The Mandate: Republicans Were Elected to Stop Barack Obama, Not to Work with Him

[Darnell 8,478]

Would it not benefit all of us to curb Obama's abuse of power? Make an example of him to show any future leaders that it won't be tolerated?

Yes, Uncle Spookies, Yes.

<EOM>

[Darnell 8,478]

The people spoke in the election yesterday. Why do they want a liar in office who goes against the Constitution? Why does the GOP want it?

because sons of cultural anthropologists, who practice their tradecraft through marriage, should be put down?

That's my thought, however malformed.

[UncleBeer 244]

I bet the amnesty order is getting scaled down right now.

Nope; he'll force a constitutional crisis just for laughs.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Back to topic. Now that Republican leadership had a day to digest, they seem to have just two words for Rush Limbaugh: F$#@ You!

Top Republicans: Get ready to make deals

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Congressional Republican leaders are sending subtle warnings to the right wing of their party: The days of crisis-dominated Washington are over.

House Speaker John Boehner’s allies are quietly telling members he wants to be a “responsible leader.” Incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed little willingness to use the debt ceiling as leverage for spending cuts. And top Republicans in both chambers have even showed a new eagerness to cut deals with the White House and allow Democratic proposals to come before the Senate.

Emboldened by sweeping midterm election victories, Republican leaders are vowing not to repeat the errors of past years, when messy fiscal fights eroded public confidence in Washington and became the hallmark of the GOP-controlled House.

“There will be no government shutdown, and there will be no national default,” said McConnell, speaking here at a news conference at the University of Louisville.

Asked whether he would insist on spending cuts as part of a debt ceiling increase, something House and Senate conservatives have demanded in past years, McConnell signaled he would pursue other avenues instead.

“I think we have other mechanisms that were unavailable to us with the previous configuration of the government,” McConnell said.

Much is on the line for the GOP. In 2016, Republicans will once again have a shot at retaking the White House, and they could lose control of the Senate after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to win it back in Tuesday’s elections.

They want to be confrontational with the president, but not to overreach, which might mean taking a more moderate approach than many on the right would like. Only time will tell whether they can overcome the influence of their activist base.

In seeking support for reelection as House speaker, Boehner is telling colleagues that Congress is on the brink of achieving big things, and the party needs to stick together to take advantage of the political climate. His allies are privately spreading the message that Boehner will be a “responsible” leader, according to sources familiar with the message.

Whether that approach will last remains to be seen — and conservatives are dubious that GOP leaders can work with the White House as they have vowed to do.

“President [barack] Obama is not ’90s-era Bill Clinton,” said Dan Holler, spokesman for the conservative group Heritage Action for America.

Still, Republican leaders may have reason to feel more free to stand up to conservatives in their party. In Tuesday’s elections, Republicans won their biggest House majority since the Truman era, while taking back the Senate for the first time since 2006. Their Senate victories were powered by pushing establishment-backed candidates in places like North Carolina, Georgia and Colorado, a far cry from 2010 and 2012 when the GOP’s intraparty civil war cost it a chance at the Senate majority and forced Republicans to shift markedly to the right.

“I’m pretty familiar with our conference including the new members who are coming in,” McConnell said Wednesday . “The vast majority of them don’t feel they were sent to Washington to fight all the time.”

Same goes for the House. The National Republican Congressional Committee — led by Chairman Greg Walden of Oregon and recruitment chairman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina — thinks it fielded a group of middle-of-the-road candidates who claim they are more interested in getting things done than in battling one another. McHenry said candidates campaigned on the “right message, and now they’ve gotta carry it out in the next two years.” Unlike elections past, House Republicans will include lawmakers from the moderate suburbs of Chicago as well as from New Hampshire and upstate New York.

“What this election did is give us a working majority where we have at least 218 votes to pass a Republican agenda, and what I think will be a responsible Republican agenda,” said Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), a close ally of Boehner.

“We’re not veering hard right, we’re playing it straight down the fairway, to use a Boehner-ism.”

And even the one man who has caused the most problems for McConnell — tea party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — called up the GOP leader to congratulate him on his resounding win over Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.

“Let me just make a prediction for you: A week from tomorrow, I will be elected majority leader of the Senate,” McConnell said confidently when asked about Cruz withholding support for him so far.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Mr. Big Dog

[Karee 4,190]

Figures. There should absolutely be spending cuts tied to raising the debt ceiling. It's irresponsible to not demand that.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Figures. There should absolutely be spending cuts tied to raising the debt ceiling. It's irresponsible to not demand that.

Yes, because these spending cuts have done such a great job for everyone.

If you are skeptical that the federal government has actually cut spending, consider the facts: Federal spending totaled $3.504 trillion in fiscal 2014, 2.7% lower than the $3.603 trillion spent in 2011, and 0.4% lower than the $3.518 trillion spent in 2009. The last time federal spending declined over a five-year period was 1947 to 1951.

Excluding the fast-growing Social Security and Medicare programs, federal spending was 11% lower in 2014 than it was in 2009.

In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, total federal spending was 9% lower in 2014 than in 2009, even though the population was 4% larger and the over-65 population was 16% larger.

As a share of gross domestic product, federal spending was lower in 2014 than at any point in Ronald Reagan’s two terms in office.

The spending cuts are real. Let’s recall how they came to be.

In January 2009, the new Obama administration came in with big ambitions to increase federal spending. The immediate need was to pass a stimulus bill to prevent the economy from sinking into a depression. Republicans (with a few exceptions) wouldn’t cooperate, even after Democrats loaded up the stimulus bill with GOP-friendly tax cuts and infrastructure spending in every congressional district.

In the past, Republicans had generally supported temporary stimulus measures, but that changed with the election of Barack Obama. And when the Tea Party swept the Republicans into a majority in the House in the 2010 midterms, the party began to say “no” to federal spending in general.

The Republicans were still the minority party in government, but they put a lot of pressure on Obama and the congressional Democrats, using every procedural and political tool at their disposal. In the summer of 2011, the Republicans took the government to the brink of default on its debt, which led to an agreement with Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to cut spending, by automatically sequestering funds if necessary.

A year ago, the Republicans again forced the issue with a 16-day partial shutdown of the federal government, which led to another agreement with the Democrats on spending cuts.

From this history, it’s clear that Republicans should get most of the credit (or blame) for the decline in federal spending over the past five years. Obama and the congressional Democrats were led kicking and screaming to the altar.

They didn’t like it, but they agreed. Since then, Obama has pivoted to talking about economic opportunity and inequality, but to little effect.

Experience shows what a disastrous policy the spending reductions were. Cutting your way to growth didn’t work in the eurozone, and it didn’t work in the United States (although thankfully our austerity was mild compared with theirs). The Congressional Budget Office figured earlier this year that economic output was about $622 billion smaller this year than it would have been if we had been at full employment.

For the 10 years between 2008 and 2017, the CBO figured that lost output would total $6.2 trillion, about one-third of annual gross domestic product.

About 6 million more people would be working today if we’d had pro-growth policies instead of the austerity forced upon us by the Republicans. And those of us who do have jobs have seen our wages stagnate because there’s so much slack in the labor market that very few workers have any bargaining power at all with their bosses.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/26757-at-the-polls-remember-who-wrecked-the-economy-republicans-austerity-has-cost-6-million-jobs

Edited November 6, 2014 by Mr. Big Dog

[Karee 4,190]

Yes, because these spending cuts have done such a great job for everyone.

You have any other socialist opinion pieces in your back pocket you'd like to put forth?

It's simple math. Let me spell it out for you. Our debt is now over 100% of the entire economic output of the United States for 1 year. I'm not talking about the federal budget, I'm talking the entire economy. The debt is 17+ trillion dollars. The entire federal budget for 2014 is 3.9 trillion. In simple terms that would mean the govt. would have to spend zero dollars for 4+ years just to break even. Something has to give. Either increased taxes (harmful to the economy) or reduced govt. spending (also harmful to the economy, but not nearly as bad as tax increases IMO)

I'm not sure why you're such a big fan of govt. spending. They've shown over and over again that they are not responsible with other people's money.

[UncleBeer 244]

The debt is 17+ trillion dollars.

I remember a nice young man saying that runaway deficit spending is "unpatriotic". Whatever happened to him?

[Karee 4,190]

I remember a nice young man saying that runaway deficit spending is "unpatriotic". Whatever happened to him?

He got elected and then threw all of those promises out the window. Just like they all do. Republicans included, as you can see by their sudden policy change when it comes to tying raising the debt ceiling to spending cuts.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

You have any other socialist opinion pieces in your back pocket you'd like to put forth?

It's simple math. Let me spell it out for you. Our debt is now over 100% of the entire economic output of the United States for 1 year. I'm not talking about the federal budget, I'm talking the entire economy. The debt is 17+ trillion dollars. The entire federal budget for 2014 is 3.9 trillion. In simple terms that would mean the govt. would have to spend zero dollars for 4+ years just to break even. Something has to give. Either increased taxes (harmful to the economy) or reduced govt. spending (also harmful to the economy, but not nearly as bad as tax increases IMO)

I'm not sure why you're such a big fan of govt. spending. They've shown over and over again that they are not responsible with other people's money.

Socialist opinion pieces? On Marketwatch which is a Dow Jones & Co publication. Yeah, that's it. Those commies on Wall Street, I tell ya'.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I remember a nice young man saying that runaway deficit spending is "unpatriotic". Whatever happened to him?

That young man became President and reduced spending to levels below what Reagan was ever able to muster. That's what happened to him.

[Karee 4,190]

Socialist opinion pieces? On Marketwatch which is a Dow Jones & Co publication. Yeah, that's it. Those commies on Wall Street, I tell ya'.

Every organization needs to have a commie on staff to appear balanced. Even Fox News has cue ball Carville.

[JohnR! 5,495]

You'll make heads explode when you start speaking of today's dollars, percentages and all that. Pictures are good. They understand pictures and colors, though.

That young man became President and reduced spending to levels below what Reagan was ever able to muster. That's what happened to him.

[Karee 4,190]

You'll make heads explode when you start speaking of today's dollars, percentages and all that. Pictures are good. They understand pictures and colors, though.

Wow! You hit that one out of the park!

[Teddy B 17,252]