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Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.
Another view?
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If we learned from the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, then we should realize that the key to resolution through compromise is derived from the relationship of the parties involved in the process. In these recently concluded negotiations, the final negotiations were originated in the Senate and the final deal was consummated only when Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden entered into discussions. The president, Harry Reid and the Republican-controlled House had to get out of the way.
Although the results were imperfect and did not gain acceptance from the extreme representatives on the left or right, the fiscal cliff was avoided because the right two people were involved in the main negotiations.
Based on the fiscal cliff negotiations, the next phase of fiscal negotiations should be turned over to these two long-standing friends and associates. The president’s place should be to lead by assigning these negotiations to the Senate and appoint Vice President Biden as his principal agent for reaching an acceptable resolution.
Biden and McConnell did get a deal but it was a very poor one. If we accept this level of performance from these two parties and our current elected representatives, our economic path will continue to trend downward.
All that was accomplished was to make 'one' decision and push all others down the road. This will not get the job done.
Michael
Here is a strange idea. Maybe the Senate could pass a budget this year
-----
Some Democrats are livid with the idea that Conservatives will extend raising the debt ceiling until May - until after Reid and the Senate must pass the Budget.
But this is really what Obama demands. That the debt ceiling should be raised to reflect the laws - the obligations - passed by Congress.
That requires that a budget resolution must be passed by the Senate. Only 51 votes are required.
This budget resolution sets limits on revenues and spending that may be enforced in Congress through procedural points of order. The President's proposed 2014-2023 budget will be submitted shortly allowing Reid to pass a budget for the first time in four years. Last year Obama purpose a ten year spending budget of $4.7 trillion based on $6.6 trillion in new debt and Obama campaigned to reduce this debt by $4 trillion
The Senate budget resolution would also reconcile the Sequester that Democrats have suddenly become concerned
---
Recent poll found that 83% of the people think our spending is out of control
It would mean something to have a budget
---
The fiscal cliff deal was small but successful. And the thanks go to Biden and Boehner, not the President and Reid.
Reid is falling fast. He has two issues that the GOP will beat him over the head with.
First, is gun culture and the President's latest actions for gun law reforms. The Senate, since 1994, has avoided it [gun controls], and still since 2007 with Reid as Speaker and an NRA top rated supporter.
Second, is Reid and the Senate's joint failure to pass an annual budget for 48 months, AS REQUIRED BY LAW. Both matters [gun control and budget] will come back to haunt Reid and the Senate this year, and particularly in the weeks and months ahead with 3 triple witching economic events: The debt ceiling increase, continuing resolution expiration on March 27, and sequester on March 1.
Stand by people. It's going to be a rocky ride for Reid and the Senate. And some of us will likely enjoy it and others not.
CarmineD
Mea culpa: SB Senate Leader not Speaker. I hate when that happens.
CDF
We must not forget who put us in the fiscal cliff predicament in the first place. Both party politicians are equally responsible for where we are. Does anyone care that in the past four years we have put our country $ 6 trillion farther in debt ? Even Paul Ryan added funds to the fiscal cliff bill before it was signed, for his home state of Wisconsin. It's about time the federal government stopped the spending. A few hundred billion each for mass transportation, welfare, illegals, state insurance agencies, farmer subsidies for movie or music stars no problem. Government grants for anything, no problem. Give some thought to what will happen when we default on our loans to Japan and China. What will the world courts do, dissolve the U.S ?
Nothing will improve until more jobs are created. Any economic plan that doesn't focus primarily on putting people back to work is a waste of precious time.
We are not going to default on our debt. What will happen if we don't get spending under control, is that other spending will be crowed out because the debt payments are so high.
We still can't find the middle ground. We need more employment which can be assisted with some government spending. However, government spending in some areas must be reduced to provide for more spending in other areas and overall spending must be reduced over time until the economy is doing better.
I view with dismay those that say we just have to cut spending, as well as those that claim we just have to spend whatever it takes until the economy improves. Both of those positions are wrong headed and they do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Michael
So here comes Motors logic from Mom's basement. Since he thinks that the Senate doesn't have to pass a budget due to the budget "out of control" act of 2011, what about the three years prior to that?
Crickets!
Reid is a pawn for this administration, because he can't be that stupid to think its alright to run the country without a budget.
And Mr. Motor since you say you have a business even with your "Mom's basement " logic you need to have a budget. You probably just wing it and rely on Mommy to bail you out. Sounds like a Democratic thing to me.
don't you just love how these extreme right wingers are always telling the president how to do his job???
hee hee hee...
and oh by the way...
why is it that their suggestions just happen to always improve their negotiating posture???
hoo hoo hoo...
too funny...
haa haa haa...
oh by the way part deux...
i hereby predict...
ole mitch is serving his last term in politics...
bye bye mitchie...
you are just as a mean ole political hack who makes far far too many personal attacks...
toodles!!!
The right wingers are a joke. They talk about the Democrats not producing a budget but they never mention the fact that all during the Bush junior years, we FOUGHT TWO WARS with out putting the cost of the wars in the Bush budget...
Bush & his "war administration" just borrowed and borrowed, and borrowed to fight their wars, never stopping to realize that sooner or later we were going to be forced to pay back the money that we were borrowing....
I get a real kick out of people such as chuckie, Future, & Carmine who refuse to see or believe that anything good has happened under President Obama....
Yet, the latest polls show that the popularity of President Obama is the highest it has been in over three years....
Hey chuckie, Future & Carmine....why is that?
Of course, Obama easily won re-election over that "mitten's guy." I wonder how many of the right-wingers on this board actually remember anything about "mittens?"
Yep, that "mitten's guy" had some great ideas, didn't he?
Of course, "mittens" can always make another run for the White House in 2016.......he's pretty much all the "Great Obstructionists Party (GOP) has to offer....
I see where most of the Republicans have left Washington for the week-end. They best be careful doing that, however...
Their absence will give credence to the fact that it really doesn't matter if they're in Washington or not......either way, they contribute NOTHING to moving the country forward!
If you can call the fiscal cliff agreeement a success,than everyone should be happy?
When you try and negotiate a deal with Sen.Mitch McConnell on anything, he gives in to no one.It's only after he paints himself into a corner. That he himself ends up calling, V.P.Biden to bail him out. And we end up with half a deal,but half a deal is better than no deal.
Sen.McConnell's main interest is keeping the teabag party together,at all costs.
When the midterm elections take place, we will all see the "Let's ditch Mitch" replacement happen. It wiil be then that he will place a call to V.P.Biden, and ask Joe what happened? What did I do wrong?
I marvel at those that say that since the defense industry makes a lot of money, we can't reduce spending anywhere. What kind of screwed up logic is that?
The defense budget can and should be reduced. If one doesn't want to make any changes to Medicare and Social Security, the two largest expenses the government has, then make reductions elsewhere, or raise taxes to a higher level to cover the expenses.
I blame the Republicans and the Democrats for being unwilling to make the above choices.
Michael
McTurtlehead is up for reelection in 2014 so he's sure to get teabagged in the primary. The purity police are coming for his hide, er, shell, just as they did for Bennett in Utah and Lugar in Indiana. A 97% rating on voting for conservative legislation just doesn't cut it anymore.
The tea party might have lower approvals than colon cancer but as long as there's a single breath in their corpse they'll be taking hostages. No one escapes their unreasonable demands without a fight.
One bad decision usually brings on another. Republican supporters stood idly by and also re-elected many representatives that cooperated with Democrats that are far to the left. As a response to that, the Tea Party came into being, and many Tea Party representatives decided to not cooperate at all.
Having people that won't work with the other side is not productive, but I hope people also remember that to have people that really just mirror their opposite number is also fraught with peril.
Michael
Our nation's bipartisan political bickering and political gridlock has made us the laughing stock of the world. Leadership and governance has become a real joke.
American Lawmakers need to do their elected responsibility and come to compromise, come to terms, and get the job of setting a budget and taking care of our nation and its People!
Both Biden and McConnell set an example, however miniscule it is, towards working together for the common good.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Is Bob Jack advocating for a Joe Biden presidency?
;)
I have been a Republican since Eisenhower was President. I voted for Clinton when he and Perot conspired to remove Bush 41. I have voted for various Democrats in other offices also. If I were a resident of Kentucky I would seriously work to remove that old relic McConnell. Only because he has made a fool of himself by saying that the GOP's number one job was to make sure Obama didn't get a second term. What a gaffe! It is obvious enough that the GOP would work to get rid of Obama, why state the obvious? He is a pigeon brain. He needs to be removed as does Reid over on the left. He is another flannel mouth shoot from the hip doofus.
The lobbyists and under-the-table also the politicans made a killing off the cliff deal similar to ObamaCare.
Biden and McConnell are two peas in pod.
Reid and Obama are right there with them along with Boehner.
They are all there just to make money for themselves and their friends and family.
It is all one big scam.
The ideologs are just a distriction.
The country is on path toward destruction under the weight of corruption and debt. It will happen somewhere between the next 20 to 40 years.
You can't stop it.
Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Perhaps join the club and make a dime off the government. There are plenty that are doing it.
They are printing money like it is going out of style.
Don't worry about your children or grand children. They will just have to work harder and learn to live with less and probably with less freedom too.
SgtRock,
I'm glad to know that there are a few people out there that understand that the people representing us are selling us out, for their own benefit and that of powerful interests of all kinds.
It's too bad there are many more dumb asses that believe that there are 'certain groups' of people that actually 'want' young people killed in wars and 'want' to see environmental degradation.
It's mind boggling that people can so easily believe that a certain group of people are just 'evil' to the max, but can't recognize that our representatives (all of them) simply are a part of a corrupted Congressional system that personally benefits them, to the countries detriment, as long as they sell us out to powerful interests with money and lobbyists.
It's amazing that there are this many absolutely dumb Americans.
Michael
Oh, how I wish that McConnell would lose in the next election where he runs... along with with Boehner, Cantor, Reid, Pelosi, McCain, Schummer, Boxer and oh so many others. Perhaps then, we would stand a tiny chance of reforming Congress so that it wasn't just a bunch of elected representatives that play the entrenched corruption game that benefits them, the lobbying industry and those that employ lobbyists.
Michael
But the "leaders" think the bickering works--allows them to mimic for the media and appear to be "fighting for" us. The sound bites are sickening and played over and over again AS IF we believe the pantomimes. We re-elect the worthless and unproductive when all they are good at is bipartisanship and playing the media.
Anyone who generalizes and then actually believes and states that people who support the Republican party 'want' young people to die in wars and 'want' environmental degradation is half a loaf short.
These are talking points spewed by people like Nancy Pelosi, who have an agenda that includes keeping her very nice job in Congress as a top priority. People who mimic but don't think, repeat this nonsense.
It's the same on the right, with the oft repeated ' Obama wants to destroy America'. Either way, with either claim, the people who repeat this nonsense have stored what brains they have in a jar, and there is just a bunch of empty space between their ears.
Michael
It's like the old joke; "Where are we going?" "I don't know, but we're making good time."
Bob Jack......
PRESIDENT OBAMA, Vice President Biden and
Harry Reid got the job done.
Give credit where credit is due.
Mitch had no choice but to go along for the
DEMOCRATIC ride.
Thank God Democrats run this country.
LIVE BETTER/WORK UNION!
"Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about."
-Mark Twain
Right on, Commenter SgtRock, who stated, "The lobbyists and under-the-table also the politicans made a killing off the cliff deal similar to ObamaCare.
Biden and McConnell are two peas in pod.
Reid and Obama are right there with them along with Boehner.
They are all there just to make money for themselves and their friends and family.
It is all one big scam.
The ideologs are just a distriction.
The country is on path toward destruction under the weight of corruption and debt. It will happen somewhere between the next 20 to 40 years.
You can't stop it.
Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Perhaps join the club and make a dime off the government. There are plenty that are doing it.
They are printing money like it is going out of style.
Don't worry about your children or grand children. They will just have to work harder and learn to live with less and probably with less freedom too."
We all know, are fully aware, that Lawmakers are doing the will of those who line their campaign pockets. Citizens want action, not all the lip-service that seems to permeate government this past half century.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Equally amazing is the fact that EL_Lobo gets upset that we can find no good in what Obama has done. EL_Lobo could find no good in what Bush 43 did either. it is simply amazing!