DescentBB

A panel of experts seems to agree that is is more than likely we will have yet another government shutdown as of October 1. Thanks to the GOP losing on the Iran deal vote, and with Planned Parenthood apparently the most important issue facing the nation, it looks likely that the Republicans are going to shut the government down again. Why, I couldn't tell you as the last two times blew up in their faces, but............

How long before they cave in this time?

It's Obama who shuts the govt. down by refusing to sign legislation.

thus far, neither House of Congress has PRODUCED any legislation. Therein lies the rub. The House has 6 stopgap bills in the works, but stopped cold to try and insert a Planned Parenthood defund into them. The Senate has passed NO stopgap bills. Of course, neither chamber has come remotely close to voting on an actual budget.


So, you are, as so often the case, wrong, Woody.

Maybe this time but not about the prior actual shut down.

Woody, it is always political theater. Seriously, though, ideology aside, are you OK with a government that has to come to some crisis point or breakdown to address anything, and then only with band-aids, smoke and mirrors? Yeah, we can blunder along for a while like that as a nation, but it never is the best mode to operate in.

I'm no more comfortable with that than 1 president running up 10 trillion in debt.

woodchip wrote:I'm no more comfortable with that than 1 president running up 10 trillion in debt.

no President 'runs up' debt. Congress agrees to certain plans, in the case you are whining about, to bail the country out of economic disaster(the number borrowed was about 5 or 6 trillion too small for a really quick recovery), the President signs the bill. Civics 101.

McConnell clearly gets the danger, watching some in his party already trying to spin a shutdown as 'Obama's fault for wishing to fund Planned Parenthood more than the troops'. He knows his party has paid dearly for the other two times they tried this crap, and that they will REALLY pay for this one, coming before the Presidential election. Only a VERY small percentage of the population cares enough about the issue to justify closing offices, parks and withholding pay. Boehner gets it too, but Mr. Orange is terrified of his own conservative wing in the House.

This will get interesting, before the unavoidable cave-in by the GOP. The part that riles me up is that grandson and I are due to be on Assateague Beach(National Seashore) Oct 2-4, fishing trip as reward for him doing well in kindergarten. The weasels shut the park down two years back at the peak of the red drum run, now, again? Idiots.

Slick, you can't hire a boat and fish from the boat?.

woodchip wrote:Slick, you can't hire a boat and fish from the boat?.

don't have to hire anyone. My cousin runs fishing charters.....however, my daughter would freak if her 5 year old so went sailing off to the Baltimore Canyon or the wrecks or such offshore. It isn't like I can't take the kid to one of 3 fishing piers, or a private piece of beach on the bay adjacent to one piece of family land. Still, the big ocean beach is a draw, and I remember the same feeling fishing there with my granddad: as a kid, you never know what will emerge from that big ocean(secretly, Granddad is hoping for a red drum or large bluefish).

and this is from the Wall Street Journal, which I'll remind all is a Murdoch publication:

http://ringoffireradio.com/2015/08/wsj- ... terrorism/

“The Republicans are using religion to destroy America.”

Lol…the Democrats never use fear…


“62 economists”

Which 62 economists?

Lol, another survey presented through a filter…yay…

callmeslick wrote:this is from the Wall Street Journal

this is editorialized based on the original WSJ article. The actual WSJ headline says "Economists Cite Budget Battle as a Top Threat" -- and that budget battle, like a fight in elementary school, involves two parties.

What your article left out is that only a few of the economists surveyed think this will be "about as harmful" as the prior shutdown and none think it will be "more harmful". Over 90% think it will either be less harmful or not at all harmful -- but that makes for a less compelling headline, especially in the echo chamber of the left-wing blogosphere.

so you are ok with a shutdown over an issue lost via election results? What the hell is wrong with you?

callmeslick wrote:so you are ok with

That's not what I said.

But if we're going to talk election results, the people elected Obama as president and a Republican Congress. Who are you saying "lost via election results"? It seems like you're placing the blame in a rather one-sided way here.

Lothar wrote:

callmeslick wrote:so you are ok with

That's not what I said.

But if we're going to talk election results, the people elected Obama as president and a Republican Congress. Who are you saying "lost via election results"? It seems like you're placing the blame in a rather one-sided way here.

I said what I said because that is the FACT. With a Dem president, it is clear that no one wishes to make Planned Parenthood, or even abortion law, a nationwide issue. Period. With the election and re-election of Obama as President, it was made clear that he intended to establish some more tangible negotiations with Iran. Period. Nowhere near enough people elected Congresspeople sufficient to override that, and moreover, NO plurality exists to support shutting the government down every couple of years in a piece of political theater. The article puts forth the proposition that in many minds, shutting down the government STALLS the economy. Last time cost the economy over 300 Billion Dollars, by most calculations. We just don't move forward with that happening. The attempt by some to paint this as 'Obama's causing a shutdown' is utter BS. The nation is behind him, FAR MORE than they support the radical position on Planned Parenthood. Get over it, and get to work, is what most people say regarding Congress. The have spent this entire year without coming close to producing a budget, nor even passing sufficient stopgap spending bills. That is NOT Obama's doing.

With a Dem president who was elected ~3 years ago for his second term, it's clear that 3 years ago the electorate felt a certain way about a certain aggregate class of issues, particularly in relation to the opposition candidate. And the electorate felt a little different in the midterm elections. There wasn't a nationwide vote on each specific individual issue.

You certainly wouldn't accept your own reasoning if it was applied to Bush late in his second term. "The electorate is behind him" because they voted for him several years ago over a weak opposition candidate? His approval rating has been under 50% every week since May of 2013, and the last time he was consistently above 50% was 2009. (This still puts him way ahead of Congress.)

Notice that I haven't voiced approval of the shutdown -- I'm actually against it, as I don't think it'll accomplish anything. I'm simply poking holes in your failed reasoning.

Lothar wrote:With a Dem president who was elected ~3 years ago for his second term, it's clear that 3 years ago the electorate felt a certain way about a certain aggregate class of issues, particularly in relation to the opposition candidate. And the electorate felt a little different in the midterm elections. There wasn't a nationwide vote on each specific individual issue.

at what point did the electorate say they wished anything different than I suggested. Remember a MAJORITY of the voters for Congress voted Democratic. Simply because the districts are gerrymandered one cannot point to that as some will for change.

You certainly wouldn't accept your own reasoning if it was applied to Bush late in his second term. "The electorate is behind him" because they voted for him several years ago over a weak opposition candidate?

I do now, and at the time did. Won lots of friends among the left leaning crowd for suggesting that they need to carry an election.

Notice that I haven't voiced approval of the shutdown -- I'm actually against it, as I don't think it'll accomplish anything. I'm simply poking holes in your failed reasoning.

but, you really aren't. You are just demonstrating a lack of grasp for the depth I'm trying to operate at, here. I mean, I enjoy the debate as much as the next guy, but this one is pretty small in scope.

callmeslick wrote:Remember a MAJORITY of the voters for Congress voted Democratic. Simply because the districts are gerrymandered one cannot point to that as some will for change.

.... Won lots of friends among the left leaning crowd for suggesting that they need to carry an election

So is it the number of voters, or the carrying of the election, that matters? Because Republicans actually did both in 2014.

Republicans won 51.2% of the vote -- a true majority rather than a plurality -- in the 2014 house election. Likewise with the 2014 Senate elections (51.7%).

But maybe I don't understand the depth on which you're trying to operate, where winning 43.8% or 45.5% of the popular vote counts as "a MAJORITY" (Democrats hold 43.2%, and 44%, of the seats -- pretty close to their share of the popular vote.)

sorry, bad math on my part. When I remembered that the GOP got a far lesser percentage of vote than was reflected in seats, I thought they had gotten a minority again. My bad.
Still, are you suggesting that there is some support sufficient to justify a government shutdown to be found in the electorate? I don't.

callmeslick wrote:Still, are you suggesting

You're looking for a hidden agenda. I don't do hidden agendas. If I wanted to suggest that there was support for a shutdown, I would say it outright. I did not say it outright. I said the opposite, very explicitly, a couple posts ago.

What I did was the following:

1) I criticized your "from the WSJ" post as actually being editorialized left-wing blogspam that used a WSJ survey as a jumping off point, and then drew partisan conclusions that aren't in the WSJ report

2) I criticized the chain of reasoning that goes from "we won the presidential election in year X" to "therefore the other party takes 100% of the blame if we can't come to agreement". If there is a shutdown, it's not just on Republicans, it's also on Obama. (And I think it would be a stronger position for him to say "given the choice between a shutdown and passing a bad budget bill, the shutdown was a better option, and now it's up to them to decide whether we'll stay shut down or they'll give me a legitimate budget bill" than to say "they forced a shutdown".)

3) I criticized your mistaken assertions about election results. Again, Republicans do not have a much greater percentage of seats than their vote percentage, and Democrats do not have a much lesser percentage (the slight difference is less extreme than the advantage in the D direction after the 2008 elections, when they held 5-6% more seats than their popular vote margin.) But Republicans did most definitely win in 2014, which suggests at least moderate support for some of their agenda, but not necessarily relating to this specific point. Likewise, Obama won in 2012, which suggests support for some of his agenda, but not necessarily relating to this specific point.

What will poor John Boehner do?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/boehner-c ... 00704.html

Ha Ha!

callmeslick wrote:A panel of experts seems to agree that is is more than likely we will have yet another government shutdown as of October 1. Thanks to the GOP losing on the Iran deal vote, and with Planned Parenthood apparently the most important issue facing the nation, it looks likely that the Republicans are going to shut the government down again. Why, I couldn't tell you as the last two times blew up in their faces, but............

How long before they cave in this time?

so much for your panel of experts.

don't think anyone foresaw Boehner quitting and cutting a deal on the way out the door, Woody. Note the experts said, 'more than likely', and were considering the reality before the tea partiers got neutered by their party leadership.