America Shuts Down!
- Thread starter NorthStar
- Start date
Good, now the the emperor has no clothes and maybe the American people will awake from their jolly stupor.
That's one way of looking at it....or we have a bunch of people who are NOT interested in the will of the people and ONLY in their vested interests.
Methinks that there should be a system in place to protect this to ever happen again. I mean just few people cannot have the tremendous power to interrupt 800,000 jobs just like that! And yet here it is, again!
And from what I have learned the even much worst is possibly yet to come, in two weeks.
As it is this system is very flawed to allow only very few people with such level of misplaced power. ...And which affects the rest of this entire world.
Only in America?
And from what I have learned the even much worst is possibly yet to come, in two weeks.
As it is this system is very flawed to allow only very few people with such level of misplaced power. ...And which affects the rest of this entire world.
Only in America?
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IMHO there is only one way to stop this from happening. Make sure that Senators and Representatives are part of the furlough when the government shuts down, and also require them to work to get it resolved without pay. Is it a conflict if they are paid for something they caused?
Whether it's this issue or any future one if our elected representatives do not have anything on the line it won't matter. You could also require that if the government shuts there are immediate elections for ALL Senate and House seats.
The system isn't flawed, it's just what we have made it. We are free to change but I doubt we will. This is where old time back room politics would be best applied, instead of peacocks strutting for the cameras.
Churchill's quote still applies even now: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
Whether it's this issue or any future one if our elected representatives do not have anything on the line it won't matter. You could also require that if the government shuts there are immediate elections for ALL Senate and House seats.
The system isn't flawed, it's just what we have made it. We are free to change but I doubt we will. This is where old time back room politics would be best applied, instead of peacocks strutting for the cameras.
Churchill's quote still applies even now: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
There are a hundred ways this could be addressed through changes in law, but the people responsible for changing the law are the problem, so that won't work. The most effective, IMO, would be strict anti-gerrymandering laws, which would prevent the creation of safe congressional districts where candidates only have to represent the most active members of their own party (primary voters) in their district, not their constituents. That would keep radicals, who care about nothing but their own ideology, out of Congress. But that, too, counts on a solution to the problem from the people who are causing the problem.
I don't know what the solution is, but one thing I know it is not, is allowing the perpetrators of this treason to gain anything from it. I don't care what you think of the Affordable Care Act, renegotiating any law (ACA is not a bill, as they keep calling it) being held hostage by this kind of tactic, will only guarantee that the tactic will be used over and over again. Obama and the Senate, regardless of what you think of them, are doing what has to be done by refusing to negotiate.
Tim
I don't know what the solution is, but one thing I know it is not, is allowing the perpetrators of this treason to gain anything from it. I don't care what you think of the Affordable Care Act, renegotiating any law (ACA is not a bill, as they keep calling it) being held hostage by this kind of tactic, will only guarantee that the tactic will be used over and over again. Obama and the Senate, regardless of what you think of them, are doing what has to be done by refusing to negotiate.
Tim
Tim,
This tactic has been used over and over again over the past 40 years. As the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler noted when he gave President Obama "4 Pinocchios" early this week for "his claim that non-budget items have ‘never’ been attached to the debt ceiling" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...have-never-been-attached-to-the-debt-ceiling/). If this article is correct, it appears that this practice was the brainchild of Senators Edward Kennedy and Walter Mondale...
Money quote is at the end:
jdoc
Please ... Such tactics are for the least extreme... No matter what one thinks of the ACA law.. Putting almost everything in hostage because a group doesn't like although it is the will of the people is wrong, regardless of the number of times it has been perpetrated. Moreover the rationales for such behavior is lame to say the least. I also doubt the opposition to everything a president says or do has ever been so vehement and so often so disrespectful...
1. While I personally oppose this tactic (and the entire idea of a debt ceiling), such tactics are used by both political parties.
2. The entire budgeting process has broken down and both parties deserve blame. The Senate did not even produce a budget for over three fiscal years (2010-12) because it was not politically expedient to do so. The checks and balances of our constitutional system work only as well as our political class' adherence to them. A country that funds itself by a series of continuing resolutions is approaching banana republic status.
3. Polling on the ACA has consistently been negative and the support for the program has consistently decreased over time. Even moderate Democrats are increasingly opposed to it (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...moderate-democrats-are-quitting-on-obamacare/)
I find the handwringing that delay of the ACA is attached to a budget/debt bill amusing because it only passed by a procedural budget gimmick. When the head of the Teamster's Union is compelled to write Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi warning that "the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class", I think we should be concerned.
The will of the people is get to rid of Obamacare and the government should respect that. BTW, I believe that the healthcare system is need of serious reform; I simply doubt that the ACA is the right way to go about it.
4. Do we really need to review recent history to find opposition to 'everything a president says or do has ever been so vehement and so often so disrespectful'?
Back to regular programming.
When right wingers start quoting the opinions / economic assessment of teamsters (an outfit they have been dismissing as irrelevant socialists throughout history) as ammunition in their case against Obamacare we should be more concerned. Next thing you know they'll start quoting UN reports that Obamacare will accelerate global warming.
Agreed. And the group who spearheads all this jackasstic behavior represents a very small part of the population. It's a version of 'if things don't go my way, I'm taking my ball and going home', but one that has real consequences.
Now don't start mixing bananas with grapefruits (politics with natural sciences).
...Politics are totally unnatural and 100% man-made.* Tim, you're right about the lawmakers.
Now don't start mixing bananas with grapefruits (politics with natural sciences).
* Tim, you're right about the lawmakers.
My conservative friends all assure me global warming research is a politically motivated hoax, all blended into the same Liberal fruitshake as Obamacare, punitive taxation, extended unemployment benefits, minimum wage and other assorted ills - all motivated by a not so hidden agenda to turn the USA into a socialist/communisit haven (or an Islamic caliphate, depending of the state of progression of paranoia they suffer from)....
In theory may-be. The two are more intertwined than you think. There is a very long list of scientifically "proven / rejected" theories that is too absurd for words - strictly because of politization of the science. Ask Galileo. Only with many years of hindsight do we know what science was real science.
