When did you realize Republicans were blocking the economic recovery and trying to destroy America?

[ProSense]

This was July:

Republican Obstruction Of Budget Process Hits 100th Day

By Alan Pyke

Monday marks 100 days since the Senate passed a budget amid bipartisan praise of the open process. But initial Republican eagerness to work on a budget has given way to the obstructionism that’s defined the Senate minority under Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Over the past hundred days, Republicans have blocked 15 separate attempts to go to a budget conference with the House of Representatives. Now that the House and Senate have passed their own versions, each is supposed to appoint representatives to a committee that reconciles them into one bill that can be passed by each body and signed by the president.

The handful of Republicans who are blocking a conference on the 2014 budget cite a variety of reasons, including fears that the conference agreement would include a deal preventing another debt ceiling crisis. Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have insisted that the conferees be barred from addressing the debt ceiling, which needs to be increased by this fall to avoid a catastrophic default on U.S. obligations. McConnell, who has praised the use of the debt ceiling as a pressure point for extracting spending cuts despite the tactic’s negative impact on the nation’s credit rating, is one of many prominent Republicans who demanded “regular order” on the budget. In January, he called for a speedy budget conference because “that’s how things are supposed to work around here.”

Yet McConnell has joined the Cruz/Paul/Rubio wing of his caucus in blocking progress on the budget over the past 100 days. Spokespeople for the Republican Senate leader did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Monday, but by joining with members like Paul he’s wrapped his arms around the obstructionists’ spin. According to a sign Paul’s staff whipped up for a May floor speech, they’re “Preventing A Back Room Deal To Raise The Debt Limit” and counting the days without budget conferees as a mounting victory.

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/01/2241941/republican-obstruction-of-budget-process-hits-100th-day/

That budget includes $100 billion in infrastructure spending.

<...>

The budget includes $100 billion of immediate infrastructure spending designed to boost the economy and raise $975 billion over the next decade through tax reform, which would eliminate various loopholes and tax expenditures.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/senate-passes-budget-after-all-night-debate.php

By cutting aid to vulnerable Americans, blocking a minimum-wage increase, blocking a jobs bill and infrastructure funding, trying to gut the EPA, voting to repeal Obamacare and pushing to shut down the government, Republicans are proving that they are callous assholes who don't give a damn about making people's lives better. In fact, their actions prove that they don't care if you die (by removing the protections of environmental regulations or returning to the status quo of denying you health care coverage).

The road not taken (Republicans have been holding the economy hostage for years)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023744622

The Complete Guide To The GOP’s Three-Year Campaign To Shut Down The Government
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023744676

Updated to add:

The House Republican tantrum that knows no end

By Steve Benen

The New York Times published a helpful chart the other day, which highlighted a nine-step process Congress would have to follow this week to avoid a government shutdown. As it happens, steps one through eight were completed with relative ease.

It was that ninth step that gave lawmakers trouble.

House Republicans not only gathered on a weekend to take a vote that moves the government even closer to a shutdown, they did it in the dead of night.

The Republican-controlled House voted around midnight on Saturday to keep the government open for a few more months in exchange for punting the rollout of Obamacare for a year -- the kind of shot at the health care law conservatives had wanted for weeks, even if it's sure to be rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

By all appearances, House Republicans are now actively seeking a government shutdown, specifically aiming for their goal rather than making any effort to avoid it. Indeed, the unhinged House majority appears to have gone out of its way to craft a spending bill designed to fail.

The bill approved after midnight would deny health care benefits to millions of American families for a year, add to the deficit by repealing a medical-device tax industry lobbyists urged Republicans to scrap, and in a fascinating twist, make it harder for Americans to get birth control. As the New York Times report noted, "The delay included a provision favored by social conservatives that would allow employers and health care providers to opt out of mandatory contraception coverage."

Yes, in the midst of a budget crisis, the House GOP decided it was time to go after birth control again. Wow.

Senate leaders and the White House patiently tried to explain to radicalized House Republicans that voting for this would all but guarantee a government shutdown -- so House Republicans voted for it en masse...take a look at the roll call. Jonathan Bernstein asked on Friday, "Where are the sane House Republicans?" That question was answered quite clearly last night: literally every GOP lawmaker in the chamber voted for their government-shutdown plan. There were zero defections.

This was not, in other words, an isolated tantrum thrown by an extremist faction of a once-great political party. This was rather an organized tantrum thrown by the entirety of the House Republican caucus...I use the word "tantrum" largely because Republicans told me to. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a close ally of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in July, "Shutting down the government to get your way over an unrelated piece of legislation is the political equivalent of throwing a temper tantrum. It is just not helpful."

- more -

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/09/29/20742297-the-house-republican-tantrum-that-knows-no-end

[ElboRuum]

1. 1981. n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Or shortly thereafter

When he fired the air traffic controllers rather than give them a raise, I knew that working people were in for a rough time.

This was the first time I remember that air traffic controllers' high pay was used to try to create envy on the part of less well-paid people.
"Look, those spoiled air traffic controllers make $X, while you make only $X/4. They have nothing to complain about! We'll just hire new ones!"

Gee, imagine paying good money to the people who are responsible for the safety of thousands of lives every day.

That envy tactic is being used today in Minnesota as the Minnesota Orchestra is coming to the end of a year-long lockout. "Those musicians get big bucks for practicing their hobby! They need to buckle down and take cuts just like you did!"

[JackRiddler]

20. +1... and...

around the same time I realized most of the Democratic leadership was, unfortunately, collaborating in the class-war strategy known as neo-liberalism.

[tomg]

29. Sounds about right. nt

[roguevalley]

31. someone is tweeting that the pugs are drunk on the floor of the

congress. they can smell booze as they walk out.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

32. Goes back further than that....

Look at NAM.

Not that one, the acronym standing for the National Association of Manufacturers.

[ElboRuum]

48. True...

...but the election of Reagan was the reveal. It was the statement, "Here, America, is your future. Now go fuck yourselves."

[Spitfire of ATJ]

57. What's sad is people were saying, "Oh, he won't do anything unpopular and risk his movie career."...

In Hollywood, he was a nobody on screen and behind the screen he had squealed to McCarthy so he wasn't liked anyway.

[calimary]

35. Pretty much. When that rat-bastard reagan ran his mouth off with that pablum

"government isn't the solution, government is the problem" bullshit. And his sloganeering - "what are the nine most terrifying words in the English language? 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

BASTARD!!!!

I swear, if I had the power and authority, I would systematically be removing that beast's name from ANYTHING on which it was emblazoned, from the Simi Valley Freeway to the Washington National Airport, and ALL things - buildings, overpasses, high schools, roller derby parks, skeet-shooting emporia, memorial gun shows, etc. - in between. He can have his Presidential Library. I'd leave that for the reagan idol-worshippers. That's enough. That's MORE than enough. Eight years of him (and everybody else who manipulated and spoke for and ruled in place of him including his wife, while propping him up for the public like a freakin' cardboard cutout) in charge was bad enough, but it's been the gift-from-Hell that's kept on giving. It has been a lasting blight on our country and its collective conscience. It's sent us emotionally and morally back to the Bronze Age.

Maybe those who still regard him as the Second Coming love him so much because he stopped change and progress and enlightenment, and they liked the dark, pinched little rut they'd dug for themselves. Whatever. I'm trying hard to understand it. I still don't. I have been trying in vain to wrap my mind around it since he arrived on the national scene - when we really couldn't avoid him anymore. We here in California suffered under his governorship for two annoying terms but you figure at least it's only the governor and he can't fuck up the rest of the country completely, only his own state - large though it is. But when he got into the White House, then we were stuck. And we were SCREWED. He was 100% unignorable at all times.

I hated those times! It felt like a hostage hold. Like we were all suddenly stuck in a twisted, polar-opposite, Bizarro America. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. I couldn't believe people were just melting for him. I couldn't believe he'd done that big a sales job, and snowed that many people with his aw-shucks shtick and his slick packaging. And what he set about doing, and was able to unleash, was nothing short of appalling - both then and even to this day. "Millionaires on Parade." Breaking the back of the union movement. Giving credibility and cover to evangelical extremism. Trickle-down - which was really trickle-ON. "The rich get richer..." "Trees cause pollution." Tearing away at the separation of church and state. Deregulation - of every kind. Demonizing liberalism. Letting the foxes guard the henhouses. The rise of hate radio. Denying the reality of AIDS - all those years we lost in which there could have been research and study and maybe a jump-start on a cure. Hating the federal government and believing it should be drastically downsized. Doing business with terrorists. Manipulating and managing the media. Iran/Contra. jerry falwell. ralph reed and the christian coalition. Obscene military build-up while the poor multiplied in number and only a select few profited. The whole free-market worship. Emboldened CONservatives allowed to run amok like under-disciplined schoolyard bullies. All of that. I believe there were more indictments and imprisonings during the reagan years than there even were in Watergate. And he personally got away with it because nobody wanted to believe that this amiable old uncle was bringing about some true long-range calamity for the country he loudly boasted that he loved. And worst of all, he made it all seem nice and charming and harmless and all-American and utterly desirable.

http://liberalslikechrist.org/about/Reagan.html

AWFUL times. It planted the seeds for what's happening now. Guess who else rose from the depths of the damned at that same time, like Tweedledum to his Tweedledee? newt gingrich. And it just went on and on and on from there. There have been bad days since, and bad presidents. But in the modern era, it all started with reagan.

[ElboRuum]

55. ^^^ RECORD BREAKER!!! ^^^

This is the least amount of characters I've ever provided (5 actual, 9 if you count the need to express that there is nothing to follow) and still managed to attract a troll. Marvelous.

[noiretextatique]

61. 1980...raygun was elected

america became hell overnight.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

2. Many people STILL don't realize it. Too busy blaming Democrats, especially Obama.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Although I have to tell you, way too many Dems went along with Republican economic policies

I'm lookin' at you, DLC members!

Your organization--even though it no longer exists--was founded by Democrats who thought the Democratic Party was "too liberal," which meant that it still maintained the New Deal spirit.

The Republicanites couldn't have done half their dirty work without the craven support of the DLC and other Republican Lite types.

[ProSense]

9. Fuck the DLC!

For once people need to scream down these terrorist ass Republicans and stop focusing on the carcass of a bunch of confused clowns.

The false equivalency bullshit is completely irrelevant to the bunch of drunken terrorists clogging up the Congress at this very moment.

[Bobbie Jo]

15. This.

[JDPriestly]

39. Best way to scream down the Republicans is to scream in favor of working people, not

banks and Wall Street. Call the banks and Wall Street and the Democrats that serve them DLCers or Democrats or what you want. They strengthen the Republicans because they are too busy standing up for Wall Street against working Americans to stand up to the Republicans.

So, I find it difficult if not impossible to scream down the terrorist ass Republicans successfully without screaming down the DLC Democrats or whatever you want to call the Democrats than enable Wall Street first.

I agree we have to scream down the Republicans, but we have to scream down Wall Street first. If we don't why should working people trust us?

[ProSense]

51. "I find it difficult if not impossible to scream down the terrorist ass Republicans successfully..."

"So, I find it difficult if not impossible to scream down the terrorist ass Republicans successfully without screaming down the DLC Democrats or whatever you want to call the Democrats than enable Wall Street first."

I don't. It's easy as ever.

"I agree we have to scream down the Republicans, but we have to scream down Wall Street first. If we don't why should working people trust us?"

So your suggestion is to pause screaming down these terrorists until we "scream down Wall Street first"?

Really? Wall Street sucks. There. Now, let's get on with dealing with the assholes who are the root cause of everything wrong with this country.

[JDPriestly]

52. Problem is that if we leave Wall Street alone with all its cheating and stealing of the money of

ordinary people, then we don't earn and maybe don't deserve the trust of the people.

People will try to figure out what their personal interests are and vote for the person they believe will represent those interests.

Generally, the politicians' job, or at least that part of the job that gets a politician elected, is to persuade the voters that the politician is on the voters' sides.

That is very hard to do if you talk about going after terrorists, etc. or supporting programs that the voter does not understand or view as definitely beneficial in the first place.

But is the politician speaks to some economic interest of the voter or to some security interest, some fear, such as of terrorism, that registers with the voter.

Unfortunately, the Republicans have hyped the terrorism scare into something that Democrats will never match.

And meanwhile, it is Wall Street and those who compromise with the crime and dishonesty on Wall Street who are harming Americans. Unfortunately, Americans know this very well. But we are helpless. And that is because Wall Street holds so much of our future in its hands. The funding of the companies that employ us. Our pension funds. Other insurance funds. Even welfare and food stamp payments. Yet the Democrats have been remiss in enacting and enforcing laws that protect American voters on issues like foreign trade (that eliminates the voters' jobs), H-1B visas (that replace American workers with cheaper foreign workers), Wall Street regulation, bank regulation and fair taxation on the 1%. The capital gains tax rates have to be raised. Exemptions from that tax or reductions in that tax rate should be more judiciously granted.

[ProSense]

53. Who said anything about leaving "Wall Street alone"?

You're conflating issues.

The majority of this country's problems would be solved without the crazy displayed by Republicans.

By "crazy," I don't simply mean the extremism on display at this moment. It's everything from the unwillingness to support a jobs bill to the willingness to blow up the government.

[JDPriestly]

54. Democrats need to make sure that as many Americans as possible understand the effect of

the Hastert Rule. It is that rule that is holding the House and therefore Congress hostage. It is binding the hands of the entire House behind its back.

We need a White House whiteboard cartoon that explains how that Rule stifles compromise in the House.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

10. Now, I DO agree with you here. Still doesn't negate the fact that Republicans have blocked

or obstructed every measure, every attempt to create *substantive* efforts to create jobs over the last five years or so. And they have done that deliberately.

They did it to Bill Clinton as well in 1994, every single one of them voting against his stimulus package back then. The good news for Bill is that there were some moderate Republicans who came to their senses in the Senate and wanted to work with him. Obama has ZERO of these Republicans to work with. They were all defeated.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

42. Bullies thrive on the weakness of their opponents

All through the Reagan administration, all I heard was "bipartisanship, bipartisanship," which ALWAYS meant "OK, we'll cave as long as you promise not to call us nasty names like 'liberal' or 'class warrior.'"

A bully whose opponents always cower and give in to him only grows bolder.

I can think of ONE time in the past thirty years when the Dems stood up as one and said "NO" to the Republicans. That was when the Republicans wanted to outright privatize Social Security. And you know what? The Republicans backed down.

Otherwise, all I can think of is occasions when some or many Democrats went along with or even advocated bad Republican policies. NAFTA may have been George Bush Sr.'s idea, but Clinton didn't have to sign it. The bank bailout was originated by George Jr., but Obama could have attached some conditions to it, like "No bonuses for you bozos." Then the Dems bent over backwards to adopt Romneycare, but no Republicans were going to vote for it anyway, at which point they should have said, "Fuck it then, we're going for single payer, and any Blue Dog who votes against it gets the best financed primary challenge anyone ever saw."

Yeah, I know Obama isn't a dictator and "can't wave a magic wand," and if you think I'm "whining because I didn't get my pony," that's your problem, not mine, but the entire Democratic leadership has acted like scared first graders who tremble when the burly fifth grader threatens to steal their lunch money.

I'm tired of excuses for bringing a water pistol to a gun fight.

[ProSense]

60. Here's the problem

"Bullies thrive on the weakness of their opponents"

When Republicans get this escape clause (they're bullies because it's the Democrats fault), they thrive on gullibility.

I mean, the constant excusing Republican belligerence doesn't help.

At the end of the day, their actions are screwing us. No, they're bullies because they're terrorists who don't give a shit about people.

Look at what they're doing in the face of Democrats standing up to them, digging in and fine tuning their ransome note.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

62. Who's excusing the bullies?

I'm just saying that backing down all the time emboldens bullies.

I'm sure you've seen cases where playground bullies back down when someone fights back or redouble their efforts against the kid who meekly hands over his lunch money.

The Republicans backed down on their plan to privatize Social Security when every Dem in the House and Senate stood united and said "No!"

They need to do that more often and not act helpless.

[Initech]

3. The day the Supreme Court rendered the Bush V. Gore decision.

[ProSense]

11. Another person said 1981, that's nearly a 20-year span.

Even now we hear people rationalizing Republican wins and more destruction.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. Thirty-year span

Yeah, I know. As I read some where, adults tend to think that 1990 was ten years ago.

[Initech]

45. Any time the republicans get elected the economy tanks.

But Reagan started it, when Bush was elected in a coup, er, Supreme Court decision, our economy was completely, totally FUBAR.

[Historic NY]

4. When Raygun trickled down on us.

[Blaukraut]

6. With the latest economic recovery, their efforts to derail the stimulus package

and to make it as small and ineffective as possible.

[ProSense]

17. Seriously, and think about the fact that they

blocked the $450 billion jobs bill.

[Thinkingabout]

8. The point about the calloused asshole may not be strong enough but point taken. For the life of me

I don't understand why so many needy people continue to support the GOP. There must be something I fail to see. When you tell them they are voting against themselves they don't understand. It is so oblivious the GOP are throwing this country to the wolves and many of our citizens. As soon as Obama was elected the obstruction has gone full force. Was this part of the tactic when Clinton was in office? Until we can get the TP bunch thrown out to fend for themselves and at least get back to Reagan Republicans this is going to remain difficult. Thanks for your post.

[truedelphi]

12. There has been concern in my household for a while now.

And I posted this a week or more ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251325054

[samsingh]

13. when they stole the election from Gore

the suspicion started when they impeached President Clinton over a personal matter

[blkmusclmachine]

14. When did you realize Republicans were blocking the economic recovery and trying to destroy America?

1980.

[Bobbie Jo]

16. Raygun the union buster. nt

[Pretzel_Warrior]

18. Re:Obama, I figured it out in spring of 2009

[ElboRuum]

22. Then you haven't been paying attention long enough.

Sorry to say, but if you think Obama is an issue, you either weren't alive or not paying much attention to the rise of the Religious Right or the Great Rightward Shift of the 80's.

Actually, the death knell of reasoned politics started with Nixon, but that'd be a different conversation.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

23. I was 10 when Reagan was elected. I saw Republicans screwing America during Clinton

I was merely speaking in context of Obama's terms in office.

[ElboRuum]

24. Now that the context has been widened...

...to encompass greater, do you still hold with it, or would you like to modify your view?

[gopiscrap]

19. when reagan was running for office

[Shrike47]

21. 1980. They make me nauseous.

[madrchsod]

25. a couple days after obama was sworn in...

[Douglas Carpenter]

26. I think most Republicans of today genuinely see fighting for their right-wing agenda and ideology as

the same thing as patriotism and opposing their right-wing ideology as anti-American. They carry it to a belief that shutting down even a centrist-Democratic led government as shutting down the enemies of America. I suspect they would even believe that crippling a centrist led economy as crippling an enemy economy. I don't think most Republicans of today (not traditional Republicans of the past) are psychologically capable of even imagining the principle of uniting the country for the common good. They would see that as treason against God and America. This is a party that thinks passing Obamacare - a program well to the right of what most Republicans would have once supported - is the moral equivalent of the Nazis invading Eastern Europe and not defunding Obamacare as the moral equivalent of collaborating with Hitler. They are simply living in crazy land.

[calimary]

36. SO well-written, Douglas Carpenter! Such GREAT points you make here!

Yes, Yes, and YES!

[larkrake]

27. when Bush bankrupted the country, deliberately

[Iwillnevergiveup]

28. Right about the years

during Reconstruction.

[Botany]

30. The 7 year 77 million dollar B.J. hunt called White Water.

These are un-American assholes who refuse to admit they lost to a black man
and that they are willing to crash the American and World's economy out of spite.

[Beartracks]

33. With Newt and the smug "freshman" batch of 1994 Republicans. n/t

[Rex]

34. Watching Reagan Era cronies decriminalize white collar crime.

nt.

[Shemp Howard]

37. It doesn't really matter.

Long term, the GOP is finished. It really is. What you're seeing now is a desperate rear-guard action. That might take awhile to play itself out. It is to be expected.

It's sort of like the French retreat after Waterloo. The French army rallied for a bit here and there, but everyone knew that the French were beat.

After 1815, Napoleon was on the wrong side of history. Today the GOP is on the wrong side of history.

[krispos42]

38. 1929. n/t

[hedda_foil]

40. When Ford preemptively pardoned Nixon.

[spanone]

41. the moment Obama was elected.

[last1standing]

44. Apparently, long before Obama did.

n/t

[B Calm]

46. I've noticed since the Reagan era.

[BillyRibs]

47. This is a simple formula!

1) starve the economy, (block any recovery)
2) Allow your rich friends to buy up all the publicly owned property. (water, gas, electric, utilities, you know the real money makers.)
3) bust up the unions, (so of course you rich pals can make even more money.)
4) Bleed the poor, squeeze the middle and laugh all the way to the banks!
Governor Fat boy is doing this now in Jersey!
Wish he get his shoe shine box and make a real living!

[malaise]

50. When I found out about the dinner on Inauguration night 2009

where THUGs stated clearly that their number one priority was to destroy Obama and make him a one term President.

[maced666]

56. 1968? Maybe, around....

Suppose for most it would be around the time you reach voting age.

[roamer65]

58. 1988.

[True_Blue]

59. When Nixon slayed the Gold Standard

sending the dollar into a free fall. We're still suffering from his decision today...

'Nixon's Colossal Monetary Error: The Verdict 40 Years Later'
http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2011/08/15/nixons-colossal-monetary-error-the-verdict-40-years-later/