Democrats to dominate for next 40 years

[ray245]

It's interesting to know to Republicans considered John McCain as the most liberal candidate that a large amount of republicans can accept. In other words, the Republicans never viewed a general election as trying to gain votes from all groups of people, they view it as campaigning to draw the Republicans out of hiding. The belief that there is actually tons of hidden Republican around, hence there is no need to win votes from the moderates to such a huge extend.

When they found out that it is impossible to get enough votes in the 2008 election, they think about other ways to draw more republicans out of hiding, such as becoming even more conservative.

What they fail to realise is, the so called 'large amount of hidden Republicans' never really exist to begin with. It's the same why they have a strong belief in religion, that the possibility of such people not existing has never cross their mind, and will not change their mind when challenged.

[Rochey]

More seriously, I have to wonder how the fuck they could run up so much debt despite being such a small country, with such a small GDP. The city of Toronto alone has a GDP approaching that of Ireland.

Ireland's in the state we are now primarily because of our retarded polticians. The current political party in charge - Fianna Faíl - has for the last couple of decades been in charge of an Ireland where the economy was going brilliantly, during the time of the "Celtic Tiger". They wasted the money in all manners of retarted projects and constant pay-raises for themselves, and blatantly ignored the people who've been saying for years that this was going to happen to us. Even now they still don't have any idea what to do or any sort of plan to deal with the situation.
The only upside to this is that Fianna Faíl is virtualy going to cease to exist following the next elections.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but that's the situation in a nutshell.

[Patrick Degan]

It's interesting to know to Republicans considered John McCain as the most liberal candidate that a large amount of republicans can accept. In other words, the Republicans never viewed a general election as trying to gain votes from all groups of people, they view it as campaigning to draw the Republicans out of hiding. The belief that there is actually tons of hidden Republican around, hence there is no need to win votes from the moderates to such a huge extend.

When they found out that it is impossible to get enough votes in the 2008 election, they think about other ways to draw more republicans out of hiding, such as becoming even more conservative.

What they fail to realise is, the so called 'large amount of hidden Republicans' never really exist to begin with. It's the same why they have a strong belief in religion, that the possibility of such people not existing has never cross their mind, and will not change their mind when challenged.

It's that whole "silent majority" mythology from the Nixon years which they've evidently bought into as representing reality. In other words, just one of a whole boatload of fantasies the GOP have embraced since they decided that reality has a liberal bias, as Stephen Colbert famously quipped.

[Darth Wong]

More seriously, I have to wonder how the fuck they could run up so much debt despite being such a small country, with such a small GDP. The city of Toronto alone has a GDP approaching that of Ireland.

Ireland's in the state we are now primarily because of our retarded polticians. The current political party in charge - Fianna Faíl - has for the last couple of decades been in charge of an Ireland where the economy was going brilliantly, during the time of the "Celtic Tiger". They wasted the money in all manners of retarted projects and constant pay-raises for themselves, and blatantly ignored the people who've been saying for years that this was going to happen to us. Even now they still don't have any idea what to do or any sort of plan to deal with the situation.
The only upside to this is that Fianna Faíl is virtualy going to cease to exist following the next elections.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but that's the situation in a nutshell.

I'm still at a loss to understand exactly how they could spend that much money. Their GDP is in the same range as the City of Toronto, yet their external debt is greater than the external debt for the entire country of Canada (a geographically huge country with infrastructure spending requirements that make Ireland's infrastructure look insignificant by comparison).

Even the greediest politicians couldn't extract that much money from the system in personal perks and pay raises. What did they spend their money on? Or did they just institute a super-low tax regime and stick their heads in the sand about the future?

[Tiriol]

More seriously, I have to wonder how the fuck they could run up so much debt despite being such a small country, with such a small GDP. The city of Toronto alone has a GDP approaching that of Ireland.

Ireland's in the state we are now primarily because of our retarded polticians. The current political party in charge - Fianna Faíl - has for the last couple of decades been in charge of an Ireland where the economy was going brilliantly, during the time of the "Celtic Tiger". They wasted the money in all manners of retarted projects and constant pay-raises for themselves, and blatantly ignored the people who've been saying for years that this was going to happen to us. Even now they still don't have any idea what to do or any sort of plan to deal with the situation.
The only upside to this is that Fianna Faíl is virtualy going to cease to exist following the next elections.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but that's the situation in a nutshell.

I'm still at a loss to understand exactly how they could spend that much money. Their GDP is in the same range as the City of Toronto, yet their external debt is greater than the external debt for the entire country of Canada (a geographically huge country with infrastructure spending requirements that make Ireland's infrastructure look insignificant by comparison).

Even the greediest politicians couldn't extract that much money from the system in personal perks and pay raises. What did they spend their money on? Or did they just institute a super-low tax regime and stick their heads in the sand about the future?

I wouldn't consider that impossible, actually: the "Tax cuts!" mantra has been thrown around quite a lot in the Western world even outside the US, mostly based on the idea that what's better for company profits and corporations, must be good for countries' economy as well. And it's also quite possible that Ireland borrowed some ideas as to how to manage an economy from Iceland.

[ray245]

It's interesting to know to Republicans considered John McCain as the most liberal candidate that a large amount of republicans can accept. In other words, the Republicans never viewed a general election as trying to gain votes from all groups of people, they view it as campaigning to draw the Republicans out of hiding. The belief that there is actually tons of hidden Republican around, hence there is no need to win votes from the moderates to such a huge extend.

When they found out that it is impossible to get enough votes in the 2008 election, they think about other ways to draw more republicans out of hiding, such as becoming even more conservative.

What they fail to realise is, the so called 'large amount of hidden Republicans' never really exist to begin with. It's the same why they have a strong belief in religion, that the possibility of such people not existing has never cross their mind, and will not change their mind when challenged.

It's that whole "silent majority" mythology from the Nixon years which they've evidently bought into as representing reality. In other words, just one of a whole boatload of fantasies the GOP have embraced since they decided that reality has a liberal bias, as Stephen Colbert famously quipped.

Well, people changing political affiliation is something they never thought is a possible thing. It doesn't help when the Republicans has this belief that if a policy work once for a small period of time , it can always work!

Oh well, given that how people can be swayed by a charismatic politician that can make the voting base feel happy about themselves, or make them feel smart, I won't be surprise if voters voted for a republican president in a few decades.

After all, many people are easily persuaded by a 'small town political talk' that portray everything in a idealistic or simplified manner and has a ego problem of admitting they are wrong.

[Rochey]

I'm still at a loss to understand exactly how they could spend that much money. Their GDP is in the same range as the City of Toronto, yet their external debt is greater than the external debt for the entire country of Canada (a geographically huge country with infrastructure spending requirements that make Ireland's infrastructure look insignificant by comparison).

I know. It's just completely unbelievable. If you'd told me this would happen just a couple of years ago I'd have laughed and called the notion ridiculous. It just doesn't seem possible, but there we are.

Even the greediest politicians couldn't extract that much money from the system in personal perks and pay raises. What did they spend their money on? Or did they just institute a super-low tax regime and stick their heads in the sand about the future?

You underestimate our politicians. I recently heard that one politician recieves a €20,000 allowance for buying food while on planes. And just last week there was controversy over the mayor of Dublin's desired €200,000 salary.

Of course, that's just one bit. Our taxes, predictably, went way down during the years of the Celtic Tiger and during that period the government seemed to completely forget that money eventualy runs out. As soon as it came in they wasted it away on idiotic projects The best example being that bloody great spike they put up a few years ago and now have to continue spending shitloads on maintaining or else it'll collapse on top of one of the most historic buildings in the city.

In addition to that stupidity, the entire economy was pretty much reliant on the housing market. Experts had been predicting for years that the whole house of cards would come crashing down eventualy, yet the government stuck their collective heads in the sand and completely failed to take and sort of precautions. For the last two decades, they spent everything we had and saved nothing. The government mantra for the last decade or so has, when faced with the possibility of economic problems, "don't worry, it'll get better by itself". Last year, when the whole economy started collapsing, they were saying "don't worry, it'll get better by itself". And just a few days ago, the Prime Minister was on the TV effectively saying "don't worry, it'll get better by itself".

To cut it short, the whole thing is due to incompetance of an unbelievable magnitude, a massive sense of naivette about the economy, and collective willfull ignorance about what the future may hold. We dug ourselves one hell of a hole, and I doubt we'll be getting out for a while.

[Patrick Degan]

I don't suppose there's a way for the people to force a no-confidence vote in the Dail, because it seems the sooner you get rid of these morons the better.

[Star Empire]

I know I’m going against most of this board here, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with the tax cut mantra itself. Believing that the government is going to use large portions of its funds less efficiently than if they were left in the private sector is a perfectly legitimate belief (especially if one also accepts that any bailout money is a moral hazard that will destabilize the system). Obviously there is a limit to how far one should be willing to follow that belief, but the same applies in reverse as well.

The problem over the past 20 to 30 years in the US and much of the rest of the world is that taxes haven’t been tied to service costs.

This creates an environment where some will argue for tax cuts and others for expensive programs or extensions of programs and both get accepted. Instead of considering what is the benefit of this program vs. its cost, we think of getting back “our money” or someone’s right to a service (oddly a right which didn’t exist before the service), or something along those lines.

For politicians and over the short run this is the best of both worlds. There is no painful choice and everyone is happy. In the US, the GOP has concentrated its message on lowering taxes (but also has increased spending in many areas) and the Democrats have focused on increasing services (but much more quickly than taxes). The end result is this mess that isn’t going to resolve itself until we, as a society, start living within our means.

Going back on topic, I don’t see the political will to do that, which is why I am expecting calamity (reality always violently pushes back against fantasies) and think the Democrats, with their current supermajorities, will be lucky to have half as many seats in Congress in 2012 as they have now (again not necessarily to the GOP’s benefit).

[Patrick Degan]

I know I’m going against most of this board here, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with the tax cut mantra itself. Believing that the government is going to use large portions of its funds less efficiently than if they were left in the private sector is a perfectly legitimate belief (especially if one also accepts that any bailout money is a moral hazard that will destabilize the system). Obviously there is a limit to how far one should be willing to follow that belief, but the same applies in reverse as well.

The problem over the past 20 to 30 years in the US and much of the rest of the world is that taxes haven’t been tied to service costs.

This creates an environment where some will argue for tax cuts and others for expensive programs or extensions of programs and both get accepted. Instead of considering what is the benefit of this program vs. its cost, we think of getting back “our money” or someone’s right to a service (oddly a right which didn’t exist before the service), or something along those lines.

For politicians and over the short run this is the best of both worlds. There is no painful choice and everyone is happy. In the US, the GOP has concentrated its message on lowering taxes (but also has increased spending in many areas) and the Democrats have focused on increasing services (but much more quickly than taxes). The end result is this mess that isn’t going to resolve itself until we, as a society, start living within our means.

Unfortunately, the situation this country finds itself is not a matter of one's beliefs but simple mathematics: revenue has to be raised to offset the debt load and that means taxes will have to go up. Social Security has to be brought back in balance and that means the retirement age has to go up to bring down the number of new retirees flooding into the system year by year. In the meantime, something has to be done to bring down the high costs of health care in this country before they crush the economy (as they've already helped to sink GM) and the private system has failed miserably at this, in fact has actively abetted increasing cost to squeeze out more profit. That means universal health care and some rationing with regards to very expensive treatments for seniors who have negative actuarials staring them in the face (and before anybody bleats "RATIONING TEH EVILZ", insurance companies already do this on the basis of patient income: meaning if you're old and poor, you're fucked). There is no realistic scenario in which painful choices aren't made and everybody is happy. For those reasons, the tax cut mantra is idiotic and irresponsible.

[Darth Wong]

I know I’m going against most of this board here, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with the tax cut mantra itself.

Huh? The mere fact that it is a mantra rather than a mere tool is an indictment itself. Tax cuts are not necessarily bad, in the same sense that screwdrivers are not necessarily bad. They are potentially useful tools. But when tax cuts become a mantra, they become an end unto themselves, and that is a problem.

Believing that the government is going to use large portions of its funds less efficiently than if they were left in the private sector is a perfectly legitimate belief (especially if one also accepts that any bailout money is a moral hazard that will destabilize the system).

No it isn't. It's an axiom which can be easily disproven through contradictory examples, and is therefore a non sequitur. It can be true in certain examples, but it can also be false in certain examples. When that's the case, it's either foolish or dishonest to state it as an axiom.

[Yogi]

It's interesting to know to Republicans considered John McCain as the most liberal candidate that a large amount of republicans can accept. In other words, the Republicans never viewed a general election as trying to gain votes from all groups of people, they view it as campaigning to draw the Republicans out of hiding. The belief that there is actually tons of hidden Republican around, hence there is no need to win votes from the moderates to such a huge extend.

When they found out that it is impossible to get enough votes in the 2008 election, they think about other ways to draw more republicans out of hiding, such as becoming even more conservative.

What they fail to realise is, the so called 'large amount of hidden Republicans' never really exist to begin with. It's the same why they have a strong belief in religion, that the possibility of such people not existing has never cross their mind, and will not change their mind when challenged.

I was under the impression that a large part of it is that the Republicans violated their own principles about having limited government spending and isolationist foreign policy, which is actually turning off many conservatives in exchange for the Jesus Freaks vote. Actually becoming conservative might be the answer.

[Rochey]

I don't suppose there's a way for the people to force a no-confidence vote in the Dail, because it seems the sooner you get rid of these morons the better

From the looks of things we won't have to put up with them for much longer anyway. The current government is a coalition of the Green Party and Fianna Faíl. The Greens tooks some serious hits over what they tried to pull in the latest budget, and it looks like they're going to deliberately try to collapse the government and let Fianna Faíl take the brunt of the public's anger in order to save themselves. In any case, once the next elections roll around, Fianna Faíl is pretty much going to cease to exist, and the Greens are going to be crippled.
Now the only problem is trying to find a party that isn't filled with incompetant morons.