Republican Solutions. . . .

Bird of Prey said:

Apparently, there aren't any. No surprise there but I watched and listened through the entire Meet the Press interview with Eric Cantor. The dodging, the absolute bs: astounding, unbelievable, and just flat out silly. . . .

Click to expand...

Never been impressed by Cantor........
better to pay attention to Paul Ryan.

I agree with Gregg's assessment of Eric Cantor. I saw a clip of him being interviewed once by Laura Ingram. You would have thought it would have been an easier time for him, but he was being dodgy then. Didn't want to commit.

We just have to wait for whatever the Republicans come out with and judge each idea from there. You can't lump them all in together, just like you can't do the same with Democrats.

I also agree that Paul Ryan is someone to watch.

Bird of Prey said:

Honestly, Vince, I was so disappointed. It was as if Cantor thought he was elected by a hundred percent idiots and that he could fool everybody. I'm an independent, probably with a capital I, but this guy was the worst I've ever seen with regard to outright, outrageous dodging. I wouldn'y trust him with a dime or a church's donation plate. Cantor: snake oil salesman: what an outrageous phony. . . .

Click to expand...

Seems to me he is a classic politician. He doesn't want to be pinned down on anything. I didn't watch the clip you provided, but that was the impression I've gotten from him the one or two times I've seen him.

Vince524 said:

I also agree that Paul Ryan is someone to watch.

Click to expand...

I do too, though I'll bet for different reasons.

He had no problem voting for the hugely expensive Bush era unfunded pharmaceutical medicare expansion that gave a huge windfall to the drug companies -- you remember, the giveaway that among other things, prohibits medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices?

Or the 700 billion TARP bailout for banks and wall street. (Which I agreed with, btw.)

But now he realizes we're in trouble. His solution? Cut spending -- for the poor. Gut Medicare, transform it into a private insurance program (with companies whose main concern will be to show a profit) and revamp social security so that people working today will have far less benefits. Those SS recipients have had a cushy ride for far too long.

And of course, avoid raising taxes on the wealthy, at all costs.

Definitely a rising Republican star.

Bird of Prey said:

Apparently, there aren't any.

Click to expand...

Damn I hate it when others here nail a point in a more succinct way than I can ever hope to accomplish.

Shit. Now I'm depressed.

ColoradoGuy said:

They're finding out that proposing one's own plan is tougher than attacking somebody else's.

Click to expand...

Very likely to be an Achilles heel in 2012. From the polling regarding Obama vs. the previous Dem-controlled Congress, it was clear that the overall electoral pissedoffedness was centered on Congressional perfomance. Republicans have now been thrown onto that hotplate, and they are waking up to the point that they got nothin' in the way of positive forwardness. Their entire political strategy and capital was spent on electoral politics, not leadership politics.

As I said in an earlier thread elsewhere, the 2010 Congressional election results might have been the best possible outcome for an Obama 2012 re-election.

Stay tuned.

Gregg said:

Never been impressed by Cantor........
better to pay attention to Paul Ryan.

Click to expand...

Vince524 said:

I also agree that Paul Ryan is someone to watch.

Click to expand...

Watch Ryan do what? Posture and vacillate weakly? Grow a spine?

Colordado Guy and rugcat have already provided reason enough to consider Ryan's supposed fiscal hawkiness with wary skepticism, but here's another one.

Ryan was one of the 18 members of President Obama's bipartisan National Commission of Fiscal Responsibility which was co-chaired by Erkskine Bowles, President Clinton's former chief of staff and former Senator Alan Simpson, the No.2 Republican in the Senate for a decade.

The Commission came up with proposals to cut $4 trillion from the deficit within this decade. These were tough choices that would have been difficult for politicians of both parties to support, let alone actually implement and there were plenty of liberals and conservatives calling the Commission's suggestions unworkable.

Paul Ryan wasn't exactly a profile in courage on this one. John Avalon of The Daily Beast reported the supposed "fiscal conservative" punted.

The Bipartisan Deficit Commission led by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson voted 11 to 7 in favor of their far-sighted plan to cut the deficit by $4 trillion within the decade.

But it can be classified as only a symbolic victory, because under the rules of the commission, this nearly 2 to 1 margin represented a pointed failure to reach the 14 votes needed pass the recommendations on to Congress.

Three votes more were needed—and Republican Reps. Paul Ryan and Jeb Hensarling, as well as centrist Democratic Senator Max Baucus, are the alleged fiscal conservatives who should be blamed most for killing this proposal.

.......

I take no pleasure in saying this. I've always considered Ryan in particular as one of the brightest lights in the Republican Party, a person of intelligence and sincerity who valued the power of ideas guided by a sense of generational responsibility. But there is no integrity in this vote, just a lot of spin and CYA with an eye toward future campaigns.

Click to expand...

Bird of Prey isn't entirely correct to wonder if the Republicans have any solutions to offer. Oh, trust me, they do. She might not like all of 'em, but they have plenty of ideas they've had years to dream up. They just aren't going to tell the rest of us what those plans are until after next year's elections.

The Republicans don't have the power to implement their agenda while Democrats still control the Senate and Obama still wields a veto pen.

But...

IF the day after Election Day in 2012 America wakes up to a new Republican President and Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader to join John Boehner in the big chair, then and only then will their plans for America be revealed for all to see.

You'll have to wait for the witching hour before the masks come off.

What are those plans?

billythrilly7th said:

What are those plans?

Click to expand...

Same ones Nixon promised us he had, but couldn't tell us about, to end the war in Vietnam. Perhaps you're too young to remember those.

I was in Vietnam, in the U.S. Army in 1969-1970, and from what I could see, Nixon's plans involved just continuing to shoot as many of the other guys as we could.

Or, in the context of today's situation:

Business as usual.

The title of your post is an oxymoron (emphasis on MORON) .

Although the GOP was largely out of power until recently, it had ample opportunity to craft alternative solutions. It's not like there were zero GOP members in the Congress.

The issue is that the GOP tends toward conservatism, meaning in general that they'd rather not propose, much less pass, solutions. This is a characteristic by which I can lump them together. They want things to stay the way they are, or, worse, to go back to the way they imagine things were in some idealized, romanticized past.

I think it's great to have a faction opposing change. It ensures in many cases that policy doesn't overreach its goals. Note also that conservatism crosses party boundaries into the DP (ignoring, of course, that several conservative Democrats were recently ousted).

But it sure annoys me when they manage to hobble the really good ideas, which includes most prominently the health care fiasco. I think it's fair to say that bit of legislation, more than any other, has inflamed the conservative base. I'd attribute that to fear that changes to the health care system may lead to declines in the quality or availability thereof. Or, in other words, fear of death. I think that's something we all share. If we could just admit we're scared shitless of mortality, that itself would be a step forward.

That said, I personally perceive the conflict surrounding reform as a tension between those who want to keep what they already have and those who want to extend that same benefit to more people. But as with many things in life, that's really a false dilemma. It's not a zero-sum game, and spreading benefits to a wider population doesn't necessarily entail reducing existing benefits. Sure, the bill that made it through Congress isn't what I or some other liberals would have preferred, but from what I've seen, it's a damn sight better for more people than what came before. For me, you could say pragmatism won out.

I suspect whether we Republicans have a solution or not depends on whether you're a Republican or not. Democrats' 'solutions' weren't 'solutions' to us, either.

And, trust me on this, we're not 'morons' because we're Republicans any more than you're an 'idiot' because you're a Democrat. There are plenty of idiots and morons on both sides.

Ol' Fashioned Girl said:

I suspect whether we Republicans have a solution or not depends on whether you're a Republican or not. Democrats' 'solutions' weren't 'solutions' to us, either.

And, trust me on this, we're not 'morons' because we're Republicans any more than you're an 'idiot' because you're a Democrat. There are plenty of idiots and morons on both sides.

Click to expand...

I'm not a Democrat and neither is BoP, so I'm at a loss for who this post was directed at. I'll therefore have to assume it's some generic "you".

SPMiller said:

I'm not a Democrat and neither is BoP, so I'm at a loss for who this post was directed at. I'll therefore have to assume it's some generic "you".

Click to expand...

I'm sure that was how it was meant. I think what Old fashioned Girl was saying is that no one should be calling republicans or democrats derogotory names just for being a member of that party. Nor should we do that for any other party.

Or course, Old Fashioned Girl is free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I think OFG's post was directed at this:

PinkAmy said:

The title of your post is an oxymoron (emphasis on MORON).

Click to expand...

I think it's a mistake to make this kind of blanket dismissal. Not just a violation of RYFW (which I'm sure you'll be hearing about, welcome to P&CE), but an actual mistake. Yes, there is some dumb on the right, but there's plenty on the left as well. And there are plenty of conservatives (both here and on the national stage) who are smart as hell. I virtually always disagree with conservatives, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. There are a lot of issues where the basic facts aren't in question, but there's plenty of room for interpretation as to what the facts mean. At that point both left and right tend to interpret the evidence according to their worldview and declare it absolute truth. Because the evidence is ambiguous, there's no way for either side to be proved right or wrong. It makes for some intractable arguments, and it's tempting to throw up your hands and say 'these guys are idiots.' Which is politics in a nutshell, I guess.

I'm not just saying this, either. If you want to see conservative smarts in action PM me and I'll give you some names of P&CErs to pick fights with.

PinkAmy said:

The title of your post is an oxymoron (emphasis on MORON) .

Click to expand...

Ahhhh ha. I totally skipped this post.

Outdated jargon for mentally retarded people isn't good to throw around in P&CE.

By "best" healthcare system they apparently mean "most expensive, while providing below average quality of results relative to other industrialized nations"? An interesting use of the superlative.

Boston Steve said:

By "best" healthcare system they apparently mean "most expensive, while providing below average quality of results relative to other industrialized nations"? An interesting use of the superlative.

Click to expand...

No, they mean the best for those who have either money (like Steve Jobs) or who are provided with a top tier health plan. (Like members of congress)

For those people, it's quite good.

Thanks, y'all. Amy, have a looksee at this sticky, and then I think you'll see where folks were coming from on the "moron" thing.

However, I do want to say that I am increasingly disappointed with the Republicans current obstructionist ways. Conservative doesn't always mean they oppose change, though of course, in practice, that's often what ends up happening. And of course, words like "change" and "solutions" look different depending upon your viewpoint. I think all viewpoints deserve a decent airing, if for no other reason than to make sure things are being looked at from all sides -- less gets missed that way.

Just because something is old doesn't make it irrelevant, nor does a progressive viewpoint necessarily mean that it's inherently better. Some things are learned by studying history, and others by looking ahead instead of behind. *shrug* Neither stance is particularly right or wrong in and of itself, imo.

I have no idea if any of that actually made any sense, but I hope so. *pours more coffee*

Cranky said:

Conservative doesn't always mean they oppose change, though of course, in practice, that's often what ends up happening.

And of course, words like "change" and "solutions" look different depending upon your viewpoint. I think all viewpoints deserve a decent airing, if for no other reason than to make sure things are being looked at from all sides -- less gets missed that way.

Click to expand...

This time, I know I'm being responded to indirectly, as I'm the only one who used the word "change". Thanks

Please cite your favorite definition of conservatism that conflicts with the definition I gave: "They want things to stay the way they are, or, worse, to go back to the way they imagine things were in some idealized, romanticized past." The only quibble I can see there is my value judgements ("worse", characterization of past as "idealized, romanticized").