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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhich pound of flesh would you offer Republicans to end the sequester, avert another debt crisis...
...to get a budget passed?
You know that that's the price Republicans have set for passing any legislation, and you know they don't want to be specific about the details of what they're demanding so they can blame Obama and Democrats for the particulars of whatever is offered to appease them.
Would you refuse to play this horrible game at all, standing proudly on principle, no matter how things fell apart due to inaction?
The chained CPI thing sucks. And it probably won't even work as the particular pound of flesh that Republicans will accept. If it has one saving grace, we could at least hope that chained CPI could be reversed before its effects really kicked in.
Which bad choice that, no matter what, will have some sizable portion of the population fiercely angry with you would you make?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)I don't think that's worked out very well.
Silent3
(15,020 posts)...refuse to deal, let whatever effect refusing to play along causes happen, and hope that the pain caused as a result pays off someday?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Except during his first hundred days, when he had two per week. And his fireside chats.
Roosevelt used those opportunities to bludgeon the opposition, and to coax America to the left. Two-thirds of Americans are to the left of both parties already, on every issue I can think of. So all Obama needs to do is the bludgeoning.
We need to push left instead of folding to the right. No more triangulation - time for leadership.
Silent3
(15,020 posts)...or cajoled by mere average constituents into doing the right thing, so we're stuck with the effects of this obstinacy for at least the next two years. Regaining control of the House is very iffy given gerrymandering, and we could even lose the Senate in 2014.
Somehow I don't see our current problems being solved by even the most relentless series of fireside chats. Look at how popular universal background checks for guns are, and even that's unlikely to pass.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)If we play hardball, we win.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)The Elite agree to play hard ball for the middle classed?
Our best bet, as I see it, is to get onto Cloning ourselves an FDR, pronto!
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)and the whiners kicked LBJ out before he got his 9 1/3 years
djean111
(14,255 posts)I think he is hurting the Democratic party just as much as Nader did.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)How do you feel about getting rid of all guns and bullets from the hands of private citizens?
How do you feel about Gay Marriage?
How do you feel about a Woman President in 2016 named Hillary.
How do you feel about the two women liberals named by President Obama to SCOTUS, whereas Ralph Nader directly named John Roberts and Sam Alito.
djean111
(14,255 posts)Obama, IMO, was pushed into supporting gay marriage.
I supported gay marriage always. Obama is a little late to the party, and I feel his shiny new stance is mostly politically driven.
I don't care what the gender of the next president is. That's a piss-poor reason to make someone president.
And - I hadn't realized Hillary was such a corporate DINO - and I voted for her in my primary. So I reserve my support for anyone until I see who is aspiring to be president. I don't vote with my lady parts.
As a woman who lived through the sixties and seventies, fighting for equality or some semblance of it - I am completely and totally unmoved by the gender card throwing.
Ask me how I feel about the prosecution of medical marijuana users, killer drones, the tightening of the fist of the "Patriot" Act?
And why, exactly, is Obama needing praise? he isn't running again, unless the Freepers tinfoil hats are sized correctly.
Now that he is reelected, the only relevant thing about Obama is what he actually does - the bad shit is not excused by any of the good stuff.
Sometimes I think that if the GOP was floating a bill that mandated cutting both hands off of seniors, Obama would rush to propose only cutting off one hand, and he would be mystified at the lack of applause.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)djean111
(14,255 posts)What I am saying is that I think Obama is getting 100% of what he wants, and to compare him to FDR is ridiculous.
FDR proposed a New Deal.
Obama is proposing a very Bad Deal - TPP, chained CPI (camel's nose under the tent), and so on.
I am now afraid of what Obama wants, because he is a corporatist through and through. Just because Romney would have been worse is not any sort of reason to praise Obama for "not quite as bad".
There's his legacy.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)It's simple rope-a-dope.
They won't take it, therefore it isn't there.
If you think all those not seniors should get the same #s 30 years from now that are there today, why? What right do today's kids have to expect the same #s when the numbers are not constant.
Should we pay salaries in 1940 dollars? (not 2013 worth, but 1940 worth?)
Let's see, Babe Ruth made x amount. ARod makes 40 times x amount.
Don't you think #s change?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)they tried for 75.
Different than only letting the opposition move you back 50 when *they* tried for 75.
djean111
(14,255 posts)former9thward
(31,805 posts)He was President for 5 years and 2 months.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)liberal president of all time, they got Reagan/Bush after Reagan/Bush took out nixon in Watergate.
Was it worth it?
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)instead we got two terms of Nixon/Ford.
As much as we perhaps love LBJ here, if we were alive back then, we would have been furious about his hawkishness on Vietnam. Even more so, because of the draft.
former9thward
(31,805 posts)People forget that LBJ sent in 1965 sent the Marines into the Dominican Republic to suppress a revolution against the dictatorship.
dawg
(10,610 posts)anymore budget cuts on the poor. There is no need to tighten the budget right now, so let's just compromise and leave things the way they are.
Silent3
(15,020 posts)They insist that every bit of budget related legislation (and even some that isn't budget related) cut, cut, cut! With some new tax breaks for the rich thrown in.
There's no way Republicans would accept, for example, a simple termination of the sequester free from alternative spending cuts.
dawg
(10,610 posts)If they want to change the course of the U.S. Government, they need to get the votes needed in order to accomplish that. Likewise, we don't have the votes anymore to make major changes either.
Any budget they write has to get through the Senate before it ever reaches the President's desk. Therefore, they must write a budget capable of passing the Senate. If they fail to do so, that is on them.
babylonsister
(170,964 posts)enough, donchaknow? It's all Obama's fault. Over and out.
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)Aren't these people supposed to be public "servants?" Why the hell are we PAYING them?
Silent3
(15,020 posts)...that's also avoiding the tough question.
You know damned well that Congressional Republicans would not be appeased merely by an offer to cut their own pay and benefits.
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)Even IF you don't like the answer.
Silent3
(15,020 posts)And why would it be? You should be able to answer for yourself whether or not your reply is just a glib expression of anger, or a realistic policy proposal.
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)Congress is not doing their job. Why are we paying them?
Silent3
(15,020 posts)...because part of the question is coming up with something you think can actually pass. Am I to believe you think proposing congressional pay cuts is something you really, truly believe Republicans would accept and pass?
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)instead of dismissing it out of hand.
double dog dare you
Silent3
(15,020 posts)Sure, next time I'm President during a sequester I'll get right on that.
and when I'm President, I'll figure out which pound of flesh matters to you and make sure that little tidbit is sequestered right out of the budget.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)Obviously, nothing short of total capitulation to the owners and their toadies in the political class can actually pass. Ergo, you take a stand, EVEN IF IT MEANS NOTHING PASSES. Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing SOMETHING that's going to hurt worse.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)That would require thinking. And we all know it's much easier to play the angry victim on the intertubes and whine and complain about what a rotten person Obama because he hasn't resolved their economic situation to their satisfaction.
Autumn
(44,762 posts)The debt crises is a phony crisis, if we can afford the military budget and tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy and the wars, there is no crisis. SS has nothing to do with any of it.
They, together created this mess, they can live with it. We don't have a debt crisis we have a revenue crisis. Either way, the poor, and elderly are going to suffer. Personally I can't think of anything they have put in place that gets fixed later.
Silent3
(15,020 posts)Do you think if Obama simply stated what you just stated, true though it might be, Republicans would smack themselves in on the foreheads, say, "Gosh, darnit! You're right" and all of our manufactured crises, which have very real effects hurting real people even though they're manufactured, would suddenly end?
Try taking a moment to really put yourself in Obama's shoes instead of merely saying something to feel good about your own insight into these problems.
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)all by his itty bitty self!
Silent3
(15,020 posts)Forget sympathy for "poor little Obama". Imagine yourself as President, one that won't seem as mad and frothing as a Kim Jong Un, sitting in the White House, trying to deal with Congress, trying to actually get stuff passed and not just venting your frustrations.
I doubt you're at all capable of this, and expect no such response from you, only more self-righteous bloviating.
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)regardless of what he does.
Draw!
Silent3
(15,020 posts)My poms poms must be getting a bit droopy.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)How's about the heads of every greedy fucking, tax dodging, multi-billionare on a stick, for a start?
More than enough pounds there.
Silent3
(15,020 posts)If Obama actually proposed putting "the heads of every greedy fucking, tax dodging, multi-billionare on a stick", would that pass Congress?
No. I don't think so. So you've effectively vented your frustrations, but you have dealt with seriously proposing what Obama could actually offer.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Bullies are NEVER satisfied. Frankly, you liking my answer or not means fuckall to me. So, run along and make your crappy excuses to someone else, eh friend?
Silent3
(15,020 posts)...is a vote for all of the chaos that might follow, which could easily go as far as another dip into recession (and possibly worse), more unemployment, etc., but you are willing for other people to pay that price so that we've shown those bullies that they aren't going to bully us around?
99Forever
(14,524 posts).. as I said, save your crappy excuses for someone else, I'm not buying the bullshit any more. The Good Cop/Bad Cop SCAM has been exposed.
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)Doncha know that Obama can't screw seniors and vets without your help? Jeez! Put your thinking cap on, now!
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... brownnosing sycophants out to sell his austerity Republican Lite philosophy these days too.
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)around here.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)I had an amazing conversation the other day in Julian. They are worried that the closure of the air traffic control tower will affect air attack missions by Cal Fire during fire season. (Cal Fire claims no degradation, we'll see).
So this sweet lady started to bend my ear on this issue. I looked her in the eye and told her, "contact your congressman, he voted for it."
This is the level of disconnect. They'll tell me, but the best I can do is wield a pen...which works at times. These folks need to contact their members of congress, and stop voting for them.
Another conversation, residents realize their congressman is ignoring them (you think, I Think it's Duncan Hunter...I might be off and he'd be Daryll Issa). But it's DC, they expect it.
Here is part of the problem, and it's fully party independent. People are alienated from their government.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)Actually, it's a little less than a pound but weighing things is sciency so they won't know the difference.
jmowreader
(50,453 posts)They have already announced what they will accept as their price for ending the sequester: the words Barack Obama written in the president's handwriting on the last page of Ryan's budget, without one word changed.
Face facts: the ONLY thing Republicans care about right now is eliminating Obamacare. They tried to do it legislatively 34 times. They tried through the courts. It is what the sequester is about. It is what all the state sovereignty crap is about. And you can be sure of one thing: it will be the GOP's signature issue in 2014 and 2016.
The Republicans won't accept any sequester bill that doesn't kill Obamacare, no matter how bad it gets.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)Peace is precious, war is terrible. But the vast majority of us, Democrats included, accept that despite all of our best efforts, sometimes there is a time when a people must stand and fight. That of course is how this nation was founded, through a war in which thousands of lives were lost to the resulting violence.
No I am not proposing violence now, but I do see us in a political war. The Republicans and those they serve have closed off all other options, we are left to either retreat or stand and fight, knowing full well that lives are lost in any real fight, and this is definitely a real fight. When do you refuse to pay ransom to a kidnapper? When must pirates be fought rather than bought off?
The Republicans continually hold our economy hostage and demand concessions not to harm it. Yes they are fully capable of cutting off one of that hostages fingers if their demands are not met. One day they hold unemployment benefits hostage, the next day medicare reimbursement payments. They choose their hostages well, knowing that real suffering will be faced by many if their demands are not met, and we of course deplore real suffering, and so we continue to negotiate. And so they continue to hold hostages.
At what point do we declare war or do we ever? At what point do we say we must suffer casualties in a fight now in order to abolish a tyranny that has seen this nation's wealth systematically plundered over the last three decades, transferred from the yearly incomes of the vast majority of American citizens into the coffers of the one percent in order to feed their gluttony habits? Now even that isn't good enough. Now they demand that we shrink the bare minimum economic safety net that tens of millions of Americans are barely clinging on to. Lost for all time moving forward under the terms that they propose, and that our President is seemingly agreeing to.
Fighting back now might well cause significantly more real pain in the short term as we engage in this economic war, than if we retreated once again. That is always the strongest argument for appeasement, but is appeasement really in our long term interests?
TheKentuckian
(24,949 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)It should have a thread of it's own. Please make it an OP to be shared with all.
Thank you for this.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)JHB
(37,133 posts)...to make an issue of the Republicans' complete obstructionism and radicalism? To point out -- over and over and over until it sinks in -- that this is not "dysfunctional Washington", that even when Obama adopts a position that Republicans formerly supported, just so that something can get done, suddenly they're against it, and this has happened over and over.
Republican radicalism has to be made an issue. Do that, and you can give them the most putrid, gangrenous pound you can find, and let them choke on it. At this point, failure to make it an issue makes anything you give them just an appetizer for the next pound.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)to a Party salivating to destroy you.... Unless those "Crown Jewels" mean nothing to you.
samplegirl
(11,415 posts)pushed through!
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)So your entire premise is seriously faulty. You never offer a 'pound of flesh'. You make your opponent stand up and demand that flesh in detailed and specific language, make them fight for it clearly in public and then if they manage to win that flesh using due process, you make them extract that flesh with their own damn hands using a rusty knife with the cameras rolling while you stand aside and make a speech about the divine nature of mercy.
Silent3
(15,020 posts)I've often wished we could have televised debates between the President and the leaders of the House and Senate where they directly questioned each other in just this sort of way, where time and distance and numerous spokepersons and talking heads can't stand in the way of the President doing something like reminder Boehner and McConnell that it's Congress's duty to pass budgets, not the President's, and asking them bluntly and directly to explain exactly what cuts they want.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)the last act of the play from which that phrase comes, in which a person merely posing as a lawyer understands how to deal with unreasonable demands based on bitterness and bigotry. Too bad Obama does not seem to have read the play, and that he is not as sharp as Will or his Portia.
The key lesson for politicians is that the person who offers up a pound of flesh as a means of exchange does not end the play as a hero.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Democrats in Congress 2007-09 did not do this to Bush since they didn't want the government to shut down.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)If the repubs want to shut the government down, well, they have done that before and it cost them big time. We have an election coming up next year, and if they want to remind the voters just how bad they are at governing, go ahead. Obama has offered more than enough compromises. He should refuse to sign any more defense appropriations until the rest of the budget is on his desk, but that will never happen.
Buns_of_Fire
(17,121 posts)When dealing with a near-criminal organization, channeling Michael Corleone might be the way to go.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)"negotiating with terrorists" line that this OP seems to imply is the only way to go. I like the answer above from the poster who said take a stand and publicize that stand with weekly press conferences out and out BLAMING the Republicans for the mess that will come about from their intransigence.
Yep, it WILL be painful and will probably affect me a LOT. But it's time to REALLY fight back and let the proverbial chips fall. If people get pissed enough, maybe another million plus Bonus Army march on DC that turns into an occupation. When the great unwashed public gets in the faces of enough of the austerian politicians, we might get something done legislatively. If not, it will at least disrupt the profits of the capitalists for a time.
TheKentuckian
(24,949 posts)You can't appease your way out of this, even complete capitulation will be nothing more than a bridge to the next hostage situation, should any resistance of consequence continue to exist.
There is no negotiation with a black hole, the folly here might just be that some folks think they are dealing with people not unlike themselves and that there is some place where they will be satisfied that you could learn to live with.
This entire tact is insane to me, bullies must be fought. You don't have to beat them but they have to know they have been in a fight and that there will be a cost to their behavior and that cost will be due immediately. They must know that to gain submission from their intended victims they will have to kill them, winning fights won't cut it by a long shot.
Muddying the waters is stupid. Winning the blame game is fruitless. Looking "reasonable" to "independents" doesn't magically create voters.
It would seem like observation of the past several decades would at least hint at a clue of reality, the more is given the more is demanded. The closer we come to their position the quicker they sprint to the extremes and new "middle grounds" are created that are also increasingly radical. We are now more corporate and authoritarian than they were when this paradigm started and they have devolved essentially into a theocracy aligned terrorist organization.
Do you honestly think a showdown can be avoided forever short of complete and utter surrender? Does time somehow shrink the number that will be adversely impacted or is it more likely that the number of hostages and their risks will grow? Does the whittling away strengthen our hand in practical and rubber meets the road or are we being de-resourced and our human capital worn down, emotionally spent, and increasingly occupied by mere survival?
Marr
(20,317 posts)... and the Third Way/DLC has been openly pushing for it for years now, I have to question your insinuation that Obama was forced to offer it as part of a "compromise".
patrice
(47,992 posts)backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Let this fight continue for months, or even all the way to the next election, and tell the GOP "We've made enough compromises. It's your turn to move. This shutdown ends when you want it to."
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)If the Republicans will not accept anything other than total capitulation, then what is the sense of offering anything? To show that the GOP is intransigent? That might work for the first few times, but we've all gotten that message by now.
By offering anything, you implicitly state that something that once was not negotiable now is negotiable. I don't see how that accomplishes anything other than hardening the GOP in their stubbornness.
-- Mal
mick063
(2,424 posts)They are puppets of ALEC.
If it isn't "model" legislation the "politicians" can't vote for it. Their owners have given the marching orders.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.
It's a side show to focus attention away from the deficit's real driver: Low taxes on corporations and the rich.
Gee. What a coincidence. That would include the DLC Third Way Corporate-Lubber Democrats.
Greybnk48
(10,148 posts)RainbowSuperfund
(110 posts)He should sink his teeth in deep into their collective ass and say this all ends when you start cooperating with the will of the people . That is what he needs to do. Compromising with crooks is unhelpful, and unpopular right now.
RainbowSuperfund
(110 posts)Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)Eventually, it has to be enough. No?
GeorgeGist
(25,294 posts)After all he's a self-described moderate Republican.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Virtually no-one has actually tried to answer this question; practically every response tries to pretend that it doesn't have to be answered.
on point
(2,506 posts)It would also be ok to bring back 70 % rates on the wealthy
Also simplify taxes by making tax rates the same regardless of source (wages, capital gains, Dividends, Interest)
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)The GOP tried to hold the country hostage and said they would allow the gov't to shut down if Clinton refused to sign a budget that included Medicare cuts. He said go ahead make my day. Since the public hates these cuts, he knew the GOP would pay the political price for refusing to pass a budget the Pres. could sign. You can do that when you have popular support.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...you do not start by offering a pound of flesh from your side. You start by demanding a pound of flesh from their side.
They start from the same position, i.e. demanding a pound of flesh from you.
The negotiations determine who gets nipped the most.
Offering a pound of flesh from your own side merely allows them to demand more than just a pound. It's a piss-poor starting position. Especially when your position is anathema to the majority of your own side AND a majority of the other side!
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)Every time we give up something to kick the can down the road a few months, we end up with less and the Republicans just keep coming back for more because we've taught them that holding things hostage works. If we had nothing left to offer them, they'd still hold the government hostage, simply because they could. We need to stop pretending that these are people who can be reasoned with.
treestar
(82,383 posts)And one we have to answer when the House went to the Republicans in 2010. Maybe cuts to the arts and research? Republicans often find outrageous sounding research projects to laugh at and they say there should be no PBS, etc. I wonder had it been that how DU would explode. Probably the same people saying the same things.
But it's a good question and you will find poster who simple refuse to acknowledge the separation of powers. A President must get everything he/she wants, even from an opposing Congress, apparently by force of Personality, as FDR and LBJ allegedly did.
MFrohike
(1,980 posts)We've seen that the government can operate without a formal budget for four years now. So what? What good would a formal budget be with a rabid mob in the House and the Great Compromiser in the White House? What more would we be asked to sacrifice so the Compromiser could get on TV and crow about "bipartisanship"? What more must be sacrificed for greed and legacy?
tl;dr - Why bother with a budget if all it will do is make things worse? The status quo is preferable.