A new poll finds the public views the looming “fiscal cliff†as a serious crisis for the nation and would blame Republicans more than President Obama if Washington fails to reach a deal.
Forty-five percent surveyed in a new CNN/ORC poll said they would blame congressional Republicans if there is no agreement, with 34 percent pointing the finger at Obama.
Two-thirds say the U.S. would experience serious problems if the combination of tax rate increases and automatic spending cuts expected in January take effect.
Whatever their first offer laid on the table is going to be don't haggle, don't try to bargain for this or that.
Every tax hike.
Every absurd new welfare program.
The deficit spending.
The invasions of privacy.
ALL. OF. IT.
Do not quibble over a single penny.
Give it to them with a smile on your face.
Do nothing that might even approach being seen as obstructing or seeking a GOP-preferred outcome.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/269279-poll-public-would-blame-gop-more-than-obama-if-fiscal-cliff-talks-fail
I can no longer bring myself to a place where I support policies for the good of a people who are so absolutely devoid of sense or reason.
The only thing we can do is give the prattling masses everything they want and watch the inevitable.
They want it, they deserve it and nothing we say or do will prevent them from getting it.
The best we can hope for is in 10 years time we can look back and say, "Now that you've gotten everything you demanded are your eady to grow the **** up now?"
The idiots pissed away their chance. They do not deserve propsperity and freedom. You can love America all you want but these mewling peasants are out of hand.
I've said the same thing before. The republicans should just let the Dems have every thing they want. The reality will bring the country to it's knees, but maybe that is what's needed.
The good will suffer for the bad but it bees that way sometimes.
In order to kill the monster (government) the quickest way to end it's misery is to take away it's life's blood, money.
All of this "let it burn" talk is fun and cathartic, but let's face reality - none of what is being said would happen in a vacuum. A collapse of the United States equals a world wide collapse and that will do nothing but invite someone in to take all of it with very little bloodshed.
Do we really want that? Is our situation so dire that we would risk truly being enslaved?
The world is going to collapse anyway, Wasp. The fiscal house of cards in play in Europe and China can end in no other outcome. We, here in America are still in the relatively early stages of the same process, but by putting Dear Leader in for another four years, the odds of that same outcome here are greatly enhanced. I don't know about you, but I'm running out of piss I can pour onto this wildfire.
It's time to start recognizing the situation, and making preparations for the situation which is obtaining.
America will emerge from the other side of whatever Barack Obama and the gang are "fundamentally transforming" us into. There going to be a whole lot of shit sandwiches to choke down between now and then, though, and the only way past it all now is through it.
There will be a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, but it shouldn't be because we quit. We should not go down by just walking away, that's what the libs are counting on - apathy. We've given it to them long enough, now is not the time to let them have it all.
It's not quitting. It's changing tactics. Sometimes you have to lose a few battles in order to win the war.
I mentioned in 2008 (not here necessarily) that it was game over, but I got called all kinds of silly names for it.
The collapse has been coming for most of my adult life time. I'll probably and unfortunately live to see it happen even if I don't live through it.
It's not defeatism, it's Sun Tzu.
It's never over. Valley Forge taught us that it's never over.
It's not defeatism, it's Sun Tzu.
geshundheit
Dankeschön, mein kleiner Hasenpfeffer der Zukunft.
It's not defeatism, it's Sun Tzu.
geshundheit
It's not quitting. It's changing tactics. Sometimes you have to lose a few battles in order to win the war.
It's not defeatism, it's Sun Tzu.
Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
I'm not calling it over. I'm saying the collapse is inevitable. We have to make sure we are not attached to it as much as possible.
What do we want?
Minimalist government. A government that does not pay people to be unproductive because it destroys prosperity and the desire to thrive. Once the collapse comes that will be the new state of things. We win either at the ballot box or by default from the fact we've defaulted and have no more money. Well, the opportunity to win at the ballot box has passed and as the article in the OP shows the GOP will be blamed if we are hurled over the fiscal cliff.
Guess what? Pat Murray and the other dems know this and WANT us to go over the fiscal cliff. Their entire agenda is based on blaming us. So I say: give the ****ers everything they demand without an argument and a knowing smile on your face.
We're the industrious ones. The productive ones. The ones who accept circumstances and do what is necessary. So give the peasants what they demand. And once their masters have failed them be ready to pounce on every opportunity.
And there will be opportunities.
There always are.
Yep! give the Democrats everything they want and publicize it, let the Democrats :ownit:!
Dankeschön, mein kleiner Hasenpfeffer der Zukunft.
What tactics do you recommend? Crashing the country so some other entity can take it over? Like I said, it won't happen in a vacuum and no one will stand still to give us time to remake it.
Their entire agenda has been to control all of us; do you think they are acting this way without a follow up plan? By allowing them to crash the truck, we hand them the necessary excuses to put our troops in our streets for however long they decide. Think we've lost freedoms now? Hand an excuse for total martial law to a shithead like obinga and it will truly be over. He wouldn't hesitate to arm his homies to ride herd on us and shoot however many of us they felt was necessary in addition to the drone strikes carried out in the name of "keeping the peace". Yeah, we shoot back, but are we really that organized? Could we get that way in the amount of time we have before the Treasury runs out of cash? Are we prepared to fight off entitlement zombies, obinga's brownshirts, foreign interests, and our own armed forces at once?
It (the collapse) IS going to happen sooner or later. Let the Dems own it in it's fullness.
We lost the election to an manifestly idiotic likes of Joe "they gonna put y'all back in chains" Biden and Sandra Fluke.
As moronic and refutable as they are they carried the message and we couldn't get a word in edgewise to the point that Romney netted FEWER votes than McCain even after 4 years of living proof of everything we warned about.
The people occupying the US want to be slaves of a bankrupt master. You cannot get them to vote for freedom because it is an evil thing to them. You can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think.
So do you want the crash to come after 3 more year of dem control or 10 more years of dem control? Do you want to fight them while they're on a goofy "we won" sugar-high or after they've solidified their gains?
Who will hang it on them?
I get the point and am kind of torn over the matter.
One flaw in the slaw as I see it is that if (most likely when) a complete collapse occurs we are still stuck with the mooching masses who will swarm to a tyrant that promises them safety and care.
That person will have no choice to virtually enslave a productive mass to extract the needed produce to keep in power.
My question is to you Snugs and others far more in the know then I will ever be is this.
In that time or leading to it if there is a revolt where will our military and its might fall...to the existing power or to the Constitution?
That is not in any way an indictment but the key question that will dictate the outcome in my mind.
Who will hang it on them?
NOT MSM.....they will say it's the republicans fault because they didn't vote against it.
Eh...I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what platform do we as conservatives have that can be effective in explaining to the masses why they are wrong.
What do we have that can rival the MSM?
I'm not even talking about messaging, I'm talking about infrastructure. I'm talking about our bullhorn, where is it?
All I see is Fox news and conservative blogs. It didn't work and hasn't worked in the past so now what?
Who will hang it on them?
No way in hell do we rubber stamp their screwed up agenda.
To do so borders on insanity.
"The America of today is a laboratory example if what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout history. A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens... which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it... which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'.
Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once the state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in it's weakened condition the state succums to an invader - the barbarians enter Rome." ~ Robert Heinlein
They will hang it on themselves.
They surely won't be able to hang it anyone else if they are given 100% of what they ask for.
They don't take responsibility for anything, rich, what makes you think this will be any different?
No way in hell do we rubber stamp their screwed up agenda.
To do so borders on insanity.
I don't recall mentioning that they would take responsibility for it.
How have they been able to blame us in their dawning realization of what a disaster Obamacare is becoming?
Oh, how they cheered when it passed Congress. And they cheered again when SCOTUS blessed it.
Now listen to them.
The GOP should just vote "present" on whatever package Obama, Pelosi and Reid put forward.
What will they damn us for? Not saving them from their own idiocy?
Then we can save our political capital for fighting judicial nominees, the EPA, criminal investigations, etc.
We are outnumbered and outgunned. It makes no sense fighting in open terrain. Fall back to a position we can effectively defend while forcing the enemy to seize territory he cannot hold; especially if he wants to fight us on the ground we've staked-out. We are a political insurgency. Standing in an open field, festooned with brightly colored plumes and riding out to invite your opposite to take the first volley is noble, gentlemanly and romantic but the barbarian horde you'll be facing couldn't care less. They see only victory. Thankfully they overestimate their own competence.
IF you're anti-Obamacare...you're (fill in the blank on smears).
Then that is exactly what we should do. Fight them for every square inch of ground we are forced to yeild...until they are bled dry. No one ever won a war playing defense. Something Republicans never seem to learn. Did the Dems fall back and retreat after 2010? How about after 1994 and the Republican Revolution?
No they just fought harder...didn't change one iota...hell they came right out and dared us to stop them...we were in the majority and the Dems stilla cted like they were in charge..and we need to do the same.
This is what we have been doing for the last 4 years and what did it get us? We have been labeled as obstructionist and as far as bleeding them dry?
They won!
They won because we are totally outnumbered and you can see the evidence everywhere. Spain, Portugal, Greece, the U.K. and now you can see it in France ( they elected a self avowed socialist fer cryin out loud!). The great unwashed masses want their obamaphone and that's as far as it goes. All they want is to get theirs and to hell with the rest of it. They have no desire to look past the end of their nose as long as they get that damn phone.
We continue to loose ground by standing in between them and their phone, it's a loose-loose proposition.
Just look at the "conservatives" that involved in the fight against the stupid fiscal cliff, they are already falling apart. The president says give me taxes on the 1%, give that to me now and we can talk spending cuts later.
Like that's going to happen.
It's all falling apart. Four more years of progressive activist judges. Probably at least 2 supremes. By fighting we are just delaying the inevitable and making more enemies along the way.
No we haven't. If we had..we'd have had a change in leadership...i.e. gotten rid of Boehner. He's as big a threat to Conseratism as the Liberals.
Totally outnumbered? Ummm not hardly. As I pointed out the gap in the popular vote was 3%...in most polls that's within the margin of error. The total voter turn out was less for both parties.
And lets not even talk about the 3+ million republicans that stayed home and pouted. What a difference they'd have made.
So what do we do...offer to give them a Mitt Phone? Then what...we're no different than the Dems...a point that any Libtard candidate would be quick..and wise to point out at eletion time.
Boehner and company aren't Conservatives. He Cantor and McCarthy hate the TEA Party and and true Conservative candidate. They've shut them out of leadership positions...ensured one of them didn't return to the 113th COngress and almost killed off another Conservative in Minnesota.
I mean he started flopping on his back and peeing on the carpet like a femal dog before the Dems or Obama had even made a proposal.
It won't. We have history on our side with Reagan and Bush 41 to remind us. But again...the leadership we have in the House isn't conservative...and isn't interested in anything we have to say.
Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater are rolling in their graves at your willingness to concede to the Liberals what they don't have.
IF you're anti-Obamacare...you're (fill in the blank on smears).
remember Snugs...you're talking about an electorate that still blames President Bush for the economic climate his successor created.
With that as a starting point...and with the help of our friends in the MSM...it's gonnabe easy to blame Republicans.
Here I can see this meme floating around..."If Republicans had gotten on board with universal/single payer health care in 1992 we wouldn't be in the health crisis we're in now."
Or this:
"Greedy Republican doctors and special interest groups more interested in a buck than treating people are the main roadbloacks to implementation of ObamaCare...they are feeding the coffers of (insert Republican Governor/Senator/Congresscritter) buying the off to prevent the State Exchanges from being built.
The media just needs that to run with and next thing you know...Brian Williams will be reporting eeevil Rethuglican doctors kicking old people to the curb and denying babies medicine because they siged up for ObamaCare.
They're getting ready to really rub our noses in it...and if we roll over as you suggest...then there's no telling what they will pass...without resistance to punish the states that don't cooperate.
You can bend and spread for the Dems...but don't complain about the sharp pain and lasting ill effect afterwrds.
Haven't you learned by now that Liberalism means NEVER having to take responsibility for your actions?
None of which is going to happen for the next four years. Especialls since judges etc are passed in the Senate not the House. Our best chance on getting to the bottom of Fast and Furious and Benghazi disappeared when Mitt lost.
If we roll over and don't fight what little political capital we have is gone.
Then that is exactly what we should do. Fight them for every square inch of ground we are forced to yeild...until they are bled dry. No one ever won a war playing defense. Something Republicans never seem to learn. Did the Dems fall back and retreat after 2010? How about after 1994 and the Republican Revolution?
No they just fought harder...didn't change one iota...hell they came right out and dared us to stop them...we were in the majority and the Dems stilla cted like they were in charge..and we need to do the same.
Oh, txradioguy, just one thing I'd like to mention.
While I admire the energy you are putting into your argument, trying to shame me into changing my opinion is, for some odd reason, counter productive.
They always play the race card game.
What can they consolidate?
The economy is collapsing. It's not "if" it's "when."
We didn't opose the liberal agenda because it was the liberal agenda, we opposed it because it was destined for failure and anyone attached to it was going to get hurt. We opposed it because it is self-destructive. It's unsustainable. They very thing they want is the thing they cannot afford to keep.
And **** the blue helmets. What're they gonna do?
More importantly: what are WE going to do. We are a political minority in a system decided by majority rule. We do not politically favorable winds. They own the government, schools, academia, pop culture and major media. It doesn't matter how sensible your argument is, the message and the messanger are despised.
Hell, we can't even unseat Boehner right now and he's in the one part of the government we do control.
What do we do? Speechify? Yay...we'll go to our political graves looking like Ron Paul.
Let the food riots begin. Let them shoot first. At the end of the day the tallest man in the room is the last one standing.
More importantly: what are WE going to do. We are a political minority in a system decided by majority rule. We do not politically favorable winds. They own the government, schools, academia, pop culture and major media. It doesn't matter how sensible your argument is,the message and the messanger are despisedthe self-appointed objective messenger will rewrite it before it gets to it's audience.
The biggest thing we have to do is quit acting like a party that enjoys being the minority.
Right now..especailly in Congress we've got leadership that's happy being the also ran as long as they hang on to their power.
IMHO the Republican party is suffering from batterd wives syndrome.
FIFY
If the republican establishment isn't willing to do what the base wants (i.e. defend the Constitution) then maybe it's time for the membership to part ways with the party.
All that being said, I'm still with Snugs on this. Until we have some way of reaching the Obamaphone voters with the truth, it won't matter what we do or say, it's all our fault. Better that they determine reality for themselves when the system collapses and we defend the Constitution until that happens. And to the poster who asked about which way the military will fall, just from informal talks with fellow Soldiers, the majority stand with the Constitution.
Obama has put his cards on the table. He wants to fall off the cliff. He won't negotiate...
At this moment, Republicans in Congress need to examine which presents a more dire threat to the country:
A) A double-dip recession driven by the sequester and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, or
B) the public’s belief (verified through polling) that our giant debt, our ticking time bomb of entitlements, and our gargantuan government can be solved by “asking the richest Americans to pay a little bit more,†as Obama insists.
Option A is terrible, but Option B is the giant locked door blocking all of the real solutions.
So if we must have tax hikes, let the tax cuts for every income level expire and let everyone of every income level pay higher taxes. Destroy the illusion among so many voters that they can get all the government they want without paying more in taxes.
Since I doubt the GOP has the balls to counter Obama with his own Simpson-Bowles proposal:
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/334425/sequester-or-publics-denial-bigger-problem#
If you cannot convince people of an idea the only thing that remains is a practical demonstration.
Which is again why I ask...in that day what direction will the barrels of our existing military be pointed.
Without that on our side we can not prevail no matter how one wishes to think otherwise as I see it.
That is the basis of my question as a civilian and not knowing.
The oath to defend the Constitution...do most rank and file understand that the Chief Executive/Commander in Chief is subordinate to the Constitution and not a vicar of it always.
Oaths are worthless to liberals, so it will come down to the individual soldier.
But most liberals won't kill for their cause and damn fewer are willing to die for it.
The people like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Derek Bell, Soros, Warren etc have cultivated a society based on the leaders caring for the people so as to control them. That is the exact opposite of what you need an army to be during time of conflict.
Consider, by way of contrast: The people who are in the combat arms are notorious fitness freaks. They put themselves through grueling, painful exercise rituals for hours a day; long after the army has asked them to perform their duties for the day. Does any liberal icon or large swathe of their population group strike as those sorts of personality types?
Do you see the obese EBT crowds squaring off against us?
Sure they can riot; but then what?
OK, you destroyed the city you live in. Are they moving, en masse, to bivouac in the field for extended periods of time so as to occupy the productive countryside?
Look at the OWS. Field hygene and sanitation was not their strong suit and as a combat medic I'll say a division sized-element can cease to be combat-effective in less than a month due to poor field conditions. In fact, Gulf War 1.0 was the first war in human history where combat casualties actually outnumbered casualties from disease (I've known a doctor who had to debride the socks off of infantrymen). I doubt the liberal horde could carry on a genuine sustained operation.
Hell, I don't even see a real fight. I think we could literally ignore them to death. They're the ones bred for dependency.
I don`t see the street vermin as anything really but am curious as to what would happen should O (or another leftist President) give the order to the SOD on through the Joint Chiefs and down the line to use our military might against us.
Would they obey or would they revolt?
I do think we are on the path to this turning point and not an arbitrary long ways down the road hypothetical.
I don`t see the street vermin as anything really but am curious as to what would happen should O (or another leftist President) give the order to the SOD on through the Joint Chiefs and down the line to use our military might against us.
Would they obey or would they revolt?
I do think we are on the path to this turning point and not an arbitrary long ways down the road hypothetical.
Republicans are seriously considering a Doomsday Plan if fiscal cliff talks collapse entirely. It’s quite simple: House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the President nothing more: no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes. Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling.
Two senior Republican elected officials tell me this doomsday plan is becoming the most likely scenario. A top GOP House leadership aide confirms the plan is under consideration, but says Speaker Boehner has made no decision on whether to pursue it.
Under one variation of this Doomsday Plan, House Republicans would allow a vote on extending only the middle class tax cuts and Republicans, to express disapproval at the failure to extend all tax cuts, would vote “present†on the bill, allowing it to pass entirely on Democratic votes.
By doing this, Republicans avoid taking blame for tax increases on 98 percent of income tax payers. As one senior Republican in Congress told me, “You don’t take a hostage you aren’t willing to shoot.†Republicans aren’t willing to kill the middle class tax cuts, even if extending them alone will make it harder to later extend tax cuts on the wealthy.
I personally don't give a two-fingered **** for Obama's coddled elite. But that ain't the reason I have a problem with raising taxes, ANY taxes.
My problem is that the *******ed government is out of control, huge, wastefully ridiculous and a poster child for "how to **** up and move up." And Barry wants to make it even bigger and have us AND his coddled elite pay for it.
**** that.
You want less of something? Tax it.
Shitbirds STILL don't understand Taxes 101. Oh, wait. I forgot. Tax Cheat Geithner is running Treasury. :thatsright:
The Post wrote that Obama’s “offer lacks any concessions to Republicans.†That’s not true. Obama’s demand that Republicans approve to $1.6 trillion in higher taxes, pass $50 billion in new stimulus spending, abdicate their power over the debt ceiling and make no changes in entitlements until next year was no “offer†at all — it was a demand for unilateral surrender.
While Obama was inviting Republicans to capitulate aboard the USS Missouri, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 32 other Senate Democrats signed a letter declaring, “We will oppose including Social Security cuts for future or current beneficiaries in any deficit reduction package.†Not in a year-end package, mind you, but in any package. 14 Senate Democrats wrote a letter opposing any changes to Medicare or Medicaid as well.
It will be hard for Obama and the Democrats to blame the GOP for taking us over the fiscal cliff when they are the ones cheering for going over the edge. And it will be difficult for them to blame Republicans for wanting to protect tax cuts for the rich, when House Speaker John Boehner agreed to $800 billion in higher taxes for the rich in the form of limits on deductions and loopholes.
Second, even if Democrats succeed in blaming Republicans, going off the cliff is the political equivalent of a suicide-bombing for President Obama: To damage the GOP, he has to blow himself up in the process. Going over the cliff would likely cause a new recession, which would be a disaster for Obama — killing his chances of accomplishing anything of significance for the remainder of his presidency. As Keith Hennessey, former director of the National Economic Council for President George W. Bush, points out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, a recession would limit Obama’s policy options and “irreparably damage his second term.â€
If Obama considers the self-destruction of his presidency “winning,†he’s the Charlie Sheen of American politics.
Third, once we go over the fiscal cliff and tax rates go up for every American taxpayer, we are likely to see a good old-fashioned tax revolt. When is the last time Democrats came out ahead in a tax revolt? Republicans will be able to outbid Democrats in any proposed tax cuts.
Obama thinks he has a lot more political capital than he really does. A White House official told Politico’s Mike Allen this weekend that the “President campaigned on this and won.†So what? In 2004, George W. Bush campaigned on Social Security reform and won. How far did that get him? Bush famously declared, “The people made it clear what they wanted. I earned capital in the campaign . . . and I intend to spend it.†He soon learned he had not earned as much political capital as he thought.
Democrats signed a letter declaring, “We will oppose including Social Security cuts for future or current beneficiaries in any deficit reduction package.â€
I certainly agree with that last paragraph. How much political capital one has is extremely difficult to measure, and easy to over-estimate, especially if you're dealing with a narcissistic megalomaniac. Anybody who only got 50.6% of the popular vote, just doesn't have bottomless political capital. Plus, he's widely despised with a deep, boiling passion.
Now, I've never lived through a period of time where there was a tax revolt. What is he referring to when he says a "good old fashioned tax revolt?"
Rhode Island’s blue-on-blue showdown is heating up. Famed litigator David Boies is taking a 96 percent pay cut to represent the state against recalcitrant public sector unions. The New York Times reports:QuoteMr. Boies became involved, he said, because he was convinced that Rhode Island’s pension troubles were just the tip of a $5 trillion iceberg of unsecured retirement promises to the nation’s millions of public workers. “This is something that can cripple state and municipal governments at a time when the federal government is, more and more, cutting back on the services it provides,†he said.
...
“There’s no contract,†he said. “Even if there was a contract, the state, pursuing the public interest, has the right to modify contracts.â€
...
As the blue social model decays, the coalition that was once united behind it is becoming increasingly splintered and parochial. Boies, known for representing Al Gore, waging antitrust battles against Microsoft, and fighting California’s Proposition 8 in federal court, has impeccable bona fides as a liberal Democrat. But in the face of economic realities, he and other blue liberals are being forced to make fundamental choices about their values and goals.
Fifty-five percent said they would rather pay higher taxes and get more government services, while 40% said the opposite.
I know...it's comifornia but still.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/12/california-budget-poll.html
I know...it's comifornia but still.QuoteFifty-five percent said they would rather pay higher taxes and get more government services, while 40% said the opposite.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/12/california-budget-poll.html
What Does Let It Burn Mean?
—DrewM.
As one of the first, if not the first, people to say Let It Burn, I’m clearly thrilled with the growing chorus of voices joining the movement.
Like any movement, there are true believers and Let It Burn In Name Only (LIBINO) types. Since it’s never too early to purge a movement of its impure elements, let us lay out some key principles of Let It Burn.
1- America isn’t a conservative country anymore and hasn’t been for a while. Yes, you can point to lots of surveys that show people identify themselves as conservatives and they even say government should be doing fewer things.
The fact is, a conservative country doesn’t “accidentally†elect Barack Obama twice. It doesn't continue to send Democrats to the Senate who voted for ObamaCare and force the GOP to run as the saviors of Medicare.
People want the ever expanding welfare state, they simply don’t want to have to pay for it. They are happy to pretend they can “ask the rich to pay a little more†(it won't work) or to pile on debt for some generation to be born later to pay for it. What they are very clear about in their votes is...â€don’t you dare touch my “free†stuffâ€.
One foundation of conservatism is to see the world as it is, imperfections and all, and not the way we wish it to be. Unless we can admit the reality of the country we are living in, Let It Burn makes no sense.
If you think we're just one or two tactical moves and a great candidate away from political victory, you're not in the Let It Burn camp.
2- Gabe and several commenters yesterday wondered, why isn’t Bob Corker’s “tax cuts now, entitlements later†idea consistent with Let It Burn?
The answer is simple: It’s a deliberate action is based on doing several things- raising taxes and then magically reforming entitlements.
Even if the GOP managed to "win" this standoff with Obama by generating more revenue through tax reform than hiking tax rates, who cares? We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.
“Let It Burn†is about inaction. There’s no point in trying do anything that avoids going over the fiscal cliff/sequestration. Remember, the deal that got us to this point was agreed to by House Republicans, Senate Democrats and signed by Obama. That’s as bi-partisan as it gets. I’ve heard from squishy low information voters, Obama and the media that “bi-partisan problem solving†is the Holy Grail of politics. Well, here it is.
Will it lead to massive disruptions? Yes. That’s the point. The current system is rigged against conservative. We should play no part in its perpetuation. If you can’t win the game, concede and start new one. That’s the heart of Let It Burn.
This isn't some petty "I lost so I'm taking my ball and going home" tirade. This is what people want. It's simply not sustainable. If we can't stop them, we don't have to continue to enable them either.
Bill Kristol has a column attacking the Wall Street Journal for opposing any tax hikes. John Podhoretz challenges any conservative to argue with it. Well, I just did.
What Podhoretz should have done is challenge any Republican to argue against Kritol’s analysis. That can’t be done in a serious way.
We need to start disassociating conservatism from the GOP. We’ve tried it for 30 years. It hasn’t worked.
We’ve tried to save the country from the folly of expanding liberalism and the country said, “we don’t want to be savedâ€. Let It Burn just means letting them have what they want and rebuilding later.
After 2010 I had some hope that we might be able to turn this massive welfare state around. The full implementation of ObamaCare means that isn’t going to happen. At least not absent a total collapse of our fiscal house of cards.
Let It Burn isn’t an option, it’s an eventuality. The questions are will we be complicit in it any longer and do we want to delay it? I say no. Let the liberals own it. Very few things are made better by delaying the day of inevitable reckoning.
The sooner it burns, the sooner we can try and rebuild.
The sooner it burns, the sooner we can try and rebuild.
So determined is President Obama to raise taxes next month on “the rich,†that he is willing violate his most oft-repeated pledge—not to raise taxes on “the middle classâ€â€”to do so. This tax hike, he says, will “get the economy growing faster.â€
BUNK
The president’s tax hike will do just the opposite, according to the former chair of Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer.
The Office of Management and Budget estimates that Gross Domestic Product for FY 2013 will be about $16.3 trillion, so Obama’s $82 billion tax hike would represent about one-half of one percent of GDP. A 2010 paper co-authored by Romer found that a tax increase equal to 1 percent of GDP reduces output by about 2 percent to 3 percent over the ensuing ten quarters. Assuming that a tax hike half that size will have roughly half the effect, Obama’s tax hike should reduce GDP by about 1 percent to 1.5 percent. Extending the Bush tax cuts, on the other hand, “would boost real GDP by a little less than 1.5 percent by the end of 2013,†according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Wells Fargo forecasts that real GDP will grow at an annualized rate of just 1 percent this quarter. The company projected that last quarter’s growth would be 2.7 percent—an estimate that was right on the money, according to the latest revision from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. If Wells Fargo’s estimate for next quarter is equally accurate, the downward slide from 2.4 percent in 2010 to 1.8 percent in 2011 will continue, with growth for 2012 falling again, to 1.75 percent.
Starting 2013 at that level, then subtracting 1 percent to 1.5 percent over ten months (due to the “Romer effectâ€) would bring GDP growth down to just 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent through 2014—within a hair’s breadth of tipping back into recession.
That would take us right up to the 2014 mid-term elections. Even if voters blame Obama for continued poor economic performance (or even a double-dip recession), he will not be up for re-election—but Congress will. If those elections are anything like 2012, Obama and his sympathetic media will do their best to blame congressional Republicans, whether we go over the “fiscal cliff†or not.
Establishment Republicans are urging the GOP to “compromise†with Obama—signing onto his soak-the-rich scheme in order to shield the middle class-—in return for promises of spending cuts down the road.
Republicans will refuse, if they are capable of learning from history.
In 1982, establishment Republicans persuaded President Ronald Reagan to accept a similar “compromiseâ€â€”hiking tax rates in return for a promise by House Speaker Tip O’Neill to cut spending by $3 for every $1 in new taxes. Reagan kept his word, delivering the tax hike, but the Democrats reneged, actually increasing spending. According to then-Attorney General Ed Meese, Reagan always said that his biggest mistake was accepting higher tax rates first, with a promise of spending cuts to come later. The lesson is: In any “compromise,†get the spending cuts first.
While going over the fiscal cliff may produce a short-term recession, in the long run it might be in the best interests of the nation. As the CBO put it, avoiding the cliff (and sequestration) would cause “a continued surge in federal debt during the rest of this decade and beyond†that “would raise the risk of a fiscal crisis (in which the government would lose the ability to borrow money at affordable interest rates) and would eventually reduce the nation’s output and income below what would occur if the fiscal tightening was allowed to take place as currently set by law.â€
If Obama’s tax hike—even if it excludes the middle class—reduces long-term economic growth, Obama and the media will certainly blame Republicans—even if they are complicit. Since the GOP is going to be scapegoated anyway, there’s no reason not to do the right thing.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/335557.php
Are higher taxes inevitable? If they are, Senator Rand Paul wants no Republican fingerprints on them. Last night, he told Greta van Susteren on Fox News that House Republicans should pass a bill with their specific plan to cut spending and fix the tax code to address the fiscal-cliff issues, and dare the Senate to take it up. If Democrats refuse, then Paul wants the House to hold a vote on the Democratic plan, with Republicans voting “present†to allow Democrats to pass the bill. That way, the economic damage from tax hikes will be totally owned by Democrats, and Republicans will have kept their hands clean..
I certainly agree with that last paragraph. How much political capital one has is extremely difficult to measure, and easy to over-estimate, especially if you're dealing with a narcissistic megalomaniac. Anybody who only got 50.6% of the popular vote, just doesn't have bottomless political capital. Plus, he's widely despised with a deep, boiling passion.
Now, I've never lived through a period of time where there was a tax revolt. What is he referring to when he says a "good old fashioned tax revolt?"
Most Americans want President Obama and congressional Republicans to compromise on a budget agreement, though they, too, are unhappy about the options that would avert the “fiscal cliff,†according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The strong support for compromise belies widespread public opposition to big spending cuts that are likely to be part of any deal.
Most Americans oppose slashing spending on Medicaid and the military, as well as raising the age for Medicare eligibility and slowing the increase of Social Security benefits, all of which appear to be on the table in negotiations. Majorities call each of these items “unacceptable.â€
...large majorities oppose reforming the programs that actually drive the deficits that have created the fiscal cliff. Six in ten oppose raising Medicare eligibility to 67; the same percentage opposes a move to chained CPI to slow down cost-of-living increases. These are two of the mildest reforms on the table. Talk about magical thinking. Where else are we supposed to cut? Oh, yeah — the Pentagon, whose entire budget only comprises about 65% of the entire annual deficit — and even there, 55% believe further cuts are unacceptable. Every choice of cuts and reform is deemed “unacceptable†by a majority in this poll.
The fact of the matter is: Obama wants the GOP to cave on taxes -- not revenue, but taxes specificially -- so that you, the GOP voter, no longer trusts the GOP. Obama wants YOU to be pissed off and stay home because the party betrayed you.
Conversely, the GOP doesn't want to raise taxes because they know it will ruin their brand and, as we all know, it'll amount to nothing because the deficit will continue to grow because the money will be spent on new shit, not deficit reduction. That's assuming new money even comes in because every GOPer assumes economic activity will be stifled.
If we encourage our reps to vote "present" we relieve them of the burden of sacrificing the brand. Taxes are going to go up regardless. The American people have to pay for what they demand be given to them. But they will not heed to economic facts until thos facts hit them in the face like a brick.
Let the dems own the tax hikes and let the GOP off the hook. Let the peasants pay for their free stuff.
The American people are morons:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-most-want-fiscal-cliff-compromise-but-oppose-cuts-that-may-be-part-of-deal/2012/12/18/4876b79a-4877-11e2-b6f0-e851e741d196_story.html
At hotair.com Capt Ed explains
Boehner can twist himself into a pretzel and it still won't have any bearing on our economy. We probably went over the cliff a few trillion ago and Bernanke is cranking out 85 billion a month in monopoly money because he doesn't know what else to do.
Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.