but it was business as usual after he got elected.

 

[The Rabbi]

The OP is wrong. The Democrats have a plan:
1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Increase taxes to pay for it
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Bush

Wrong as always.

The list is more like this:

1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Cut taxes while talking about raising them.
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Bush

Now here is the Republican plan, just going from when they last had a super majority and a President in office...

1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Cut taxes and attack anyone who talks about paying for their expensive new policies and programs.
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Democrats


Of course maybe you can show me where I'm wrong and you're right. Maybe you should be happy we have that libertarian branch of the Republican party that you can cling to when they actually put up balanced budgets and constitutional bills.

I cannot show you where you are wrong. No one can.
You would need to first stop drinking the narco-libertarian kool aid and dry out for a few weeks.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

The Democrats have no plan to fix any of our big problems why would anyone vote for them?

The Republicans could make some head way with the Democrats if they'd stop coddling the military industrial complex and start chopping away at the defense budget. It's way too big. Democrats aren't going to give in to entitlement cuts if Republicans aren't willing to compromise on their sacred cow too.

If you think for one minute that the Democrats would cut any entitlements at all, even if the GOP was willing to cut military spending, you're out of your ever loving mind. We Conservatives are not so naive.

Perhaps not, but if the Republicans submitted a budget that reduced spending in all of those things and the Democrats didn't come on board it would make the Dems look really bad and the GOP could make an election issue out of it. It would force some of their hands.

 

[grunt11b]

The Democrats have no plan to fix any of our big problems why would anyone vote for them?

Democrats have a plan, you simply don’t like it for subjective partisan reasons.

And republicans are on the record for refusing to compromise, in addition to offering poorly conceived plans predicated on failed policies.

One could ask why anyone would vote for them as well.

The GOP has either passed or sent through for a vote multiple budgets while the democrats have not submitted their own budget in over 1100 days even though constitutionally required to do so. The democrats wont compromise even on the budgets put forth by the GOP. The narrative that the GOP will not compromise is only believed by koolaid drinkers such as yourself, everyone else sees through it, which is going to be one of the reasons the Dems will lose their asses again in November.
Noone will compromise with marxists/socialists and statists such as the ones running shit right now, and the rest of us support that.

 

[Darkwind]

I find it amusing that until the Congress decided to meddle in private home ownership by forcing banks and GSEs to lend money to unqualified borrowers, that these alleged 'failed policies have provided this country with over 25 years of economic prosperity (with a few speed bumps along the way of course).

.

The Government has been requiring banks not to discriminate for decades.

Please don't try to trot out that old horse.

The banks collapsed because they took those mortgages and mixed the bad ones in with good one and sold them as stocks. That combined with an over-inflated housing market (again, thanks to the banks) and a lack of regulatory oversight is why the system collapsed.

The real problems, though are Free Trade causing us to bleed half a trillion in wealth every year for the last 30 years and the decline of the middle class. Both of which we can thank Republicans for more than Democrats.

But Mitt Got his Car Elevator, that's the important thing.

Wow, you think that denying loans to people who cannot pay them back is discrimination? I call it asinine and insane. The truth may be tired, but it is never worn out.

The banks collapsed because they were trying to make some kind of profit from a forced bad situation. Being forced to follow some morons dream (by the way, Bush is among that group of morons) of ownership in America for everyone, is what caused a great deal of this problem.

But lets not lose focus. Outside of the Bwarney Fwank and Cwis Dwood's meddling in the mortgage issue, and the democrats stopping the Republicans from reforming Fanny/Freddy, the economy was doing moderately well. In fact, up until those issues, and right on through them, the fundamentals remained.

The only failed policy that exists has been the ones implemented in the past 3.5 years. Every recession had a swift and powerful recovery, when the Conservative plan of economic policy was employed. We now see that when the progressive plan is put into action, that the recession drags on, causing massive amounts of pain.

Three years of non-recovery has been much more painful than the collapse of 08.

 

[Londoner]

The Democrats have no plan to fix any of our big problems why would anyone vote for them?

I'm not an economist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

"They" have a "plan", but it will never pass because big money owns too many legislators.

The plan is essentially to shift back to demand-centered policies (as opposed to the current supply side policies). Reagan's budget director - David Stockman - has advised exactly this

Put simply, the plan is to end what George HW Bush famously called "voodoo economics". This is based on the realization that - at a point - increased wealth on top does not trickle down sufficiently into middle class consumption (technically called "demand"). And without demand, the capitalist cannot add one job. At some point, the austerity and low wages of neoliberalism (which provided such historic returns on investment capital) started translating into insufficient consumption - and when people can't consume, the capitalist has to layoff workers; and then there's even less consumption, and more layoffs. It's a toxic spiral Jroc. [And I'm not saying you have to address demand by such direct tinkering as upwardly revising wages because we know that can lead to layoffs. We might have to pursue after-market policies to boost middle class solvency, but let's follow the general idea...]

If you keep paying workers lower and lower wages and you keep cutting their services/benefit/entitlements, than at some point you reach a terrible fork in the road. You can either sustain consumption by expanding credit and allowing households to vastly increase their debt (like we did starting with Reagan), or you can watch consumption fall off a cliff. Both are bad choices - but we chose the worse one > we went on a credit orgy for 30 years, which was punctuated by leveraging the last piece of value we had left - our homes.

But let's do what Sean Hannity doesn't. Let's try to understand the occasion for shifting from the demand-centered policies of Keynes to the supply side policies of the Chicago School.

You will recall that when supply side economics was instituted the problem wasn't demand, it was inflation. Indeed, after 45 years of Liberal hegemony and labor friendly policies, supply side economics made sense. Capital was hedged in by restrictive trade and labor policies. It was over-taxed and over-regulated. Moreover, that constant stimulus-tinkering (crude Keynesianism) merely put too much money out there and created an inflationary effect that hurt the purchasing power of the very people we were trying to help with demand-centered policies. We've all read uncle Milty and we know that government intervention often has an opposite affect than intended.

And so yes Jroc, removing the tax and regulatory burden from capital in the 80s did increase investment and improve the competitiveness of American business. And relaxing the pump-priming demand centered policies which put do rei me in middle class wallets did curb inflation (along with Volker's artificial, interest-hike-driven recession. Uncle Milty's medicine worked because it was responding to a very specific set of economic conditions). But the conditions have changed. Inflation is not the problem.

After 30 fucking years of Reaganomics, the middle class now has demand-related issues that simply were not present when the government shifted to supply side policies. Just as Keynesianism become over applied, so too has the supply side model. The tax cuts have been fully priced into the economy and are no longer translating into efficiency and job gains. Indeed, the regulatory machinery has been fully captured by the private sector, which now creates it's own regulations. In lay terms this means that big business lobbies (pays) government for monopoly friendly rules, and for bailout insurance. This is why Wall Street wrote Clinton's financial deregulation and Chaney's famous energy commission wrote energy regulations. [Oh my young Jroc, I have so much to teach you]. So but wait. Did we reach a point where the tax cuts stopped working? It looks like it, especially if you consider that job growth under the Bush tax cuts has been abysmal. The money just ain't trickling down into jobs like it used to. This means that we can't keep using the same supply side medicine. [Jeeze, maybe the relationship between tax cuts and jobs is way more complicated than the GOP says. Maybe we've been shipping jobs to Asian sweatshops for 40 years regardless of which tax policies are in place. And maybe we saw more job growth when Clinton raised taxes than when Bush lowered them. What I'm saying Jroc is this: it might not be that simple. Maybe we should check under the hood and see if the engine is broke somewhere else).

It might be worth it for you to try to come to terms with the importance of demand. If money is placed in middle class wallets, capital is forced to innovate and add jobs to capture that money. This was the theory in the postwar years. Government taxed the surplus capital on top and recycled it into middle class wallets through a variety of programs and policies. The middle class had so much money that businesses had to keep adding jobs and inventing different ways to capture it. It wasn't until the great inflation of the 70s (prompted mostly by the OPEC-induced oil shock) that we decided to shift our approach. Now, the surplus capital isn't taxed, and the result is that it has nowhere to go. There are insufficient investment opportunities in the real economy (because consumers lack money and credit), so the giant pool of money on top goes to Wall Street who is forced to invent ponzi schemes to provide the desired returns (see the derivative market which exploded in 2008 and destroyed the global economy).

But, please realize young Jroc, the demand-centered policies of the postwar years worked very effectively for a while. Indeed - and this has always made the Austrian school cringe - it was the Fed's job to maintain full employment by stimulating demand whenever it faltered.

So for you to say that there is no plan is wrong. There is a plan, but it can't pass because the country has been hijacked by special interests who don't want to sacrifice their monopolies or their tax advantages, both of which have destroyed the economy.

(You've been lied to)

 

[Jroc]

The Democrats have no plan to fix any of our big problems why would anyone vote for them?

I'm not an economist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

"They" have a "plan", but it will never pass because big money owns too many legislators.

The plan is essentially to shift back to demand-centered policies (as opposed to the current supply side policies). Reagan's budget director - David Stockman - has advised exactly this

Put simply, the plan is to end what George HW Bush famously called "voodoo economics". This is based on the realization that - at a point - increased wealth on top does not trickle down sufficiently into middle class consumption (technically called "demand"). And without demand, the capitalist cannot add one job. At some point, the austerity and low wages of neoliberalism (which provided such historic returns on investment capital) started translating into insufficient consumption - and when people can't consume, the capitalist has to layoff workers; and then there's even less consumption, and more layoffs. It's a toxic spiral Jroc.

If you pay workers lower wages and cut their services/benefit/entitlements, than at some point you reach a terrible fork in the road. You can either sustain consumption by expanding credit and allowing households to vastly increase their debt (like we did starting with Reagan), or you can watch consumption fall off a cliff. Both are bad choices - but we chose the worse one > we went on a credit orgy for 30 years, which was punctuated by leveraging the last piece of value we had left - our homes.

But let's do what Sean Hannity doesn't. Let's try to understand the occasion for shifting from the demand-centered policies of Keynes to the supply side policies of the Chicago School.

You will recall that when supply side economics was instituted the problem wasn't demand, it was inflation. Indeed, after 45 years of Liberal hegemony and labor friendly policies, supply side economics made sense. It is arguable that capital was over-taxed and over-regulated, and that constant stimulus-tinkering merely put too much money out there and created inflation that hurt the purchasing power of the very people we were trying to help with demand-centered policies. We've all read uncle Milty and we know that government intervention often has an opposite affect than intended.

And so yes Jroc, removing the tax and regulatory burden from capital in the 80s did increase investment and improve the competitiveness of American business. And relaxing the pump-priming demand centered policies which put do rei me in middle class wallets did curb inflation (along with Volker's artificial, interest-hike-driven recession. Uncle Milty's medicine worked). But the conditions have changed. Inflation is not the problem.

After 30 fucking years of Reaganomics, the middle class now has demand-related issues that simply were not present when the government shifted to supply side policies. Just as Keynesianism become over applied, so too has the supply side miracle ended. The tax cuts have been fully priced into the economy and are no longer translating into efficiency increases and jobs. In fact, even with the Bush tax cuts in place, job growth under Bush and Obama has been terrible. This means that we can't keep using the same supply side medicine.

It might be worth it for you to try to come to terms with the importance of demand. If money is placed in middle class wallets, capital is forced to innovate and add jobs to capture that money. This was the theory in the postwar years. Government taxed the surplus capital on top and recycled it into middle class wallets through a variety of programs and policies. The middle class had so much money that businesses had to keep adding jobs and inventing different ways to capture it. It wasn't until the great inflation of the 70s (prompted mostly by the OPEC-induced oil shock) that we decided to shift our approach. Now, the surplus capital isn't taxed, and the result is that it has nowhere to go. There are insufficient investment opportunities in the real economy (because consumers lack money and credit), so the giant pool of money on top goes to Wall Street who is forced to invent ponzi schemes to provide the desired returns (see the derivative market which exploded in 2008 and destroyed the global economy).

But, please realize young Jroc, the demand-centered policies of the postwar years worked very effectively for a while. Indeed - and this has always made the Austrian school cringe - it was the Fed's job to maintain full employment by stimulating demand whenever it faltered.

So for you to say that there is no plan is wrong. There is a plan, but it can't pass because the country has been hijacked by special interests who don't want to sacrifice their monopolies or their tax advantages, both of which have destroyed the economy. (You've been lied to)

Umm...much too long a post there is no plan put before congress, there is not even a budget. Big government is the problem which kind of ties into your special interest point. Smaller government means less special deals, simplify the tax code will help with that. Smaller government is the answer fixes all our problems reform, cut, balance.

 

[Jroc]

The Democrats have no plan to fix any of our big problems why would anyone vote for them?

The Republicans could make some head way with the Democrats if they'd stop coddling the military industrial complex and start chopping away at the defense budget. It's way too big. Democrats aren't going to give in to entitlement cuts if Republicans aren't willing to compromise on their sacred cow too.

Military spending as a % of GDP is actually down and it is not the cause of our current budgetary problems problem

 

[Jroc]

The OP is wrong. The Democrats have a plan:
1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Increase taxes to pay for it
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Bush

Wrong as always.

The list is more like this:

1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Cut taxes while talking about raising them.
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Bush

Now here is the Republican plan, just going from when they last had a super majority and a President in office...

1)Spend more money
2) Increase regulations across the board
3) Cut taxes and attack anyone who talks about paying for their expensive new policies and programs.
4) Demonize opponents
5) Blame Democrats

Of course maybe you can show me where I'm wrong and you're right. Maybe you should be happy we have that libertarian branch of the Republican party that you can cling to when they actually put up balanced budgets and constitutional bills.

Obviously you haven't read any of the Republican plans

 

[NYcarbineer]

The Democrats have no plan to fix any of our big problems why would anyone vote for them?

The Republicans could make some head way with the Democrats if they'd stop coddling the military industrial complex and start chopping away at the defense budget. It's way too big. Democrats aren't going to give in to entitlement cuts if Republicans aren't willing to compromise on their sacred cow too.

Military spending as a % of GDP is actually down and it is not the cause of our current budgetary problems problem

If the military is part of the budget, it's part of the problem.

 

[rdean]

The Democrats have no plan to fix any of our big problems why would anyone vote for them?



Rand Paul and Senate GOP:

Oh they have a plan all right. Rebuild American infrastructure. Invest in education to compete with the rest of the world.

Republicans failed ideology guides their plan. Slash funding for education. Cut funding for daycare and school lunches. Turn over power to corporations and billionaires. Create a kind of Right Wing Christian Taliban. Lead America into disrepair and ignorance. We know this to be true. It doesn't matter how many plans the Democrats have, Republicans are focused on their own plan. They will settle for nothing less than the destruction of the way we know America. This is no joke. This really is the goal of the GOP. They don't even try to hide it.