Do you agree with Obama's compromise?

[Darmalus]

I don't approve, and will be voting for Obama. More because I figure a slow slide to the right is better than a fast one because it gives more chances for a miracle to happen than anything else.

[Simon_Jester]

How exactly are you going to reclaim the Democrats? pretty much Obama's entire term has shown that at best he's a centre right candidate, the only reason Americans even consider him left wing is because he's to the left of the far right wing GOP.

You will never 'reclaim' the Democrats by continuing to vote for them, you'll just continue to perpetuate the same problems that led here. It'll just prove they can do whatever they want and just point a the GOP and go 'at least we're not them, keep voting for us'. The only way they'll ever change is if they lose the only thing politicians understand, if they lose a shit ton of votes.

If you think civic involvement begins and ends on election day, it's no wonder you get crappy choices. People with so much political energy to burn would be well advised to work on changing the party, not just sit placidly until the election rolls around and then choose between the candidates offered them by the parties. Parties are not magical black boxes that spontaneously generate candidates from nowhere, there's a real process involved and it requires organization, commitment, and resources to make things happen.

How do you think the Tea Party faction so effectively hijacked the Republican agenda? They worked on it- ran their candidates, presented credible primary challenges, organized protests and campaign funds, and generally raised enough hell to get their party to do what they wanted. Or at least to have to sit up and take notice of what they wanted.

I don't approve, and will be voting for Obama. More because I figure a slow slide to the right is better than a fast one because it gives more chances for a miracle to happen than anything else.

A miracle isn't strictly required- demographics will win this one in the medium term. The process will be greatly accelerated if anyone really tries to lead and organize the American left instead of just sitting around and letting it eat its own political tail in an endless mutual screaming match.

The only problem is that someone who actually did this would have to run a campaign that looked a lot like Obama's 2008 campaign, only with a 'happy ending' post-inauguration... and here I'm seeing people on the American left who've decided that anyone who comes to them asking for votes is a corporate shill who's not worth following.

This is, as others have noted, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Abandon a party to the center-right, and by God it will become a center-right party. As the Tea Party have demonstrated, a motivated minority can cause a party to swing towards their political alignment and dance to their tune... but they have to give a damn first.

[Aniron]

How do you think the Tea Party faction so effectively hijacked the Republican agenda? They worked on it- ran their candidates, presented credible primary challenges, organized protests and campaign funds, and generally raised enough hell to get their party to do what they wanted. Or at least to have to sit up and take notice of what they wanted.

The Tea Party is comprised of old turds who have time to do this. People my age, who are full time students, don't, depending on the course load. I certainly do not have time to join protests in faint hopes that something actually changes.

[Aniron]

Question what was Obama realistically suppose to do in this instance? The fourteenth amendment probably wouldn't work (and could potentially get him impeached) and the tea party were refusing compromises what so ever. How do you honestly deal with a group that a majority in the House, votes in lockstep and is willing to bring down the entire country for mere ideals.

It seems that rather then make symbolic votes that only help Republicans like voting for third parties, the main focus should be getting rid of tea party house members in 2012.

The cynical and asshole part of me would just let the country collapse so the populace can see what happens when you let people with views the GOP hold go unchecked. It's wholly immoral, of course, but watching from the sidelines would be interesting.

[erik_t]

Thank you for letting me know that I can forever discount any serious-seeming thought you may ever offer.

Usually people take a little longer than that.

[Aniron]

Thank you for letting me know that I can forever discount any serious-seeming thought you may ever offer.

Usually people take a little longer than that.

Fuck off. I wouldn't even agree with that happening. I said it's an assholish and immoral thing to let happen.

But do go on pretending that the Democratic party will change with the current cunts in power.

[Uraniun235]

Thread title misleading, this was a total surrender. Not that it was unexpected.


EDIT: I'll add a bit more content. Every person who cries about "oh if you don't vote Obama then the scaaaary craaaazy Repubs will get into office and then everything will be ruined!" is playing right into the party strategy of being able to suck corporate cock as hard as they want because the Democrats know no matter what they do, you'll all line up to vote for them again and again.

Fuck that. I refuse to signal approval of this administration's policies. I'm voting third party. Have fun enabling the Democrats to go as far to the right as they want.


"b-b-but why not vote in the primaries"
You can do that if you want, but the way the primary system is stacked, my primary vote won't mean a damn anyway. (Doubly so as I live in Oregon.) Besides, there's absolutely no way in hell that the Democratic Party will allow an actual primary challenger to Obama.

[TheHammer]

Reading some of the posts here, its clear that the majority of you would make very poor legislators even if you had the best of intentions. Many of you are clearly educated and idealist, but government involves pragmatism more than idealism. It seems that in your zealousness, you view any situation where you don't get 100% of what you want as a "failure".

http://obamaachievements.org/list#top < - Take the time to peruse that...

He was elected President, not dictator. Significant progress has been made on numerous fronts, despite the oposition of a Republican party hell bent on stopping him even at the cost of the good of the nation. DADT gone and people bitch that it "didn't happen fast enough". Massive Healthcare Reform and people bitch that "It's not universal healthcare". Bin Laden is killed and people bitch about how the body was handled. It is fucking ridiculous.

As for this particular issue at hand, The fourteenth amendment "option" was questionable at best. IT's never been tried before, and almost certainly would have resulted in a legal challenge. I'd liked to have seen some tax reform that raised revenues. And the cuts in spending aren't quite so drastic as the Republicans wanted, not by a long shot. So the end result is no one is particularly happy, but likewise they aren't totally opposed. Isn't that the tell tale sign of true compromise?

[Uraniun235]

Those "Obama achievements/promises kept" lists are little more than election points bullshit because they don't assign any weight to any of the things he did. "Middle East: Pressured Israel to end Gaza blockade" lol what the fuck is this even supposed to mean when the blockade is still there in full force? Oh wow he made a token effort to fail to show he's not in Israel's pocket like every other American administration, what a courageous and beneficial act that was!

Compromise means giving something up in exchange for a mutually agreeable result, what the fuck have the Republicans actually given up? Just because Obama Did A Thing doesn't mean he isn't fucking us on taxes, financial reform (or rather the utter lack thereof), or literally starting us down the path of dismantling what remains of our social safety net (cutting FICA taxes as a half-ass "stimulus" is the prelude to making it even more 'insolvent').

DADT is exactly what the party leadership (both Democratic and Republican) want you to remember come election time, so that you forget all about how they're both reaming the American public.

[TheHammer]

Like I said, you fail to recognize progress and instead would rather complain about what he hasn't done, dismissive of the giant obstacles (Republicans and blue dog democrats) he's had to overcome. I'll address the couple of points you highlight.

Israel - Obama is hardly in their pocket. http://www.wbur.org/2011/05/20/netanyahu-obama-at-odds . You might find that to be some sort of "token gesture" but making that statement certainly didn't endear him to the Israelis.

Obama made it clear he wanted to see tax revenue increases, but that wasn't going to happen with the Tea Bagger Republicans in the house. Sometimes compromise is a mutually agreed upon disagreeable result. Such is the case when you are facing finanical crisis. I don't see Republicans touting this as a victory, which they most certainly would be if they felt as much.

[Gigaliel]

Obama made it clear he wanted to see tax revenue increases, but that wasn't going to happen with the Tea Bagger Republicans in the house. Sometimes compromise is a mutually agreed upon disagreeable result. Such is the case when you are facing finanical crisis.

Did you even read that Thanas post?

(1) Three days ago, Democratic Rep. John Conyers, appearing at a meeting of the Out of Poverty caucus, said: "The Republicans -- Speaker Boehner or Majority Leader Cantor -- did not call for Social Security cuts in the budget deal. The President of the United States called for that" (video here, at 1:30);

So yeah, ultra-liberal Obama brought up Social Security cuts. It had some other goodies that you should read. It's like Obama is an (American) conservative or something

Saying that this is all the mean old Tea Party's fault is ridiculous. Do you really think that they would have tried this if Obama had actually stood up to the Republicans? As opposed to caving in to the GOP every time? I'd say Obama brought this upon himself but I've decided that if I pretend he's a moderate Republican, everything he does makes a lot more sense!

don't see Republicans touting this as a victory, which they most certainly would be if they felt as much.

Boehner told his Republican caucus on a Sunday night conference call that the deal isn't done yet. But Boehner said it does not violate GOP principles.

"We got 98 percent of what we wanted," he said adding that the framework cuts more spending than it raises the debt limit. It also caps future spending to limits in the growth of government.

Fox News, of all things!

[Alphawolf55]

Yet no one has suggested what Obama was suppose to do. How exactly was he suppose to fight the Tea Party? Shame them? They don't care if the majority don't like them as long as their have their dedicated 30% conservatives coming out in droves at the voting poll. Insist on bills that favor Progressives? They'll just vote against them. It's not like the Tea Party even had to fear a default ruining the economy, since even if the debt ceiling hadn't been raised, we would've still paid the interest and SS payments along with most likely military, it would just mean the rest of the Government would have shut down or at least we'd have to start paying out to programs like Welfare, Unemployment and Student loans in which case the Tea Party gets what they want in lower Government. Sure it'd be a disaster but they'd still get what they're asking for.

So again, what actual routes outside of assassinations and outright bribing the Tea Party could Obama have taken?

[Thanas]

He might not have given away the shop preemptively by immediately offering social security and medicare before the talks had even started?

[Alphawolf55]

Yet correct me if I'm wrong, from everything I've read the final deal doesn't include cuts from SS and Medicare. There's going to be a panel that will make recommendations for cuts and a required vote, but there's no requirement that the vote passes. Additionally if a deal doesn't get passed Social Security and Medicare are strictly off the chopping block for automatic cuts.

So again, regardless of how weakly Obama handled Health care reform, Patriot Act, and other DOJ issues in the past. What was Obama realistically suppose to do to get the Republicans to give programs what they want?

[Uraniun235]

He should have headed it off back at the end of last year, and taken a stand on both the debt ceiling and on the tax cut extensions when neither side blinking wouldn't have meant a massive disruption to government finances and stability. Instead he decided to take Boehner at his word that the debt ceiling wouldn't be taken hostage later on.


As for the SS/Medicare cuts, that's not as informative to how the negotiations played out as it is informative of how Obama thinks and how sharply the Democratic party has veered to the right in recent years. Prior to this administration it was inconceivable that any president would seriously suggest cutting Social Security and Medicare, doubly so any Democrat president.


I'd like to ask you a question: What would it take for you to not vote for Obama next year?

[Thanas]

Additionally, you can also kiss any infrastructure improvement goodbye.

[Alphawolf55]

He should have headed it off back at the end of last year, and taken a stand on both the debt ceiling and on the tax cut extensions when neither side blinking wouldn't have meant a massive disruption to government finances and stability. Instead he decided to take Boehner at his word that the debt ceiling wouldn't be taken hostage later on.


As for the SS/Medicare cuts, that's not as informative to how the negotiations played out as it is informative of how Obama thinks and how sharply the Democratic party has veered to the right in recent years. Prior to this administration it was inconceivable that any president would seriously suggest cutting Social Security and Medicare, doubly so any Democrat president.


I'd like to ask you a question: What would it take for you to not vote for Obama next year?

Okay he should have acted differently in the past, he shouldn't have trusted Boehner at his word. Fine, but that still doesn't say what he should have done now. You can argue that we should have never been in this situation in the first place, fine but if you're going to claim he totally fucked up the debt ceiling situation in the summer of 2011, at least offer what he should have done instead.

For me not to vote for Obama. Either his Republican opposition would have to be willing to support tax hikes, green investments, dropping military spending and further health care reform (Basically not going to happen) or there would have to be a Progressive Third Party choice that had such a huge chance of winning that there's no way a spoiler effect would happen.

Additionally, you can also kiss any infrastructure improvement goodbye.

You're right that really sucks. But how was Obama suppose to get those things in the current negotiations. Unless you're saying he should have agreed to no deal and forced a government shut down where only the interest, SS payments, Medicare and some military payments are getting sent out?

[Uraniun235]

Additionally, you can also kiss any infrastructure improvement goodbye.

Basically, yeah:

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/bea ... eir-pocket

Many readers of the NYT and Post may not have a good sense of how much $2.4 trillion in cuts over the next decade is. Unfortunately, the major news outlets do not consider it their responsibility to tell us.

The government is projected to spend $46 trillion over the next 10 years. This means that the proposed cuts are a bit more than 5 percent of projected spending. However, large categories of the budget are protected. More than $27 trillion of projected spending goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest. If these areas escape largely untouched, the projected cuts would be around 13 percent of the remaining portion of the budget.

In fact, since some other areas of the budget, like unemployment insurance, are also likely to be largely protected, the cuts to the remaining portion of the budget will be even larger.

The government is projected to spend $7.8 trillion on the military over the next decade. If this area is largely protected, then most of the [$2.4 trillion in] cuts would likely come from the $6.7 trillion of spending on the domestic discretionary portion of the budget. This is the portion that includes spending on infrastructure, education, research, and other areas that are considered investment.

$2.4T of $6.7T is about 36%.

[Thanas]

^Perfect example why the democrats will never change right here.

[Uraniun235]

For me not to vote for Obama. Either his Republican opposition would have to be willing to support tax hikes, green investments, dropping military spending and further health care reform (Basically not going to happen) or there would have to be a Progressive Third Party choice that had such a huge chance of winning that there's no way a spoiler effect would happen.

Wow, really? So even if Obama pushed through a privatization of Social Security and launched an invasion of Iran, you'd still vote for him just to avoid the scaaaaary Repubs?

[Alphawolf55]

For me not to vote for Obama. Either his Republican opposition would have to be willing to support tax hikes, green investments, dropping military spending and further health care reform (Basically not going to happen) or there would have to be a Progressive Third Party choice that had such a huge chance of winning that there's no way a spoiler effect would happen.

Wow, really? So even if Obama pushed through a privatization of Social Security and launched an invasion of Iran, you'd still vote for him just to avoid the scaaaaary Repubs?

It highly depends on what his opponent is offering. I'm not afraid to vote for a Republican if he's offering the right stuff. But I cant imagine a scenario in modern politics at all where the Republicans are more liberal then the Democrats. Now in the primary if there's some candidate that seriously challenges Obama's as a candidate that's a progressive dream, I'll vote for him. Because that's when you try to throw out center right politicians like Obama in today's political climate, in the primary not in the general election, that's where change happens.

Edit: Answer me this, what will sitting out on the next election and having the current Republicans truly accomplish? Are you hoping that another four year of Republicans in the White House will lead to a more progressive candidate being chosen for the 2016? What are you hoping to accomplish?

[Thanas]

More evidence: Obama wanted the spending cuts.

Obama himself SAID countless times over the last 3 years - including many times over the last 3 months - that he WANTS deep spending cuts, including to SS, Medicare and Medicaid.

He DID NOT WANT a clean debt ceiling hike, with no cuts. He said that clearly in his Press Conferences, including as recently as July 22 when he announced Boehner had walked away from the talks ("At minimum, we’ve got to increase the debt ceiling. At minimum. I think we need to do more than that. . . Well, I think I’ve been consistently saying here in this press room and everywhere that it is very important for us to raise the debt ceiling. We don’t have an option on that. So if that’s the best that Congress can do, then I will sign a extension of the debt ceiling that takes us through 2013. I don’t think that’s enough. I think we should do more. That’s the bare minimum; that’s the floor of what the American people expect us to do. So I’d like to see us do more").

Your question -- which assumes that he was forced into these cuts and/or that he wanted a clean debt ceiling increase - is thus totally flawed. He's been very candid that he wants to cut entitlement programs and other domestic programs for the poor - happy to send you all the links if you need them, but I know you know this, and even wrote about it once when he said it in his Press Conference (http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/07/12/bad-politics/). Here are a few to start:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/ ... icity.html

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002846.html

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm? ... CD29DF7FFF

Once that FACT is accepted -- that Obama wasn't trying to avoid linking massive cuts to the ceiling hike: he wanted these and MORE -- everything else makes more sense.

That said, he did want taxes to be included, and there was a lot he could have done to get a better deal or no deal:

(1) He could have supported McConnell's proposal from 3 weeks ago that provided for a CLEAN debt ceiling increase (McConnell did offer a clean debt ceiling hike, which is why Ezra Klein, among others, liked it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezr ... _blog.html) - but Obama didn't want that deal because it would harm him politically by making him raise the debt ceiling 3 times between now and the election. So he avoided a clean debt ceiling hike out of political concerns for his re-election and because he WANTED to link it to cuts..

(2) He could have threatened to use leverage - like the 14th Amendment option, the coinage option, or other legal maneuvering - even if he didn't intend to use it - as a way of telling the Republicans: I CAN RAISE THE DEBT WITHOUT YOU (see Krugman's column on this today, where he lays out those options).

To use your metaphor, it's a way of threatening to rescue the hostage without giving in to the kidnappers ("if I need to, I'll use the powers of this office to avoid default without you, and let the courts and the voters judge").

Anyone who wanted leverage would have done some or all of that.

(3) He could have refrained from publicly affirming the GOP's bullshit economic arguments at every corner -- that spending cuts are necessary to help the economy via increased confidence -- in order to strengthen his hand with public opinion while weakening the GOP's - http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0 ... ver-obama/.

Instead, eager to depict himself as a spending-cutter, he sounded like Larry Kudlow.

(4) He could have raised the debt ceiling in the 2009 lame-duck Congress and avoided this whole thing (see Krugman today).

[He even could have accepted Boehner's plan from last week, which at least included $800 billion in revenues; instead, he got a deal with NO revenue]

Why didn't he do any of that? Because - as he's told you repeatedly - he WANTS to use the debt ceiling debate to slash spending. He wants that because he's so eager to run as a trans-partisan, compromising spending-cutter, and because -- I think - he actually now believes the right-wing economic theory that spending cuts help the economy (on that last point, see Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0 ... s-mystery/)..

Also:




EDIT: Interesting artcle

[The Romulan Republic]

Wow, really? So even if Obama pushed through a privatization of Social Security and launched an invasion of Iran, you'd still vote for him just to avoid the scaaaaary Repubs?

You're acting like fear of the Republicans is somehow unwarranted. Anyone with the rudiments of a functioning brain should be able to tell a far Right/Teabagger government would be worse than Obama. Keep in mind that for all the suckiness of this compromise, it doesn't include a balanced budget amendment or simply letting the government default like some in the Tea Party would have liked.

If you don't fear the prospect of a Teabagger President, you're either extremely ignorant of the last few years in American politics, extremely stupid, or both.

In any case, I certainly don't expect Obama will do either of the things you suggest.

[Bluewolf]

What difference has there between Obama and what the GOP wants again? He and his party have caved into almost always to the Republican party for over a decade. As Thanas's picture shows, for all the fear of the GOP/Tea Baggers, the main implementation of their policies and ideals has mainly been Obama. Economically, you could swap Obama for McCain and nothing would be that different. That's how bad things have gotten. When a Democrat president vying for hope and change is reskin of Bush. Sure it if it gets more local, I am sure the Dems are probably better but on an overall national level, they've been spineless even when in a postion of power. I mean please, Obama could have 'R' next to his name and it'd be convincing.

[Minischoles]

The solution for Obama came very early on, the only reason the GOP and TP were willing to take this right to the brink, is because of his past examples. Everytime the GOP has tried to 'compromise' with him, exactly the same thing has happened, Obama folded under the pressure and the GOP got everything they wanted. They knew it would happen this time, and if it didn't they win anyway - suddenly Obama is the president that let the country default, let all the poor people starve and nearly destroyed the country, all the republicans were trying to do was be fiscally responsible. It also doesn't help that he starts every negotiation on the GOP side, immediately offering them everything they want in the off-chance that during this violation they might use some lubricant.

And it's all going to happen again, the GOP will hold him hostage again to get what they want, and if he doesn't fold then they'll blame him for the automatic cuts that come in. He's gradually painting himself into a smaller and smaller corner, and it won't get any better - the reason he had no option now, was because he let it get to this point and it's just going to keep happening. That special committee is going to be weeks of arguments and Fox News spin, before Obama bends over and cuts the shit out of everything but Defence, and you still won't get the tax hikes the country needs.