Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
That is, frankly, incoherent twaddle.
Does he include the earmarks in approp bills or not?
HRC
- Thread starter 57Brave
- Start date
That is, frankly, incoherent twaddle.
Does he include the earmarks in approp bills or not?
sturg33
I
Yes he does. The spending has already been proposed... so one of two things happen:
1. The congress appropriates the spending, because if they don't...
2. The executive branch decides how to spend it.
Not including earmarks does nothing to stop the proposed spending.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
It would have been good advice, had LBJ heeded it, but perhaps he took a moment and thought back to how his willingness to not only stay in Vietnam but to escalate our presence there may have been the single biggest reason he got to be president in the first place.
57Brave
Well-known member
Have you found a definition for "economic freedom " ?
Perhaps one of those Paulian Terms embedded in the word salad above ?
sturg33
I
Yes... the ability for the market to determine interest rates; the ability for people to choose what to do with their earnings; where corporate taxes aren't the highest in the world; and where the government spending doesn't increase every single year in perpetuity
57Brave
Well-known member
above
jpx7
Very Flirtatious, but Doubts What Love Is.
I sympathize with the author on some accounts, but I think it's all to easy—and has been all too common, during this months-long Sanders post-mortem—to write off those on the left who have misgivings re Clinton, or who refuse to "coalesce" around her as the liberal establishment's nominee, as "purity obsessed" and intellectual adolescent, as refusing to accept the world as it is, instead beholden to "revolutionary theatrics". I know for myself—and a lot of people I know and read on the left—Sanders wasn't thought to be revolutionary, nor a particularly sound vehicle for hero-worship; he was simply the candidate of "social democratic incrementalism", while Hillary was (and, I believe, still is) the candidate of the status quo.
Moreover, the mythologizing of the #NeverHillary BernieBros who will vote Trump in November—out of spite, out of protest, out of secret misogyny, or out of binary insistence on either ideological purity or purifying destruction—has been a pretty fervent project for a lot of establishment journalists, when—as even this author admits, before going back to chastising about preferring "ideological purity" over practicality—the data doesn't support the notion that such voters are very widespread at all. The fact is, most Sanders folk are likely to come back to the fold, for better or worse—though I depart with the author in thinking "for the better" is the likelier outcome, considering those in the Democratic Party wielding the most power are also those most against wholesale and long-term changes to the party's core platform. Until those changes occur, it will continue to be the liberal party, and not the party of the left.
sturg33
I
Since you don't even understand why housing loans and student loans have different interest rates, I'm certain you don't understand how fed policy affects interest rates... I'll move on
Just checked... 39% of my income last year went to some sort of tax.. and that doesn't account for sales taxes.
LOL... is this you arguing this point? We trail only Chad and the United Arab Emirates (who?)
When the government racks up massive deficits by going to war and giving entitlements they can never afford... that is stealing from either us or future generations. It's immoral if not downright corrupt... so yes, if the government stopped stealing from future generations, that would mean more economic freedom for those people
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
And I get all of that. I just wish there had been a more plausible opponent to Clinton. Elizabeth Warren would have been worthy of that, but my guess is she was cowed by the "woman" angle. Maybe it's just me (although I know it's not), but I just can't stand Sanders personally. Like I've said several times during the nomination season, as a lobbyist I've been forced to work around the Sanders "type" and it is interminable. They are the kind of people that send the soup back because it's too soupy.
There's no question that the left has tacked right since the establishment of the DLC back in the 1980s and that has given a very wide berth to progressives for legitimate complaint. But in a world where Obama--a pragmatist's pragmatist if there ever was one--is branded as the second coming of the Communist International, it shows how much further to the right the country is than it was in the 1970s. A lot of people blame Reagan, but I blame the technocrats.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
Yeah, it just puts a portion that spending outside the normal allocation process, not to mention into his district. If he objects to earmarks the principled position is to refuse to include them in approp bills, rather than to include them and vote against the bill. Seriously, you have to be willfully dense to buy that reasoning. It's an incredibly hypocritical move for which his defense is thin as tissue.
sturg33
I
I think his reasoning makes sense... he disagrees with the spending, but would rather the congress appropriate rather than the executive branch. If his job is to bring as much value back to his reps, he's doing the right thing.
Either way, Paul opponents always cite this as the "gotchya" on him... which I think it pretty stellar if that's all they have. He votes no every time.. and that is good enough for me.
57Brave
Well-known member
Freedom -- funny word
means a lot of things
as in when the Emancipation Proclamation was established the opponents argument was it hindered the slave owners "freedom"
Or currently we could point to the freedom to buy an assault weapon or the freedom to go to a bar
Freedom a funny word -- really shouldn't be thrown around like a balloon
jpx7
Very Flirtatious, but Doubts What Love Is.
I personally had no major problems with Sanders' personality—except perhaps that his monotone left him prone to mockery—but if you're asking who I'd rather eat soup with, it's Obama all day.
Honestly, personality had little to do with my voting Sanders. It had everything to do with the fact that he was the only candidate in the field who was actually on the left, policy-wise (even if I do wish some of those policy proposals had been richer in detail). Moreover, what excitement I did have for his candidacy (whose failure I always felt was a fait accompli) was in some significant part derived from the fact that his success elevated "socialism" from a swear-word to a set of reasonable policies we could, as a nation, at the very least discuss. That, and the political energy surrounding it, I think is a more real gain than whatever nebulous, non-binding "concessions" he might have extracted from the DNC when shaping its 2016 platform.
Meanwhile, Clinton is center or center-right outside of a few issues—she's largely to the right of Obama, which means she's more conservative than "a pragmatist's pragmatist"—but honestly she's the candidate the Democratic Party deserves, at this point. They've largely abandoned the unions, they don't seem to have any collective will to investigate or punish corporate and high-finance malfeasance, they seem largely complacent with the healthcare law as it is (which, while as first-step, should be viewed as just that), they're nearly as complicit as the GOP in continuing to bloat our national defense industry, and they haven't really even made any pretense towards redressing the catastrophic carceral pathology our nation has. The salt in the wound has been the party establishment's rhetoric this nominating cycle, which has seemed much more interested in talking about what we can't achieve than what we can; and likewise has been more interested in acting as scolds against their fictional enemy ("ideological purity" warring the Patron Saint Practicus) instead of actually listening to and engaging with those to the left of the party elites.
I agree with you there, but then technocrats actually form a pretty non-trivial component of Clinton's base ...
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
How about the constitutionality of that kind of spending? Check out his earmarks and tell me where you stand on that.
Ron Paul, paraphrase: "I think the whole system of appropriations as practiced is unconstitutional and I will not vote for spending which is unconstitutional"
[inserts unconstitutional spending into approps bill]
[votes against bill]
Ron Paul, paraphrased: Kneel before teh awful glory of my ideological purity, bitchez.
What a con.
sturg33
I
I'm not going to bother with the rest of your nonsense... but you seem to think running up deficits is not stealing from future generations? How is this possible? They rack up a deficit that will have to be paid for later... and those generations are not alive to have a say in the matter
You are so far off the deep end it's scary.
The 2015 budget was 81% higher than the 2005 budget... I know math is hard for you... but that is close to doubling our federal budget (not spending by the way) in just 10 years!
57Brave
Well-known member
I think it an issue that needs addressing but wouldn't characterize it stealing. That rhetoric comes across a tad overblown.
We will not have a spending freeze and there is a contingent that is hell bent on not raising government income.
We can not just shut this down -- which is what I read you advocating
We will not have a spending freeze and there is a contingent that is hell bent on not raising government income.
We can not just shut this down -- which is what I read you advocating
sturg33
I
Earmarks are not unconstitutional at all.
I'm not sure what is challenging to understand here. You either appropriate the funds, or the executive branch does. Cutting the number of earmarks does NOT cut spending. Earmarks are just a way to control how the money is spent. Which I would much rather have a fiscally responsible local congressman doing rather than the bloated beaurocratic nightmare of the executive branch.
To each his own. But at least don't be obtuse to what it is.
sturg33
I
So you think every 10 years we need to double the size of the government? Can they not act like any other entity and run on a budget?
The other issue we have here, due to the artificially low interest rates - which your girl supports - it encourages the gov to keep borrowing... and if/when those interest rates ever do go up - the interest on the debt is going to become an obstacle that we won't be able to overcome.