Moderate Republicans should...

NJlonghorn

NJlonghorn

2,500+ Posts
...approach Obama and the Dems about a compromise Speaker of the House. The new speaker would have to be Republican and caucus with the GOP, but the Democrats would give him/her enough votes to replace Beinhart (I know it's spelled wrong, but I'm drawing a blank).

This would send a real message to the conservative wing of the GOP that they will NOT be in charge for the next 2 years. Also, this would allow Obama to move right a bit, distancing himself from the liberal Democrats with whom he isn't all that comfortable.
 
I know many people want to paint President Obama as a true liberal, but he isn't. He has tried repeatedly to broker compromises, but the liberals and the entire GOP have been unwilling partners. Simpson Bowles abandoned much of the liberal agenda, and Obama was on board.

We shouldn't forget that saving money when the economy is good (a la Clinton) and spending it when the economy is bad (a la Obama) is, at it's core, an economically conservative strategy. Many of the details are far from conservative, but the basic approach is not all that liberal.
 
I disagree. First, Obama is very comfortable with the liberal Democrats, because he came from that wing of the Party when he was a Senator. Philosophically, he's always been closer to McGovern than to Clinton. His movement to the middle was to keep his entire first term from having no accomplishments at all.

Second, though Boehner is a conservative, he's not a Michele Bachmann. He is solutions-oriented. In fact, he and Obama came close to reaching a deal back in 2011.

If you toss Boehner for a more moderate Republican, you won't get any deal. Why not? Because liberal Democrats won't support any deal that makes meaningful cuts in social spending. Furthermore, they are emboldened by the election, so they're going to dig in. They are useless no matter who is Speaker.

If you shitcan Boehner, you'll lose every Republican to his right (which is probably 200 votes). The few that stick around won't be enough to pass anything once you leave out the liberal Democrats that won't support any spending cuts.

The Grover Norquist wing of the GOP caucus may be hostile to anything that has a tax increase of any kind in it. However, they just got beaten, and they know it. The most hardcore members still won't fold, but many of them will - certainly more of them than of the liberal Democrats.

Any respectable compromise will probably get 150 - 175 GOP votes and maybe 75 Democratic votes in the House. If you've just taken a piss on the entire GOP caucus by ousting their Speaker, you'll be lucky to get 30 GOP votes. That's not going to be enough.
 
it is easy to say they should shift,but I think you have to realize that those in the house feel that they have as much or more of a mandate than the president does. Everyone of the members of the house just won their election and there was no leftward shift. Boehner is going to lead the GOP caucus and he's already reached out to show he's willing but to expect some drastic shift I think is unrealistic.

The one thing you always have in the House is that they all have get re-elected so some may be more willing to compromise and some are going to take a very hard line, just depends on their constituents expectations.
 
R35, you act like an baby that just lost his pacifier. There is no mandate and liberals refusing to agree to anything while expecting conservatives to bend over and take it just draws a line in the sand. If your party continues to use strong arm tactics all it will do is divide the gap more.

If you expect tax increases, we expect immediate entitlement cuts. Are you willing to compromise?

I'm getting to the point of not agreeing to anything except a balanced budget amendment.
 
Deez,

Based on this and other of your posts I've seen, I know that we share the same goal -- moderately conservative fiscal policy. We need to do something to silence the far right and the far left.

I'm not sure I share your opinion about where Obama and Boehner fit on the political spectrum, but you seem to be more closely connected to politics.
 
Having observed the fiscal cliff negotiations play out, I am forced to admit that I was wrong and Mr. Deez was right about the balance of power in the various wings of the GOP, and where the Speaker fits in the continuum.

I suppose if I'm gonna eat humble pie, it might as well be served by someone as reasonable as Mr. Deez.
 
They should return to the 2007 budget +2% growth calculated per year to arrive at the starting point for the 2013 budget. I'm guessing that would be a substantial cut due to the hugely expansive increases started in 2008, extended in 2009, and then a bit more each year from there.

2008 and 2009 truly set the new paradigm for spending that should have been retracted due to the rareness of the events that happened then. Instead the pandering to special interests and extensions of huge amounts of spending largesse are now seemingly set in stone as if 2008/2009 were not hugely expansive increases in spending levels for extra ordinary reasons.

Too bad that is and will never be acknowledged by the mainstream pols on either side.

It is a spending problem. That should be dealt with by across the board cuts and possibly giving back some discretionary money to be placed where the currently elected leadership feels the spending is best spent.

Such as , step 1, cutting X% and then giving back X/3% back to be spread back as evenly or as unevenly AS CAN BE DECIDED WHEN AN ACTUAL BUDGET PROCESS TAKES PLACE AND IS PASSED BY HOUSE, SENATE, signed by President. (a novel idea I know)

Step 2 is to repeat step 1 every other year while allowing the odd years to grow at 2% extra funds(not adjusted for inflation) to be dispersed as the leadership sees fit.

Step 3 is to rinse and repeat Step 2 till the total debt is down in the <5 trillion dollar range which could happen in about 8 to 10 years if the leadership did it right.(pro-growth means, reduce special interests, reduce one offs)

What this does is forces the efficiency of each and every department in the government to cut waste and abuses while giving the leadership a bit of freedom to apply some dollars from the limited give back pool to the most needed places.

Hard decisions to make to be sure but overall the government would be acknowledging the seriousness of the fiscal problem that is developing at the low end of the coming logrithmic debt to come if interest rates start to spiral upwards beyond the best efforts of the Fed.

If that starts the double digit trillions in total Debt will quickly turn to triple digits in total Debt owed by the US. Think about that for a minute.

Nah, we don't need no stinkin budget. Cicero had it right. Who cares if Rome is starting to burn because we have a party to attend.
 
Until we fix the rules of Congress they don't give a **** about anything but getting re-elected and allowing themselves to steal from this country blind. Congress has been stealing from this country blind since at least the early 1900's.

No more career politicians would be nice as well.....

Complete Finanical Disclosure, not estimates, on a yearly basis and term limits. I also want the government to be run on Zero Based Budgeting, not Baseline budgeting. Complete Pentagon Procurement overhaul......

Do what you want about the Fiscal Cliff and every other smokescreen they throw at us the core of the issues are not being addressed.
 
At the risk of being a slobber, gushing sap, and going off topic, I'd like to jump on the Mr Deez bandwagon. My vote for poster of the year. Intelligent, reasonable, fair and humble/respectful. A rare combination on this board.
The Terry Crews pics....the icing on the cake.
 
Thanks guys, and feel free to jump on the bandwagon. There's plenty of room. In all seriousness, I'm glad you guys enjoy my posts. I try to think for myself and keep it reasonably civil. Kudos to you all as well.

And Terry Crews rocks. He played my favorite character in one of my favorite movies, and I liked him in Everybody Hates Chris (an underrated show). Not only that, he's a good guy in real life - married to the same woman for over 20 years, who's the mother to all of his children, churchgoing Christian, and isn't your typical Hollywood idiot on politics. He says he's for political leaders "who encourage individual responsibility, no matter the party." My kind of guy.
 
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