Government Shutdown

[carlfense]

Can someone explain exactly what concessions the Dems and POTUS are willing to give the Republicans? After seeing Collins get shot down in the Senate, I am assuming the Dems want everything and are not willing to give in on any issues?

 

It is obvious some blame the R's exclusively on this board, can you please explain what the Dems are offering in concessions to get this budget and debt ceiling passed. I seem to be missing what they are offering. It doesn't seem like anything other than a lot of NO.

 

Sadly, in the real world there is a difference between concessions and capitulation.....................

Why do you assume that the Republicans deserve concessions? What has the GOP offered to give up? Asking for less than 100% of what they want isn't a concession . . .

 

Put the gun down and let's actually negotiate. The problem is that the GOP doesn't want to negotiate. As you've demonstrated, they want concessions.

[carlfense]

To use your analogy of the "hostage situation", it seems if the Republicans are that extreme then they are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. Might want to meet them and give them something because they are "crazy" and might do something as rash as letting us default. Seems like a leader would sacrifice his own needs for those of the country. Give them something.

That's a really, really, bad argument.

[lo country]

To use your analogy of the "hostage situation", it seems if the Republicans are that extreme then they are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. Might want to meet them and give them something because they are "crazy" and might do something as rash as letting us default. Seems like a leader would sacrifice his own needs for those of the country. Give them something.

That's a really, really, bad argument.

Thanks Carl. Have a nice weekend.

[carlfense]

To use your analogy of the "hostage situation", it seems if the Republicans are that extreme then they are willing to throw the baby out with the bath water. Might want to meet them and give them something because they are "crazy" and might do something as rash as letting us default. Seems like a leader would sacrifice his own needs for those of the country. Give them something.

That's a really, really, bad argument.

Thanks Carl. Have a nice weekend.

You too! Big Husker win today and beautiful fall weather . . . so no complaints.

[zoogs]

First, I appreciate how civil you are all being keep it up!

 

lo country, I'm not sure you meant what you said with that paragraph. A leader should cave to the demands of anyone sufficiently crazy? The U.S. is all about preventing the tyranny of the majority from dominating, but that means making it harder for the majority to simply do things. It doesn't swing back so far in the other direction to tyranny of the minority where any one faction just needs to get 'extreme' and then they should get at least some of what they want. This transcends party lines entirely.

 

You're absolutely right that both parties at various times engage in petty politics. Two things, however:

 

1) That doesn't mean both sides are equally or at all wrong in every squabble. You can still sensibly debate the merits of the position that each party is taking in this particular debate. "But both parties are at fault" isn't a rebuttal, it's a cop out. Or in this case, an attempt by one side to blunt the public criticism for their actions.

 

2) This isn't a sign of a 'broken system.' Actually, I'd argue it's a sign of the system working: because any society and any government ever will consist of differing opinions, and political maneuvering is the method for resolving those differences. There are certain tools the majority has to do what they want, and certain tools the minority has to protect us from the majority. That the disagreeing sides are playing politics means they aren't playing with tanks and guns....which we take totally for granted, but nonetheless, it's significant.

 

Although in this particular case the minority isn't employing rhetoric so much as dangling the economic guillotine, so one can argue how much of a distinction that is. To me, it's quite horrifying really, and I don't understand/would like an explanation of how it is even possible in our system of government to govern via repeated self-manufactured crises.

 

Of course, it's widely expected that nobody would ever let it get to a default anyway, so maybe these are all just games and everything's fine....depending on the good faith and ability of our Congressmen to continue to adhere to the 'brinksmanship but don't actually cross the line' honor code. Maybe we're all worked up over nothing, except for the potential (and I suppose arguable?) economic slowdown caused by things like the sequester and shutdown.

[carlfense]

Senator Bob Corker said on TV this morning that the debate at this point is really over the level of spending. Will it be current, sequestration levels, or will it be more, as the Democrats would like?

. . .

This is pretty amazing. The entire Obamacare defund/delay goal is shot. Republicans are just fighting to keep in place current spending levels, which they would have had automatically had they agreed to a clean continuing resolution right off the bat and never shut down the government.

 

But the plan has gone so badly, that just the status quo is something they're left fighting for.

http://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-fighting-to-maintain-sequester-level-spending-2013-10#ixzz2he6hf1w9

[carlfense]

[sd'sker]

i do not understand what the protesters want? they should be happy the gov't is closed. but i just think it is funny that they are so upset about one of the consequences of the gov't shutdown when they are the ones who want to shrink it so it could be drowned in a bathtub. what did they expect? why would national monuments be considered 'essential' for gov't spending?

 

but, honestly. i just wish i knew what they want and what they are protesting, especial these people:

[carlfense]

but, honestly. i just wish i knew what they want and what they are protesting, especial these people:

They want the United States to return to something that it has never been.

[StPaulHusker]

but, honestly. i just wish i knew what they want and what they are protesting, especial these people:

They want the United States to return to something that it has never been.

This is probably the best explanation of anything ever. Nice job.

[krill]

but, honestly. i just wish i knew what they want and what they are protesting, especial these people:

 

They are protesting the takeover of "their" country with Chinese made American flags, flat hats, and flag t-shirts.

[JJ Husker]

i do not understand what the protesters want? they should be happy the gov't is closed. but i just think it is funny that they are so upset about one of the consequences of the gov't shutdown when they are the ones who want to shrink it so it could be drowned in a bathtub. what did they expect? why would national monuments be considered 'essential' for gov't spending?

 

but, honestly. i just wish i knew what they want and what they are protesting, especial these people:

 

Sorry, maybe I am missing something but how do we know who these people are or who they represent? I see no signs indicating any affiliation and everybody looks pretty normal except for the lady that apparently doesn't know how many flags and how much red, white, and blue, is enough. Based on this picture, how do we know these people should be happy the government is closed or that they want smaller govt? How do we know they're not democratic supporters protesting the republicans in the house? Seriously, anybody could be up in arms these days.

[carlfense]

but, honestly. i just wish i knew what they want and what they are protesting, especial these people:

Just read this. Much more detail but basically the same thing that I was trying to express.

 

As it happens, I’ve been doing some reading about John Kennedy, and what I find startling, and even surprising, is how absolutely consistent and unchanged the ideology of the extreme American right has been over the past fifty years, from father to son and now, presumably, on to son from father again. The real analogue to today’s unhinged right wing in America is yesterday’s unhinged right wing in America. This really isyour grandfather’s right, if not, to be sure, your grandfather’s Republican Party.

. . .

Reading through the literature on the hysterias of 1963, the continuity of beliefs is plain: Now, as then, there is said to be a conspiracy in the highest places to end American Constitutional rule and replace it with a Marxist dictatorship, evidenced by a plan in which your family doctor will be replaced by a federal bureaucrat—mostly for unnamable purposes, but somehow involving the gleeful killing off of the aged. There is also the conviction, in both eras, that only a handful of Congressmen and polemicists (then mostly in newspapers; now on TV) stand between honest Americans and the apocalypse, and that the man presiding over that plan is not just a dupe but personally depraved, an active collaborator with our enemies, a secret something or other, and any necessary means to bring about the end of his reign are justified and appropriate.

. . .

Medicare then, as Obamacare now, was the key evil. An editorial in the Morning Newsannounced that “JFK’s support of Medicare sounds suspiciously similar to a pro-Medicare editorial that appeared in the Worker—the official publication of the U.S. Communist Party.” At the same time, Minutaglio and Davis write, “on the radio, H.L. Hunt (the Dallas millionaire) filled the airwaves with dozens of attacks on Medicare, claiming that it would create government death panels: The plan provides a near little package of sweeping dictatorial power over medicine and the healing arts—a package which would literally make the President of the United States a medical czar with potential life or death power over every man woman and child in the country.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/10/the-john-birchers-tea-party.html

 

The more things change, eh?

[carlfense]

Sorry, maybe I am missing something but how do we know who these people are or who they represent? I see no signs indicating any affiliation and everybody looks pretty normal except for the lady that apparently doesn't know how many flags and how much red, white, and blue, is enough. Based on this picture, how do we know these people should be happy the government is closed or that they want smaller govt? How do we know they're not democratic supporters protesting the republicans in the house? Seriously, anybody could be up in arms these days.

Do you see the Gadsen flags? Confederate flag? Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz spoke. Etc.

 

Shirley you can't be serious.

[rawhide]

I've heard that Shirley is always, ALWAYS serious