State of the Union

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
185

[quote]100meters wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
ZEB wrote:

Did you notice that Hillary seemed to be getting a lot of “face” time on the screen?

Yeah, she did. Once when W. Bush mentioned that Clinton and W. Bush were two of G.W. Bush’s favorite baby boomers. The cameras panned to her and showed her gritting her teeth.

Then she got more when she did the standing O thing and applauded Congress’ killing off of any attempt to fix Social Security…

It wasn’t an attempt to fix S.S. hence the applause. Remember the admin said privatized accounts do nothing to increase the viability of S.S. (oh, and it’s still not broken)[/quote]

What have the dems offered as an alternative to fix SS?

186

Flamer,

I’m not sure this a fair criticism. I know it is used a lot, but I think it is precisely because the dems are not in a position to offer anything.

They don’t have the presidency. They don’t have any majorities. There is no major election going on. It’s really not possible for them to put together the proposals.

Even if they came up with the best proposal on the planet, nobody would run with it. Nobody, politically, would be able to take direction from the minority dems.

I suspect this is a talking point. The next time the dems control everything, I’ll make it a point not to deride the repubs for not being able to put forth any serious proposals.

However, yes, if they fail to have anything to talk about during the next election cycle, that would be bad. At the same time, perhaps next election we could listen to what they say, instead of blast around politically motivated smear campaigns designed to eliminate a candidates strong points.

I doubt it though.

187

The only real SS fix is reducing payments.

This is political suicide for either party so they won’t do it yet.

The stock market SS proposal may have been a good thing to protect those that were going to put their money in stocks. It would have made it harder for the government to reduce these benefits when the inevitable problems occur.

188

[quote]vroom wrote:
What have the dems offered as an alternative to fix SS?

Flamer,

I’m not sure this a fair criticism. I know it is used a lot, but I think it is precisely because the dems are not in a position to offer anything.

They don’t have the presidency. They don’t have any majorities. There is no major election going on. It’s really not possible for them to put together the proposals.

Even if they came up with the best proposal on the planet, nobody would run with it. Nobody, politically, would be able to take direction from the minority dems.

I suspect this is a talking point. The next time the dems control everything, I’ll make it a point not to deride the repubs for not being able to put forth any serious proposals.

However, yes, if they fail to have anything to talk about during the next election cycle, that would be bad. At the same time, perhaps next election we could listen to what they say, instead of blast around politically motivated smear campaigns designed to eliminate a candidates strong points.

I doubt it though.[/quote]

That’s a cop-out. Newt led the Republican revolution with powerful ideas, not a majority of Congress. The dems just sit back and criticize, hoping that the U.S. will eventually fall into such disrepair that people will give up on the Republicans. That is a pussy approach to politics.

189

[quote]vroom wrote:
What have the dems offered as an alternative to fix SS?

Flamer,

I’m not sure this a fair criticism. I know it is used a lot, but I think it is precisely because the dems are not in a position to offer anything.
[/quote]

vroom, surely they are in a position to offer an idea or two. We all know the media would flock to any democrat who had an answer to this problem.

190

[quote]vroom wrote:

I suspect this is a talking point. The next time the dems control everything, I’ll make it a point not to deride the repubs for not being able to put forth any serious proposals.[/quote]

If the Democrats don’t offer alternatives, how exactly do they expect to gain in all the places they have no occupancy that you listed - Presidency, majority in Congress, governoships - and change the status quo?

Are they just going to get elected on good looks?

You seem to have a fundamental disconnect with how basic politics works - and the fact that the Democrats are not offering viable, plausible, creative alternatives is a failure of imagination of the leadership of the party. Further, being in the minority means the opposite of what you think - you have the free range to come with ideas and challenge (per the 1994 ‘Revolution’). After all what do you have to lose?

In your world, the Democratic candidate going into 2006 says “I have nothing different to offer you than the other guy, but vote for me anyway”.

And seriously, you must stop using the phrase ‘talking point’ - for whatever its worth, you have abused this term long enough. It is a lazy cop-out.

191

[quote]vroom wrote:
What have the dems offered as an alternative to fix SS?

Flamer,

I’m not sure this a fair criticism. I know it is used a lot, but I think it is precisely because the dems are not in a position to offer anything.

They don’t have the presidency. They don’t have any majorities. There is no major election going on. It’s really not possible for them to put together the proposals.

Even if they came up with the best proposal on the planet, nobody would run with it. Nobody, politically, would be able to take direction from the minority dems.

I suspect this is a talking point. The next time the dems control everything, I’ll make it a point not to deride the repubs for not being able to put forth any serious proposals.

However, yes, if they fail to have anything to talk about during the next election cycle, that would be bad. At the same time, perhaps next election we could listen to what they say, instead of blast around politically motivated smear campaigns designed to eliminate a candidates strong points.

I doubt it though.[/quote]

Vroom,

What I’m trying to say is that ideas are cheap and offering creative alternatives to the majority in power should be fairly easy. Just cruise this forum and it’s easy to see that ideas are cheap. If they thought the Republican reforms were crap than they should be offering a viable alternative to coincide with their criticism. Having their own unique vision for the country and pushing their own seperate agenda of reform should be their path back to power. As of now they just seem bitter and lost making it easy for the republicans.

Remamber Ross Perot? That guy fired up a shitload of people with his ideas. It sure didn’t cost him much to cruise the sunday morning political talk shows, put up his trademark charts and explain why his ideas were great and why the other party’s ideas sucked. As corny as those charts were, people liked them beacause he was actively pushing his own unique vision and agenda and explaining the why’s and how’s.

If bigflamer was in charge of the party instead of that nutjob Howard Dean, that is exactly what I would do. By only attacking the other party as much as absolutely necessary and intelligently pushing their vision for America, they could be a party to reckon with again instead of the joke that they’ve become.

One of the first things I would do is put Barack Obama in the spotlight as much as possible. He’s by far the dems brightest star. Every time I’ve seen him give an interview it’s exactly what the republicans don’t want to see from the dems. He always comes off as intelligent, moderated (unlike dean), grounded in his beliefs, and handles the tough questions well IMO.

192

Flamer,

When the dems offer ideas the political game is to shoot them all down. You think that they don’t offer any ideas or suggestions?

You guys just dismiss anything they say because of the source.

–

When it is election season, it is time to roll out the ideas and describe your platform.

Revealing your material to the attack dog politics of today when you don’t need to is just plain foolish.

You guys should really think about the talking points you are swallowing whole. The reason this is coming up at all is because the dems are not in a position of power, so the talking points are taking advantage of this to cast them as having nothing to say.

That’s simply the way politics works, but it would be nice if people would see it as such, and not just buy into everything they read.

193

[quote]vroom wrote:

You guys should really think about the talking points you are swallowing whole. The reason this is coming up at all is because the dems are not in a position of power, so the talking points are taking advantage of this to cast them as having nothing to say.[/quote]

How can it be ‘talking points’ when prominent players in the Democratic party are complaining of the same thing?

Your answer that every opinion contrary to yours is a ‘talking point’ has gone from comical to pathetic.

194

When what people are saying comes straight from media sources, and they don’t have anything to add by way of their own thinking, I do call it a talking point.

By the way, because dems do not have a united position, there will always be dems that agree with some repub position. This fact doesn’t necessarily prove or disprove much of anything.

195

I personnally think SS should go away. It’s each of our own responsibility to save money for retirement.

I’d slowly get rid of it.

196

[quote]vroom wrote:
Flamer,

When the dems offer ideas the political game is to shoot them all down. You think that they don’t offer any ideas or suggestions?

You guys just dismiss anything they say because of the source.

[/quote]

Vroom,

Of course that’s the political game, it’s always been a rough game. The problem is that their agenda is way, way too broad. They need to put forth specific ideas that would support their own vision of America. They’re more focused on attacking the Republicans than pushing their vision.

I think their website is a great example of this:

http://www.democrats.org/a/national/honest_government/

Compare that to the Republican website:

http://www.gop.com/Issues/SocialSecurity/

When you compare the two, you start to really see the difference. The Dems offer a short, very broad stance and spend the entire rest of the page attacking the republicans. The Republicans offer a much more specific aproach to the application of their ideas. I think the comparison really shows that the Dems are spending too much time on defense.

As I said previously, someone as intelligent and well spoken as Obama could convey that message in such a manner that would portray the GOP as petty if they were too attack their ideas viciously. Thereby putting the GOP on the defense and portraying themselves as the party of ideas.

197

[quote]Rockscar wrote:
I personnally think SS should go away. It’s each of our own responsibility to save money for retirement.

I’d slowly get rid of it. [/quote]

Not one politician of either party would ever have the guts to state such a thing, much less try to enact it.

198

[quote]Rockscar wrote:
I personnally think SS should go away. It’s each of our own responsibility to save money for retirement.

I’d slowly get rid of it. [/quote]

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Let ME invest MY money as I see fit and get the damn government out of the retirement game.

I can certainly do better than the 1.75% the government gives me now. I can remember when Lieberman said that SS was the greatest government program ever incepted. Yea sure.

A program that tells me how much money I’m going to give them to save for my retirement. And when it comes time to collect, they dictate the terms at which I’ll recieve that money. Doesn’t sound so great to me.

199

Capping it below the rate of inflation, which over time would do exactly that, is what I’ve proposed in this very thread.

But yeah, I’m betting nobody would have the guts to word it as above.