New John Sullivan Campaign Commercial

[Gaspar]

You mean RomneyCare? Hell, even cap & trade is a freaking market solution previously endorsed by Republicans. The similar program for sulfur dioxide was signed into law by the first President Bush.

While the immigration bill hasn't even been written yet, there have been a set of principles agreed on for it, and it actually seems pretty reasonable. It does not provide a blanket amnesty, but it does provide a new visa that allows currently present illegal immigrants who are in the country and remain continuously in the country between the time the legislation is enacted and the time they are able to apply for the visa a path to legal presence after the current visa backlog is cleared and provided that certain milestones are met in improving border security.

My point was that none of the legislation passed thus far can properly be described as far left. Moderate, sure, possibly in some cases even center left, but by and large it's stuff Republicans were perfectly OK with a few short years ago before they went into full on obstructionist mode.

Republicans Fu$&'d up over the last 6 years by becoming big government.  They abandon their base.  Now they are furiously swimming upstream attempting to position themselves as small government people.  It's all BS.  That's why they all need to go.

Meanwhile those mistakes and the crisis it contributed to gave license to the "total government solution" left to pack our colons with even more "smile."   They just point at the failed attempts of the past and say "look, they tried to do it, so why can't we."

Nathan, you're right, were attempting to ride on the coat tales of utter failures and use them as precedent.  I know you are a bot and no argument anyone can present will change your mind about the direction the administration is steering the ship, but don't make us feel that is a good direction simply because it has failed before.  Seriously!

If Pelosi, Reid, and The President announced that each citizen must sacrifice their first born, I'm sure  you would come back with some reasoning as to why that's a brilliant idea.

[nathanm]

Republicans Fu$&'d up over the last 6 years by becoming big government.  They abandon their base.  Now they are furiously swimming upstream attempting to position themselves as small government people.  It's all BS.  That's why they all need to go.

Meanwhile those mistakes and the crisis it contributed to gave license to the "total government solution" left to pack our colons with even more "smile."   They just point at the failed attempts of the past and say "look, they tried to do it, so why can't we."

Nathan, you're right, were attempting to ride on the coat tales of utter failures and use them as precedent.  I know you are a bot and no argument anyone can present will change your mind about the direction the administration is steering the ship, but don't make us feel that is a good direction simply because it has failed before.  Seriously!

None of these were ideas of the failed neoconservative movement. They long predate those morons. The health care bill is essentially what Nixon came incredibly close to pushing back in the early 70s. As I mentioned before, the sulfur dioxide cap and trade system was signed into law by the elder Bush and passed with broad Republican support.

Nobody's interested in the failed policies of the Bush Republicans.

Sometimes I think you can't remember anything that happened more than a year or two ago.

Edited to add: If you can explain to me how the acid rain program has been unsuccessful, I'd be interested to hear it. Also note I'm not particular to cap and trade. I think the biggest benefit will be to discourage the rampant wastage of oil, which like it or not, we are running out of at a rapid pace.

[Gaspar]

Edited to add: If you can explain to me how the acid rain program has been unsuccessful, I'd be interested to hear it. Also note I'm not particular to cap and trade. I think the biggest benefit will be to discourage the rampant wastage of oil, which like it or not, we are running out of at a rapid pace.

It has not been unsuccessful.  My point was and is, that using "they got away with it" is not a basis for thousands of pages of legislation and regulation. 

And as a side. . .in the late 80's and early 90s we began to convert our old Coal power plants to oil and gas.  This solved a number of problems, not only with the sulfer but with soot and the cost of fuel transportation.  The oil burners were more expensive to build, but far less expensive to maintain.  Attribution of lower SO2 levels is not a direct correlation to the legislature.  The great thing is that the total cost of the bill over 10 years was only about 2 billion dollars.  Congress spends more than that in a week now!

[nathanm]

It has not been unsuccessful.  My point was and is, that using "they got away with it" is not a basis for thousands of pages of legislation and regulation. 

How can one go forward but from learning from one's successes and mistakes?

[Gaspar]

How can one go forward but from learning from one's successes and mistakes?

Perhaps by posing meaningful legislation rather than just trying to shove things through before the people kick you to the curb.

I mean, at least read it, and be able to discuss it with your constituents intelligently. . . and by all means don't tell us that we can't see it or won't know what's in it until it passes. Gawd!

Slapping a cover-page on a stack of crap, and forcing a vote just to say that you passed something causes damage.

[nathanm]

Perhaps by posing meaningful legislation rather than just trying to shove things through before the people kick you to the curb.

I mean, at least read it, and be able to discuss it with your constituents intelligently. . . and by all means don't tell us that we can't see it or won't know what's in it until it passes. Gawd!

Slapping a cover-page on a stack of crap, and forcing a vote just to say that you passed something causes damage.

But all of these controversial bills have been debated seemingly endlessly before they come to a vote. Yes, as with just about every piece of legislation for the past fifty years there have been last minute amendments offered and sometimes accepted. That's the way legislatures seem to work. I'd love to see a "one subject" rule or a one week waiting period between finalizing nonemergency legislation and voting on it to give time for the public to review it, but that's not the system we presently have and it never has been.

[Gaspar]

But all of these controversial bills have been debated seemingly endlessly before they come to a vote. Yes, as with just about every piece of legislation for the past fifty years there have been last minute amendments offered and sometimes accepted. That's the way legislatures seem to work. I'd love to see a "one subject" rule or a one week waiting period between finalizing nonemergency legislation and voting on it to give time for the public to review it, but that's not the system we presently have and it never has been.

You know, that's a pretty good idea!
You have to wait 5 days before buying a gun, I think congress should be required to do the same before passing the FINAL version of any bill.  I think that bill should be put on THOMAS.GOV for anyone to read, analyze and research.

Fewer bills would get passed and those that did would be clean.

Each politician should have to sign every earmark placed in any bill.

Government is guns, and increases in it should carry the same regulations we have established for firearms purchases. 

The pattern is as old as human life. The new rulers use more and more force, more police, more soldiers, trying to enforce more efficient control, trying to make the planned economy work by piling regulations on regulations, decree on decree. The people are hungry and hungrier. And how does a man on this earth get butter? Doesn't the government give butter? But government does not produce food from the earth; Government is guns. It is one common distinction of all civilized peoples, that they give their guns to the Government. Men in Government monopolize the necessary use of force; they are not using their energies productively; they are not milking cows. To get butter, they must use guns; they have nothing else to use. – Rose Wilder Lane

[Conan71]

But all of these controversial bills have been debated seemingly endlessly before they come to a vote. Yes, as with just about every piece of legislation for the past fifty years there have been last minute amendments offered and sometimes accepted. That's the way legislatures seem to work. I'd love to see a "one subject" rule or a one week waiting period between finalizing nonemergency legislation and voting on it to give time for the public to review it, but that's not the system we presently have and it never has been.

Just because it's been done that way for 50 years doesn't make it right.  Just because President Bush and his sycophants in Congress did a lousy job managing our assets doesn't mean it's okay to continue that pattern and to amplify it.

Certainly you can see the process has been severely perverted over the last 20 years and earmarks have exploded over the last 10.  2000 page sausage logs seem to be a lot of what Tea Partiers are upset about.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to separate out the far fringe right people who have attached themselves to the movement so I cast wary eye at Tea Partiers.

I can appreciate the sentiment of wanting to "take our government back" but what would that look like?  Getting in a whole new class of Congress people who will finally pass real lobbying reform (kick them all out), have a ban on unrelated items getting thrown into larger bills, forcing more accountability out of huge bureaucracies?  People seem to think "taking our government" back means armed villagers mounting an insurrection and that's not what I hear, but it seems to be part of the derision hurled at Tea Partiers by liberals.

[nathanm]

Just because it's been done that way for 50 years doesn't make it right.  Just because President Bush and his sycophants in Congress did a lousy job managing our assets doesn't mean it's okay to continue that pattern and to amplify it.

Certainly you can see the process has been severely perverted over the last 20 years and earmarks have exploded over the last 10.  2000 page sausage logs seem to be a lot of what Tea Partiers are upset about.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to separate out the far fringe right people who have attached themselves to the movement so I cast wary eye at Tea Partiers.

I can appreciate the sentiment of wanting to "take our government back" but what would that look like?  Getting in a whole new class of Congress people who will finally pass real lobbying reform (kick them all out), have a ban on unrelated items getting thrown into larger bills, forcing more accountability out of huge bureaucracies?  People seem to think "taking our government" back means armed villagers mounting an insurrection and that's not what I hear, but it seems to be part of the derision hurled at Tea Partiers by liberals.

I'm of two minds on earmarks. Used responsibly, which they are not, it's a good way to get minor projects done; a rural library, or a new boat ramp at a Corps lake or that sort of thing. What is not good is the many, many billions that get spent each year on them. Perhaps Congress could create an earmark committee to oversee the process. That said, a blanket ban on earmarks would be better than what we have today.

With the current Supreme Court, there will be no kicking out of lobbyists any more than there will be campaign finance reform.

Part of the reason some liberals get the impression that "take our country back" has something to do with arms is simply the rhetoric dipshits like Sharron Angle use.

Any bill should be the result of sausage making, though. The two parties ought to get together and figure out a bill that both can live with. That's just not possible with the polarization the Republicans have been fomenting. I'm not saying Democrats haven't done some of it themselves, but if you recall it was very rare that the Democrats used the filibuster when they were the minority party in the Senate. They at least seemed to attempt to engage the Republicans.

I'd also like to see some reform of the conference committee process. As it stands, they can pretty much do whatever they want to the bills, even adding stuff that wasn't in either the House or Senate versions. I don't like that. They certainly have to resolve the differences between the House and the Senate, but they should be restricted to the content of the two bills they are trying to reconcile.

[nathanm]

Since we seem to be talking about the political spectrum, here's some quotes some of you might find interesting:

The consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much
misery to the bulk of mankind, legislatures cannot invest too many
devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently
lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from
taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of
property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there
is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is
clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to
violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for
man to labor and live on.

-- Thomas Jefferson

... By withholding unnecessary opportunities from a few, to increase
the inequality of property, by an immoderate, and especially an
unmerited accumulation of riches; by the silent operation of laws,
which, without violating the laws of property, reduce extreme
wealth to a state of mediocrity, and raise indigence toward a
state of comfort.

-- James Madison

Given that the Tea Partiers worship these guys, I fail to see how economic equality is solely a liberal issue.