Grover Norquist and the Republicans have betrayed the US military!

[Deleted]

Just like every other discussion where someone brings up Austrian economics.

You were the first to bring it up (or Ninespine?)

[Wells]

You were the first to bring it up (or Ninespine?)

Ninespine called you on it first. You brought it up first.

[Deleted]

Ninespine called you on it first. You brought it up first.

Friedman is an Austrian now?

[Sunseeker]

You were the first to bring it up (or Ninespine?)

Who cares? Shut your yap about hypothetical economic systems that can't be realistically applied to a major country. Your Finnish and frankly that alone means you know jack about the USA, you live in one of the most economically strong European states whose people have some of the best education, health care and purchasing power of the Western world and it's a SOCIALIST country. You're so focused on what's wrong in the USA, you can't even see what's working perfectly well right in front of your face.

Mod Edit: "Shut your yap..." Let's not have stuff like that please.

[Wells]

Friedman is an Austrian now?

This is getting stupid. You're the board austrian. Your views are austrian. When you express your views youre bringing up austrian economics.

Can we get back to Norquist and how he sank the debt commission?

[tomehere]

Liberals are either spineless, latte sipping pussies or bullying, oppressive tyrants. Pick one and stay consistent

Too bad they cant be like repulicans have a strong consistancy of do what I say or you are WRONG, like with abortion, gay marriage, pot legalization, ect., ect...

[mordale]

True, it doesn't matter what Obama proposes, the Republicans will still say no. They can't compromise at all.

They are elected for the good of the people and their constituents, not to further a personal or party agenda. The Republican behaviour is reminiscent of small children in kindergarten who were unable to compromise or share. Even if they don't agree fully with Democrat suggestions, they should compromise and accept what would be the "lesser evil" rather than leave things in total disarray.


Still scratching my head at that one.
Also, in a country of 300 million people I don't understand how a father and son can BOTH become president.

look up the skull and bones club, they're both members... as are most republican presidential candidates.
and a fair bit of the democratic ones too.

[Sunseeker]

Back on-topic, the thing that bugs me the most with Norquist is that his pledge seems to supersede the pledge to the Constitution. I don't like this. Not much I can do about it, but I don't like it.

It just really demonstrates how beholden to special interests many politicians are(I am not excluding Democrats here). If Republicans cannot pull their heads out of their ass and realize that they were elected to represent THEIR CONSTITUENTS as opposed to some rich fat-cat, then they deserve to get the boot and I darn well hope that come the 2012 elections they feel that boot particularly hard.

[Hughes]

Allow me to present a few of my own theories/opinons in this.

For starters, the debt ceiling. The original deal was made to last until election time. Really? Ends AT election time? So the primary focus of the debate this time around is going to be the debt crisis? Either both sides had no choice, or they set that up to prep their stance on it come crunch time. It's turning from 'fix the nation' into a political mind **** that is doing far more harm than good.

Military spending. The biggest reason why these other countries do not have big military budgets is because they don't have to. We have brave men and women stationed all over the world. Alot of them. So why would these countries spend alot of money on military when they have another country willing to step in?

Both Democrats and Republicans are at fault here. The crap Republicans spit out escapes the field of logic then borderilnes sheer insanity. Democrats are spineless, big-government go getters that are slowly creeping in the same direction as Republicans (albeit they have different view points).

It all boils down to the mighty dollar. Senators can run for office and win as many times as they want, and they will cut spending to things that do not line their pockets nearly as much as something they wouldn't cut. Here's an idea; lead by example. They need to cut their own paygrades and stop accepting lobbyist bids so they can have two more houses to choose from when they want to go on vacation. That goes for any office that does not have limited terms;cut their wages. Not only that, limit the amount of times they can be an office. Add an incentive that makes them want to work for their people by adding something in like 'if your people don't like you GTFO now' versus the next election (I know that last part is a bit unstable, but I'm sure someone here could easily tweak the idea).

Greed is the centerpiece of our current government. Do I call for anarchy? Of course not. I call for accountability, which unfortunately nowadays applies to people of the opposite party that are not liked and mistakes are exploited to gain more power for the first party.

Furthermore, Republicans just blindly voting no to anything that comes to the table is like a child taking their ball and going home because they did not get what they want. A piss poor stonewall tactic that does nothing but let the people suffer. They go in to 'represent and serve' the people of their respective districts, these old coots arent even doing that right! It's a 'well you didnt pass the bill I wanted now I'm going to deny anything and everything you throw up here not because I don't agree with it but because you did not agree with the one idea I had.'

Yeah...pisses me off to say the least.

[Olo]

i heard they had put in a failsafe to make sure that the supercomitee found a solution... now they want to remove that failsafe because they are unlikely to find a solution together...

Obama said he'd veto it if they tried.

[Deleted]

I gotta agree with smrund here. Republicans for the past 10 years have been anything but fiscally responsible.

THat's one of the biggest reasons the Tea Party got started.

---------- Post added 2011-11-23 at 09:37 PM ----------

This is getting stupid. You're the board austrian. Your views are austrian. When you express your views youre bringing up austrian economi

I was speaking about Friedman, and what he would do. His views are close to those of the Austrian School.

And maybe you shouldn't have started with your random comments?

[Wells]

I gotta agree with smrund here. Republicans for the past 10 years have been anything but fiscally responsible.

If I have to choose between tax and spend, and lower taxes and spend, I'm going with the former, because I give a shit about our deficits. When Cheney says deficits don't matter, that's not a fiscal conservative. But again, I'm talking about the politicians, not Republicans in general.

Back on-topic, the thing that bugs me the most with Norquist is that his pledge seems to supersede the pledge to the Constitution. I don't like this. Not much I can do about it, but I don't like it.

The GOP has traditionally stood on 3 pillars. Libertarians, social conservatives, and neo-liberals.

Only one group actually cares about spending seriously. And its the group with the least power.

[Ausr]

Believe you can cut the defense budget by 50% and still outspend the next 10 countries of the world.

Course, if they allow that to happen, they'll probably send that freed up money overseas instead of, dunno, improving our infrastructure.

[Deleted]

Who cares? Shut your yap ....

I know more about the US economy than you do so I can perfectly well comment on it. If you think Finland is so perfect why don't you move here? <snip>

Mod Warning: Don't attempt to derail the thread.

[Wells]

I know more about the US economy than you do so I can perfectly well comment on it. If you think Finland is so perfect why don't you move here?

He raises a valid point. You often don't understand how a system works in the US and you live in a country with very successful socialized programs and tell us they don't work. Makes it hard to take you seriously at times.

[Sunseeker]

Believe you can cut the defense budget by 50% and still outspend the next 10 countries of the world.

Course, if they allow that to happen, they'll probably send that freed up money overseas instead of, dunno, improving our infrastructure.

As pointed out earlier, it's easy to outspend countries who spend nothing because we spend it for them.

That aside, I wouldn't care if the money still went into the "defense" budget just so long as it went to projects here at home. Smaller and more stable power grids, better roads, these things are KEY to a strong national defense. I'd be happy to see soldiers out building American roads and power grids instead of blowing up some other country's.

---------- Post added 2011-11-23 at 01:44 PM ----------

I know more about the US economy than you do so I can perfectly well comment on it. If you think Finland is so perfect why don't you move here? What's with the random raging from leftists today? (well Wells wasn't raging).

You know jack about the US economy. All you talk about is hypothetical extremist economic systems, you lack any sort of historical economic understanding and twist everything that doesn't agree with your personal interpretation to make you look right.

I can't move to Finland because I live in a country where I'm over-worked, under-paid, and poorly educated. Why don't YOU move here and see how you like a system that provides you none of the amenities your armchair-economics rely on?

[Wells]

People keep claiming we spend on defense for the rest of the world.

Never quite sure how they figured that one.

[Dacien]

It just really demonstrates how beholden to special interests many politicians are(I am not excluding Democrats here). If Republicans cannot pull their heads out of their ass and realize that they were elected to represent THEIR CONSTITUENTS as opposed to some rich fat-cat, then they deserve to get the boot and I darn well hope that come the 2012 elections they feel that boot particularly hard.

Except he's not really a "fat-cat", in the usual sense of the term. He's a lobbyist, but he's also an activist. He's a very powerful defender of the taxpayer like you and me.

[Sunseeker]

Except he's not really a "fat-cat", in the usual sense of the term. He's a lobbyist, but he's also an activist. He's a very powerful defender of the taxpayer like you and me.

Oh please. This guy doesn't represent me.

[Wells]

Except he's not really a "fat-cat", in the usual sense of the term. He's a lobbyist, but he's also an activist. He's a very powerful defender of the taxpayer like you and me.

He's not defending me. He's defending his ideology's interests.