2016 Election Thread

[DaveW]

 

 

Bernie hanging in there.  I really didn't think he'd have a shot in Iowa.  Not that it really means much going forward.  I can't really see him winning out West or the East Coast cities, but he might get liberal Midwesterns and upper New Englanders enough to make it fight.

As a Hildawg "supporter" for now, I think its good for her to have some spirited debates with Sanders moving forward, I hope it moves her a bit further left on some social issues (I think she has to stay where she is on financial issues in order to win the GE)

[TheLeviathan]

No.  We already have a set of laws.  Sometimes we need new or different laws, but not often.  It would be nice to change some but if the other side isn't willing to agree to those changes what exactly would you suggest he do?

He can't even get his side to agree to what he wants.

 

Also, going in expecting the other side to totally cave to you is a flawed approach from the start. Either Cruz and the TP are too dumb or naive to recognize that, I guess you can choose which. But it's precisely why he has accomplished nothing.

[mikecgrimes]

 

Also before people try to claim Rubio is a moderate, keep in mind that is only bc he is "moderate" when you compare him to Cruz.

 

Other than immigration, Rubio has been a Tea Party hero (Against Abortion period, even in cases of Rape and incest, For Tougher Drug Laws, Against Gay Rights, Against Women's rights, Denies Climate Change, and against Net Neutrality)

 

Climate change huh?  Remind me how long ago Al Gore gave the 10 year warning.

[mikecgrimes]

 

 

He can't even get his side to agree to what he wants.

Also, going in expecting the other side to totally cave to you is a flawed approach from the start. Either Cruz and the TP are too dumb or naive to recognize that, I guess you can choose which. But it's precisely why he has accomplished nothing.

 

Who says he expected the other side to cave.  Your saying he needs to pass a bunch of laws and I'm telling you that's not what voters want when they elected him.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Who says he expected the other side to cave.  Your saying he needs to pass a bunch of laws and I'm telling you that's not what voters want when they elected him.

 

So they want everyone to hate him and think he's an idiot?  To the best that I can see, that's what he's accomplished.

 

But please, let me know what he's done.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Climate change huh?  Remind me how long ago Al Gore gave the 10 year warning.

 

I am shocked, shocked, that you are a denier. How is that even possible given the clear science, the factual data around temperatures, and the overall change in climate, other than just not wanting to believe something and ignoring every piece of evidence that contradicts your view? Mind. Boggling.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Probably take away the vote from women, count illegal immigrants as three-fifths a person, and invade the American Indian reservations. It blows my mind that we should somehow use what they thought as a measuring stick - especially on issues that divide liberals and conservatives, like equal rights and treatment of workers and the poor.

 

The founding fathers could not imagine the society in which we live and could not present a reasonable solution to our ills.

Aw, Pseudo, you beat me to it.

 

Listen, there are good lessons to be learned from our founding fathers.

 

It's also important to remember many were ignorant *******s and were wrong much of the time. Many of the lauded O.G. Tea Partiers fought to "build" a government so fragmented and ineffectual it nearly collapsed within a decade.

 

So I guess Ted Cruz has that in common with some of them.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

It sure seems that government is ineffective, and I don't think that Reagan was the leader of that movement.

 

I'll agree on this.  Ineffective government existed long before Reagan, and it will exist long after him too.  That's not a Reagan thing.

 

But make no bones about it, Regan was NOT a good President.  His success as a Republican was that he was a POPULAR President, winning his re-election in a landslide, but I'm not sure his administration was as good for the Republicans as people think (though you will find no candidate that dares say this).  He was in ideology pro-big war and a fiscal conservative, but in practice he was only a war hawk and a spender.  The deficit skyrocketed under his administration as did the size of the government and military spending (to his credit, he did bankrupt the Russians with his Star Wars plan, which probably did more to end the cold war than anything else), but in the end, just about all candidates (Sans Ron Paul, his son, Gary Johnson, and a few more liberal minded Reps on the other side of the spectrum) pretty much try and mimic his platforms across the board.  And that is unfortunate, especially as it's forced the Reps to cater to some of their more noxious base while pushing their Libertarian minded base further and further out of the picture.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I'll agree on this.  Ineffective government existed long before Reagan, and it will exist long after him too.  That's not a Reagan thing.

 

But make no bones about it, Regan was NOT a good President.  His success as a Republican was that he was a POPULAR President, winning his re-election in a landslide, but I'm not sure his administration was as good for the Republicans as people think (though you will find no candidate that dares say this).  He was in ideology pro-big war and a fiscal conservative, but in practice he was only a war hawk and a spender.  The deficit skyrocketed under his administration as did the size of the government and military spending (to his credit, he did bankrupt the Russians with his Star Wars plan, which probably did more to end the cold war than anything else), but in the end, just about all candidates (Sans Ron Paul, his son, Gary Johnson, and a few more liberal minded Reps on the other side of the spectrum) pretty much try and mimic his platforms across the board.  And that is unfortunate, especially as it's forced the Reps to cater to some of their more noxious base while pushing their Libertarian minded base further and further out of the picture.

Well said. I cannot fathom why the modern GOP worships Reagan. If they want to hold up a president as someone who got things done and radically altered the USA, hold up Roosevelt. If they want to hold up someone who was ex-military, smart, and a good ol' fashioned "Decent American Man", hold up Eisenhower. Both are vastly superior options to Ronald ****ing Reagan.

 

It should also be pointed out that Reagan ushered in the influence of the Religious Right, which created fragmented and nonsensical policy goals within the GOP. They used to be the party of (mostly) small government; now they're a hodge-podge of hawkish policy, tax breaks for the wrong people, big spending, and invasive policy into our private lives.

 

Basically, everything I don't want from a government. I can get on board with a true small government approach (within reason) but I can't support people who only want small government when it benefits them or agrees with their life outlook. Small government is small government. You get one or the other, you don't get to pick and choose when you like small government and ignore it when you want to control how other people live their lives. Liberty is about freedom for all, not freedom for Those Like You as you cobble together a pseudo-caste system of Those Like You who get liberty and Those Not Like You who don't.

 

And I certainly can't support people whose goal is to be nothing more than an irritant in an attempt to break the system entirely. One has to govern to be in government. Being a petulant twat and oppositional on every topic isn't what adult people do when trying to change something for the better. It's what children do when they don't want to take a nap.

[Willihammer]

So Reagan was a hawk and a spender, in other words, not actually that conservative. And yet he is responsible for the so-called "decline of the middle class?"

[Shane Wahl]

http://codygough.com/2016/01/31/the-worst-reason-not-to-vote-for-bernie-sanders/

 

I like the visceral feel of this. And it happens to be correct.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

So Reagan was a hawk and a spender, in other words, not actually that conservative. And yet he is responsible for the so-called "decline of the middle class?"

Responsible? No, not entirely... Reagan stopped being president almost 30 years ago.

 

But he set bad precedents some still trumpet to this day ("trickle down" has turned into "teh job creators!").

 

There is some truth to the statement "we do better when everyone does better". It's not a cure to all our problems but it'd be a small step in the right direction. If only a few have spending power, only a few are able to buy the goods and services that keep the rest of us employed.

[Mike Sixel]

 

So Reagan was a hawk and a spender, in other words, not actually that conservative. And yet he is responsible for the so-called "decline of the middle class?"

 

By Reagan, I meant the "reagan revolution" that some discuss, not him specifically. Hope that helps......or, we can worry about being Pedantic. 

[Willihammer]

By Reagan, I meant the "reagan revolution" that some discuss, not him specifically. Hope that helps......or, we can worry about being Pedantic.

I admit I'm being a tad pedantic but you're also being more and more vague. To be clear, your first reply was "the elimination of the middle class started with Reagan's work."

 

But I think we agree that by and large, his work was to cut taxes on upper incomes and raise federal spending on military spending and star wars, so we can move on.

[Willihammer]

The reason the middle class is stagnate in the US is because its growing in China instead. This is obviously a win for millions of Chinese and also the US economy long-term as more Chinese buy US Products.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-25/what-s-destroying-middle-class-wages-china
 

 

The only solution to the problem of globalization may be to wait. Chinese wages have risen a lot, and only India is big enough to take China’s place. As global economic convergence proceeds, the U.S. will look more attractive as an investment destination, and reshoring will increase. That isn't an answer that people want to hear, but it may be the right one.

 

[Mike Sixel]

Not if the US doesn't make products anymore, and they are all made in India and China......

 

I've commented  (not sure here or not) that I expect 1-2 generations of wage stagnation in the US, as the world flattens, and jobs move overseas.....their wages climb some, our's flatten out for 20-30 years (bad for a lot of the US, frankly). This is largely out of the hands of our leaders. However, how we manage the transition, and the impacts of that transition on children and families is in our control.

 

The GOP response is to make it harder to help poor people. The Democrats' response is all over the place, and they don't seem to have a real plan for this.

 

The first step has to be to figure out how to disconnect health care and employment. My wife and I are looking at starting a business or two.....but funding HC and potentially losing it (if PPACA is repealed) is very hard to get around. It also keeps people from working full time, or switching jobs. That has to change, somehow. It is a huge drag on plans for people like me, and for small and medium sized businesses (and even many huge ones).

[Willihammer]

Its true that the US  middle class is in a sense subsidizing Chinese growth. That problem will fix itself naturally as the Chinese middle class grows. In the short term we may need to get creative about helping displaced American workers.

And its true that China uses unfair practices to give itself an advantage, including currency manipulation. What we shouldn't do, is push away US corporations by raising taxes, or isolate the US through tariffs, etc. Companies will just move and then we get nothing. And other countries (ie China) will reciprocate with tariffs of their own, driving up the prices of everything and killing exports.

[Willihammer]

 

Not if the US doesn't make products anymore, and they are all made in India and China......

 

I've commented  (not sure here or not) that I expect 1-2 generations of wage stagnation in the US, as the world flattens, and jobs move overseas.....their wages climb some, our's flatten out for 20-30 years (bad for a lot of the US, frankly). This is largely out of the hands of our leaders. However, how we manage the transition, and the impacts of that transition on children and families is in our control.

 

The GOP response is to make it harder to help poor people. The Democrats' response is all over the place, and they don't seem to have a real plan for this.

 

The first step has to be to figure out how to disconnect health care and employment. My wife and I are looking at starting a business or two.....but funding HC and potentially losing it (if PPACA is repealed) is very hard to get around. It also keeps people from working full time, or switching jobs. That has to change, somehow. It is a huge drag on plans for people like me, and for small and medium sized businesses (and even many huge ones).

As China catches up, the US will again be an attractive destination for investment. And we'll have more buyers than ever. But people need to stop blaming the rich for their problems or thinking that raising taxes on them will solve everything. Free trade is working, we're just in a painful phase of it atm. Its temporary.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

The first step has to be to figure out how to disconnect health care and employment.

God, yes, this.

 

One of my biggest problems with anything in the United States. As someone who works independently, healthcare is a big problem because I don't have an employer paying a huge portion of my care (or even simply getting a "bulk discount" that I can tap into as an employee).

[Mike Sixel]

 

As China catches up, the US will again be an attractive destination for investment. And we'll have more buyers than ever. But people need to stop blaming the rich for their problems or thinking that raising taxes on them will solve everything. Free trade is working, we're just in a painful phase of it atm. Its temporary.

 

And what is the GOP plan to help in the interim? cutting spending on the poor........

[Willihammer]

 

And what is the GOP plan to help in the interim? cutting spending on the poor........

And Sanders' plan would hurt the poor in the long run.

[Mike Sixel]

 

And Sanders' plan would hurt the poor in the long run.

 

I'm not talking about Sanders here at all......but you did manage to change the subject.

[Willihammer]

 

I'm not talking about Sanders here at all......but you did manage to change the subject.

More like finishing the thought. The question is still the so-called decline of the middle class, aka inequality (unless its not). There are short-term long-term tradeoffs between what the candidates propose. Dems tend to lean towards short-term, R's towards long-term.

[Mike Sixel]

 

More like finishing the thought. The question is still the so-called decline of the middle class, aka inequality (unless its not). There are short-term long-term tradeoffs between what the candidates propose. Dems tend to lean towards short-term, R's towards long-term.

 

I don't agree with that at all. I think the Republicans are all about the short term, very reactionary to events around them. Other than killing government* and empowering polluters, they don't have a long term plan.

 

*except to impose their religion on everyone else

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I don't agree with that at all. I think the Republicans are all about the short term, very reactionary to events around them. Other than killing government* and empowering polluters, they don't have a long term plan.

 

*except to impose their religion on everyone else

Uh, yeah.

 

To me, sustaining the middle class starts with education, integrated housing ownership, and healthcare. Education is obvious and it's a leading cause of the employment gap in this country, both in cost and opportunity. Integrated housing ownership allows people to move into a decent neighborhood with good education opportunities and doesn't prop up the rental market, which is largely owned by wealthier Americans. Healthcare is a leading cause of bankruptcy.

 

Those aren't exactly, uh... Strengths of the modern GOP platform. To be fair, they're not really strengths of the Democratic platform either but at least the Democrats try to enact change here and there.

[Willihammer]

 

I don't agree with that at all. I think the Republicans are all about the short term, very reactionary to events around them. Other than killing government* and empowering polluters, they don't have a long term plan.

 

*except to impose their religion on everyone else

Don't forget cutting spending on the poor.

[TheLeviathan]

The GOP has the wrong targets, but I would agree with Willihammer that conservatives tend to have a much better approach to long-term solutions.  A lot of problems we have are from ill-formed short-term decisions by liberals.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

The GOP has the wrong targets, but I would agree with Willihammer that conservatives tend to have a much better approach to long-term solutions.  A lot of problems we have are from ill-formed short-term decisions by liberals.  

I consider it semantics, really. The GOP's "approach" is, by and large, non-governance or at least minimal change. In the long run, that's a better idea because the government has operated for almost 250 years. It's not *entirely* broken. Doing nothing will likely lead the government to continue operating while one bad idea could really cripple everything.

 

But outside of doing nothing, the stuff the GOP *has* done seems to have had an adverse effect on our country: toppling unions, lowering taxes on the wealthy, allowing corporations to have an increasingly large role in policy creation, etc.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Don't forget cutting spending on the poor.

 

Do you disagree with my statement, that that is part of their "plan" to help the poor?

[Craig Arko]

I find it hard to believe that the anti-science crew has a long term view of anything. Possibly excepting their personal wealth.