Politics Thread

[paulxu]

If you cut taxes without cutting spending, and add spending like unnecessary wars and unpaid drug plans...your debt just might increase.
What was wrong with the surplus, and using it to pay down the existing debt?
Sounds like a prudent policy you might use if you owned a business, and had some outstanding debt.

[Strange Brew]

If you cut taxes without cutting spending, and add spending like unnecessary wars and unpaid drug plans...your debt just might increase.
What was wrong with the surplus, and using it to pay down the existing debt?
Sounds like a prudent policy you might use if you owned a business, and had some outstanding debt.

Agree. Cut spending add don’t add more “human infrastructure”. We spend plenty on that now. That and paying Merrick Garland’s family to run NGOs.

Oh, and Paul. “Manufacturing infrastructure” would help many problems we have right now. You’d call it corporate welfare…
Playing games with word meanings is fun and easy! :)

[Muskie in dayton]

In almost any other arena I would agree with you, but not in this one. If Trump were the president of the USSF, or of any other sports team for that matter, I think it'd be a fantastic show!! His discable-ness would be purely entertaining and of no real consequence.

I'm just having a hard time feeling good about, or laughing at, our political situation right now.

The Democrats are too stupid to realize the importance of actually delivering on what they promised to do and what they are supposed to do, and it will cost them so much of the support that they picked up in 2020 that it may be more than a decade before they get it back. They weren't smart enough to realize that Trump could win the first time, and they're stupid enough to not realize that not only can he win this next time, but that he almost assuredly will.

The Republicans are being held hostage by a narcissistic dipshit who is threatening to basically nuke the party of they don't submit to him. Republicans are so programmed to tow the party line, that they'll probably do it. Trump is being allowed to defy any and all checks and balances, which is one of the cores this nation is built on. That's a problem!! He is saying the election was stolen, when in reality the only person that tried to steal it was him. That's a problem!!

If anyone can emerge from this as an effective leader, they will get my vote. I don't care about parties. I really don't. I hate both of them to be honest, and basically blame both of them for the utter mess we are currently in. Perhaps a two-party system can be good for the nation, but it isn't being good for anything at the moment. In fact, I would argue that the two-party system is what is preventing us from not crashing into the mountain right now.

Yes, the Democrats never had any intention of delivering what they promised. They pander to their base with the same garbage over and over with no changes, and they lied about their extreme policies to get independent vote. This has been the MO for years, and now with their media mouthpieces, they have shifted so far to communism and authoritarianism that the founding principles of our nation are in peril. Meanwhile, the Republicans are worthless, basically running cover for big government policies and spending, with just enough veiled threats to keep their constituents strung along. It's really become one party - getting rich off big business bribes, kick-backs and insider trading.

It's no longer Republicans vs. Democrats, it's The Party against the people. We're losing.

[Xville]

Yes, the Democrats never had any intention of delivering what they promised. They pander to their base with the same garbage over and over with no changes, and they lied about their extreme policies to get independent vote. This has been the MO for years, and now with their media mouthpieces, they have shifted so far to communism and authoritarianism that the founding principles of our nation are in peril. Meanwhile, the Republicans are worthless, basically running cover for big government policies and spending, with just enough veiled threats to keep their constituents strung along. It's really become one party - getting rich off big business bribes, kick-backs and insider trading.

It's no longer Republicans vs. Democrats, it's The Party against the people. We're losing.

True.

I don't side with much of what he says from a policy perspective (i think ubi is batshit,) but in regards to party and failed politics, I agree with a lot of what Yang says. Hoping he gets a bit more attention in this next cycle just for a bit of a fresh perspective.

[GoMuskies]

What don't you like about UBI?

[Xville]

What don't you like about UBI?

Cost and where the money would come from.

[GoMuskies]

Cost and where the money would come from.

It's imperative that any UBI replaces and does not supplement other safety net programs. To me, it's the most cost-efficient way of handling things. And it solves a lot of issues from my perspective regarding incentives. No one has to decide between government assistance and working anymore. You're going to get your government assistance. Even Bezos is going to get it (it's going to be expensive for him!). And whatever you do from a working perspective just supplements that government assistance. You're going to have a place to sleep. You're going to have food. You're going to have clothes. If you don't have to stress about those three things, I think the average "poor" person feels more secure and can become more productive.

[Xville]

It's imperative that any UBI replaces and does not supplement other safety net programs. To me, it's the most cost-efficient way of handling things. And it solves a lot of issues from my perspective regarding incentives. No one has to decide between government assistance and working anymore. You're going to get your government assistance. Even Bezos is going to get it (it's going to be expensive for him!). And whatever you do from a working perspective just supplements that government assistance. You're going to have a place to sleep. You're going to have food. You're going to have clothes. If you don't have to stress about those three things, I think the average "poor" person feels more secure and can become more productive.

All that is certainly fair and I get that perspective. The problem I have is the cost and where the money is coming from. Businesses have to be taxed yet again as if small/midsize businesses need something else to fuck them without a lube. I also am not convinced that this would decrease a lot of bureaucratic tape and other government bs.

[Masterofreality]

Joe Biden’s now at 37% approval rating- lower than Trump.
Looks like the country has caught on to the Dumpster Fire and Independents have an even lower opinion of this guy. Pretty telling that these numbers are in place despite the fact that more people identify as Democrats than Republicans.
Your guy and your positions are failing miserably Paul and Bobbie. Get ready for a mid term blowout and Red Wave guys. Then who are you gonna blame since the former guy has been gone for awhile and has nothing to do with it.
Maybe sometime in the next 3 years Biden may actually answer a question or a few.

[XU_Lou]

TO: Republican Study Committee members

FROM: Chairman Jim Banks

DATE: October 12, 2021

RE: Reconciliation Roundup

RECONCILIATION ROUNDUP: Policies to Wreck America

TOPLINE: We as congressional Republicans have an urgent duty to tell the truth about what’s REALLY in the Democrats’ $3.5T big government socialist takeover and warn the American people what’s coming.

This bill is a disaster and should be polling at 20%. We all know it.

So, how can we explain the 52-55% approval its garnered in the polls? The chief reason that it keeps polling favorably is because we haven’t done a good enough job letting the American people know what’s in it.

Here’s what happens to public opinion when the public learns what’s in these Democrat bills. In March, before Democrats’ $1.9 trillion package passed, 70% of Americans said they favored it. Polled again in August—five months after the bill was enacted, only 35% of Americans said the bill was helping improve the economy or will do so in the future.

To be fair, this is the Democrats’ strategy. They’ve played ‘hide the ball’ with the bill text so as not to tip off the public as to what they’re putting in their bills. Then, they bring it to the floor and tout some poll numbers and scare their members into voting for it.

Luckily, due to Democrats’ stalled legislative agenda, we have bill text and a window into their plan. If we effectively communicate about this bill, we’ll see those poll numbers drop.

I’ve directed staff at the Republican Study Committee to pore over the bill’s pages and produce for you a summary of the worst parts of the bill. Please read and share these points on social media, newsletters, opinion-editorials, and whatever other format you use to get your message out.

1. Perpetuates labor shortage: Continues welfare benefits without work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents at a time where there are 10.1 million job openings—more openings than there are people looking for work.

2. Commissions a climate police: Democrats stuffed $8 billion into the bill to commission a cabal of federally funded climate police called the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) who will conduct progressive activism on taxpayers’ dime (pages 8, 21, and 926).

3. Pushes Green New Deal in our public schools: Requires funding for school construction be used largely on enrollment diversity and Green New Deal agenda items (page 55).

4. Pushes Green New Deal in our universities: Democrats include a $10 billion “environmental justice” higher education slush fund to indoctrinate college students and advance Green New Deal policies (page 1,935).

5. Forces faith-based child care providers out: The bill blocks the ability of many faith-based providers from participating in the childcare system and will lead to many of their closures (page 280).

6. Hurts small and in-home daycares: Requires pre-K staff to have a college degree. (page 303).

7. Includes new incentives for illegal immigration: Illegal immigrants will be eligible to take advantage of Democrats’ new ‘free’ college entitlement (page 92) as well be eligible for additional student aid (page 147) and the enhanced child tax credit (page 1,946).

8. Includes legislative hull for Biden’s vaccine mandate: Increases OSHA penalties on businesses that fail to implement the mandate up to $700,000 per violation and includes $2.6 billion in funding for the Department of Labor to increase enforcement of these penalties (page 168).

9. Gives unions near-total control: The bill includes insane prohibitions that would bind employers’ hands in union disputes and dangerously tilt the balance of power, subjecting employers to penalties that exempt union bosses and officials… among other things this bill would prevent employers from permanently replacing striking workers (page 175). It coerces businesses to meet union boss demands by increasing Fair Labor Standards Act penalties by an astronomical 900% (page 168).

10. Makes unions bigger and more powerful: The bill would subsidize union dues that would only serve to strengthen the influence of union bosses and not American workers (page 2323).

11. Pushes Democrats’ wasteful and confusing school lunch agenda: $643 million for, among other things, “procuring…culturally appropriate foods” (page 333).

12. Furthers radical abortion agenda: Does not include the Hyde amendment and would mandate taxpayers pay for abortions (page 198) & (page 336).

13. Drives up costs on Americans’ utility bills: Issues a punitive methane tax (page 367) and includes a tax on natural gas up to $1,500 per ton that could cost the American economy up to $9.1 billion and cost 90,000 Americans their jobs (page 368).

14. Includes dangerous & deadly green energy mandate: Effectively forces Americans to get 40% of their energy from wind, solar and other unreliable forms of energy within 8 years (page 392). Reliance on these energy sources has proven deadly.

15. Includes kickbacks for the Left’s green energy special interest network: $5 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” (page 377) and another $100 billion in green energy special interest subsidies, loans and other carve outs.