by Simon 369 Replies latest social current
Because of previous obligations. We are paying for two wars that are winding down and if you look at the chart above the economic crash of 2008 put us in a deep hole but like other times in the country's history we will address the hangover issues like we did with the Great Depression.
This isn't easy by any means but we have multiple means of addressing these serious problems.
And here you have it DogGone. Total misinformation. Aggressive ignorance. Not even a desire for facts. Yet they have a superior attitude about education.
PS It is incorrect to say that "THE Democrats" seceded during the civil war. The party split how many times during that period?? How many became Republicans? It was not a simple party line split, nor do either party of today resemble their civil war ancestors. To suggest equivalence between the parties in today's insanity is just ignorant.
It was mighty decent of you to defend another poster though.
Shirley, what would you do to address the health care issue?
Shirley,
Over the course of years, I've read many accounts of Alexander Hamilton and the national debt, including the controversy over the formation of a central bank. Never have I encounterd your assertion. Hamilton was controversial. If you want to make a statement concerning Hamilton's policies, please reference an neutral, respected website. Quoting a website that says what you want it to say is not scholarship or asserting a fact.
It is very clear that he was the principal actor behind assumption of colonial debt. The Founders lived in a very different world. One that was formed around mercantislism and not capitalism. It would make sense that a right winger would cast doubt on Hamilton's policies. Jefferson did not stay a rural advocate. He favored a strong, central government once he became president. Neither Jefferson nor Hamilton can truly be claimed by any party today.
Nonjwspouse, did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by a Socialist? That "under God" wasn't added until 1954?
I claim Jefferson as a Liberal
Along with Jesus
Berenobama cannot resist a snotty cheapshot. It's not her fault.
PS - the post civil war growth of the modern day Dem party was rooted in the old Confederacy.
After Booth assasinated the evil Rebublican, which way did he run?
What is the point of having a debt ceiling, if you're just going to raise it?
It is high time we abolished the hostage-taking over the debt-ceiling. It is also high time we educated the public about what the debt ceiling means. Jaysus!
Whatever opinions on the rights and wrongs of ACA is immaterial - it's law, it needs to be respected because it became law through the democratic processes in place.
The real issue is that the republican party has pandered to a small group of extremists and the result is that they have been able to shutdown the government and now threaten the US defaulting on it's debts.
They are extremists - they think their views and opinions are the only truth worth following and everything can and will be sacrificed for them to have their own way. They think that their beliefs should override everyone elses democratic rights. They don't care if they bring the country to its knees or send the economy down the toilet, in fact it wouldn't surprise me if they delighted in doing this as part of their revolutionary attitude and reckless approach to politics.
There is no negotiating with people like this. They need to fail, they need to fail hard and they need to be wiped off the poitical map because of it or at least put there they belong - as an isolated, unelectable extremist faction.
This recent article by Andrew Sullivan addresses this so well:
How does one party that has lost two presidential elections and a Supreme Court case – as well as two Senate elections - think it has the right to shut down the entire government and destroy the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury to get its way on universal healthcare now? I see no quid pro quo even. Just pure blackmail, resting on understandable and predictable public concern whenever a major reform is enacted. But what has to be resisted is any idea that this is government or politics as usual. It is an attack on the governance and the constitutional order of the United States.
When ideologies become as calcified, as cocooned and as extremist as those galvanizing the GOP, the American system of government cannot work. But I fear this nullification of the last two elections is a deliberate attempt to ensure that the American system of government as we have known it cannot work. It cannot, must not work, in the mindset of these radicals, because they simply do not accept the legitimacy of a President and Congress of the opposing party. The GOP does not regard the president as merely wrong – but as illegitimate. Not misguided – illegitimate. This is not about ending Obamacare as such (although that is a preliminary scalp); it is about nullifying this presidency, the way the GOP attempted to nullify the last Democratic presidency by impeachment.
Except this time, of course, we cannot deny that race too is an added factor to the fathomless sense of entitlement felt among the GOP far right. You saw it in birtherism; in the Southern GOP’s constant outrageous claims of Obama’s alleged treason and alliance with Islamist enemies; in providing zero votes for a stimulus that was the only thing that prevented a global depression of far worse proportions; in the endless race-baiting from Fox News and the talk radio right. And in this racially-charged atmosphere, providing access to private healthcare insurance to the working poor is obviously the point of no return.
Even though the law is almost identical to that of their last presidential nominee’s in Massachusetts, the GOP is prepared to destroy both the American government and the global economy to stop it. They see it, it seems to me, as both some kind of profound attack on the Constitution (something even Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts viewed as a step too far) and, in some inchoate way, as a racial hand-out, however preposterous that is. And that is at the core of the recklessness behind this attack on the US – or at least my best attempt to understand something that has long since gone beyond reason. This is the point of no return – a black president doing something for black citizens (even though the vast majority of beneficiaries of Obamacare will be non-black).
I regard this development as one of the more insidious and anti-constitutional acts of racist vandalism against the American republic in my adult lifetime. Those who keep talking as if there are two sides to this, when there are not, are as much a part of the vandalism as Ted Cruz. Obama has played punctiliously by the constitutional rules – two elections, one court case – while the GOP has decided that the rules are for dummies and suckers, and throws over the board game as soon as it looks as if it is going to lose by the rules as they have always applied.
The president must therefore hold absolutely firm. This time, there can be no compromise because the GOP isn’t offering any. They’re offering the kind of constitutional surrender that would effectively end any routine operation of the American government. If we cave to their madness, we may unravel our system of government, something one might have thought conservatives would have opposed. Except these people are not conservatives. They’re vandals.
This time, the elephant must go down. And if possible, it must be so wounded it does not get up for a long time to come.
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/01/the-nullification-party/
I thought the function of Congress was just to stop progress.
LOL...In this case it is.
But it's an important point ... the whole reason for the ACA is that the old system was unsustainable and a burden in the long term. US healthcare cost were way way beyond the rest of the worlds and getting worse.
I agree. I blame big pharma, and medical research firms for the high and unsustainable costs. I think that we here in the U.S. end up paying for the R&D and improved medical treatments that much of the rest of the world gets at a discount. Obamacare doesn't even begin to touch this component of the problem. Instead it just sticks hard working people with a bigger bill.
Americans are tired of wasteful, poorly conceived government ideas.
