PoliCHARTZ - Thread of U.S. Politics & the Presidential Election

[Final-Fan]

Kasz216 said:

Final-Fan said:

HappySqurriel said:

Kasz216 said:
Isn't that exactly what fox news was doing?  Agrees with his party 97% of the time.  Changed his Iraq War policy etc. 

One thing I would just like to add is ... You should look at a person's voting history in the context of the political/ecconomic climate that they're going to be running the country in ...

If you have voted with your party 97% of the time and the senate and house are controlled by your party there really is no checks and balances in place that would prevent the country from being run towards an untested (and probably flawed) ideology. (Note: I'm not saying the Democrat's ideology is flawed, I'm saying most ideologies are flawed).

On the other hand, if you have voted with a below-average president 90% of the time and the senate and house are controlled by the opposition party it will be very difficult to do anything that is (generally) not considered to be in the best interests of the citizens.

To put this another way ... George W. Bush really wasn't that bad of a president, and the Repbulican controlled house and senate were (also) not that bad, what was bad was the Republican's were offered a mandate which eliminated all checks and balances in the Government. Giving a mandate that is free of checks and balances to the Democrats is going to cause just as many problems as the former Republican mandate produced; they will just be different problems which may or may not be worse.

Just like in the early 1990s?

The Democrats had a majority in congress in the early 90s.  Then the he and the democratic senators both got hit by the negatives of the mild recession and both got repalced.  Leading to a Democratic President and a Republican congress... and actual real conservatives lets not go all crazy spending type ones.

Actually, the Democratic congress was not replaced until 1994.  This is largely because of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (AKA Deficit Reduction Act) which is credited with balancing the budget.  It raised taxes and cut spending.  Every single Republican in Congress (House and Senate) voted against the bill.  Republicans were able, IIRC, to hammer Democrats for raising taxes and swept into control of both House and Senate in 1994. 

The 1992 election that I believe you're referring to ("both got replaced") which threw out Bush the Elder didn't even budge Senate numbers (overall) and the House only lost about one-fourth as many seats in 1992 as in 1994. 
Senate
102nd: 56-44 to 57-43
103rd: 57-53 to 56-54
104th: 46-54 to 47-53
House
102nd: 270-164-1
103rd: 258-176-1
104th: 204-230-1
(source: Wikipedia again)