Happy One Week Anniversary of the government shutdown, everyone! Woo-hoo! It’s been a fun ride, one that’s going great for the Republicans.
To mark the occasion, Anderson Cooper had Rep. Raul Labrador — one of the Republican congressmen responsible for the shutdown — on his show last night. When Labrador kept insisting that the American people don’t want Obamacare, Cooper shot back by saying, “You’re nullifying two presidential elections and you’re nullifying the vote of Congress because you don’t like it.” When Labrador complained about Cooper being hard on him, the Silver Fox gave him the rhetorical slap in the face he was virtually begging for.
“This is the way it works in journalism,” Cooper said. “When you’re not on Fox News, you get contentious interviews. When you’re not on MSNBC and a liberal, you get contentious interviews. My job is to ask you questions that are different than you think.”
Love u, Anderson.
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/41/thumb)
Are you kidding? That cannot be his real name.
We’re doomed.
We know it wouldn’t pass, we’re convinced it wouldn’t pass, there’s no way it would pass. But there’s no need to prove definitively that it wouldn’t pass.
Meanwhile, Harry Reid sends their bills to the floor right away for a decisive bloodletting.
If this were poker, these assholes would be holding a 2-7 offsuit while fronting aces.
can’t remember where I saw it, but someone on the democrats side was apparently overheard saying “We’re not going to do anything. We’re just gonna sit here and wait until they realize they fucking lost”
It doesn’t seem as if it would be that hard to actually stage a winning PR battle. After all, there are enough people who dislike the ACA and high levels of federal spending and one could make a reasonable argument that any program that doesn’t keep in mind its costs is doomed to be an albatross for generations to come.
But every time I see a Tea Party Congressman on TV, I just want to strangle them. Not so much because I disagree with them but because they can not even TRY to sound rational. They’re too busy berating lowly government employees or sleazing all over anchors. There have to be professionals behind the scenes supporting the Republicans who are punching holes in walls watching this shit.
IRCM: It’s Steve Schmidt on the McCain campaign dealing with Palin, all over again.
Anderson could’ve and should’ve been tougher on him.
eh, it’s a fine line. if you push too hard you just look like the asshole and then the Labrador fella can just claim he was the victim of a liberal media attack.
I mean, he tried to do that anyway but was effectively shot down in a calm reasonable manner.
these comments should be greaaaat. but this is a cool vid, this should happen ALL THE TIME to both sides.
If you can’t beat them, kick the ball into the woods.
-SM
Wait,
is
this
guy
really
insisting
that
Romney-Ryan
didn’t
run
on
repealing
Obamacare?
I raise my glass to you, Otto.
[img.pandawhale.com]
That’s impressive commenting right there.
Otto, from this and your commenting history you seem to have a LOT of time on your hands.
*clap*
Thank you Otto. Take a victory lap!
No, Labrador didn’t say that. Stop lying.
Kudos to Cooper, though, for holding the Congressman’s feet to the fire.
The comment reply function has just been elevated to star status. Or as the Republicans call it Labrador status.
You are my hero.
Labrador also ignores that while the Republicans kept the majority in the House in 2012 they did so while losing seats, and they lost ground in a Senate that they thought they were going to take over.
Also he’s lying about a clean spending resolution not passing the House. The Republicans not aligned with the Tea Party have made it pretty clear that if Boehner allows a vote the spending resolution will pass, even after Boehner claimed otherwise.
[www.huffingtonpost.com]
Here’s 21 (3 have flip flopped) GOP Congressmen who have publicly stated they would vote for a clean bill.
They haven’t had a chance to vote on a clean funding bill because Boehner won’t put one up for vote.
Every time they have voted on the bill it has included the Obamacare bullshit.
Not to mention that the GOP lost the 2012 popular vote in the house by almost 2 million votes. Yay gerrymandering!!!!
I love you Otto Man.
Thanks Otto….for reminding me of what a creepy ass rapist Paul Ryan looks like.
Wait, that sounded odd…..it should say “creepy-ass ass-rapist”.
Hey, chillax with the date-rape talk, bro.
To think, we could have had an awesome Vice-Brosident.
why not just make it easier and say Crass Rapist.
To me the dude looks like a Muppet rapist.
Either a Muppet that’s a rapist, or a guy who rapes Muppets. Either works.
Muppet rapist was a great webseries.
I love how the Republicans have convinced themselves, in the face of all the data that shows America is moving more towards the center, that the reason they lost is Romney wasn’t conservative enough.
Don’t do anything to dissuade them, man. The midterms and 2016 will be a cakewalk.
They’re like Homer stuck in the tar pit. They tried to pull their legs out with their arms, and now that their arms are stuck, they’re going to simply pull them out with their face. Piece of cake.
Everytime my dad and I argue (discuss) politics I ask him how it feels to be a member of a dying party.
Does he respond with, “At least I’m white.”?
It’s really crazy. Conservatives have gotten more conservative. And they think doubling down the neo-neo-conservative platform is the best way to go.
Actually, if the historical pattern holds, and the guy who came in second gets the nomination the next go round (with one exception, how the GOP has done things since ’76), 2016 will see the nomination of >GULP< RICK SANTORUM.
God, a Santorum candidacy would be awesome. The Democrats could nominate Shiela Jackson Lee and we’d still sweep every state except for Utah.
Of course, there’s a slim chance that Santorum would win and then usher in the start of America: The Handmaid’s Tale.
He thinks he’s obstructionist shithead people!
Fantastic work Otto
Listening to Carlos Golden Retriever makes my head hurt.
Whatever the wisdom (or stunning lack thereof) of the shutdown I don’t get the “but there was a presidential election” argument. We aren’t a parliamentary system, each member of Congress wins an election and is responsible to the voters in their district and that district only. The House as an institution has the Constitutional responsibility to pass (or not) funding bills without regard for how the Presidential election worked out. Which is what is at stake. Further, while the ACA is the law there is certainly precedent for the House to refuse to fund projects that had already been established and shut down the government over it (see the MX missile shutdowns of the early 1980s).
This isn’t to say the shutdown is good policy or good for the country, but the argument that it is somehow structurally illegitimate seems to miss some important Constitutional factors.
THANK YOU. After I got done scrolling through the posts of people beating off to each others posts, it’s refreshing to read something that is actually based in reality.
The thing that bothers me and I assume is what bothering the majority of Americans is not what you just described, but the fact that they are tacking this argument on to something that has an enormous impact on the government (government shutdown) and the United States economy (debt ceiling). I could care less if this was done as a separate issue.
The “there was an election” argument usually follows a GOP Representative’s claim that the American people don’t want Obamacare. Maybe Cook County Georgia doesn’t, but polls have shown that’s not the case country-wide (and the 2012 election proved that).
@Nippo – Completely agree, especially on the debt ceiling issue.
@LastTexansFan – Or, as in this case, the 2012 election is held up as a proxy for the ACA, when it isn’t a perfect proxy (a referendum would be).
Well there’s not liking a law and going through democratic measures to change it, and using parliamentary tactics and using an economic collapse as leverage to get your way.
@Tacos: “Elections have consequences.”
You can’t say “well yeah, Obama got re-elected running on Obamacare and Romney lost promising to repeal it but that election doesn’t mean people want it.” This law was passed by Congress, upheld by the Supreme Court and the American people had a chance to reject it in whole by electing Mayonnaise McWhiteBread. They didn’t. To tie the economy of our country to something the GOP has so clearly lost on is irresponsible and dangerous.
I’m also disgusted by it seeing as the house voted to repeal or defund the ACA 41 times already before this shutdown. Give it a god damn rest.
@Omar – Of course, this is something that the House has done under both parties and with both unified and divided government because as House institutionalists (of both parties) have seen it the House is charged in the Constitution with initiating spending (or not) and each member has a responsibility to their constituents and conscience to use that power to impact policy. This is a check on the power of the Executive and a way for the people, through the most responsive branch, to have control over federal government activity.
Again, I am not saying this is good on a policy level, but it is clearly within the House’s prerogative structurally.
@LastTexansFan I don’t think I said elections have consequences but you are right they do, and it is entirely possible for Obama to have won in part on the ACA and the House (the majority of whose members are against the ACA and also won their elections) to oppose it with the tools they have at their disposal. Otherwise those House elections wouldn’t matter.
This is what I am getting at – with out divided government structure it is very possible to have contradictory outcomes from different elections and it all be structurally legitimate. If you want a system where the only vote that matters is the executive we will need to change our system. There may be some good reasons for that (though I would be hesitant) but that is not our current system.
the presidential election argument is in response to the republicans bold faced lie that american citizens don’t want obamacare.
twice now the president has ran on obamacare as basically his main selling point and he was elected twice.
that’s about all the evidence you need that american citizens are at the very least ok with it.
While I am a Republican and opposed to the ACA, I also am mortified at the way the party, being driven by unhinged Tea Partiers*, is dealing with being on the losing end of this debate. My reaction to Congressional Republicans is very much Stewart’s reaction to Code Pinkers at a Petraeus hearing:
[www.thedailyshow.com]
There are no other words for what these clowns are doing for the prospects of the party going forward. They’re. Not. Helping.
(*I am considered an old-school, Rockefeller Republican, the bane of the average Tea Partiers [sic?] existence.)
@Stella – it is a shame that the Tea Party (broadly defined) has gone down this path, particularly because there are also some really nice things in their platform that would benefit the GOP and the country. A skepticism of big government surveillance, reducing or eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing, a focus on markets rather than big business etc. However this is a terrible strategy (though within the House’s prerogative) that is not going to do any good.
One can hope that when this blows up in their faces the grass roots temper their zeal with some caution, professionalism, and knowledge.
The Tea Party is just a bunch of Big Business anarcho-capitalists that haven convinced the Local Yokel that Mr Muslim is going to take their guns & “freedom”.
They are currently advocating nothing less than the repeal of American democracy via slow-motion coup — never before have we had a group of nihilists that have shut down the government, asking for ransom the undoing of a constitutionally-enacted law.
Just because someone or some group has the right to do something, doesn’t mean that they should do it. Ask the Westborough Baptist Church or George Zimmerman. This nonsense is a political power play, pure and simple. Whether or not the Republicans are in the right or wrong does not matter. If the debt ceiling/cliff is reached, they will take the blame and the consequences of default.
I truly don’t understand what the GOP is doing. If they know the ACA is bad and will not deliver on it’s promises, why not let it go through? The worst case scenario is that the GOP gets to look less like uncompromising, head-in-the-sand, fear-mongerers. Best case scenario is that the law is horrible and the Republicans take an overwhelming majority everywhere.
Because then the Democrats will blame them for not stopping it when they knew better. Yes, that is exactly as dumb as it sounds, and every bit as accurate.
So if the republicans truly believe the law will fail and that’s the worst possible consequence they’d face, why wouldn’t they let it go through and secure control of the government for the next however-many elections?
What’s implied from that is the Republicans think that it actually will succeed. If that is not the case, maybe no one in the GOP leadership has made the logical connection that you and I did. If it’s the case where Republicans think that the law is actually good and they are holding it back out of spite, that is pretty much the lowest of the low.
Because then the Democrats will blame them for not stopping it when they knew better. Yes, that is exactly as dumb as it sounds, and every bit as accurate.
Wait, what?
Republicans know the law will be a massive trainwreck, but they won’t let it blow up on the Democrats because … the Democrats will complain that the Republicans should have stopped the Democrats from committing party suicide?
If this was actually what I thought Republicans were doing, I’d fully support them for doing it. Stopping a shitty law from being passed even though it would be politically beneficial to let it pass is exactly what I’d want from a representative.
It was passed three years ago. It’s a law now.
Sure, at the time, they believed it was going to be worse than a million Pearl Harbors, and they should definitely have opposed it. I’m not sure if you remember, but they did. A lot.
But now it’s a law, and if they have the best interests of the country at heart, they have just two options: (1) repeal it or (2) do what they can to make it work better. This is how democracy works.
Democrats hated the Medicare Part D boondoggle that Bush proposed, as it was both a giveaway to drug companies and an inefficient and expensive, etc etc. It barely passed in the House and was incredibly contentious for the caucus.
But once it became law, did the Democrats try to shut down the government if it weren’t repealed? No, they sucked it up and worked to improve the law, to improve delivery, to close the donut-hole coverage problem, etc etc. They realized it was the law and their constituents would be better off if it were improved.
It’s called “governing.” Back in the day, Republicans used to do it too.
The Republicans believe that the 25 to 30 million newly eligible health care recipients will vote Democrat, and that’s like winning all the Mexicans at once.
Wow…Otto, man. I wish Anderson slapped him on that one. Second I wish someone would point out that more people voted for House Democrats than House Republicans. Third, a discharge petition is far different than a floor vote and this Golden Retriever knows it. If he had to vote against raising the debt limit and reopening the government over Obamacare there would be hell to pay and he knows it.
Canada! Canada! Canada!
Yeah but Rookie Blue sucks.
CANADA!
I think the biggest problem is voter apathy. Sure, we bitch and moan about congress, but barely half the people who can vote do (57% of eligible voters turned out in 2012, down from the previous two elections) The 2012 congress was considered one of the least effective (passed less than half of the amount of bills compared to 2010) and had less than a 20% approval rating. So what’d we do? 90% were voted back in & they got a raise. IMO, we need term limits so that the politicians no longer make it their primary goal just to stay in power and we need to get the corporate $ out of the campaign process so that they do the will of the people instead of their corporate overlords.
You will never get lobbying out of the American political system, but there should be a lobbying auction to limit how much shilling a representative can do.
Term limits, campaign finance reform, support for a third party. All these things would greatly benefit the American political system.
For most people, it’s the rest of Congress that’s the problem. Not their own representative.
Campaign finance reform is the key. Congressmen literally get to D.C. and have to immediately start fund raising for their next race. It consumes more of their time than anything else.
And maybe real third parties too. If all the libertarians who vote Republican actually rallied to the Libertarian Party, that would be huge — a swing block that would vote with the GOP on economic issues and the Democrats on social ones. But they’re happy being cannon fodder for the Tea Party it seems.
But term limits seem self-defeating, like we’re one of those people who has to put a padlock on the fridge when we diet. There are good people that should be in office, who can get things done more effectively than a new guy learning the ropes.
Term limits have totally screwed us in Michigan. If you want to see a legislature fall apart, lose all institutional memory, and simply become a revolving door for future lobbyists, it’s a dream come true.
IMHO, the biggest issue is the ridiculous way we draw districts. Here in Texas we have done everything possible to shut down Democratic influence.
“But why do it” (On why they just don’t vote on it.) TO PUT THIS SHIT TO BED! It’s funny to see congressmen not know how congress works. If you successfully vote this down it goes back to the senate and then it puts the pressure on them to make adjustments to try and get it passed.
“Why don’t you just vote on it?”
“Cuz we don’t wanna! Nyah!”
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
-who made that statement? I’ll hang up and listen.
Obama did. And he was criticizing — rightly, as it turned out — the Bush administration’s policy of never including appropriations for the Iraq and Afghanistan war in the regular budgets and instead piling it all on to the national debt. That was irresponsible.
If Obamacare were going to add to our national debt the way the Iraq and Afghanistan wars did, then yes, this would be a good point to raise. But the CBO estimates that Obamacare will reduce the deficit. (They also estimate that the Republican delays will increase the deficit.)
[www.newrepublic.com]
So Obama was saying we keep piling up debt irresponsibly and waged a meaningless protest vote (as both parties always do) over an issue that was piling up the debt. Republicans are going to really refuse to raise the debt ceiling, with catastrophic consequences, because they don’t like an act of law that will LOWER the national debt.
But, anyway, remind me — did the Democrats then refuse to raise the debt ceiling after Obama made that comment? Did they issue a bunch of demands and threaten to, say, defund the Iraq War if they didn’t get them? Or did they regularly and routinely raise the debt ceiling?
There was a small caucus of Democrats who wanted to do that. Kucinich led them in seeking a vote to defund the Iraq War in May 2007 or so. They had good reason — the war was polling at 33% then, much lower than the EVIL OBAMACARE is now.
But the House Democratic leadership refused to go along. They let them have their one protest vote, about 140 of them voted for it, and it failed. End of story. That September, the House Democrats voted to raise the debt ceiling as Bush asked, no strings attached.
Fast forward to the present day. House Republicans have wasted much of the last term doing nothing but holding pointless repeal votes for Obamacare — not the one vote Pelosi allowed on defunding the war, but 46 separate votes over and over again. And unlike Pelosi, Boehner has allowed himself to become the captive of that minority. And he’s willing to destroy the country to save his skin.
Sweet Martian Gold?
[www.youtube.com]
Sweet Martian Gold.
Otto, Was that Harry Reid’s stance too when he opposed it?
Obama hasn’t passed a budget in 5 years.
[www.washingtontimes.com]
He just requests CRs.
He didn’t even present a budget when he had a Super Majority, so Republican opposition can’t be to blame.
Also, the CBOs estimate on the cost or savings on the ACA was before the delays that resulted from Obama illegally bypassing Congress.
The CBO original number also was based on the massive enrollment of young healthy people, which may never happen.
Also, ACA will not reduce the deficit when the majority of jobs created are lower paying Part Time jobs, another result of ACA.
[blogs.wsj.com]
“Debt-ceiling increases have included unrelated issues in the past. In November 1989, for example, the Democratic-controlled Congress passed debt-ceiling legislation that repealed a tax provision related to employer-paid health insurance plans.
The issue also flared up on several occasions during President Ronald Reagan’s administration. After House Democrats voted down a measure to hike the debt limit to $1.8 trillion in May 1984, the Wall Street Journal wrote “tradition prevailed yesterday as the debt-increase debate sparked the kinds of partisan pyrotechnics for which it has become famous.”
And in October 1984, Republicans were forced to fly on military jets back to Washington after Democrats decided to vote en masse against a debt-ceiling hike. Sen. Donald Riegle (D., Mich.) said at the time that Democrats wouldn’t allow the Republicans “to walk away from the responsibility of their deficits.”
Boehner mentioned more times during his press briefing earlier today.
Also, you defend Obama’s stance against the increase of the debt ceiling, but even he says he now regrets it.
The reason Obama and Reid opposed the credit ceiling increase then was because Bush was in power, the same reason most Republicans supported the increase. Now, is it only hypocritical for just Republicans change their stance?
Sorry I didn’t finish my earlier point.
Also, ACA will not reduce the deficit when the majority of jobs created are lower paying Part Time jobs, another result of ACA.
That means less tax revenue coming in from the new jobs created.
Here’s your boy Harry Reid.
[youtu.be]
Why is it when Jon Stewart says something like the following we never see it here?
“For those of us who are somewhat believing that the opposition right now in Washington are crazy people, it feels like it’s frustrating to have to defend something that is less than ideal, or is functioning at what seems to be a level of incompetence that is larger than what it should be. So if your only option is crazy town, this is why I think people are like clinging to this idea — but why, like the 30-hour a week thing, businesses are cutting workers’ hours below 30 to avoid facing the law of Obamacare.”
You’ll probably get slammed for this, but it’s a valid point. The John Stewart criticism of Obamacare is pretty widely reported today. I don’t agree with the GOP shutdown of government over Obamacare. But beyond the GOP lunacy there are some very valid criticisms of Obamacare.
The problem many have with the entire idea of Obamacare is that these troubles that Stewart brings up were valid concerns and some people attempted to discuss them before the bill finally got passed. Back then, Speaker Pelosi made the hilarious statement of “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.” That seemed to be the mindset back then…just pass it because that’s what Obama wants, that’s what the Democrat party wants, and it’s best for America, damnit!” When people actually had concerns back then they were shouted down by the best shouters in the world, the liberal media. The 2nd best shouters in the world, neocons controlling the GOP, aren’t helping now, but I don’t blame them considering all of their concerns have come to the surface over the last year and will only expose more in the coming years of Obamacare.
The main reason some don’t want to see this funded is because no major entitlement measure has ever been taken away from the people after it has been fully enacted. So even if Obamacare turns in to a major flop and costs the country billions, including raising premiums and out of pocket costs for all private industry workers with their coverage, the next line of Democrat arguing will be “the GOP wants to take away your healthcare!” to the ever-increasing base of ignorant fools who live off of entitlements. There is a legitimate reason to have the debate now. Unfortunately both sides don’t want to debate, they just want to yell at each other, then go meet up after dinner for cocktails and high-five on a job well done.
I comment Stewart for at least talking about it now, but it’s a fucking joke that so many people who had these exact concerns were shouted down, called names, and laughed at when they brought them up before Obamacare was ever passed.
commend*
Right, I think Republican voters need to take a long look at the representatives they are sending to DC. They sent them there to Repeal Obamacare and curb entitlement spending, something that I personally disagree with, but of course they absolutely should vote their conscience and on the issues that matter to them.
However, competent elected officials who were sent to Washington to repeal Obamacare and curb entitlement spending would be having a field day with the problems the ACA is having in its first couple weeks. They could use these problems to persuade the public that the law is flawed and is in need of serious review/alteration. Unfortunately, they’re having trouble making that point because they’re too busy explaining why they for some reason decided to shut the government down (which was originally about the ACA but is now sort of just ‘please listen to us’).
Republicans who hate Obamacare and Obama can and should vote accordingly, but at some point, they need to recognize that the actual people they’ve sent to do the job are fully and completely incompetent and have no shot at actually implementing any of the policy goals they were sent to achieve. With ACA websites down and the Obama cabinet members giving trainwrecks of interviews, congressional republicans are having a softball lobbed right over the plate and are responding by hitting themselves in the face with the bat.
It seems like a lot of them were elected based on who hated Obama the most. And that is fine, but as a result we have a bunch of legislators who don’t really know how to do anything BUT hate Obama. For the next election, they can keep making sure their candidates hate the President, but should also at some point ask the question: do you have at least an 8th graders’ concept of how the Federal Government is supposed to work.
We have reached a point where I, a democrat, am arguing for MORE republican competence, and the person making the best Republican argument is Jon Stewart. Michele Bachmann may actually be right about the end times being near!
Back then, Speaker Pelosi made the hilarious statement of “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.” That seemed to be the mindset back then…just pass it because that’s what Obama wants, that’s what the Democrat party wants, and it’s best for America, damnit!”
I know that’s the spin that the right wing applied to that quote, but that’s simply not what happened.
When Pelosi said that, it was in response to the massive misinformation campaign about the various bills that were pending before Congress. She wasn’t saying, as Fox News has spun it, “Jesus, we here in Congress don’t know what’s in this thing!”
She was saying, there’s a lot of misinformation out there about this, but once we pass the law, the American people will see what’s really in it and what’s not. (The pronoun there matters — so you can find out what’s in it.)
The context matters too. Here’s what Pelosi said right before that:
Again, Fox News took that last ten second clip, cut off the context, and made it sound like Pelosi herself had no idea what was in the bill. Which is, of course, ludicrous.
bigfatmoo I think some of the people the GOP elected to curb Obamacare and curb entitlement spending are trying to do that right now. Again, regarding my previous post, no major entitlement act has ever been fully enacted and then taken away from the people. The Democrats would just play their typical card of “they want to take your stuff away!”…which is the entire point of getting more people on the government dole as it is. They see the fear that allowing this to be fully funded and enacted, there will never be turning back and the entire country will be left to deal with the problems.
I agree that the GOP is trying to curb Obamacare and entitlement spending, in the same way that Eli Manning is “trying” to lead the Giants to the Super Bowl. If you don’t follow shitty NY sports teams… I’m saying they suck at it. You want to stop Obamacare? Elect competent officials who actually understand the law and can point out to citizens the ACTUAL issues with the law, you may get public opinion on your side and actually (gasp) WIN an election! Instead what Republicans decided to send to DC were officials who are against the ACA because it is “the most insidious law ever known to man” – DIRECT QUOTE FROM ACTUAL US CONGRESSMAN. And the path to defeat that law that is more “insidious” than Slavery is to shut the government down? I disagree with the GOP’s message,entirely, but more concerning than that is their MASSIVE problem with incompetence.
If the GOP had done something to curb the explosion in healthcare costs, like increase competition between insurance companies, far fewer people would have supported Obamacare. But they and many Democrats did the usual things, they appeased large insurance companies who continued to raise their rates and protect their coverage zones.
The GOP loves to scream “socialism!” but seem to forget that socialism has traditionally been most popular in places where the people are treated the worst. They want to have their cake and eat it too: Protect big corporations while wages decline and costs skyrocket. If you don’t want socialism to take over, the simplest course is to make sure that the majority of Americans can afford education and healthcare and don’t begin to resent big business. Democrats share some of the blame here, but other Democrats are the only ones you hear talking about campaign finance reform, lobbying restrictions, wage increases, healthcare costs, etc.
@JTRO Then why did Democrats continually fight against allowing insurers to compete across state lines? That would offer more choice and larger pools of people that pay premiums to cover those needing healthcare. The rates would fall tremendously.
How are rates now, especially after all of the mandated coverage? Why do 55 year old married couples have to have a policy that includes birth control and abortion coverage?
I don’t support the ACA. I think it has tons of problems, more than I care to list here. You’ll notice that I did mention Democrat’s support of insurance companies in the first paragraph. That’s why the biggest takeaway I have from this is that the skyrocketing insurance costs should have been cut down, the healthcare system should have been restructured a long time ago. That’s where this gets into lobbying and campaign finance reform. There is too much money in politics which lends power to people with more money.
Sorry JTRO. I agree.
I know what Pelosi said and was trying to refer it to. I also love your choice of “misinformation campaign” as the phrase to go with in regards to people who had legitimate concerns about the bill being vilified into hate mongers because they dared to question Obamacare and the potential consequences of it.
There was no provision for “death panels.”
There was no nationalizing of health care.
There was no special exemption given to Congress.
There was no indication that the law would raise the deficit at all.
Those are not “legitimate concerns.” Those are lies.
And given how obvious they were — no death panels in the bill, clear CBO estimates that showed ACA would reduce the debt and deficit, etc — it seems that they were deliberately spread to raise doubts about the law. So, yeah. “Misinformation campaign” seems to apply.
And then you have concerns that might well have been legitimate, if they hadn’t been made by people who previously had held the exact opposite opinion.
Charles Grassley was defending the individual mandate — an idea that originated in the Heritage Foundation, after all — as something “everyone agrees is constitutional” in May 2010, and then was condemning it as grossly unconstitutional that fall.
The IPAB appears to be a rationing body that will partially determine who lives and dies. There was special rules put in place to allow Congress to get better health plans. Every time I actually start looking up something you write about politics, Otto, I find out that I’m getting half truths.
“Misinformation campaign” sure seems to apply, all right.
Oh snap, vegetable lasagna just got straw manned!
@blackhawksfan, I actively try to inform myself. As such, I usually click through his links and am always amazed that they usually are in direct conflict with the point he’s trying to make or not related at all to the discussion at hand. If I had to guess, he’s being paid to spread these left wing talking points. That said, I almost always enjoy his non-political posts. I guess the moral of the story should be that I wish Warming Glow would ignore any stories that involve CNN/MSNBC/Fox News. While I hate the new format, it does make it easier to avoid them outright. I failed in avoiding this one and that’s my own fault.
@vegetable lasagna I just love how what were clear stances and non misquotes from Democrats are now explained with a kind of revisionist history “this is what they really meant but didn’t say” that contradicts what was clearly said.
Sorry, you all were complaining about a political circle jerk? I’ll let you finish.
Please, by all means, wallow in the bullshit of the Washington Times and the WSJ op-ed page and whatever else you want. I have no doubt that you’re able to cherry pick arguments on the other side to refute anything I say here. There’s a whole industry devoted to telling right wingers what they want to hear.
So have fun. Unskew the polls, insist the job numbers are cooked, do whatever else it is conservatives do these days to make reality fit their preconceived notions.
But know this: You lost the fight over Obamacare. You lost the 2012 election. You’ll lose this stupid shutdown tantrum. And soon, your party will wither up and die, starved by its own stupidity and its own refusal to reckon with reality.
And then, God willing, some actual conservatives who believe in things like “math” and “science” and “facts” will form a new conservative party in this country and we can get back to business.
@Otto, you are the king of cherry pickers. I love how you attack the source, not the ideas. You always resort to personal attacks when you have more than 1 person counter you. I’ve said this many times before, but I understand why you do that. It worked for Obama last election. He demonized Romney and Ryan instead of running on his record, which was abysmal.
Keep quoting the original CBO estimate.
[www.foxnews.com]
But now government actuaries have reached a different conclusion, finding that ObamaCare will actually increase health care spending by $621 billion over the next 10 years.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, the former head of the Congressional Budget Office, says, “now we’re seeing the official scorekeepers of health spending say ‘hey it’s going up, not down.’ That’s going to be a mark against the program no matter what.”
-Doug Holtz-Eakin…of the CBO…
I have nothing against you Otto. I think you are smart as hell, but I think you are wrong.
You have to admit: If Obama was white he would have his own party speaking against him, like Carter.
Is it racist to hold him to a different standard than a white male? It seems like liberals and Democrats treat him like he is a Special Needs President, instead of holding him accountable for his damage to the country.
[frontpagemag.com]
Compared to all Presidents since Kennedy. It has graphs, Otto.
[www.americanthinker.com]
Yes, when your sources are Fox News, American Thinker and Front Page Mag — where the actual motto is “Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Trying to Get Out” — then yes, I will mock your sources and I will mock you for using them.
Did you even read the Fox News piece? If you had, you’d realize that this new estimate isn’t from the CBO, it’s from CMMS. But no matter.
Yes, “health care spending” in this nation will increase under Obamacare … because more people will have access to health care and more people will be spending their money on health care services through those plans. Instead of not getting a pre-existing condition treated, they will get it treated. And in doing so … wait for it … they will spend money.
That statement — about “health care spending” in general going up because more people will have insurance and thus use it — is wildly different than the CBO’s claim that the federal government’s spending on health care will actually go down under Obamacare. That claim is still in place.
Here’s the actual report from CMMS. Read it without the filter of Fox News and you’ll see it says something entirely different.
[content.healthaffairs.org]
It seems like liberals and Democrats treat him like he is a Special Needs President, instead of holding him accountable for his damage to the country.
Or maybe liberals and Democrats look at his record — 40% increase in the stock market, corporate profits at an all time high, fastest rate of deficit reduction in 60 years, major reforms of Wall Street, saving the auto industry, ending the war in Iraq, the assassination of Bin Laden, ending DADT, securing equal pay for women, securing health insurance provisions that have been on the progressive wish list since Teddy Roosevelt, etc etc. — and we somehow don’t see “failure.”
Maybe, just maybe, the ones who are seeing this president through the lens of race are the ones who insist he’s a failure when he’s actually accomplished more than any president in office since Lyndon Johnson.
Yeah, all those presidents had the same economy they were dealing with. Nothing unusual about when Obama took office. Nothing at all.
I get it, you don’t like him. Everything bad is his fault, everything good is someone else’s credit.
Jesus, I didn’t like most of what Bush did, but there were things he did that I liked — his outreach to Latinos and Muslims was impressive and sincere, and the global AIDS initiative he launched made Clinton’s efforts look like shit. If I were you guys, I guess I would’ve seen those as secret plots to conquer Mexico and make money off the HIV cocktail.
Or health care spending will increase because premiums will increase.
[www.forbes.com]
Forbes.
Let me try one of your normal attacks on a source. Heathaffairs.org is run by John K. Iglehart and Susan Dentzer, both of whom have strong ties to the DNC.
Christ, healthaffairs.org is simply the hosting site that has the PDF of the CMMS report you initially cited. The CMMS report is there, in its original form.
Your Forbes blog post relies on a study from the American Action Forum, a self-described “center-right” think tank.
Go read the CMMS report. You’re the one who brought it up. Go read it.
“Or maybe liberals and Democrats look at his record — 40% increase in the stock market, corporate profits at an all time high, fastest rate of deficit reduction in 60 years, major reforms of Wall Street, saving the auto industry, ending the war in Iraq, the assassination of Bin Laden, ending DADT, securing equal pay for women, securing health insurance provisions that have been on the progressive wish list since Teddy Roosevelt, etc etc. — and we somehow don’t see “failure.”’
Did you copy and paste that from another post of yours?
The stock market is only up 40% because of the still unnecessary pumping by the fed.
Faster deceit reductions: 1993-1996 64% (Clinton) 2004-2007 66% (W.)
[www.factcheck.org]
Just because you repeat something over and over again doesn’t make it true.
Saved the auto industry?
[www.forbes.com]
“Obama’s claim that he saved GM from bankruptcy is false. Even a bizarre bankruptcy is a bankruptcy is a bankruptcy, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, for my intellectual readers. Obama’s cars Czar strong armed GM through a political bankruptcy that flaunted judicial practice to reward Obama’s union allies and protect their gold-plated pensions, put the government in charge of product lines and investment, cheat creditors, and leave taxpayers on the hook for tens of billions of dollars.
Just ask the tens of thousands of retirees who sunk their life savings into now-worthless GM stock, whether Obama “saved” GM? Ask small bondholder, Debra June, whose $70,000 investment in GM bonds is now worth $200, whether Obama’s GM bankruptcy was fair to all or favored his political cronies?”
As I said before when you used that almost identical paragraph with Obama’s record (press release), the auto bailouts screwed debtors and bondholders in GM.
GM’s profits are way down. If GM followed Romney’s advice, they would have gone through a structured bankruptcy which would not have screwed bondholders, retirees, and debtors.
@Otto Did you read the .pdf files? I went to read them but the files are only available via subscription. Do you have a subscription or read a paraphrase from google search? $29.95 a month or $15.00 a day. I hate paywalls.
Yeah, I’m done. I keep on pointing out the errors of your claim, then you move the goalposts and make a new claim, and then I point out those errors and on and on we go.
This is like trying to explain algebra to a cocker spaniel. I give up.
Again, you try to rewrite history. I have debunked your revisionist history on Obama’s successes so you decide to give up but say you won.
Answer my question.
Are you a subscriber to heathaffairs.org or did you use block quotes from google search? There is a paywall at healthaffairs.org for the .pdfs. I don’t think you read the .pdfs, the same thing you were accusing me of not doing.
Cooper is just sore for getting spanks in the ratings by Fox. Maybe he should bring in Joy Behar for her opinion on ACA? Or Judge Judy? Larry David?
Their outrage is nice, but it’s directed in the most ridiculous way possible. They claim to hate Bush policies, but were suspiciously silent during his 8 years of overspending, government expansion, and poor economic policies. Instead of trying to balance taxes and take some of the fat out of government while recognizing the difficult place that most workers are in, they want a scorched earth policy that will only benefit the top 1%.
I know how the GOP feels, when i was a little kid, i would play video games with my older brother and whenever he beat me, i swear it was because hes a cheatin ass motherfucker. I always just said fuck this and turned that shit off before it ended.
I don’t see how Congress can be so afraid of failure. Their approval rating is abysmal, so you think they’d be more comfortable with allowing something or someone to fail.
The title of this article is very biased. The Congressman holds his own with very good points. The Legislative Branch is completely separate from the Executive Branch, but just as powerful, just because a President wins re-election doesn’t mean he becomes a dictator and everything he wants is free to pass. Cooper is a little biased on the issue and embarrasses himself a little when he claims he’s not. The Congressman embarrasses himself when he tries to defend not bringing it up for a vote. Other than that, no one was “taken to school”. I smell media bias.