Politics

[irishpat183]

The whole more dependents the more votes is completely wrong. Many of the citizens vote against their own best economic interest. The south disproportionately benefits from the federal government vs what it puts in (I am looking at you Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi etc). Broad generalizations like that are just patently false.

But the south votes for other reasons (religion being a big one) so it's not "patently" false.


And think about it, the other side to that is in poor urban areas Obama crushes it...And it's not because of his foreign policy.

Hell, people come on TV all the time and admit it. Obama phone lady, Obama pays my gas lady (whether he will or not)


The dependent class, will usually, vote for whom ever keeps them comfortable.

 

[Corry]

Everyone, will usually, vote for whom ever keeps them comfortable.

Fixed

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Exactly. The world can't be full of bookworms and intellectuals. We need worker bees as well.

While I value my degree and it has opened some doors....There are people that would be better served to just enter the workforce or hit up a tech school

Trade schools are just as important as other forms of higher education. I've never read a serious argument that every American needs at least a Bachelor's degree to succeed in life, but lots of people seem to believe it anyway. And colleges certainly aren't going to stop taking their money. Hopefully the Feds stop subsidizing student loans so prospective students can get an accurate picture of the risks and benefits of investing in a degree.

The flipside of this is that the guy who starts working right after high school isn't "owed" a manufacturing job making $20-30. It's very likely that his skills aren't worth that, and trying to pass legislation to force the issue will help that guy, and others like him, but will lower the quality of life for everyone else. There are much more efficient ways of guaranteeing a minimum standard of living (direct transfer payments, for instance) than trying to make the economy look a certain way because that's how it was in the 50s.

While true I think you're leaving the other side of the equation out. The jobs (mainly manufacturing) that were lost were $10 -$20/hr jobs that were replaced with lower paying service jobs. Lower prices don't mean much when you have less to spend in accordance.

Sure, if you want to consider short-term individual cases. A factory worker who loses his job due to outsourcing is worse off than he was before he lost it. But outsourcing and technological advancement have been going on for a long time. The poor and middle class in America have an undeniably higher standard of living today than they did 50 or 100 years ago, largely thanks to those forces providing better products for cheaper.

The skills of your factory worker who lost his job to outsourcing or automation simply aren't worth $20/hour anymore. For all our modern technology, some things haven't changed since we were living in caves; you either adapt to changes in your environment, or you die.

The corporations passed some of the savings along to consumers but kept the majority to boost profits. The devaluation of the Peso in the late 90's was a boon to corporations and very little was passed thru.

This doesn't happen in well-functioning market economies. It's only possible when corporatism/ government patronage allow for some sort of monopoly. Our government definitely needs to do a better job of regulating anti-competitive behavior, but this isn't an argument against globalisation.

 

[RallySonsOfND]

I am at work so I will put this succinctly. We would be fooked. We would either default on our debt payments and/or we would have to lay off a good chunk of government employees and stop paying government contracts. Other countries and our own citizens would lose faith in the government. Pretty much a total meltdown. It would also probably send the country into a deep depression

We are already way past this.



1000th Post!!!!!!!!

 

[tadman95]

Sure, if you want to consider short-term individual cases. A factory worker who loses his job due to outsourcing is worse off than he was before he lost it. But outsourcing and technological advancement have been going on for a long time. The poor and middle class in America have an undeniably higher standard of living today than they did 50 or 100 years ago, largely thanks to those forces providing better products for cheaper.

The skills of your factory worker who lost his job to outsourcing or automation simply aren't worth $20/hour anymore. For all our modern technology, some things haven't changed since we were living in caves; you either adapt to changes in your environment, or you die.

I agree, I just felt that people should understand that there were offsets to lower cost of goods and the lower and middle classes don't see as many of the benefits. Sure it's a short term issue but in many cases short term could be the rest of their lives. Twenty years ago I wouldn't have cared but having seen the effects on people, we shouldn't lose sight of the human consequences. I'm sure you understand but some may not.

Globalization was and is inevitable. I would argue that even freer markets would create a more level playing field by eliminating some of the protections that countries and corporations enjoy.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

I see this election coming down to 2 very simple facts:

1) Obama won with unemployment at 7.9%, the first time a president has done so since FDR. Republicans thought that if they ran strictly on the economy and job creation, they'd win easily. They were wrong. Obama's Chicago team painted Romney as the evil, rich white guy for a year and it worked.

2) Unemployment, food stamps, debt, deficits, no budget from Congress in 4 years...all things we thought would matter, simply did not matter. The recipient class voted more than the provider class. Plain and simple.

I welcome all debates on this but I ask one thing before any of you bitter, social justice libs start calling me mean and racist: go google the tytler cycle and let us all know where you think we are. I'm interested to hear different opinions.

With all that said, I pray to God that in 2016 unemployment isn't 8% and our debt isn't $20 trillion

 

[irishpat183]

I see this election coming down to 2 very simple facts:

1) Obama won with unemployment at 7.9%, the first time a president has done so since FDR. Republicans thought that if they ran strictly on the economy and job creation, they'd win easily. They were wrong. Obama's Chicago team painted Romney as the evil, rich white guy for a year and it worked.

2) Unemployment, food stamps, debt, deficits, no budget from Congress in 4 years...all things we thought would matter, simply did not matter. The recipient class voted more than the provider class. Plain and simple.

I welcome all debates on this but I ask one thing before any of you bitter, social justice libs start calling me mean and racist: go google the tytler cycle and let us all know where you think we are. I'm interested to hear different opinions.

With all that said, I pray to God that in 2016 unemployment isn't 8% and our debt isn't $20 trillion

Great post

 

[autry_denson]

The recipient class voted more than the provider class. Plain and simple.

Big part of why you lost - assuming others don't share values of hard work, upward mobility, perseverance is a mistake, as Romney found out.

By the way, any guesses as to our nation's largest federal housing policy?
Home mortgage interest deduction - which dwarfs all other housing programs combined. Any of you own your homes? Welcome to the recipient class...

 

[PraetorianND]

I see this election coming down to 2 very simple facts:

1) Obama won with unemployment at 7.9%, the first time a president has done so since FDR. Republicans thought that if they ran strictly on the economy and job creation, they'd win easily. They were wrong. Obama's Chicago team painted Romney as the evil, rich white guy for a year and it worked.

2) Unemployment, food stamps, debt, deficits, no budget from Congress in 4 years...all things we thought would matter, simply did not matter. The recipient class voted more than the provider class. Plain and simple.

I welcome all debates on this but I ask one thing before any of you bitter, social justice libs start calling me mean and racist: go google the tytler cycle and let us all know where you think we are. I'm interested to hear different opinions.

With all that said, I pray to God that in 2016 unemployment isn't 8% and our debt isn't $20 trillion

The majority of the country that voted cast their vote for the president for reasons other than these. You don't seem to know what you're talking about to be honest. You're saying that the "recipient class voted more than the provider class?" This comment implies that wealthy people did not vote for the president. If this were true you wouldn't see the wealthiest and most highly educated regions of the country going blue would you?

These are excuses and complaints, nothing more. I voted for Obama because I believe in his foreign policy (which didn't make your extremely abbreviated list). I DIDN'T vote for Romney because of his inability to be consistent (to the point of lying an gaming to get the nomination). I don't think I am on an island in my views either; nor am I part of the "recipient" class.

If you want to tell me my views are idiotic fine, because I'm sure that is coming. But I'm telling you that your summation of this election is asinine and makes you look bitter and angry.

 

[NankerPhelge]

I know, I know. He's just a right-wing kook even if he is a product of our dear Alma Mater. Here is his, obviously uninformed and misguided, perception:






Nov. 7 2012: President Barack Obama , joined by his wife Michelle, Vice President Joe Biden and his spouse Jill acknowledge applause after Obama delivered his victory speech to supporters gathered in Chicago. (2012 AP)



Only in America can a president who inherits a deep recession and whose policies have actually made the effects of that recession worse get re-elected. Only in America can a president who wants the bureaucrats who can’t run the Post Office to micromanage the administration of every American’s health care get re-elected. Only in America can a president who kills Americans overseas who have never been charged or convicted of a crime get re-elected. And only in America can a president who borrowed and spent more than $5 trillion in fewer than four years, plans to repay none of it and promises to borrow another $5 trillion in his second term get re-elected.

What’s going on here?

What is going on is the present-day proof of the truism observed by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, who rarely agreed on anything in public: When the voters recognize that the public treasury has become a public trough, they will send to Washington not persons who will promote self-reliance and foster an atmosphere of prosperity, but rather those who will give away the most cash and thereby create dependency. This is an attitude that, though present in some localities in the colonial era, was created at the federal level by Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, magnified by FDR, enhanced by LBJ, and eventually joined in by all modern-day Democrats and most contemporary Republicans.

Mitt Romney is one of those Republicans. He is no opponent of federal entitlements, and he basically promised to keep them where they are. Where they are is a cost to taxpayers of about $1.7 trillion a year. Under President Obama, however, the costs have actually increased, and so have the numbers of those who now receive them. Half of the country knows this, and so it has gleefully sent Obama back to office so he can send them more federal cash taken from the other half.

It is fair to say that Obama is the least skilled and least effective American president since Jimmy Carter, but he is far more menacing. His every instinct is toward the central planning of the economy and the federal regulation of private behavior. He has no interest in protecting American government employees in harm’s way in Libya, and he never admits he has been wrong about anything. Though he took an oath to uphold the Constitution, he treats it as a mere guideline, whose grand principles intended to guarantee personal liberty and a diffusion of power can be twisted and compromised to suit his purposes. He rejects the most fundamental of American values -- that our rights come from our Creator, and not from the government. His rejection of that leads him to an expansive view of the federal government, which permits it, and thus him, to right any wrong, to regulate any behavior and to tax any event, whether authorized by the Constitution or not, and to subordinate the individual to the state at every turn.

As a practical matter, we are in for very difficult times during Obama’s second term. ObamaCare is now here to stay; so, no matter who you are or how you pay your medical bills, federal bureaucrats will direct your physicians in their treatment of you, and they will see your medical records. As well, Obama is committed to raising the debt of the federal government to $20 trillion. So, if the Republican-controlled House of Representatives goes along with this, as it did during Obama’s first term, the cost will be close to $1 trillion in interest payments every year. As well, everyone’s taxes will go up on. New Year’s Day, as the Bush-era tax cuts will expire then. The progressive vision of a populace dependent on a central government and a European-style welfare state is now at hand.

Though I argued during the campaign that this election was a Hobson’s choice between big government and bigger government, and that regrettably it addressed how much private wealth the feds should seize and redistribute and how much private behavior they should regulate, rather than whether the Constitution permits them to do so, and though I have argued that we have really one political party whose two branches mirror each other’s wishes for war and power, it is unsettling to find Obama back in the White House for another four years. That sinking feeling comes from the knowledge that he is free from the need to keep an eye on the electorate, and from the terrible thought that he may be the authoritarian we have all known and feared would visit us one day and crush our personal freedoms.



Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written six books on the U.S. Constitution. His latest is “It is Dangerous To Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom.”















.


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Read more: Four more years--what is going on here? | Fox News

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

I see this election coming down to 2 very simple facts:

1) Obama won with unemployment at 7.9%, the first time a president has done so since FDR. Republicans thought that if they ran strictly on the economy and job creation, they'd win easily. They were wrong. Obama's Chicago team painted Romney as the evil, rich white guy for a year and it worked.

2) Unemployment, food stamps, debt, deficits, no budget from Congress in 4 years...all things we thought would matter, simply did not matter. The recipient class voted more than the provider class. Plain and simple.

I welcome all debates on this but I ask one thing before any of you bitter, social justice libs start calling me mean and racist: go google the tytler cycle and let us all know where you think we are. I'm interested to hear different opinions.

With all that said, I pray to God that in 2016 unemployment isn't 8% and our debt isn't $20 trillion

The party of angry white guys is dead.

Figure out how to talk respectfully to people and then maybe they would listen to what Repubs. have to say... doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

 

[Corry]

I welcome all debates on this but I ask one thing before any of you bitter, social justice libs start calling me mean and racist: go google the tytler cycle and let us all know where you think we are. I'm interested to hear different opinions.

With all that said, I pray to God that in 2016 unemployment isn't 8% and our debt isn't $20 trillion

Compaired to the rest of the world we are in abundance.

 

[RDU Irish]

Big part of why you lost - assuming others don't share values of hard work, upward mobility, perseverance is a mistake, as Romney found out.

By the way, any guesses as to our nation's largest federal housing policy?
Home mortgage interest deduction - which dwarfs all other housing programs combined. Any of you own your homes? Welcome to the recipient class...

This contortion of "letting someone keep more of their own money" equalling "sending someone a check" is completely legitimate in your mind isn't it?

 

[Redbar]

I see this election coming down to 2 very simple facts:

1) Obama won with unemployment at 7.9%, the first time a president has done so since FDR. Republicans thought that if they ran strictly on the economy and job creation, they'd win easily. They were wrong. Obama's Chicago team painted Romney as the evil, rich white guy for a year and it worked.

2) Unemployment, food stamps, debt, deficits, no budget from Congress in 4 years...all things we thought would matter, simply did not matter. The recipient class voted more than the provider class. Plain and simple.

I welcome all debates on this but I ask one thing before any of you bitter, social justice libs start calling me mean and racist: go google the tytler cycle and let us all know where you think we are. I'm interested to hear different opinions.

With all that said, I pray to God that in 2016 unemployment isn't 8% and our debt isn't $20 trillion

Keep believing this type of stuff and republicans will lose again in 2016. When will the conservatives look at themselves and stop blaming and demonizing a class that they perceive as inferior. First thing I learned as an adult, and as a business owner, when things don't go according to plan, start in the mirror. The same people so anxious to blame some perceived "recipient class" would go crazy if Coach Kelly took every loss and blamed it on some outside factor, or on his team. Leaders start in the mirror, they shoulder more than their share of the blame, maybe once the sting wears off, we can stop with the underhanded insults and look at the war within the republican party between extremist and moderates (much like Islam right now)that threatens to make this party irrelevant.

 

[JughedJones]

The party of angry white guys is dead.

Figure out how to talk respectfully to people and then maybe they would listen to what Repubs. have to say... doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

This is exactly right.

You can't shame and anger people into voting for you, it just doesn't work.

The right needs to quit it with the hyperbole. It used to be that we would have a debate about who's policies were the best, then we'd choose.

Now, it's a 'fight for our liberty' and 'the fate of out country hangs in the balance!'

Guess what? It doesn't. It's just a different way of governing than you would prefer. When this country doesn't go to hell in a handbasket by the end of Obama's term, and the economy keeps on improving... you guys will just end up looking foolish again.

Come back to reality, get your heads out of the oven, and maybe you'll have a shot in 2016.

 

[autry_denson]

This contortion of "letting someone keep more of their own money" equalling "sending someone a check" is completely legitimate in your mind isn't it?

So you think the interest that you pay to a bank for the loan that you received from them is "your money"? You don't quite get what a mortgage is.

It's hilarious the way that conservatives find ways to justify the benefits they receive from the government and demonize the benefits that others receive. A tax deduction is identical to a check, it is packaged differently so you can think of yourself as self-sufficient and you can think of others as dependent. If you don't believe in handouts, don't deduct your mortgage interest next year.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

Anyone care to research the tytler cycle and throw their two cents in as to where we are as a country?

 

[JughedJones]

Anyone care to research the tytler cycle and throw their two cents in as to where we are as a country?

You realize that the '47%' argument was one of the major reasons the right lost?

All I see is you guys doubling down on it post-election.

I really want to see a robust, thoughtful, and viable opposition. This ain't the way to do it.


Good grief.

 

[PraetorianND]

Good grief.

+1

 

[Ndaccountant]

So you think the interest that you pay to a bank for the loan that you received from them is "your money"? You don't quite get what a mortgage is.

It's hilarious the way that conservatives find ways to justify the benefits they receive from the government and demonize the benefits that others receive. A tax deduction is identical to a check, it is packaged differently so you can think of yourself as self-sufficient and you can think of others as dependent. If you don't believe in handouts, don't deduct your mortgage interest next year.

Well, the difference is that it is lowering the taxes one pays to the government. Hard to take a deduction if you don't pay any income taxes. Now, compare that to a straight hand out (which comes from collected taxes and borrowed money). I see a difference.

regardless, this is the precise reason why lowering the rate and eliminating things like this deduction make sense.

 

[Polish Leppy 22]

You realize that the '47%' argument was one of the major reasons the right lost?

All I see is you guys doubling down on it post-election.

I really want to see a robust, thoughtful, and viable opposition. This ain't the way to do it.


Good grief.

I'm not running for public office. And while the 47% remark wasn't popular, it was absolutely true. No father wants to hear that his kid is the worst player on the little league baseball team, but everyone knows it.

Where do you think we are in the tytler cycle? Just curious.

 

[JughedJones]

Well, the difference is that it is lowering the taxes one pays to the government. Hard to take a deduction if you don't pay any income taxes. Now, compare that to a straight hand out (which comes from collected taxes and borrowed money). I see a difference.

regardless, this is the precise reason why lowering the rate and eliminating things like this deduction make sense.

What exactly do you consider 'handouts?'

 

[RDU Irish]

The party of angry white guys is dead.

Figure out how to talk respectfully to people and then maybe they would listen to what Repubs. have to say... doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

From your comments you would think Obama won by larger margins than 2008?

2008
69.4 million votes to Obama
60 million votes to McCain

2012
61 million votes to Obama
58 million votes to Romney

By these marks, he lost 8 million plus votes and somehow Romney performed 2 million worse than McCain despite maybe 10 million more people living in the US now versus then.

Who here thought Romney would get fewer votes than McCain?

 

[IrishJayhawk]

FWIW, Obama did NOT say that everyone should go to college. First, he included trade schools and vocational training in the mix. Second, he was talking about giving everyone who wanted to go the opportunity to go.

PolitiFact | Rick Santorum calls Barack Obama a 'snob' for wanting 'everybody in America to go to college'

 

[GoIrish41]

I see this election coming down to 2 very simple facts:

1) Obama won with unemployment at 7.9%, the first time a president has done so since FDR. Republicans thought that if they ran strictly on the economy and job creation, they'd win easily. They were wrong. Obama's Chicago team painted Romney as the evil, rich white guy for a year and it worked.

2) Unemployment, food stamps, debt, deficits, no budget from Congress in 4 years...all things we thought would matter, simply did not matter. The recipient class voted more than the provider class. Plain and simple.

I welcome all debates on this but I ask one thing before any of you bitter, social justice libs start calling me mean and racist: go google the tytler cycle and let us all know where you think we are. I'm interested to hear different opinions.

With all that said, I pray to God that in 2016 unemployment isn't 8% and our debt isn't $20 trillion

The answer to your quesiton, IMO, as to where we fit in the cycle is "Selfishness"
I think it is far more likely that the GOP lost the election due to its characterization of the country as "The Recipient Class" and "The Provider Class" is wrong headed and mean spirited. It carries with it an aura of "We are better than you," and nobody wants to hear that kind of selfrighteousness. Romney's 47% comments doomed him with a large part of the electorate. This, coupled with the "self deportation" comments and the party's alienation of women on reproductive health issues was like an anchor weighing down the campaign. You had a terrible candidate and a message that people just don't agree with in large enough numbers to matter.

This is why I predicted a big win for Obama after which you said I was making an *ss of myself and that I was an idiot. Apparently, you, like your party, have not come to grips with the fact that the electorate does not think the way that you do.

Unemployment, food stamps, debt, and deficits are higher because we are still recovering from the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression -- a financial crisis caused by the Bush administration. It was a huge blunder on the part of the Romney campaign to try to repackage those same policies. It was also not helpful that GOP representatives in the House were widely viewed as obstructing progress against the best interests of the country so they could ensure the president didn't get a second term. For the record, social libs today are not bitter. They are celebrating because their candidate won. Judging from your post, it is you who sounds a bit bitter.

 

[Ndaccountant]

What exactly do you consider 'handouts?'

Anything that the gov't gives to individuals (not including payment for services) and said expenditure is "budgeted" for.

 

[JughedJones]

I'm not running for public office. And while the 47% remark wasn't popular, it was absolutely true. No father wants to hear that his kid is the worst player on the little league baseball team, but everyone knows it.

Where do you think we are in the tytler cycle? Just curious.

We could be in a number of places on it, but I reject the very idea that I have to choose one.

That's assuming that this is Gospel and its definitions fit into one of our narratives.

One of us thinks that we are headed for a national catastrophe because we picked a Democrat for President, one of us doesn't.

One of us believes that their ideology is the only remedy to save the republic from caving in .

I'm not scared that this is an inevitability.

You're asking me to first accept your sense of doom and gloom, then help you prove it to
yourself. No thanks.

 

[PraetorianND]

Poor dumb people vote for Obama because they're too lazy to get ahead on their own. Or they have had their heads filled with nonsense about Romney.

Smart people with money or good work ethic vote for Romney.

That's basically the argument that's being made and it's mind blowing that anyone can believe this way.

 

[autry_denson]

Well, the difference is that it is lowering the taxes one pays to the government. Hard to take a deduction if you don't pay any income taxes. Now, compare that to a straight hand out (which comes from collected taxes and borrowed money). I see a difference.

regardless, this is the precise reason why lowering the rate and eliminating things like this deduction make sense.

Correct, this is a handout for those who pay taxes. It is a regressive policy that benefits the wealthy more than the middle class, and the middle class more than the poor. In the way this program is run it is no different than a hypothetical federal program that sent a very large welfare check to those making the most money each year, a smaller check to middle-income Americans, and little or nothing to poor Americans. So again, if you want to do something about the recipient class then make sure you start by skipping the mortgage deduction line on your income taxes this year.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Correct, this is a handout for those who pay taxes. It is a regressive policy that benefits the wealthy more than the middle class, and the middle class more than the poor. In the way this program is run it is no different than a hypothetical federal program that sent a very large welfare check to those making the most money each year, a smaller check to middle-income Americans, and little or nothing to poor Americans. So again, if you want to do something about the recipient class then make sure you start by skipping the mortgage deduction line on your income taxes this year.

would you consider it a handout to lower tax rates and eliminate deductions?