Good to see a lot of people are agreeing with me. This past month or so of back-and-forth BS politics has me furious and every one of them, especially Boehner.

Frakk if I know. I'm just trying to pay of my CC debt to woot! However, I did actually get a positive response from my congressman re. the GPS-killing BS that LightSquared snuck through FCC approval. Google it!!

They aren't doing anything in Washington that can't be traced back to how badly We The People make decisions about who to put there, why, and how we expect them to somehow do everything we want while refusing to give in to everyone else's "special interests". If we want Washington to be responsible, we need to start being responsible about what a nation of 310 million individualists should expect of its government.

Democracy is more dangerous than fire. Fire can't vote itself immune to water. -- Michael Z. Williamson

This poll reminds me of one of my favorite political jokes:

If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of progress?

To be perfectly blunt, the US should have lost its AAA rating years ago when it became obvious nobody has much of a plan beyond spending money we don't have and hoping someone in the future will magically fix everything.

But then again these are the same folks who thought CDOs were awesome right up until they torpedoed the entire financial sector so maybe they're not the best judge of fiscal health...

Anyone know how fast/slow these are?

tdurden wrote:Anyone know how fast/slow these are?

It's Moody's so re-e-e-a-a-l-l-l-ly slow. Like 386 slow, or 9600 baud if you're into that whole newfangled Interweb thing.

curtisuxor wrote:This poll reminds me of one of my favorite political jokes:

If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of progress?

Regress?

----

Ron Paul 2012

curtisuxor wrote:This poll reminds me of one of my favorite political jokes:

If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of progress?

I'm totally using that.

curtisuxor wrote:This poll reminds me of one of my favorite political jokes:

If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of progress?

hahhahahhahahhahahahhahahahahahahahahaah! I've never heard that, but it's clever!

Wheres the
Let's talk again after I get done voting this president out on his butt?

au244 wrote:Wheres the
Let's talk again after I get done voting this president out on his butt?

Right below "the president doesn't make the budget".

au244 wrote:Wheres the
Let's talk again after I get done voting this president out on his butt?

Um....it's not the president- not in this instance - it's the republicans who are in bed with Wall Street and Big Business (oil and energy to name a few)....who refuse to raise revenue by closing tax loopholes and cutting tax subsidies for these guys. The banksters and oil barrons earn more money in one year between salaries and bonuses than any of us can hope to earn in 10! They all need to pony up tax-wise that is.

If you recognize their name don't vote for them.

elainewillliams wrote:Um....it's not the president- not in this instance - it's the republicans who are in bed with Wall Street and Big Business (oil and energy to name a few)....who refuse to raise revenue by closing tax loopholes and cutting tax subsidies for these guys.

Um...it's not lack of revenue. It's over spending. In three years, Obama has added almost $5 trillion to the national debt (avg. $1.65 trillion/yr). In eight years, Bush added $4.3 trillion (avg. $0.54 trillion/yr). Our economy was doing well with yearly deficit reduction from 2003 to 2007 until the subprime home loans caused everything to crash. Opening the subprime markets was a Clinton thing (Sept. 1999).

danreyna wrote:Um...it's not lack of revenue. It's over spending. In three years, Obama has added almost $5 trillion to the national debt (avg. $1.65 trillion/yr). In eight years, Bush added $4.3 trillion (avg. $0.54 trillion/yr). Our economy was doing well with yearly deficit reduction from 2003 to 2007 until the subprime home loans caused everything to crash. Opening the subprime markets was a Clinton thing (Sept. 1999).

GOTTA SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY DAWG

I always laugh when people talk about getting rid of everybody in Congress... except of course their representative, who's doing a great job.

Scrap elections. Politics should work like jury duty.

danreyna wrote:Um...it's not lack of revenue. It's over spending. In three years, Obama has added almost $5 trillion to the national debt (avg. $1.65 trillion/yr). In eight years, Bush added $4.3 trillion (avg. $0.54 trillion/yr). Our economy was doing well with yearly deficit reduction from 2003 to 2007 until the subprime home loans caused everything to crash. Opening the subprime markets was a Clinton thing (Sept. 1999).

Isn't it neat how the internet allows you to find "facts" that support whatever your agenda might be?

llandar wrote:Scrap elections. Politics should work like jury duty.

I wouldn't go there
The only people on jury duty are the ones that weren't smart enough to get out of it


I'd prefer every bill or law to be passed through the whole country for everyone to vote on, not just the rich ones in congress that only work for themselves instead of the people
After they get elected we lose all control unless we have tons of cash

llandar wrote:Scrap elections. Politics should work like jury duty.

I approve of this. Give the person elected/chosen by lottery the "average" income of a middle class wage earner while they serve and regulate the members more so that perks and money can't be taken from lobbyists.

llandar wrote:Isn't it neat how the internet allows you to find "facts" that support whatever your agenda might be?

Specific numbers and blame game pointing aside, he's right on his basic premise. Overspending is the problem.

crapface wrote:Specific numbers and blame game pointing aside, he's right on his basic premise. Overspending is the problem.

Not to mention the lack of revenue...

RWoodward wrote:I always laugh when people talk about getting rid of everybody in Congress... except of course their representative, who's doing a great job.

oh no...I want to get rid of my representatives as well. SC is notorious for dumb politicians.

crapface wrote:Specific numbers and blame game pointing aside, he's right on his basic premise. Overspending is the problem.

More is going out than coming in. We could stop spending so much or we could increase revue. I think at this point we need to do both. I am hoping that some people will see that the republicans AND the democrats are equally to blame. Pointing the finger at the "other" party is exactly why we are where we are now. You can paint a rat red, or you can paint a rat blue, but it is still a rat.

MukYJ wrote:Not to mention the lack of revenue...

For the past 60 years, the federal government took in 19% of GDP, regardless of the tax rate on the top percent.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/graph_of_the_day_for_september_9.html

Congress needs to stop growing the federal government by a 7.5% baseline every year. If Congress planned to not spend a dime more each year for the next 10 years, the CBO would say they're planning on cutting 9.5 trillion dollars from the budget.

danreyna wrote:Um...it's not lack of revenue. It's over spending. In three years, Obama has added almost $5 trillion to the national debt (avg. $1.65 trillion/yr). In eight years, Bush added $4.3 trillion (avg. $0.54 trillion/yr). Our economy was doing well with yearly deficit reduction from 2003 to 2007 until the subprime home loans caused everything to crash. Opening the subprime markets was a Clinton thing (Sept. 1999).

Of course, the Bush numbers don't include the cost of the two wars he got us into. They were never "on the books" during his two terms!

IrishLass622 wrote:Of course, the Bush numbers don't include the cost of the two wars he got us into. They were never "on the books" during his two terms!

I'll see your Iraq and Afghanistan, and raise you a Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen.

HAY WHO PUT POLITICS IN MY WOOT

This works for my household so I bet it works for you. What you do is this. If you hit your limit on your Credit Card all you got to do is call them to raise the limit. It works! Pays it off in no time!! I just promise to pay them back within the next 10 years and only if i agree that i actually spent that much! American politicians rocks!

This thread is actually surprisingly entertaining.

My $0.02:
Having a statutory debt limit on Congress passed by Congress that Congress has power over (yes, yes, the President has to sign, yada yada [it seems to always happen]) is like giving your child an allowance and saying "This is all you get! Well, unless you decide you want more. In that case, you get more."

Why was there such a hurry, anyway? Nobody offered the "raise the debt ceiling by 50-100B so we can debate further" plan. Oh, and iirc the House is on vacation until Sept. 7th. When I get work done late I get fired, not vacation.

The Congress votes on whether it should owe the money it already agreed to spend? If they didn't want to owe, they shouldn't have voted to agree to pay! They have a remedy for that attitude -- it's called Debtors Prison!

The US has been privileged for years because it has the best credit in the world. Throwing away our reputation is literally insane.

Thanks, folks, for demonstrating my point above. The real problem isn't overspending, undertaxing, a corrupt Congress, Big Business, bureaucratic waste, lazy dolists, elites, proles, or just about anything else you'll see some sage cite as the problem.

The problem is that we're not willing or able to consider just how huge and complex the real problems are. We just want the cartoon versions that we can hold in the tiny part of our brains not preoccupied with everything else in our lives (like feeding our families, getting to work on time, and watching the latest reality shows). Politicians know this, and know they can't get elected by making long, complex, rational arguments to such busy people, so they resort to making us frightened and angry to pull us out of our parochial interests and choose (or refuse) them.

I'm liking llandar's "jury duty" idea the more I think about it.

I'd say this is what we get for electing people who want to be elected. Let's pencil in some physicists, chemists, engineers and economists, ditch the actors, lawyers, ex-CEOs and scumbag career politicians.

The paradox of government: those who want in usually shouldn't be in.

We have seen some very interesting Jurys in the past though, OJ and Casey Anthony. They seem to have won the Jury lottery.