Republicans want to wreck the US economy

[Andreus Makaryk]

Yeah.

In terms of this debate, I really don't like the relativism in terms of blame. Most of the debt that was accumulated over the last 10 years was Republican debt. The Republicans raised the debt ceiling multiple times under George W. Bush. The Republicans gave two large tax cuts, launched two wars we didn't need to fight, passed Medicare Part D, and didn't pay for any of it, thus creating a massive deficit and increasing the debt by a lot.

And now they're refusing to back down from their dogmatic, nearly-religious adherence to a failed fiscal policy, i.e. they're holding the future of the United States hostage to protect millionaires from a 3% tax increase.

The Democrats in Congress will bluster and bitch about entitlement cuts, but they have no backbones so they'll cave and everyone knows it. The Republicans are the issue here.

Well, I can at least blame the Dems for caving on extending the Bush tax cuts, and failing to get this shit done BEFORE the tea party nutters were sworn into Congress. The current antics of the Republican party were, sadly, entirely predictable, but the Democrats were too milquetoast to actually acknowledge the very real threat that yes, the Tea Party WOULD blow up the economy to pursue its ideological goals if given half the chance.

So yes, Democrats contributed mightily to the problem--by extending the Bush tax cuts and looking the other way when they were in a position to prevent it.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Well, I can at least blame the Dems for caving on extending the Bush tax cuts, and failing to get this shit done BEFORE the tea party nutters were sworn into Congress. The current antics of the Republican party were, sadly, entirely predictable, but the Democrats were too milquetoast to actually acknowledge the very real threat that yes, the Tea Party WOULD blow up the economy to pursue its ideological goals if given half the chance.

So yes, Democrats contributed mightily to the problem--by extending the Bush tax cuts and looking the other way when they were in a position to prevent it.

Had they not extended the Bush tax cuts, everything would've come to a standstill in Washington. What should've been done was making the raising of the debt ceiling a condition of the tax cut extension.

 

[Viggy]

launched two wars we didn't need to fight,

I agree 100% that the Iraq war was a waste of resources and lives, but I think the Taliban and al-Qaeda would be much more of a threat right now if NATO and our allies had not invaded Afghanistan. How else would you propose the 9/11 attacks should have been responded to?

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I agree 100% that the Iraq war was a waste of resources and lives, but I think the Taliban and al-Qaeda would be much more of a threat right now if NATO and our allies had not invaded Afghanistan. How else would you propose the 9/11 attacks should have been responded to?

Picking off terrorists like we're doing now instead of nation building.

Afghanistan is not a country, and it may never be. There's nothing we can do in that regard, and our response should have been to go after al-Qaeda and not the Taliban.

 

[Dmitri]

 

[Random Hero]

Yeah.

In terms of this debate, I really don't like the relativism in terms of blame. Most of the debt that was accumulated over the last 10 years was Republican debt. The Republicans raised the debt ceiling multiple times under George W. Bush. The Republicans gave two large tax cuts, launched two wars we didn't need to fight, passed Medicare Part D, and didn't pay for any of it, thus creating a massive deficit and increasing the debt by a lot.

And now they're refusing to back down from their dogmatic, nearly-religious adherence to a failed fiscal policy, i.e. they're holding the future of the United States hostage to protect millionaires from a 3% tax increase.

The Democrats in Congress will bluster and bitch about entitlement cuts, but they have no backbones so they'll cave and everyone knows it. The Republicans are the issue here.

I agree.

I was saying the whole debt issue was decades in the making. I just want them to do there job instead of slinging **** at each other, and passing slipshod legislation to continually delay dealing with major problems. Our legislative system is bloated and broken.

 

[Viggy]

Picking off terrorists like we're doing now instead of nation building.

Afghanistan is not a country, and it may never be. There's nothing we can do in that regard, and our response should have been to go after al-Qaeda and not the Taliban.

Assassinating the more important terrorists helps, but the invasion of Afghanistan took away a major safe haven for their entire organization. I know they still have the border region with Pakistan, Yemen, and so on for hiding places, training camps and the like, but I still think that the large-scale action against them did more to hurt their organization then selective missions ever could. Nation-building is a naive idea though, we can't trust the Afghan government anyway.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Assassinating the more important terrorists helps, but the invasion of Afghanistan took away a major safe haven for their entire organization. I know they still have the border region with Pakistan, Yemen, and so on for hiding places, training camps and the like, but I still think that the large-scale action against them did more to hurt their organization then selective missions ever could. Nation-building is a naive idea though, we can't trust the Afghan government anyway.

If you say that the invasion of Afghanistan was a good idea, then you have to say the nation building part was a good idea or else you're effectively saying that we can break whatever we want and it's not our responsibility to clean it up again.

There was no way we could've invaded Afghanistan without bringing down the Taliban. They would've fought against us, and taking them down was like beating up a six year old who was throwing rocks at you. The problem is that they were standing in the way, and so they had to be moved.

The problem with advocating for invasions and saying it took away a safe haven is that chasing terrorists out of safe havens becomes whack a mole. We took out Afghanistan, they went to Pakistan. We're killing them in Pakistan, so they've gone to Yemen. We're now bombing them in Yemen. Now what?

That's going to happen no matter what approach you take, i.e. invasions or picking them off. Knowing that, there's really no reason to spend trillions of dollars to launch massive boondoggles that in the end really don't accomplish anything game-changing.

 

[Sovereign]

If you say that the invasion of Afghanistan was a good idea, then you have to say the nation building part was a good idea

ok. Nation building is a good idea, and al qaeida has nothing to do with it. The taliban have no right to hold falf of the population of afghnistan aka women as their personal slaves

 

[Brandon Rhea]

ok. Nation building is a good idea, and al qaeida has nothing to do with it. The taliban have no right to hold falf of the population of afghnistan aka women as their personal slaves

I agree that the Taliban has no right to do that. What I also believe, though, is that successful revolutions can only come from within.

The reason that Afghanistan sucks even now is that the Afghan people don't want a centralized government, whether it's Taliban or democratic, and until such a point when that changes we're just wasting our time. Even now, they're more afraid of American forces than they are of the Taliban.

 

[Viggy]

If you say that the invasion of Afghanistan was a good idea, then you have to say the nation building part was a good idea or else you're effectively saying that we can break whatever we want and it's not our responsibility to clean it up again.

There was no way we could've invaded Afghanistan without bringing down the Taliban. They would've fought against us, and taking them down was like beating up a six year old who was throwing rocks at you. The problem is that they were standing in the way, and so they had to be moved.

The problem with advocating for invasions and saying it took away a safe haven is that chasing terrorists out of safe havens becomes whack a mole. We took out Afghanistan, they went to Pakistan. We're killing them in Pakistan, so they've gone to Yemen. We're now bombing them in Yemen. Now what?

That's going to happen no matter what approach you take, i.e. invasions or picking them off. Knowing that, there's really no reason to spend trillions of dollars to launch massive boondoggles that in the end really don't accomplish anything game-changing.

Hmmm... I suppose you've convinced me (and not only because you introduced me to the word boondoggle, though that word is ****ing awesome). I can't come up with any good argument against your points. I know assassinations and generally smaller-scale counter-terrorism is the more pragmatic way to fight, but I guess I just thought that more successful terrorist attacks were more likely without large-scale action like invasions. With good intel though, 'picking them off' could be very effective.

 

[Sovereign]

President Obama has made it clear that he’s willing to sign on to a deficit-reduction deal that consists overwhelmingly of spending cuts, and includes draconian cuts in key social programs, up to and including a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. These are extraordinary concessions. As The Times’s Nate Silver points out, the president has offered deals that are far to the right of what the average American voter prefers — in fact, if anything, they’re a bit to the right of what the average Republican voter prefers!

Yet Republicans are saying no. Indeed, they’re threatening to force a U.S. default, and create an economic crisis, unless they get a completely one-sided deal. And this was entirely predictable.

-paul krugman

this is a quote

 

[Brandon Rhea]

President Obama has made it clear that he’s willing to sign on to a deficit-reduction deal that consists overwhelmingly of spending cuts, and includes draconian cuts in key social programs, up to and including a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. These are extraordinary concessions. As The Times’s Nate Silver points out, the president has offered deals that are far to the right of what the average American voter prefers — in fact, if anything, they’re a bit to the right of what the average Republican voter prefers!

Yet Republicans are saying no. Indeed, they’re threatening to force a U.S. default, and create an economic crisis, unless they get a completely one-sided deal. And this was entirely predictable.

-paul krugman

this is a quote

Good quote. Very true.

 

[Viggy]

ok. Nation building is a good idea, and al qaeida has nothing to do with it. The taliban have no right to hold falf of the population of afghnistan aka women as their personal slaves

So you're saying we should invade Saudi Arabia? And probably more then fifty other countries? Sexism, racism, religious hate, I know you know that this kind of shit is all over the place and we can't fix it all. The only reason I thought the Afghan war was necessary is because their barbarian bullshit started affecting us in the West on 9/11.

 

[Sovereign]

So you're saying we should invade Saudi Arabia? And probably more then fifty other countries? Sexism, racism, religious hate, I know you know that this kind of shit is all over the place and we can't fix it all. The only reason I thought the Afghan war was necessary is because their barbarian bullshit started affecting us in the West on 9/11.

make another thread

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The ratings firm said any downgrade would also affect government-backed debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are crucial conduits of housing finance, as well as the Federal Home Loan Banks and Federal Farm Credit Banks, and all related debt. Combined with Treasurys, that amounts to more than $16 trillion of debt. Some 7,000 states and municipalities could also be hit, along with bonds issued by the governments of Israel and Egypt that are guaranteed by the U.S. government.

The raters' concerns were echoed by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke: "Simply defaulting on our obligations to our citizens might be enough to create a downgrade in credit ratings and higher interest rates for us, which would be counterproductive, of course, because it makes the deficit worse."

Still, any downgrade risks pushing interest rates higher, stock markets lower and disrupting global financial markets.

U.S. Treasury bonds serve as the foundation for interest rates world-wide and have long been a haven for investors seeking safety and stability. Faith in U.S. credit had been so well established that market participants often referred to U.S. government debt as being "risk free."

------

from wsj

a shitstorm is upon us.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

The world may be ****ed, but hey, at least millionaires don't have to pay an extra 3%!

...right? >.>

 

[Viggy]

make another thread

No need, my point is proven. :CStern

 

[Sovereign]

if any american wants to flee the impending apocalypse by crossing north to canada, my home is open to a few patriots seeking shelter.

No need, my point is proven. :CStern

no.

 

[Keanu]

The world may be ****ed, but hey, at least millionaires don't have to pay an extra 3%!

...right? >.>

Make em pay 10% or 15% more then they can see what it is like in europe.

the tax increases on the rich wont matter much for the economy because of the fact that businesses create jobs not some stuck up richboy with a million or 2 or a billionaire that has run a succesfull company.

 

[Praetor]

if any american wants to flee the impending apocalypse by crossing north to canada, my home is open to a few patriots seeking shelter.

lucky for me i have dual citizenship! (US and CA) :bitchez