Yes
No
Sort of (explain)
Non-existent, which is why they lost so many seats in 2008 and why a more fiscally conservative group of Republicans came to power in 2010.
"why a more fiscally conservative group of Republicans came to power in 2010"
The were elected to produce policies for jobs and the economy ("Obama, What About the Jobs" slogan), NOT because they were fiscally conservative (which they aren't, the bogus deficit crisis is proved bogus by them "addressing" it by making tax revenues and the deficit much worse proposing big tax cuts for the wealthy and corps).
You are right that there was zero fiscal restraint under the Bush presidency, but there wasn't a complete turnover among republican personnel in congress either.
Boehner et.al act as though they have been the voice of fiscal restraint since the get-go, when in fact they made sure that the two wars and the Medicaid expansion under the Bush Presidency not only passed without corresponding
cuts in other areas of the budget, they didn't even allow the wars and the medicaid part D to be included in the budgets. Now they scream that Obama has 'busted the budget' when in fact, what he has done, and SAID he was going to do, was include everything in the budget so we could all see just how bad it really is. Now Boehner and his cronies suggest that Obama's spending is responsible for the ballooning budget deficit.
The two wars, the Medicaid expansion, the cost of TARP and the cost of the two tax cuts under Bush were all put into the budget by Obama. Obama added the stimulus package, 40% of which was tax cuts, and the Republicans act as though they have no responsibility for any of it at all, and have always been pure.
Nonsense.
Obama has PLENTY to be sorry for in this administration, but the fiscal debacle and the debt debacle are not primarily his.
He is responsible for the poorest possible response to the housing crisis, I believe. That thing has been a total failure since the get-go.
It is true that Obama didn't create this mess...it is equally true that his measures to address it have been woefully inadequate.
He has to accept the responsibility of a leadership failure, I believe.
I agree there are career politicians still within the party for which the word "principal" should not apply. I guess my answer would then be sort of, instead of no. I think there are principled Republicans that have opposed the kind of fiscal irresponsibility conducted by both this administration and the last administration, but I admit there are certainly those who only look for the political advantage in every situation.
Well, I think you are right that there are principled Republicans. But they keep getting tossed out of the party as RINO's imho. We need to remember also that McCain and Palin were also supportive of TARP and the bailouts at the time they were occurring.
Sometimes decent politicians do things that are not quite in line with the extreme version of the party platform, because the country's needs don't always allow a strict adherence to the party line. But the current Republican base is so far to the right that they don't seem to want to ever hear anything except 'purism'.
I haven't seen an example of statesmanlike behavior by any of the presidential candidates to date, with the possible exception of Huntsman, but he has about as much chance of getting the Republican nomination as I do.
I'd throw Romney in with Huntsman as being statesman-like. One of the reasons I think there's so much enthusiasm on Anyone But Romney (ABR) is because Romney is mostly staying above the fray and not pandering to the base with tough-talking rhetoric. His policies, especially fiscally, seem to be right in line with the conservative base of the party.
Agreed. And when he says hard-line things like he did last night on Foreign Policy I am attributing it to mostly to his attempts to gain some strength with the far-right base.
In actuality, if he were to become President, he wouldn't be able to do much more than anyone else can do, mostly because the geo-political facts don't conform to the party talking points of either side. I have some concerns about whether or not he will be able to get the tea partiers in Congress to follow him. Remember how McCAin tried to lead the Republican members of Congress on the TARP and bailout things and failed? And then when the markets tanked worldwide the Republicans finally agreed to vote to allow the TARP and the bailouts?
Right now I think the country needs some moderates to get things moving in some direction. I think Romney could do that. I think Hunstman could do it. The question is whether or not they will be allowed to do it...either get the nomination or govern once they are in, if they can win.
In classic Repug smash-govt style, Willard proposes to break (VA) what's not broken, enriching the greedy health-sector.
Mitt Romney May Consider Privatizing The Veterans Health Care System
“Sometimes you wonder if there would be some way to introduce some private-sector compe ion, somebody else that could come in and say, you know, that each soldier gets X thousand dollars attributed to them, and then they can choose whether they want to go in the government system or in a private system with the money that follows them,” said Romney. “Like what happens with schools in Florida, where people have a voucher that goes with them. Who knows?”
“The Independent Budget,” the groups argued:
– “The VA’s specialized health-care programs…would suffer irreparable impact by the loss of veterans from those programs.”
– “The VA’s medical and prosthetic research program…would lose focus and purpose were service-connected and other enrolled veterans no longer present in VA health care.”
– If veterans turned to private practice, “they would lose the many safeguards built into the VA system through its patient safety program, evidence-based medicine, electronic medical records and bar code medication administration,” resulting in “lower quality of care for those who deserve it most.”
Indeed, the fully integrated veterans’ health care structure of doctors and hospitals provides veterans with benefits that are the envy of the rest of the health care system. A study by the RAND Corporation found that “VA patients were more likely to receive recommended care” and “received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow up. Rather than taking veterans out of a system that consistently delivers “higher quality of care,” Romney should expand its services and improve access.
The RAND study concludes, “if other health care providers followed the VA’s lead, it would be a major step toward improving the quality of care across the U.S. health care system.” And Paul Krugman writes today, “the V.H.A. is a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2011...h-care-system/
VA receives higher patient satisfaction ratings than the for-profit "compe ive" health care sector.
"You are blatantly insinuating that "good accountable government" is more desireable than the rule of law"
You get that strawman. Let me know how it goes, you should be ok, as it probably won't fight back.
When you get around to my actual argument, let me know, boy.
My actual argument wasn't that anything was more desirable than the rule of law. The rule of law is one of the foundations for our society, including good accountable government.
Sometimes you need governments to intercede and do things that collectively we can't do, like stand up to large corporations when they release, say, toxic levels of benzine into poor neighborhoods for decades.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/10/142189...ting-toxic-air
http://www.npr.org/series/142000896/...ed-communities
I still find it risible that you think that any gorup of concerned citizens would stand a chance against billion dollar+ companies with armies of lawyers, barring an empowered governmental agency capable of shutting down that corporation if necessary.
Libertarianism has no solution to information/resource asymetry. You have yet to provide a specific framework that would protect individuals from predatory groups or corporations.
Last edited by RandomGuy; 11-15-2011 at 12:27 AM.
A couple, but the GOP attached some poison pills to them that they knew would be unacceptable to Democrats, for the sole reason that they could get Dems on record as having voted against something the tea party finds desirable.
They also seem to have found time for a vote re-affirming our national motto.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/daniel-g...133350281.htmlTo the surprise of nobody, the Congressional Supercommittee tasked with coming up with $1.2 trillion in deficit-cutting measures has completely failed.
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then Washington is officially bonkers. The entirely predictable face-plant of the Supercommittee came on the heels of the highly predictable failure of the Simpson-Bowles Commission and the Obama-Boehner grand bargain talks.
You don't have to have a Ph.d. in political science to grasp the dynamic at work. The White House has a set of preferences, which it has laid out here. But it doesn't spend a lot of time campaigning for them, and it doesn't believe that getting intensely involved in the negotiations will help move the ball. Democrats aren't entirely sure what they want, though they insist any large deficit reduction deal must include significant tax increases, preferably on higher-income earners and companies. Otherwise, they won't consider significant changes in en lements that their forebears created, like Social Security and Medicare. As for Republicans, there are two things they aren't interested in: (1) raising taxes; and (2) doing a large deal with President Obama that will give him an achievement going into the next election ..
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