Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Nice to read some factual posts for a change. Your observation above that our tax rates are at historical lows is what makes the Tea Party fiasco so crazy. The truth is, the GOP congressmen have signed Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge, so they have convinced themselves that cutting is the only option. There is no way to dig out of this with cutting. What are 55 year old NASA scientists going to do on the private market? Who is going to pay the pensions of the boomers? Etc. Excessive cutting will just tank the economy. With ideologues, the difficult thing is they just get more voracious with any concessions. We have been cutting taxes since the days of Reagan, but the right wingers here are still outraged and wanting to go for the kill. I see precious little desire for sustainable governance. Strange times.
Yes, indeed. The government generally doesn't tax or spend for Schlittz and giggles.
The way that "non-essential" is being portrayed/understood is troubling. It doesn't have the dictionary meaning in this context.
Other workers were classified as "exempt/exempted" (i.e., your money comes from a grant or some other source that doesn't require an appropriation from Congress at this time) and "excepted non-essential" (i.e., you aren't getting paid due to lack of appropriation, but you must work because we can't leave your area completely un-manned). People who are "non-excepted non-essential" are the furloughed people...the "non-essential"....you aren't getting paid, and you cannot work because we have no appropriation from Congress.
Yes, there are people who were not furloughed and are basically being forced to work without pay. If you don't, then you face drama related to your job abandonment when this crap is finally resolved.
Nice to read some factual posts for a change. Your observation above that our tax rates are at historical lows is what makes the Tea Party fiasco so crazy. The truth is, the GOP congressmen have signed Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge, so they have convinced themselves that cutting is the only option. There is no way to dig out of this with cutting. What are 55 year old NASA scientists going to do on the private market? Who is going to pay the pensions of the boomers? Etc. Excessive cutting will just tank the economy. With ideologues, the difficult thing is they just get more voracious with any concessions. We have been cutting taxes since the days of Reagan, but the right wingers here are still outraged and wanting to go for the kill. I see precious little desire for sustainable governance. Strange times.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,981,862 times
Reputation: 40635
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Mon
Has anyone else noticed that the level of unhinged ranting on CD Politics hasn't been this high since right before the last election. Why all of the stomping feet, lasing out, and downright seditious rhetoric?
Paid posters. There are legions of people that post on websites, blogs, USAtoday, CNN, etc that get paid to post for one party or the other, or in favor of/against another issue. Its sickening. Part of the astroturf strategy.
Watching the various Congressmen trot out to the morning shows to discuss the shutdown. An observation. Do Democrats understand that continuing to insult and outright call their Republican counterparts derogatory names is not helping the situation? There are some Republicans that are on the fence and starting to see that Cruz led them down a bad path. However, this type of language is NOT helping. Seriously, what has happened to statesmanship and being able to disagree with your political opponent without resorting to name calling, a tactic more appropriate for an elementary schoolyard vice the halls of Congress?
Well, Ted Cruz does speak for me, and millions of other Americans. And Harry Reid (the Dramma Queen) and Pelosi (the Queen of Hearts) do not speak for me.
You seem to forget that only 31% of Americans think the Democrat Health Care Law is a good thing. Do the Democrats only work for them? Or do they work for the American people as a whole?
What is clear is that they are only interested in advancing their Progressive agenda, and protecting Barack Obama.
What we find is that people hate Obamacare but love what it does. They also approve of the ACA more than Obamacare, even though they are the same thing.
The anarchists in the GOP, the America-haters, were the ones who shut-down the government. The vets aren't entitled to enter the national monuments or national parks or for services which non-vet Americans are being denied. If they weren't getting special treatment and the pressure built-up by their being upset not being given access for their field trips - all of that would help to end the extorsion the GOP is engaged in. Honest, real Americans ... ones we can be proud of, are saying ... ENOUGH! ... to the attack on our nation fostered by the GOP in the House of Representatives.
I hope this shutdown goes past the debt ceiling deadline - it seriously needs to happen. Thanks to a horribly inept media and republican propaganda, the people have fallen asleep at the switch. This country needs shock therapy in the form of an instant and severe recession caused almost indisputably by one faction of one party. I hope Obama is intentionally dragging this out. The GOP is going to get blamed for this no matter what happens.
Paid posters. There are legions of people that post on websites, blogs, USAtoday, CNN, etc that get paid to post for one party or the other, or in favor of/against another issue. Its sickening. Part of the astroturf strategy.
Yup, but it creates traffic and page views.
Here's Republican negotiation:
GOP: Can I burn down your house?
Dems: No.
Just the 2nd floor?
No.
Garage?
No.
Let's talk about what I can burn down.
No.
YOU AREN'T COMPROMISING!
So you support Obama closing open air national monuments and memorials and preventing combat vets from visiting their own memorial?
I guess the fascists are in full swing now.
The shutdown closed EVERYTHING. All the national parks, national monuments, national cemeteries, national forest campgrounds, and even the cemeteries and monuments on foreign soil.
The House's intransigence shut 'em all down, not the President nor the Senate. Now, the teabaggers in the House are scrambling to cherry pick exemptions that are pissing people off.
What about all the folks who were turned back at the gates to Yellowstone? Some were vets. What about the vets that were turned away from the military cemeteries all over Europe?
And what about all the military families that can no longer buy their groceries at the base commissaries? The soldiers are still on the job, but not all the civilians who work all over the bases, including handling the military paychecks.
How about all the people who need their passports? How about all the people who are stuck halfway through their immigration process? How about all the federal firefighters who are now laid off? Or the federal first responders to floods and all the other natural emergencies?
You're being pretty damned selective in your symbolic outrage, hawkeye. Are you just as mad about all those others? Or are you only doing a little cherry picking yourself?
While I'm glad the old vets were able to just walk around a tape barrier and do what they did, I'm much more concerned about the lady whose body is yet to be found in the Craters of the Moon national monument. Her family had to plead to get the Rangers, who are the only ones who really know the terrain, back on the job. They didn't want to quit the search, but a the shutdown made them quit.
By the time the teabaggers finally quit trying to allow this or that to be exempted, the damage will be much more extensive than they will ever realize. We all depend on federal services much more than we know, because we take them for granted. When that forest behind your farm catches fire and no hotshot crews show up to knock it down, are you going to yell about that too?
Or are you going to place the blame where it belongs, on the knot heads who are trying to hold the nation hostage for refusing to accept their legislation failures?
Has anyone else noticed that the level of unhinged ranting on CD Politics hasn't been this high since right before the last election. Why all of the stomping feet, lasing out, and downright seditious rhetoric?
What you see here is a reflection of what's happening in Washington now, and vice versa. The right feels that this is "their" country and that it's been lost. They are the only legitimate body of people in their own eyes. It's an unreasonable mentality, and the only way it will end is for more sensible people to stop sitting on the sidelines and to vote them out of power and completely marginalize them. That will only happen when the effects of their antics are so outrageous and directly impacting that they will have no choice but to vote against them. Maybe Wall St will also start having some second thoughts about which party is really "pro business."
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
