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Forums - General - Bipartisanship

That Guy on 16 February 2009

true in some respects. the Teachers Union is very powerful and at the same time its a bureaucratic nightmare. Its near impossible to fire an dumb teacher due to union rules (if the teacher files a grievance, then the process takes months and the teacher, worst case scenario, gets transferred).

As for doing reform, good luck. The union is a powerful democratic voting bloc and the dems probably won't try to rock the boat as far as reforming their own.



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HappySqurriel on 16 February 2009

Weeks ago I remember Obama claiming that his economists were suggesting that the stimulus bill should be (roughly) 40% tax cuts, so the bill ending up being (roughly) 40% tax-cuts can hardly be called the result of a bi-partisan effort.

In relation to the stimulus bill, it can (at best) be considered a 1/10 in terms of bi-partisanship because it was created and forced through the system so quickly no efforts could be made to get real support from the republicans. Real bipartisanship takes time in order for people to find the middle-ground and to make compromises because the bill as a whole is more important than winning or losing on one small clause.

Calling the stimulus a bi-partisan bill would be like calling a bill that devoted $20 Billion to the arts and $100 Billion to unknown republican priorities a bi-partisan bill ...



akuma587 on 16 February 2009

Why am I not surprised by HappySqurriel's interpretation. Being bipartisan doesn't mean you have to listen to the other side when they are being completely unreasonable. And the bill that finally came out of Congress was significantly different than the one that came out of committee.

And being bipartisan also doesn't mean making a bill worse just to satisfy people. That's like sawing a child in half to please two people. It just doesn't make any sense. Tax cuts are not as effective a solution in a situation where you are facing a liquidity trap like we are now. Tax cuts were great when you were facing stagflation like Reagan did. Tax cuts aren't a one size fits all solution, unlike every Republican apparently believes.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

HappySqurriel on 16 February 2009
akuma587 said:
Why am I not surprised by HappySqurriel's interpretation. Being bipartisan doesn't mean you have to listen to the other side when they are being completely unreasonable. And the bill that finally came out of Congress was significantly different than the one that came out of committee.

And being bipartisan also doesn't mean making a bill worse just to satisfy people. That's like sawing a child in half to please two people. It just doesn't make any sense. Tax cuts are not as effective a solution in a situation where you are facing a liquidity trap like we are now. Tax cuts were great when you were facing stagflation like Reagan did. Tax cuts aren't a one size fits all solution, unlike every Republican apparently believes.

 

Being bipartisan doesn't mean that you have to give into the demands of the other side, but it does mean that you have to discuss the issues with them to understand what their demands are. If you complete a bill with little/no input from the other party and expect everyone to vote on it before they had a chance to read it how can it be bipartisan?

Regardless of whether you agree with the stimulus bill or not, there is no way you can define this as a bipartisan effort.



akuma587 on 16 February 2009

1) The main reason the bill was 33% tax cuts in the first place was because that is what Republicans wanted (no rational person would have thought they would ever get more than 50%, or even that this would be a wise percentage of tax cuts).
2) The bill was discussed with Republicans before the bill left committee.
3) Changes were made to the bill before it left the House because of Republicans.
4) Drastic changes were made while consulting with Republicans in the Senate, which the House accepted when the final bill was passed.

I guess those don't count though.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

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HappySqurriel on 16 February 2009
akuma587 said:

1) The main reason the bill was 33% tax cuts in the first place was because that is what Republicans wanted (no rational person would have thought they would ever get more than 50%, or even that this would be a wise percentage of tax cuts).
2) The bill was discussed with Republicans before the bill left committee.
3) Changes were made to the bill before it left the House because of Republicans.
4) Drastic changes were made while consulting with Republicans in the Senate, which the House accepted when the final bill was passed.

I guess those don't count though.

 

1) "Obama is asking that tax cuts make up 40% of a stimulus package, the officials say." ( http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-stimulus-details5-2009jan05,0,4983185.story ) I doubt that the Republicans had nearly the weight on producing tax cuts that Obama did.

2) Simply being discussed is not the same as being a bipartisan effort

3+4) Can you name these changes and show evidence that they actually exist, and were done in a bipartisan effort?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gdDrWnoMueqVFI-Uo1ClxVZur22AD96B48G80

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faced a different task — finding enough GOP moderates to give him the 60 votes needed to surmount a variety of procedural hurdles. To do that, he and the White House agreed to trim billions in spending from the original $820 billion House-passed bill, enough to obtain the backing of GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.


Maybe I'm wrong, but that makes it sound more like the Democrats were less interested in bipartisanship than making a couple of deals so they didn't have to make the bill more appealing to republicans on the whole.



The_vagabond7 on 16 February 2009

I think republicans did it as a strategy, and that no matter what they wouldn't have approved of the bill. I think they did so knowing full well that they didn't really need to approve in order for it to pass. I think their plan is to say in a few months "The stimulus has done nothing, the economy is getting worse! We told you that was a bad idea!" And for the next year harp about how terrible the stimulus was because the economy still sucks. And when the economy eventually starts to improve way down the line (it's not going to be a quick fix obviously even if the stimulus works) they and the pundits will have long forgotten about the stimulus and have moved on to whatever the topic of the week is. It's smart from a dirty political standpoint.

They can show their staunch "fiscally conservative" (all of the sudden) disaproval of the bill without having to actually screw anything up because they weren't needed to pass the bill. And for the next year of crappy economy they just say "I told you so" and hem and haw and be pricks in general.



You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.

HappySqurriel on 16 February 2009
The_vagabond7 said:

I think republicans did it as a strategy, and that no matter what they wouldn't have approved of the bill. I think they did so knowing full well that they didn't really need to approve in order for it to pass. I think their plan is to say in a few months "The stimulus has done nothing, the economy is getting worse! We told you that was a bad idea!" And for the next year harp about how terrible the stimulus was because the economy still sucks. And when the economy eventually starts to improve way down the line (it's not going to be a quick fix obviously even if the stimulus works) they and the pundits will have long forgotten about the stimulus and have moved on to whatever the topic of the week is. It's smart from a dirty political standpoint.

They can show their staunch "fiscally conservative" (all of the sudden) disaproval of the bill without having to actually screw anything up because they weren't needed to pass the bill. And for the next year of crappy economy they just say "I told you so" and hem and haw and be pricks in general.

 

While I think there is some truth to this, I do think that there could have been a true bipartisan stimulus bill and the Democrats were also playing politics with this bill.

The stimulus bill in its current form could best be described as a multi-year Democrat priority spending bill with tax-cuts, and it isn't the kind of focused stimulus bill that most people would expect from how it was sold ... In a similar act to what George Bush has been heavily criticized for, the Democrats have effectively used fear to get the American public to accept something without knowing the full details about it.



The_vagabond7 on 16 February 2009
HappySqurriel said:
The_vagabond7 said:

I think republicans did it as a strategy, and that no matter what they wouldn't have approved of the bill. I think they did so knowing full well that they didn't really need to approve in order for it to pass. I think their plan is to say in a few months "The stimulus has done nothing, the economy is getting worse! We told you that was a bad idea!" And for the next year harp about how terrible the stimulus was because the economy still sucks. And when the economy eventually starts to improve way down the line (it's not going to be a quick fix obviously even if the stimulus works) they and the pundits will have long forgotten about the stimulus and have moved on to whatever the topic of the week is. It's smart from a dirty political standpoint.

They can show their staunch "fiscally conservative" (all of the sudden) disaproval of the bill without having to actually screw anything up because they weren't needed to pass the bill. And for the next year of crappy economy they just say "I told you so" and hem and haw and be pricks in general.

 

While I think there is some truth to this, I do think that there could have been a true bipartisan stimulus bill and the Democrats were also playing politics with this bill.

The stimulus bill in its current form could best be described as a multi-year Democrat priority spending bill with tax-cuts, and it isn't the kind of focused stimulus bill that most people would expect from how it was sold ... In a similar act to what George Bush has been heavily criticized for, the Democrats have effectively used fear to get the American public to accept something without knowing the full details about it.

At least it won't lead to tens of thousands of deaths! Heey-o! Wait, is it too soon?

 



You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.

HappySqurriel on 16 February 2009
The_vagabond7 said:
HappySqurriel said:
The_vagabond7 said:

I think republicans did it as a strategy, and that no matter what they wouldn't have approved of the bill. I think they did so knowing full well that they didn't really need to approve in order for it to pass. I think their plan is to say in a few months "The stimulus has done nothing, the economy is getting worse! We told you that was a bad idea!" And for the next year harp about how terrible the stimulus was because the economy still sucks. And when the economy eventually starts to improve way down the line (it's not going to be a quick fix obviously even if the stimulus works) they and the pundits will have long forgotten about the stimulus and have moved on to whatever the topic of the week is. It's smart from a dirty political standpoint.

They can show their staunch "fiscally conservative" (all of the sudden) disaproval of the bill without having to actually screw anything up because they weren't needed to pass the bill. And for the next year of crappy economy they just say "I told you so" and hem and haw and be pricks in general.

 

While I think there is some truth to this, I do think that there could have been a true bipartisan stimulus bill and the Democrats were also playing politics with this bill.

The stimulus bill in its current form could best be described as a multi-year Democrat priority spending bill with tax-cuts, and it isn't the kind of focused stimulus bill that most people would expect from how it was sold ... In a similar act to what George Bush has been heavily criticized for, the Democrats have effectively used fear to get the American public to accept something without knowing the full details about it.

At least it won't lead to tens of thousands of deaths! Heey-o! Wait, is it too soon?

 

 

I think it is far too early to assume that this couldn't indirectly kill thousands of people ... After all, more people died of starvation from subsidizing corn ethanol (and other food based bio-fuels) than from the Iraq war.