Well it would be easier than answering your "all over the place" posts. I applaud you for taking the time but there is something to be said for concise answers as well.
And your tone. Maybe it's just me but when you write "I think it was Bush who did whatever the f he wanted at all costs, pal," I feel like you're pushing me in the chest trying to provoke a bar fight or something. Are you auditioning to be spokesman for the "angry-Left" or something?
So now explaining myself instead of just going with general talking points is "all over the place" I admit, I struggle to be concise, I really should be more concise.
This is going to sound stupid, I know, but , I honestly try and work on my tone as well. I am far from an angry person, I know you are probably the same. You have my honest word now that you have brought it up that I will not take any kind of provocative tone in the future. I know you don't know me, but in person, I would be the last person to start a bar fight or even argue face to face about politics. When I find someone I disagree with, I usually just say "you'll agree with me that neither party really represents the people now."
I have no desire to be any kind of spokesperson for the angry left, they substitute foam flying for reason and facts.
As much as we can disagree, know this, I always appreciate the discussion and people who care about the country. It is not personal and I am sorry if it has looked that way.
Dems held up what was to be a center piece of Bush's 2nd term. Social security reform. They also stymied banking reform. We're paying for both of those now.
All polls taken at the time showed overwhelming opposition around the country to Bush's plan. Even among many Republicans. It was the event that started to unravel Bush's Presidency. There was never a bill introduced to privatize social security in Bush's second term, therefore, there was no filibustering by Democrats. Democrats were uniformly opposed, but then again, so were a good amount of Republicans. Bush's privatization was not "reform" it would have gutted Social Security and put a good amount of it in the stock market(if you retired now, you'd be screwed). It messed with the guaranteed benefit, and that was something the country could not go for. I am all for people saving in the stock market and government incentives to do so, but it should not take away from the SS trust fund.
Banking reform, I assume you are talking about Barney Frank and regulation of Fannie and Freddie. Perhaps a link? Frank never opposed reform, Dems just had a different bill.
You completely misread the internal fight in the GOP. The rebellion is against the "go along with big govnt, just get along" moderates, not the "extreme right wing," whatever that is.
I remember we discussed what big government was, and we could not come up with a workable definition of it that Republicans did a better job on. The extreme right: the Grover Norquist drown the government crowd, the GW Bush "cut taxes and spend wildly" group, the Santorum-Palin extreme social conservatism. This is what drove moderate Republicans completely out of the party- Lincoln Chaffee, Arlen Specter, Jim Leach,etc.Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon even were put off by the chest beating, budget busting ideologues taking over the party in the last 30 years. This is not only reflected in individuals but in election trends. States and districts that were solidly Republican have been electing more and more Democrats to Congress, accounting for the large majorities we see now. The more competitive a district is between parties, the less extreme the representative from the district will be. The far left Reps in Congress come from districts where the Democratic Primary is the de facto election, same with the far right Reps and the Republican primary. The difference is most Dems are from competitive districts while most Republicans represent strong Republican districts and need only run to the far right to get re elected. The Dems have a built in bulwark against extremism here, while the Republicans are inviting it by becoming a regional, special interest party. The South is a very federal government dependent region, as is most of the Plains. Now that Republicans in Congress mostly represent these states, you see record amounts of pork when they are in power. Any fiscal responsibility that was ever present is gone due to regional interests of the people who control the party. A perfect example was Bush's 2002 farm bill. With Democrats, regional differences will work to counter act this kind of tendency to break the bank to satisfy the base. They have to speak to a broad cross section of the country to stay in power. Will they? Stay tuned.
You see very few Republican moderates in office these days, they have become an extreme conservative regional fringe, and that is reflected in who they have leading the party: Palin, DeMint, Cantor, et al. The whole tea party movement is extremely disingenuous, as they are supposedly against big government but where were they when Bush was in office? They pick a time when we literally had to spend money to avoid a depression to all of a sudden speak up? They are against a Democratic President.
So can I. You have the socialists, the progressives, the liberals, the anti-capitalists, the militants, the radicals, the hyphenated caucuses, the truly unhinged and a few moderates on abortion or out-of-control spending.
The Democratic caucus has no Socialists, and no anti capitalists. Bernie Sanders is an independent. No one who's political views could be considered "radical" either. Radicals want to scrap the whole system. Republicans have hyphenated caucuses as well. The truly unhinged: Democrats:Barbara Lee, Pete Stark, Jim McDermott. The Republcians: anyone who has called Obama a socialist or attacked him for prosecuting terrorists in our courts like every other President. That's alot more.
Abortion we have flat out pro lifers(Stupak amendment), moderates and alot of Pro Choice. Republicans have some moderates, few pro choices and a bunch of extreme pro life, against rape and incest exceptions even.
Out of control spending: Again, look at the Democratic Party's overall history on spending. They spend less than Republicans, have since WW II. Obama represents no departure from this, it is just he had to come in and spend money to avoid a depression. His 10 year spending proposals, and those of the caucus are actually less than Republicans were proposing. The Democrats just voted for pay as you go, Republicans against it. The Democratic party has no more out of control spenders than Republicans.
"We" have fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, hawk conservatives, squishy moderates, the Maine gals, a maverick, a terminator, a Palin and of course an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, sexist, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees, aka Scott Brown.
Who in your caucus is truly fiscally conservative? How many people who buy the Grover Norquist idea actually take it through to its logical conclusion and propose to get rid of education, medicare, social security, the SEC, The Fed, you name it. None, so we have record deficits because they do the tax cutting and not the spending cutting. The Maine girls are moderates, but unlike Democratic moderates, they've gone right along the party line on any number of issues. They are not a pain in the ass to McConnell like Ben Nelson is to Reid or the Blue Dogs are to Pelosi. Not much maverick in John McCain these days, never really was absent on campaign finance reform and torture, things you all hate him for. The terminator is damn near out of the party he is so disgusted with the global warming deniers and stimulus opponents. Palin is an extreme conservative like the rest of them.
Keith Olbermann took many things out of context in that rant, I don't watch the man's show, I liked him years ago but prefer Matthews now. The only thing Brown can be accused of there is not knowing Obama's mother was married. Maybe he should not have sneered " I don't know about that" but it is in no way an indication he is racist. No big deal, I don't care about family history. However, Scott Brown has so far been, beside the fact that he is pro choice(which I don't consider abortion a deciding issue in the least, btw) a party line vote. His whole campaign was to be #41, so he is just like the rest of them.
The Republicans only threatened the "nuclear option" in response to the Democrat's before unknown filibustering of judicial nominees. Republicans have respected the senate's advise and consent role whereas Democrats act more to block or embarrass. You can point to no Republican senate doing to a Clinton or Obama selection what Democrats did to Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas or judge Alito. The last 3 Democratic appointees to the Supreme Court passed with an avg of 14 no votes. The last 3 nominees of Republican presidents got an avg of 37 no votes.
That's fine, I never said they used it, just that they threatened it.
Bork, Thomas and Alito are all far outside the mainstream of American judicial thinking, by any metric. The national bar association, etc. The simple fact is that these guys are strong, pro executive power conservatives while Breyer, Sotomayor and to a lesser extent, Ginsburg, are moderates. It is a simple reflection of the fact that Republicans have nominated ideologues while Democrats have nominated moderates. Today's Republican party would not have given a good amount of votes to Breyer and Sotomayor if they were far left nuts. Clinton would actually go to Orrin Hatch with who he was considering and ask who was acceptable and who was not. Obama did the same thing with Republican judic committee members. It is the Democrats who have respected the advice and consent role by not nominating in the first place people many Republicans would deem unacceptable. It is Bush who tried to push anyone and everyone through, even people who were on record saying the civil rights acts and social security should be struck down.
Bork and Thomas did it to themselves through their views and personal shortcomings.
Plus, it is the Republicans now holding up routine appointments and legislation at a record pace. That is not advice and consent, that is pure obstruction, and they have admitted as much. They are taking a gamble that "no" will work in November.
All I remember in detail is that the 2003 Democratic Drug Benefit was much more expensive and was to be government-managed whereas the final bipartisan bill passed in the Republican congress was much less expensive (400 billion) and insisted on private insurance plans.
What emerged was no bipartisan by any means. In the Senate, Baucus was the only Democrat they even let in, and he tried to work in good faith. Delay's house gutted the provisions Baucus put in and hijacked the entire bill. There was no Democratic representation in the house legislation, none whatsoever, that was the big controversy.
The Democratic plan was first floated by Gore, and the 2003 version was not going to be government managed any more than the current version is government managed. It was going to give subsidies to private companies. The difference is the huge "donut" hole put in the coverage by the Republicans in order to pay for huge direct payments to the pharmaceutical industry plus the banning of reimportation from Canada. As a final kick, they banned medicare from negotiating with companies from lower prices. All of these provisions were written back room by lobbyists in the House. This has been extensively documented.
The hand outs to pharma, ban on re importation and barring of negotiation combined helped to get us to the real cost, $1.2 trillion.
Medicare Drug Benefit May Cost $1.2 Trillion (washingtonpost.com)