Fact Check: Dueling Debt Speeches

[lloyd9988]

I like to look up these sort of things in America and see what my opinion is on the whole issue. I usually talk about it in another forum (Which I am extremely grateful it exists), and have some debates on it there. So, I kinda wanted to give it a shot here as well, to see if anyone else likes to read up on politics or news-related things. If you'd like to leave an opinion, be my guest, I'd love to see what your stance you take on these issues, regardless of what party your affiliated with.
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Here's the link: http://factcheck.org/2011/07/factche...debt-speeches/

Here's the question: If the debt problem can be solved real quick, why do they not solve it??

From my understanding, it seems that the Republicans have their own way of doing things. Whereas, Democrats have their own way of doing things. Republicans have a proposal called the 'House-Passed Cut, Cap and Balance Act" which is deep spending cuts without new revenues. This proposal could solve the problem easily. Democrats also proposed the idea that consisted a combination of spending cuts and revenue increase. Both ideas got shot down.

Ultimately, I believe the reason why this problem is not solved yet is because if you have one party come up with the solution to this debt crisis, then it ultimately makes that party look better than the other party. Thus, obtaining more votes from people. But, if this debt crisis could be solved so easily, why are we even worrying about it?? From the sound of it, they are blowing this debt thing out of proportion because they want to get more votes from the people. Instead of just saying "Ok, this plan will work, lets go with it", they would much rather step on each other's toes over and over again and have people side one way or the other who is to blame for the debt crisis, when, in reality, both parties are to blame for this debt crisis. Of course, because people aren't deciding to read up on these things or they are watching or reading biased articles and news channels, no one realizes that this so-called 'debt-crisis' is just being blown out of proportion. It can be solved real easily and then we can all move on with our lives. :/

[BasharOfTheAges]

I think someone just discovered how politics works and why so few people actually vote.

[EvaFan]

http://independenceamerica.com/

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, it to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
—John Adams

What America needs right now isn't a president that takes sides. It needs someone who's not afraid to stand behind that podium and get angry, lash out at both parties, and enforce unison toward common goals. Oh ya, thats called a leader. Haven't gotten that yet with obama, doubt we will with another term of him either.

[Pwolf]

What America needs right now isn't a president that takes sides. It needs someone who's not afraid to stand behind that podium and get angry, lash out at both parties, and enforce unison toward common goals. Oh ya, thats called a leader. Haven't gotten that yet with obama, doubt we will with another term of him either.

When was the last time any president actually did that? It's not just Obama, it's everyone. Bush didn't do it, McCain wouldn't have. Republican or Democrat, it doesn't really matter if the people you're yelling at are fucking idiots. Unless there is a fundamental change in how these idiots think, i don't think anything is going to change no matter how high and mighty any one president gets.

Look at the bullshit California has had to deal with the past several years with our budget not being signed on time. It wasn't Arnold's fault, it was the idiots we elected to run our state. It wasn't until we told them they wont get paid unless they do their fucking job that something was finally done. For the first time in god knows how long, we got a budget on time.

[EvaFan]

When was the last time any president actually did that? It's not just Obama, it's everyone.

It wasn't until we told them they wont get paid unless they do their fucking job that something was finally done.

You said it not me. Let me guess, were you guys angry possibly even yelling/protesting? I'm not saying sheer anger is the best solution, but all this passive aggressive BS in government isnt getting anything done. We need a leader right now, not another president. I don't care what party he/she comes from, as long as they are willing to take charge of these "idiots" and the way they think.

[EvaFan]

Double post ftw,

also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08

[BasharOfTheAges]

What America needs right now isn't a president that takes sides. It needs someone who's not afraid to stand behind that podium and get angry, lash out at both parties, and enforce unison toward common goals. Oh ya, thats called a leader. Haven't gotten that yet with obama, doubt we will with another term of him either.

The antiquated notion of the Bully Pulpit actually meaning anything went away when congressmen realized they could just call a fucking press conference of their own and their partisan cable news networks would cover it anyways. They can bitch and moan all day about how the other side has it all wrong while they tend to the important needs of their generous campaign contributors who will, in turn, make sure their name ends up on the ballot next time.

[lloyd9988]

When was the last time any president actually did that? It's not just Obama, it's everyone.

It wasn't until we told them they wont get paid unless they do their fucking job that something was finally done.

You said it not me. Let me guess, were you guys angry possibly even yelling/protesting? I'm not saying sheer anger is the best solution, but all this passive aggressive BS in government isnt getting anything done. We need a leader right now, not another president. I don't care what party he/she comes from, as long as they are willing to take charge of these "idiots" and the way they think.

As great as this ambition is, its going to be much harder to obtain. With most of the senate and congressmen controlling the media(i.e. Fox News, CNN, CBS), anyone who takes a leadership position like this will only be made to look bad in everyone's eyes. Thus, this may cause this 'leader' to be vetoed out of office before he can change anything. The way it looks to me, anyone and everyone in office is wayyyy more worried about keeping their seat in congress rather than trying to fix any problems. If they could fix problems around the U.S. and also make them also look good in the public's eye, then, yeah, I bet they'd do it in a heartbeat. But, you spend any money to fix an economic problem, you can bet the opposing party will be after you for spending even a dime on trying to fix the problem.

The whole thing is called corruption and its pretty apparent in our country, and whenever someone tries to do something good, like Paul Martin did for Canada, then people will immediately turn on the person who is trying to save their country unless they all read up on why a person does what they do. (Read up on Paul Martin School Of Economics if you want to know what happened to him)

Also, Pwolf, is California more active in your state?? like with-holding money from their politicians until they start making things better for California??

[Kionon]

You mean vote, not veto, I think.

You can't vote American politicians out of office except in some rare cases (Wisconsin allows recall elections, as an example). There is no way to force a vote of no confidence.You simply have to wait until their term expires and elect someone else.

(You hear that, Texas. ELECT SOMONE ELSE. I am very tired of twelve years of Rick fucking Perry. He's worse than W, and goddamn, to be that bad, it has to be either a God given talent or something you really, really work at.)

[Qyot27]

I'll fully admit that I'm a Classical Progressive, so of course what I'm about to say will exhibit that bias pretty clearly. Currently, the Democrats are far more allowably-diverse in thought than the Republicans. The latter is pandering almost exclusively to the most extreme elements of their party, the pseudo-Randian parts that believe in some taxless fantasy land where charity will suddenly replace the government's welfare programs in toto (just keep your hands off the older generation's Social Security and Medicare, but feel free to call both of those services evil incarnate to win votes). That's why they oppose any kind of tax increase, along with opposing things like closing tax loopholes or letting existing tax cuts for the wealthy expire. Whether it's actually prudent to raise taxes or ensure that people and companies aren't gaming the system in this situation is completely irrelevant - they haven't gotten the memo that trickle-down economics is a failure of such catastrophic proportions that it's actually a major contributing factor to this crisis, and continue to espouse its benefits while doing the political equivalent of plugging their ears and shouting 'la la la I can't hear you la la la I can't hear you'.

Not all of them are like that, but the moderate elements of the party are very marginalized by the fringe, and have been on that downward slide since the mid-90s. The reports of Republicans voting for Obama in 2008 were of those moderates, and probably the most center-leaning of them too.

Meanwhile, it's far more simple to try and paint their opponents as Stalinists than it is to engage in respectful and intelligent discourse. Nevermind that they can't seem to grasp (or rather, actively choose to ignore) the fundamental differences between the American left and Communism, because they're pretty much of the mindset that the Cold War never ended - or just rely on that idea to keep themselves in office due to fearmongering. There's also usually a rather scary conflation of those views with the Religious Right, and that's used quite a bit to keep the fear going. Heaven forbid you mention the Rerum Novarum - except that it wouldn't do much good anyway, since the Religious Right stereotypically consists of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, not Catholics.

On the flip side, I'd view the average Democrat as being of questionable allegiance to any of that party's caucuses - you might get some with more Social Democrat or Labour-esque views, or they could be Blue Dogs. And then when you add in the voter apathy in the majority of the population, you end up with a small group of vocal die-hards on both sides duking it out with each other and serving their own interests than acting on the behalf of the public-at-large. One side does something, the other immediately tries to block it or reverse it once they gain power.


RE: the actual debt ceiling talks, I think in many ways this flare-up has only spurred both sides to actually agree that having such an arbitrary limit that can potentially ruin our financial standing is pointless. It only became an important talking point because the aforementioned fringe decided to turn it into one and dig in their heels to grandstand. It'd be far easier and less contentious to abolish the thing entirely, but contention and the threat of economic ruin are perfect things to bash your opponent with come election time.