Government Shutdown

The Republicans who pushed for this don;t really care about the effects of a shutdown- as the Tea Party types don't approve of federal presence anyway, they think it is the type of thing that's good for the country.

But in the end, there is only one reason the hardcore faction has pushed for this, even though they knew the Democrats won't give in and it can't possibly work. It's because the likes of Ted Cruz know that being seen to make a stand will be tremendously popular in their home areas and will enable them to gain funding for future political bids, like Senatorial or even Presidential nominations.

Let’s conduct a brief thought exercise.

In 2007, Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and had deep political differences with then-President George W. Bush. Yet they passed a clean debt limit increase, with about as many Democrats as Republicans voting “aye.”

But imagine, for a moment, that Democrats had held the House two years earlier, in the fall of 2005, less than a year after Bush’s re-election. And imagine further that in exchange for not breaching the debt limit and bringing economic catastrophe down on the citizens of the United States, they had demanded that the Republican Senate pass, and the Republican president sign into law, all of the following: single-payer health-care, a federal living wage law (indexed to inflation, of course), the elimination of all oil subsidies, a roll-back of Bush’s tax cuts on high earners, strict limits on campaign financing, new regulations of greenhouse gas emissions and an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

This imagined list of 2005 demands is no further from the majority’s agenda than what House Republicans offered Democrats and the White House last week. Yet it’s hard to imagine that Politico would have dismissed this 2005 list as merely “demands for reform,” or that Time would have suggested that such maneuvers were routine — the narrative would have been that Dems had gone completely bonkers.

The difference is that, with a demographic tide going against them, Republicans have gradually jettisoned the norms that make democratic governance possible. First they filibustered virtually everything. Then they started creating these annual budget showdowns to fight for cuts in taxes and spending. Now they’re using the budget battle to advance the entire legislative agenda of the hard right. In essence, they have made crisis governance the new normal — but they did so incrementally.

Like frogs in the proverbial pot, many journalists have slowly acclimated to these extreme, democracy-suffocating circumstances and now seem incapable of describing what’s they’re seeing. Framing everything as a standard-issue partisan fight is almost a professional imperative for many journalists.

http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/30/shutdown-imminent-how-he-said-she-said-reporting-helped-bring-us-to-the-brink/

Originally posted by dadudemon
I could say that the Democrats are the ones at fault because they are supporting and got AHCA pushed through into law.

Additionally, a majority of Americans in almost every poll do not support the AHCA. Are the Republicans really at fault for taking actions that support what their constituents want or are the Democrats the ones really at fault for continuing down a path that their constituents do not want?

Lastly, the AHCA is NOT what the democrats and Obama promised us. I've talked about this before but the AHCA is a bastard of a piece of legislation that does not go anywhere close to social enough to be a solution.

HOWEVER(if you made it this far into my post, you'll finally get to the good part), it was the Republicans fault, to begin with, for causing this bastardized piece of legislation to pass, to begin with. The democrats had to force through many changes to get what we have, now. So, we are full-circle: it is the Republicans fault we are where we are. None of this would be happening had the Republicans not thrown a hissy fit over the socialistic nature of the originally proposed health care reform.

In fact, had the original ideas (which were not perfect, to be honest) made it through, I would support the AHCA.

The current law, quite frankly, is an Obamination. peaches

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I see your point, sort of, but I believe you're making a mistake in thinking that legislators ought to do what their constituents want in a healthy representative democracy, when I've always thought that healthy representative democracy means the legislators do what's best for the country, even if their constituents disagree. I've always thought that congressmen should ideally know better than the common voter what needs to be done, otherwise why should we elect them?

That's true to a point. We elect representatives because it would take too long for every single person to express their points. Additionally, most people don't have the time required to dedicate themselves to the process. So we elect people to devote their time and energy into the governing processes. Part of that is also their expertise that they bring.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
In almost every poll people show they are afraid of the word "Obamacare," IIRC polls that asked people about the specific parts of the law showed significant support for it.

There are some elements of AHCA that are quite good. The number 1 being the destruction of preexisting condition clauses in "compliant" plans.

Here is a great list, I think, for AHCA (except for 6):

http://thanksobamacare.org/

Originally posted by dadudemon
There are some elements of AHCA that are quite good. The number 1 being the destruction of preexisting condition clauses in "compliant" plans.

Here is a great list, I think, for AHCA (except for 6):

http://thanksobamacare.org/

#2 on that list actually gives American youth better coverage (in some respects) than Canadian. I lost coverage from my parent's benefits when I was in my early 20s, and diabetic supplies are expensive as hell.

EDIT: you are against restaurants having to provide the details about what is in the food they serve you?

Originally posted by Oliver North
EDIT: you are against restaurants having to provide the details about what is in the food they serve you?

Yup. I would prefer the businesses do that on their own and not be forced to do so. I'm pretty weird when it comes to forcing businesses to do stupid things. Maybe if there wasn't such variability in the food presented causing the calorie information to be useless (it cannot even be used a a guesstimate unless you go to extremely processed places like McDonald's), I would be more in favor of that.

Originally posted by dadudemon

Additionally, a majority of Americans in almost every poll do not support the AHCA. Are the Republicans really at fault for taking actions that support what their constituents want or are the Democrats the ones really at fault for continuing down a path that their constituents do not want?

http://tinyurl.com/nk97k27

Republicans know what polls show — that most Americans don’t know what’s in ObamaCare, but when told what the law actually includes, a strong majority support the law. [citations included on page]

Originally posted by dadudemon
Yup. I would prefer the businesses do that on their own and not be forced to do so. I'm pretty weird when it comes to forcing businesses to do stupid things. Maybe if there wasn't such variability in the food presented causing the calorie information to be useless (it cannot even be used a a guesstimate unless you go to extremely processed places like McDonald's), I would be more in favor of that.

lol, fair enough, i think that is asinine, but w/e

Originally posted by Ushgarak
There is no halfway negotiation point on this- that's a golden mean fallacy. Any delay or alteration to Obamacare as the Republicans are demanding is a Republican victory. Their tactic is to make Obama look unreasonable by not negotiating, but the simple fact is that the entire Republican approach is unreasonable in the first place, exploiting a weird loophole in the American system to try and extort changes to a bill resulting from an argument they already lost.

The Republicans are absolutely at fault, will lose this and will take most of the blame. Though to be fair on the Republicans, it's only an insane wing of their party causing this trouble- but that wing has the potential to cripple the party.

This is 100% correct. Polls are already showing the majority of Americans placing blame on Republicans for this whole travesty.

Originally posted by Oliver North
lol, fair enough, i think that is asinine, but w/e

Which part is asinine? The part where the nutrition facts are nigh useless unless the food you eat is almost perfectly measured out and frozen (and then deep fried and served)?

For that information to be useful, all portions and dishes would have to be prepared with precision. That's just not how it works in the real world. The nutrition facts give people a false idea of what their foods' Caloric content really is.

This is why many body builders, during the on-season, don't 'eat out' and use food scales at home.

Requiring this information is an exercise in nanny-state bullshit. It is also more useless information that does little to nothing to help people make real nutrition decisions.

The often stated whining I hear is, "But it at least gives you a ballpark! Surely that helps you diet plan, better?" No, no it doesn't. In fact, it can lull you into a false sense of exactitude in your meal plans. One man's 4 piece chicken 600 Calorie chicken strip meal is another lady's 4 piece 900 calorie chicken strip meal: same restaurant, same location, same "cook." Won't all of that average itself out? Maybe...sometimes. But if you're on a strict diet that forces you to have to check nutrition facts on everything you eat, maybe you shouldn't be eating out, to begin with?

If you really want specific nutrition fact information, don't rely on the government forcing organizations to provide that information. Also, there are independent groups that do much better jobs of determining nutrition facts.

What I would like to see is a nutrition facts range that gives you a range, capturing 90% (meaning, the range on the nutrition facts would capture 90% of the food offered, in the real world) of food offered, instead of the very misleading nutrition fact cards we get, now.

Also, pretty much every place you can go to that is not a small chain, already provides nutrition facts. This is why I view it as asinine legislation (which is the second thing I found asinine about that requirement).

I have low income and even I don't want Obamacare. If there's money being forcibly siphoned out of a middle class family's pocket just to give me health insurance, I'd like to give it back to them. I'm not a thief.

So we'll put you down for "Doesn't understand the law." then?

I know we already take money from eachother when it comes to paying taxes but Obamacare I believe is really pushing it.

YouTube video

not all relevant, but the part that is, is wonderful 😄

Originally posted by Nemesis X
I know we already take money from eachother when it comes to paying taxes but Obamacare I believe is really pushing it.

I hope this facilitates a change that make the Republican party go the way of the dodo.

Or at least fundamentally change again, as it has before.

Originally posted by Nemesis X
I know we already take money from eachother when it comes to paying taxes but Obamacare I believe is really pushing it.

Originally posted by Lord Lucien
If there's one thing that I think taxation should be spent on, it's the health of the people.

👆

Doesn't America spend about 700 billion on the military and not even close to that on health care? Yeah it sure does suck that they're taking more money for the latter, huh?

What if the people in question that "need" this Obamacare already have health care? It's so pointless unless that bill is helping the homeless.

Originally posted by Bardock42
I hope this facilitates a change that make the Republican party go the way of the dodo.

Or at least fundamentally change again, as it has before.