Originally Posted By: sinij
Originally Posted By: Derid


Maybe they would, maybe they wouldnt. My point is that instead of giving them the opportunity to do so, or to not do so - the Dems have seized on the media meme of some years back painting the GOP as obstructionist and ensured that nothing can happen either way. The epitome of passive-aggressive politics.


Yes, this is valid criticism.

Still, lets go through mental exercise of what would happen if Dems proposed functional, balanced budget. Such budget would include cuts to social spending, cuts to military spending, across-the-boards tax increases. In effect such budget would a) alienate Dem base (your average voter is not smart enough to understand necessity), energize GOP base (Tea Party and all) and all but guarantee _undeserving_ 2-house majorities to Republicans. Plus it is not even guaranteed to get passed, it can get voted down (not solving the problem) and still used to full extent as a political weapon.

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Now, if we were to get more granular and target specific Bush loving politicians during their re-election then I am all for that. Few things make me happier than seeing a Bush-flunky congresscritter get ousted during a primary by a Tea Party or Liberty candidate, even if the Dems go on to win the seat.


Something both of us can agree on. I'd go even farther, while I acknowledge that crisis-era bailouts were necessary to prevent complete meltdown, I still want to see anyone voting for them gone. I also want to see people responsible for de-regulation that lead to this crisis voted out as well.


I am not so sure your analysis of what would happen is entirely accurate. But its not provable either way.

If you want to talk about pertinent deregulation, you have to go back to Clinton.

But I blame Fed bubble economy combined with Bush spending combined with the culture of corruption for the previous and the coming crash. Deregulation may have helped shaped the way in which it manifested but with such unsound fundamentals in terms of govt and monetary policy bad things were going to happen. You cant just control the side effects of such poor fundamentals with a bit of regulation.

I have read many sides to the regulation debate.. and in many regards much of it is six of one, half a dozen of another. My end take is that while some regulation can certainly be useful, getting overly mired in which regulations or lack thereof are the "culprits" is missing the forest for the trees.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)