A Modest Proposal

[hops_scout]

[sarcasm]

 

George W. Bush is the worst President the United States has ever had! He wasted our money, got our men and women killed for no reason, and single-handily doomed the country forever!

 

[/sarcasm]

 

Where was Congress in all of this again? Yeah, the Democrats.. oh wait they were all too busy hating him, cussing him, protesting against everything, and running for President in 2008 except the campaigning began in 2004!

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, I confess I'm really tired of da partisan drum beaters. This is an American financial catastrophe, not a Democratic or Republican one. Both sides lathered on the pork spending. Both sides have taken major programs like a war and Social Security "off budget" so as to obscure deficits or avoid actually having to plan payment for their decisions. Republicans more than democrats aided and abetted irresponsible corporate behavior, foolish deregulation, corporate subsidies and corporate welfare. Democrats more than republicans aided and abetted irresponsible union behavior, nothing-gained spending on social programs, and regular welfare.

 

We Americans were happy to have one party or the other give other people's money away, or give away public lands or resources, so long as they were giving it away to our friends, eh? And now, in the midst of a crisis, all sides are united. Let's give away the nation in a massive spending spree for all our people! Republicans get a multi-trillion bailout of Wall Street. Democrats get a trillion dollar bailout of commercial credit and a defunct auto industry. Don't worry, Dems, you'll come back to parity with the Republicans when we have to start bailing out state and local governments next year.

 

And then watch as da insanely underfunded public pension systems start to collapse...

 

Beavah

 

[SR540Beaver]

Don't worry Hops, Obama hasn't even taken office yet and the talk radio scene is already laying fault for all of the nation's future problems at his feet. It seems they want to avoid the rush and start blaming now. There is enough vitriol to go around for both sides.

 

I'm sure Obama will make his mistakes and get blamed for plenty. If/when he does......the buck should stop with him just as it should with Bush. The guy with the veto pen can stop much of the madness and make Congress go back and revamp their bills until they are responsible in nature. Bush simply did not do that when he had a majority in Congress for six of his eight years or when he didn't for two of his eight. If you want to sit at the big desk, you have to take the lumps that come from both your actions and inactions.

[Lisabob]

Yup, I am finding it funny that Republicans these days have such short memories. They all seem to have forgotten that there was a Republican majority in Congress from 2000-2006. Or maybe they believe that everything was golden and perfect until the end of 2006 when the Dems won in a landslide? (In that case, please explain why the Republicans suffered such disastrous losses in the 2006 midterm elections...)

 

I'm with Beavah and Beaver. There is plenty of blame to go around. Making it sound like this is all one party's fault is just silly. But if you really insist on laying blame? 6 years of unified REPUBLICAN government seem to be a more logical place to start, than the last 2 years of divided gov't with a Republican president ultimately in charge (well, sort of in charge).

[ljnrsu]

Hey Hopper glad a young adult has who is to blame not like some older adults have. It has been and will always be the Congress critters fault. It doesn't matter who the President has been, Congress is the one calling the shots.

The President only recommends a budget to the House of Reps. The House is where the actual budget is prepared (by House Ways and Means Committee) and is passed. The President can either sign or veto it. But Congress critters are smart they have nasty habit of attaching spending bills to other bills that the President wants or country needs. They have in recent past attached final budget to Social Security COLA's and dared the President to veto it. Can see the headlines for that. The Washington Post,NY and LA Times and some others would have a field day if that happened.

Just like I get laughs when people say Regan's deficit. Can remember for years the Speaker of the House saying that Regan's budget proposals were DOA when they arrived in the House. So if his budget was DOA then whose deficit is it.

Sad part is the Scouts I have counseled for Cit Nation MB the past 15 years have better understanding of the process than most adults and they can't vote yet.

[Lisabob]

That's weird - it didn't post the first time so I edited and reposted, only to discover that it actually HAD posted the first time, just with a time delay. So I deleted the second post. - Lisa(This message has been edited by lisabob)

[ASM915]

OGE,

All of your Porsche and Lotus dealers, as well as all the other working people, would now be green card holding residents from south of the border, Asia and Africa. Oops!! Forget that last statement. Pelosi will make sure they get their million also.

[vol_scouter]

Beevah is right, both parties and several presidents from both parties are the cause of this debacle. It is also due to my generation, the baby boomers, who are the greediest, most egocentric, and selfish generation in the history of this once great country. Our parents generation was the greatest, we are the worst. The things that the young baby boomers decried - corporate greed etc.- have become our trademark. Unfortunately, much of the price of the foolishness of baby boomers will be born by their children and grand children which is only to be expected for such a self-centered group. Social security is going broke. Instead of trying to fix it now (which would cost boomers some of their money), the boomers only demonized Bush for making a proposal and they countered with none. If all the boomers get to SS age prior to the crunch hitting they will not have to pay (they hope).

 

The founding fathers had a great idea in our government. They were concerned that politicians would want too much power so they made checks and balances. The founding fathers never thought that the congress would be so willing to give up its' position of power to the other branches of government. Congress wants the courts to take care of all controversial social issues and the executive branch to take the blame for everything else. It is the congress not the president who is charged with developing the budget (actually it is the house). Yet the house asks the president to submit a budget that they can blame as needed. Things like stem cell research, abortion, capital punishment, homosexual rights, etc should be addressed by the congress who is silent. The congress only hands out money to get re-elected. The congress is disgusting on both sides of the aisle.

[Aquila calva]

Democrats = Tax and Spend

 

Republicans = Deficit, Debt, and Bailout

 

Republicans win 3 to 2.

 

Bailout is Word of the Year

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,457624,00.html

 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

Vol-Scouter, I didn't want to get into the argument over the 2000 election, but as long as you brought it up...

 

The votes were recounted more once including the New York Times. None of the recounts resulted with a Gore victory.

 

Actually as far as I know there was one effort to (unofficially) recount the votes statewide, by an organization that was hired by a consortium of news organizations, including the New York Times. You can read all about it here:

 

http://tinyurl.com/5tz3gk

 

(It is a Wikipedia article and therefore subject to the warning that any Wikipedia article may or may not be correct, but in this case the article seems to be well-researched, unvandalized and objective, plus I followed the link to the source material and it appears to say the same thing.) The people doing the study used a variety of alternative methods, some of which indicated a victory for Gore, some a victory for Bush. Interestingly, the result of a statewide recount of all votes in this study is a Gore victory of between 60 and 171 votes. What the news articles pointed out at the time was that Gore did not request a statewide recount, so by the recount method he chose, even if the Supreme Court had not stopped it, Bush would have won. But if the question is, who did more people in Florida vote for, based on the information available to the study, it was Gore. It is of course impossible to know for sure, either way, because of all the problems with the punch cards, including the cards being damaged after the election, etc. I was always amazed that this is the system to which we entrusted the election of any public official, much less a president. Until the Florida thing happened, I had no idea that any place in the United States still used a voting system like that, it was so much different from anything I had ever encountered in New Jersey. Even the 1950's-era (or maybe older), purely mechanical voting machines on which I voted until about 10-15 years ago seemed better.

 

Before you bring it up the SCOTUS merely instructed the Florida Supreme court to follow Florida state law and not to make up laws as they go.

 

Some people interpreted the case that way. I thought it was the U.S. Supreme Court that was making things up as it went along. It was one of the most blatant examples of "judicial activism" I have ever seen.

[TheScout]

And it was the liberals who have long sought to increase the power of the Supreme Court. How people hate to reap what they sow.

[vol_scouter]

NJCubScouter,

 

I understand your frustration in the outcome of the Florida vote. It was a sad comment all of the way around. I was not aware of any statewide recount but I will not argue with you on that topic. There were certainly a lot of disagreement on the method of interpreting the votes. Gore made a clever decision to ask to recount only some heavily democrat areas rather than the whole state. It is ironic that recounting the entire state may have provided him the result that he desired.

 

As to the SCOTUS decision, how can you interpret telling the state court to follow state law as judicial activism? Instructing courts to follow the law is activism? I believe that allowing the Florida state supreme court to make up laws usurping the state constitutional roles of the executive and legislative branches is activism.

 

Happy Thanksgiving all!!

[NJCubScouter]

The Scout:

 

Again with the labels?

 

Anyway, I seem to remember from my constitutional law class that the Federalist Party was the first to expand the power of the courts. Hardly liberals, they.

 

vol_scouter: You left the "ic" off "Democratic". A lot of people seem to make that mistake these days.(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

[TheScout]

You seem to confuse Classical Liberalism with modern liberalism. The word has come across a very interesting change in meaning.

 

The liberals of of the early Republic were the small government people. Now the liberals are the big government people.

 

I suppose it would be more accurate to say that the big government people have continually expanded the power of the Supreme Court?

 

[Beavah]

Yah, I don't think da labels mean anything anymore, eh? Da Republicans of the last 8 years have been the party of big, bigger, and biggest government. Massive intrusions on the authority of states over education. Major grabs of federal control and authority over "IP" law and enforcement. Near scandalous assertions of unilateral power by da executive. And finally massive socializing of industries and commercial risk.

 

And they called themselves "conservative."

 

I think both parties want big government these days. They just want to control who gets more of da big-government subsidies and bailouts.

 

Beavah