Intro: "By next Wednesday, the so-called supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators, is supposed to reach an agreement on how to reduce future deficits. Barring an evil miracle - I'll explain the evil part later - the committee will fail to meet that deadline. If this news surprises you, you haven't been paying attention. If it depresses you, cheer up: In this case, failure is good."
Portrait, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, 06/15/09. (photo: Fred R. Conrad/NYT)
Failure Is Good
17 November 11
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a complete turkey! It's the supercommittee!
By next Wednesday, the so-called supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators, is supposed to reach an agreement on how to reduce future deficits. Barring an evil miracle - I'll explain the evil part later - the committee will fail to meet that deadline.
If this news surprises you, you haven't been paying attention. If it depresses you, cheer up: In this case, failure is good.
Why was the supercommittee doomed to fail? Mainly because the gulf between our two major political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don't just have different priorities; they live in different intellectual and moral universes.
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T'would indeed be time to celebrate. Failure is good; it teaches many lessons to those paying attention.
Thanks, Krugman, as usual.
N.
Total, unmitigated bullshit on both counts.
Then I read about Gingrich and many other former members of Congress have been feasting on Freddie Mac's tit while Congressional members of their party--and Gingrich himself--decried Freddie Mac! Amazing!
We are being played, people. We are being played.
The first order of business MUST BE the reigning in of Congress and the banning of all consulting, lobbying, advisory and similar practices both while in office and thereafter. These vampires are draining our nation dry.
The Democrats would listen to the American people with the Independent and great Bernie Sanders.
the Republicans keep saying the American people want this or that. Bull Sh--t.
the only people they listen to are the corporations and the Tea Party.
He heard the polls saying the people were disgusted with congress and wanted them to get along.
In spite of insults he tried "getting along". I think he has now awaken.
And some of the things he caved in was because he wanted to help the people out of work and give some health care that were hurting.
So he gets insults from the Repugs and from the people like you.
Give the guy a break, no president has ever come into his presidency not only with a broke america and with two wars going on.
When we have a true Democratic Congress then you will see him as a true fighter for the people.
Bill Clinton was an effective negotiator and knew how to get along with and communicate with a bipartisan congress and he was a great President. Obama promised hope and change to the same people who are now feeling so hopeless and frustrated with his policies and priorities, they are Protesting not only WS which Obama has bandied up to but the unacceptable quality of life Obama's leadership has brought us to. "Finally waking up" is too late and toolittle for people who are unemployed. losing homes, impoverished, and angry at the current state of affairs. And what gives you the idea that some kind of awakenng has occurred. It's the same old same-oh.
So he did try, but I think he finally woke up.
What about the polls that said 71% of Americans favored single payer?
In reality, his job isn't to please people who want to see him dead. His job is to please the people who hired him. That would be all those liberals he's ignored since entering office. We're the ones who voted for him in the first place. We're the only ones who would consider voting for him again.
I agree with the others. He's either an idiot or a liar. I really don't think he's an idiot.
Fredboy, he was not raised in privilege. And I think he does "get it". But he's stuck with the political reality that a president, no matter how well meaning, cannot behave like a benign dictator in a system designed to have a balance of power and which gives Congress the purse strings. It was done that way on purpose by our Founding Fathers, of course, so that the President could not become a de facto King. And certainly politics were factious in their day too. In the musical "1776", John Adams says, "If Pro is the Opposite of Con, is Progress the Opposite of Congress?"
He mother raised him with the help and I repeat the help of her parents.
He worked hard to get good grades which enabled him to go to college and then Harvard.
One instance is the appearance of Bristol Palin on DWTS. Her fans cheated right and left, making hundreds of phony votes, to make her win, even though she sucked. This is the mind-set: win at any cost, the end justifies the means.
The pity is that the majority of moderate Republicans don't even know they're being sadly used.
We need "citizen" politicians. Serve two terms, then out. Decent wage, no lifetime benefits, except respect.
Term limits are a HUGE advantage for repugs, because they usually outspend Democrats 2 to 1 in campaigns with all things else being equal.
The only thing that ever levels the playing field is when the Democrat happens to be an incumbant. It's repugs who want the term limits, because then, their unlimited campaign funding would make them invincible.
It's inauthentic, political game-playing AKA hogwash. They should contribute the millions-billions to the unemployed and impoverished.
Go to www.getthemoneyout.com and lets vote for ridding our system of the money that have made whores out of our politicians in both parties.
The difference between policy in
Europe and America is that in Europe
the political parties are civilized.
The differ in opinions, they argue
sharply but know they are going to live
together the day after.
In America they H A T E each other
until death.
Huzza! Well said. We could vastly improve our situation if we adopted a few things from the Brits: like limited campaigning (I beileve theirs is very short - like just a few weeks), and getting rid of the need for obscene amounts of money to gain office, necessitating more campaigning than governing most of the time.
while the other party (Repugs) just want to help the wealthy and corporations.
I cannot understand how anyone here does not understand that.
Young person whoever you are male or female. I am 84 years and have always voted.
Through all the years the Democrats have made good bills to help the American people starting with FDR who in the opinion of most people in my age should be the president put on that rock with Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington and Roosevelt (his cousin) As I said I cannot remember at this point the name of that rock but I am sure you know it.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, minimum wage, child labor laws (no more kids working in mines), unemployment compensation, 40 hr. week, right to form unions, Money insured FDIC, regulation on stock market (until deregulated by clinton with pressure frm guess who), equal opportunity, desegrated schools, G.I. bill (help for vets), civil and voting rights. and many more.
All put in by the Democrats.
Republicans---0000000
As the years go by the Republicans have gotten worse and worse. And anyone who votes for Republicans and not millionaires are cutting off their nose to spite their face as the people in Ohio and Wisconsin have found out. Now they are fighting for their life to get them out.
If we have a strong (and not with Blue Dogs Dems) Democratic party we can return our once great country around.
I do know that it will end...when, ask Mother Nature, she seems to be giving some warnings!
Another gimmick like wall street values. anyone can punch numbers and scare people, we let them. want to think about numbers look at Italy, Greece do you see them in Headlines shivering from Credit Agency? Wall Street..no, they know they have debt.
Now they have to grow up, work with their people and fix their problems, every time people tak other people's money they dig themselves deeper..look at mortgages, credit cards.
NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN !!
You are right, BK. And again I add, "NEVER, EVER VOTE REPUBLICAN AGAIN! VOTE OUT ALL BLUE DOGS & RED ELEPHANTS IN 2012!!! VOTE EARLY!!!
Never vote Republican, You must not forget they are the party of millionaires and corporations.
They can get more from us, it is up to us to get involved, get off our butts and do more than text here!
No shit!
However, if the term had been expanded to state "from each other" and then go on to add "And both from the rest of us", it would have encompassed the true sweep of disengagement and disconnectednes s in the almost wholly-owned corporate state!
As I've sated from their recent, pathetically engineered formation, don't expect ANYTHING but pandering from this bunch of well-upholstered and fundedconformis ts!
Having said that, let me quibble over "two parties that live in different moral universes." Democrats still have a hankering (much compromised) for a universe in which each of us is not a law unto oneself--a hankering for a constraint upon the individual in the interest of a "common good."
Republicans, on the other hand, find the very notion of such a good quaint. Draped in stolen garments, this brand of Christian knows that God is dead. (Or if He's only in intensive care, it's a matter of time till they finish Him off.) Whatever they say of Jesus on Sunday, they know on the other six days that each is a law unto himself or herself--Nietzsche and Ayn Rand have told them so; we only go around once, and each has an obligation to himself/herself to take everything that is loose. The real gospel is "there is no morality, and the free market is much too important to be left to chance."
Paul's right though about the bankruptcy of centrist journalism. If a new madman wants to kill all inhabitants of East Endia, this journalist would say: "It would be wrong to kill all of them; it would be equally wrong to let all live."
What a beautiful way of expressing the truth about the "even-handed" copout. It even caps the Polish joke when the Stalos ran the country and radicals pressed for democracy: "Some extremists claim 2+2=6, the opposite extremists say it's four. Sensible people make it five."
OCCUPY OCCUPY OCCUPY!!!
Reid put this man on the committee with full knowledge that he is only a Republican.
There could be some peace of mind if Reid had selected Senator Sanders rather than Mad Max.
We need to have someone run against him and B. Nelson and a few others.
If we're going to be for the record on Calvin, his administration of justice while he was in Geneva is quite interesting. Even the slightest offences by citizens were punished in cruel and draconian ways. Calvin had a secret police force that, from descriptions of it, was very much like the German Gestapo or the Russian KGB. What really amazes me is the incredible extent of claims made regarding what God has in mind, and the mind-bending statements about predestination and free will. It seems that Calvin, his supporters and his crtics, all knew exactly what God was thinking, or so they opined. It's no wonder that so many people have simply given up on all this interminable folderol. Faith, hope, love,courage, patience, mercy and temperance are great virtues, and they have never been dependent on anyone's adherence to rigid, authoritarian systems of belief, which, by the way have resulted in massive persecution and mass murder more often than not. All of that is also on the record.
U.S. needs to make progress on deficit, IMF warns
1/27/11 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/27/AR2011012707000.html
U.S. officials must act quickly to control government deficits or face slower growth and even more difficult choices in the future, the International Monetary Fund ... response to its rising public debt.
The IMF warning comes as federal officials grapple with a congressional projection this week that the annual deficit will reach a historic $1.5 trillion this year. ..."The U.S. has a lot of credibility. This does not imply their credibility can last forever," IMF fiscal affairs director Carlo Cottarelli said as he released the IMF study. It concluded that the United States is falling behind on a promise it made to other top economic countries to halve its budget deficit by 2013.
"This is a problem many years in the making and will take a concerted effort by Democrats and Republicans working together to find a solution," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in answer to a question about the IMF report.
He noted that President Obama called for a freeze on discretionary spending during this week's State of the Union address. IMF officials have welcomed the step but said that spending cuts in pension and health entitlement programs are also needed.
The sophistry that these pernicious bastards, portrayed by the media as a "force for smaller government" or some such whitewashing tripe, could or would reach agreement with Democrats on what day it is, let alone budget cuts over the next ten years, is patently ludicrous. It's pure (bad) political theater, which is par for the course during a presidential campaign.
When they come up with a last minute deal, which solves nothing and kicks the can down the road, we'll have another benchmark for the profound joke that is Congress, a joke that will lead the 99% to the slaughter, laughing. Maybe a dozen of these fools deserve to be re-elected? No, on second thought scratch that.
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