Well, Obama did a pretty good job of being a GOP president the vast majority of the time he has been president so your best bet is to just hope the Democrats field a center-right candidate like they always do.
Could it be happening?!
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Well, Obama did a pretty good job of being a GOP president the vast majority of the time he has been president so your best bet is to just hope the Democrats field a center-right candidate like they always do.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
I'm still going with "Ultimate Warrior" as the most likely candidate to win.
Conservatives love the warrior, right?
Conservatives love the warrior, right?
kochman
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Warpus, you know damn well that EVERYONE loves the UW!
I find it a relief that your account has not been hacked.
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
As a Republican, the only other GOPers who I would prefer Romney to are McCain, Giuliani, or Dick Cheney.
Timsup2nothin
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I'll take the compliment.
I'm not really arguing 'Pork is good'...I'm arguing that it is a lot harder to get rid of than it is made out to be...not necessarily by you.
The problem with the 'official' pork cutters is that they do act like it has nothing to do with demand. They act like they can balance the budget by just 'putting a stop to pork and other frivolous spending'...cut cut cut! Line item veto! If the US government cut spending to balance the budget we would see the greatest demand crash in the history of capitalism, so what they are saying is fundamentally absurd but people listen to it.
The thing with any government spending, even the most obvious pork since the discovery of bacon, is that it is multiplied by the speed of money. That multimillion dollar highway to the senator's summer home may have been a huge waste of taxpayer dollars, but those dollars bounced off the contractor into the hands of workers. The dollars that didn't bounce off went to buying the contractor's wife another car (again workers), and building an elevator in their garage (again workers) so they had room for it.
No matter what, the dollars got spent again and again and again, and even though the initial palace of porkiness was irredeemable all that re-spending supported good people doing good jobs...and when you cut pork they all get cut off at the knees. But by talking about cutting pork, or whatever spending, you distract from the root of our national financial crisis.
That root is that we get a lot of unpaid governance. Some is pork, some is being, ahem, excessively secured, some is being allowed to take very little responsibility for our own retirement, the education of our kids, our health, etc, ad nauseum. Some of it is strictly dumping money in to prime the economy in which we all operate. In many ways pretty much all of us get a lot more than we particularly want and we would all like the 'package' narrowed down in the areas that we don't personally have an interest in. We get a lot of governance, though not really much more than other countries get (except that excessive security part), and we pay for about half of it.
US revenues may not be dead last any more. You mentioned a handful of countries with lower taxation and I won't root through the statistics to argue the point. But the reality is that we refuse to pay for what we get, and that is a drain that will eventually suck the source dry. And pork or not we can't afford to make any serious cuts that will crash demand so we can't cut back on what we are getting, we just have to buck up and pay for it.
I am almost positive Mittens is either going to be President of BYU in the next few years, or serving in a full time leadership role within the LDS church. I suspect they might even use such jobs as a hook to prevent him from running for president, even if he wanted to.
Timsup2nothin
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There's a church doing a service for humanity!
kochman
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It's hard to get rid of because our corrupt politicians, who can slated $2.1B for illegal immigrants but can't seem to ensure our veterans get treatment, love pork. Not because it is useful.
Strawman
Trickle down government, genius.
Imagine if it was spent on something meaningful, then the dollars are still spent again and again, AND we get ROI. Education, infrastructure, health care...
Quite honestly, we don't really get what we want.
*We spend billions on international aid, depending on which way the neocons want to go.
*Our school system is busted, and underperforming.
*Our prison system is robust, and overperforming, to the tune of 25% of the world's prison pop versus 5% of the world's general pop.
*Our military spending is through the fricking roof, despite having no natural predators in our neighborhood and two great oceans surrounding us like a moat.
*6% of our spending (which is overbudget, right?) is paying debt.
*Wastebook, wasteful and low-priority spending totaling nearly $30 billion, top pork:
Spoiler :
Giving me the argument that the dollar is spent and spent again is weak, at best. If it were spent responsibly there would be way more return... clearest example, the $400 million spent because of the shutdown was paid to people for not going to work. Would that not have been better to pay to workers?
The reason pork doesn't go away is the same reason congress has a wild benefits package, high salaries, and pension for life at 6 years... they vote for it, and they use it to buy votes. It's corruption on a ridiculous scale.
Yeah, the issue is not that pork spending goes into space and disappears out of the economy. It doesn't, it's still being spent and generate jobs and etc.
The issue is that governments must make investment choices with limited resources at hand. So every time money is invested in something that will deliver inferior returns than an alternative, money is indeed being wasted from an economic POV, it's indeed being blown to space.
Like the vastly overpriced stadiums Brazil built in the middle of nowhere for the WC (FIFA only asked for 8, the government built 12 so they could steal more through their backdoor dealings with contractors). Sure, they generated jobs, boosted local economies, etc. But now they are white elephants that will be used maybe once a year. If those billions had been spent on say improving the sewer system (only 50% of Brazilian household have access to a sewer system) the returns would be infinitely superior, so economically speaking money was wasted, thrown down the toilet. Hopefully this year Brazil will finally vote to get rid of the Workers' Party and end the left-wing nightmare that has plagued this fine land for so long. But I digress.
The issue is that governments must make investment choices with limited resources at hand. So every time money is invested in something that will deliver inferior returns than an alternative, money is indeed being wasted from an economic POV, it's indeed being blown to space.
Like the vastly overpriced stadiums Brazil built in the middle of nowhere for the WC (FIFA only asked for 8, the government built 12 so they could steal more through their backdoor dealings with contractors). Sure, they generated jobs, boosted local economies, etc. But now they are white elephants that will be used maybe once a year. If those billions had been spent on say improving the sewer system (only 50% of Brazilian household have access to a sewer system) the returns would be infinitely superior, so economically speaking money was wasted, thrown down the toilet. Hopefully this year Brazil will finally vote to get rid of the Workers' Party and end the left-wing nightmare that has plagued this fine land for so long. But I digress.
Gucumatz
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Wait someone is arguing pork isn't good?
Kochman - I'll argue it, greed is good. So is pork.
Government does not function properly with the necessary grease to get people to vote for necessary projects for the country. A western agricultural based state might desperately need to release some federal land for its local economy to grow, but its delegates often do not have the political power to accomplish this. Attacking pork, is an attempt to reduce government efficiency and increase gridlock. The percentage of spending in the US on pork is actually quite low and again, contributes to social efficiency of local and regional markets. Pork in the case of US politics includes various positive externalities that can not be dismissed
Now a monetarist might argue that deadweight loss from a purely economic perspective might exist, this is oftentimes true compared to theoretical alternatives. However, a reduction in pork does not mean that private industry will have the critical mass to invest in a project of relative consumer/producer surplus - or even would if it did. Coupled with the necessities of politics/running a functioning government, an attack on Pork is a vote for anarchy in the US
Edit: Luiz!!! You are back, how have things been in Brazil since 7-1?
Kochman - I'll argue it, greed is good. So is pork.
Government does not function properly with the necessary grease to get people to vote for necessary projects for the country. A western agricultural based state might desperately need to release some federal land for its local economy to grow, but its delegates often do not have the political power to accomplish this. Attacking pork, is an attempt to reduce government efficiency and increase gridlock. The percentage of spending in the US on pork is actually quite low and again, contributes to social efficiency of local and regional markets. Pork in the case of US politics includes various positive externalities that can not be dismissed
Now a monetarist might argue that deadweight loss from a purely economic perspective might exist, this is oftentimes true compared to theoretical alternatives. However, a reduction in pork does not mean that private industry will have the critical mass to invest in a project of relative consumer/producer surplus - or even would if it did. Coupled with the necessities of politics/running a functioning government, an attack on Pork is a vote for anarchy in the US
Edit: Luiz!!! You are back, how have things been in Brazil since 7-1?
kochman
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Your argument that progress is only possible via bribery is not only specious, but reprehensible. If that's the state of the union, let the gridlock bring the US into a situation where the union shatters into workable pieces. Pieces that don't rely on ripping off the tax payer.
I prefer honesty and good intentions to a culture of greed and bribary.
Your excuse of such malevolent behavior, by trying to slip it into scraping by as being slightly related to the general will, is a poor statement on a country that used to be an inspiration to the world.
Of course, our fall from grace has been long, we've had far to fall... but such nonsensical defenses of wasteful spending as it is ok to bribe our politicians, so long as we do it officially... I can't. It's a cynical surrender to greed, which I, for one, will not accept. People espousing such necessary evil and threatening "anarchy", that's nothing more than fearmongering.
Timsup2nothin
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That's not 'the state of the union', that's the way the union was designed. There is almost nothing that comes before congress that isn't met by an honest majority that doesn't care. Immigration control is quite possibly the number one issue...facing maybe ten senators. Ninety senators represent people who really don't care one way or another. But a lot of those ninety represent people who do care a great deal about farm subsidies, so the senators from Arizona are supposed to make a deal.
The actual state of the union is that one political party has reduced congressmen elected under its banner to a position where they represent the party, not their constituents, and are not allowed to participate in the normal function of congress. They support, as a block, the deal made by their leader, which usually has nothing to do with their constituents at all. That is the gridlock that might well 'shatter the union into workable pieces'.
The problem with that is exactly what we are seeing right now in the former Soviet Union. The first thought is that 'workable pieces' as independent nations would by some happy coincidence happen to split along state lines that were never drawn with international borders in mind, and that is very unlikely.
How many international borders run right through a city? Now how many US metropolitan areas spread across a state line as if it wasn't even there? If you put Chicago Illinois and Gary Indiana in different countries how do you deal with the fact that a whole lot of people who live in Gary work in Chicago? The state line is a totally impractical international border. So which side gets Chicago and Gary? Your 'workable pieces' are going to suffer for generations from border disputes.
Your workable pieces are also very likely to not work internally either in most cases. The most commonly talked about 'workable piece' that thinks it should divest itself of the 'liberal leaches' upon examination consists of a bunch of states that all receive far more in federal spending than they produce in federal taxes. As an independent nation they aren't workable at all unless they immediately institute taxes that make up for the subsidies they are accustomed to receiving. This puts their new citizens under a tax burden significantly greater than they are under now. If declared independent a civil war in that nation would be inevitable...which the newly formed neighbors would have to deal with.
This is all predicated on the idea that the existing power holders of the US relinquish power as bloodlessly as Gorbachov's government did in the USSR. If you think that is likely give me one reason why, as I find it truly remarkable that it happened once and have not the slightest hope of seeing it happen again.
kochman
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Nonsense. The union was completely different.
Rousseau's The Social Contract was the ideal in place in the minds of the founders. Not, grease up the palms so we can get things done.
Trying to compare what was envision to govern the 13 states of the late 18th century to the behemoth of 21st century, 50 states + territories/protectorates/etc is immediately invalid.
The bulk of the rest of your rambling reply presumes my stances and suggested answers without having any basis with which to do so... hence, a gigantic strawman, and I won't address it.
Timsup2nothin
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Georgia and Vermont faced issues just as widely divergent then as Arizona and Iowa face today. You may think the founders of the union expected their descendants to operate in a spirit of idealistic cooperation for the common good, but I think they were a bit more realistic.
As to the 'gigantic straw man'...please point me towards the person who said "let the gridlock bring the US into a situation where the union shatters into workable pieces"...I was so sure that was you. My mistake.
Oh, wait. It was you.
So what we have here is you want your hyperbolic rhetoric to pass without analysis of what it actually would entail because analysis shows that it is not likely to be as full of rainbows and sunshine as you intended the rhetoric to imply you believed. I suggest rather than dismiss that analysis you instead recognize that your hyperbolic rhetoric is clearly refers to something no sane man would want, and stop using it. You might even consider applying your considerable talents to making sure that eventuality never comes to pass.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Seriously though, both good and bad came out of it. On the good side, predictably people are pissed and remembered how crappy their lives are and so the government's popularity has taken an even steeper nose dive than it already was, and in fact polls show that in the October election on the runoff round they would be defeated in every single region of the country except the illiterate Northeast (which should be kicked out of the country and donated to Venezuela, where it belongs).
On the bad side, CBF apparently thinks that the answer for the emotional collapse that caused that historical humiliation is fascism. So they re-hired Dunga, to general disbelief and anger. So this is what the 2018 Brazilian Team will look like: 10 defensive midfielders trying to brutalize the other team into submission.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
I have to love that USA did five goals better than Brazil. I am legitimately unsure who would win a Brazil vs USA match, which is a big step up from the old normal.
Back to the GOP possibilities, this whole thread is a year too early. JEB Bush is looking better than Romney. In this audience that will seem laughable, but there are people here that call GW Bush extremist, completely ignoring the whole Tea Party. JEB Bush is viewed as moderate, successful and approachable by the GOP rank and file. The current situation in Iraq is rehabilitating Bush 43's legacy.
J
kochman
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I guess that's your opinion. However, the letters being exchanged across the Atlantic during the Enlightenment, their repeated and ongoing exchanges with the brilliant minds of Europe during that time, point to a different conclusion.
What's your evidence?
Do you know what a strawman is? It's making an argument without supporting it, basically.
I presented a potential future outcome that I would prefer to the current BS state of our corrupt "representative" (of corporate interest) government. This while you were busy explaining how accepting corruption was in our best interests.
That's in no way a strawman.
Negative, I want you to stop assuming my thoughts and just throwing out "hyperbolic" when I made a clearly justifiable condemnation of your suggestion we look the other way at corruption because it is good for us.
This is growing burdensome...
Hum, there's no doubt that the USA would have easily won that game. As would any second-rate local team from any second rate country.
But don't read too much into it. Brazil has better players than the US in every single position, except goalkeeper.
ParkCungHee
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Man, if the U.S. constitution was designed to represent the ideal, rather than the political reality, the founding fathers were even worse people than I thought.
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