Jan 02 2007
Bush Veto Warm Up
The fastest way to tame the out of control Democrats is to remind them of their own promises for bipartisanship through the veto:
As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.
House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.
Bush should veto the lot of them and let the Democrats look like the fools they are. The last thing Democrats can afford to do is waste time on partisan posturing. The Dems have small window to convince people the were a good choice, and not the greater of two evils. They won on the gamble they were the lesser of two evils. If they prove they are not even that, and in the first 100 days no less, stick a fork in them. Their done. America has no more patience for this partisan foolishness.
And it should be noted that while Republicans blew their majority status, they are experts of the minority game – having played that role for much of the half century prior to the taking Congress in 1994. The old Dems are the same ones who lost Congress in 1994 by being heavy handed under with their own party’s President at the time – Bill Clinton. The Dems did not show a brilliance in the minority – the Reps screwed up and caught cocky and arrogant (dangerous combination). But the dems have a history of losing the winning hands they have. They were abysmal in the minority and the majority over the last dew decades. I am surprised anyone is thinking they will not continue along as their experience and tempermant dictate!
There is still the Senate to deal with. The Democrats hold a lead … but the slimest of all possible leads. With Senator Johnson still in the hospital, a single Democrat voting with the Republicans results in a tie … and Cheney breaks the tie.
I don’t buy the idea that Republicans know how to play the minority game. They didn’t even know how to play the majority game. The Dems ran circles around them and kept Congress tied up with their ‘non-filibusters” and other petty tactics. The GOP never had a clue how to get their agenda passed. In addition, the Dems stuck together like their minority and special interest supporters do and block voted. Even the so called moderates voted the party line m0st of the time. But the Reps. No party loyalty, no cohesiveness, no supporting common objectives., no standing up for their falsely accused members. It’s little wonder people gave up on them. They couldn’t do anything. If the Dems could tie up the Rep majority like they did for the past 12 years, then the Reps could have done it to the Dems when they were in power. Heck. even after getting a first hand lesson they won’t be able to tie up the Dems agenda like was done to them. They are too busy playing Mr. Nice Guy. Somebody needs to tell them that nice Guys finish last. Look at the Dems. Out and out crooks, bribe takers, unethical cads, preying homosexuals, etc. and they haven’t turned a single one of them out and if it hadn’t been for the national uproar most of the crooks would hold Committee chairmanships. The Reps have proved they just don’t have what it takes. The whole lot of them don’t have the balls Ronald Reagan had.
MomDear1,
I hate to disagree but a lot of the GOP and Bush agenda passed. We had two authorizations for war, we had two or three tax cuts, we had partial birth abortion ban and parental notification, Bush held the line on stem cell research (against the GOP actually). We had prescription drug benefit added to Medicare as a private sector component – not a government managed component. We had two supreme court judges confirmed and numerous lower court appointments. I can go on and on because that was only under Bush, more was accomplished under Clinto.! The truth is those parts of the GOP agenda left undone were the ones without broad support. And the GOP are the ones who decided to lose their support by shunning compromise where it made sense (immigration) and giving up their core values where it did not make sense (stem cells). The GOP lost their way.
BTW,
You don’t need balls, you need brains. And you need to count. And if being civil and respectful is too hard then good riddance to the Reps.
I would say the Republicans never learned to effectively play the majority role.
I think Momdear1 has a point though AJ. Why is it that when William Jefferson or John Conyers or any one of the numerous corrupt democrats get caught being about as crooked as they can be, you don’t hear a word from the republicans? Harry Reid? Cmon now, They don’t even condemn them let alone fight for them to be kicked out of congress. But when any republican makes the slightest misjudgement, the dems immediately start calling for him to step down, harumphing about how despicable this behaviour was and sometimes the republicans go along with it and turn on their own! Truth be told, if you were to compare all of the congressional political scandals in the last fifty years, the vast majority are democrats. Why don’t the republicans fight about this? They are always silent. I think that’s what momdear1 is talking about here. That’s totally why the dems were able to succeed with this “Culture of Corruption” garbage painting the reps with corruption becuase they were too timid to fight. And if someone accuses you and all you do is stand there with a dumb look on your face, people tend to believe it.
While I agree they did get some good things done, they also spent like a drunken sailor and I know because I am one! They did a ridiculous amont of spending. The bigger accomplishment may be what they can keep from being done.
I don’t think you see congress, yet, in its true light.
The donks go for the quick “blip.” Here today. Forgotten t’marra.
While the GOP is really two parties now. Split between supporters of one thing, or another. And, the old-fashioned dudes. Who showed up at the country clubs for the golf.
There’s also the reality that Bush, year to year, stays the course. Doesn’t deviate all that much from what he’s doing. And, so things will stay pretty much the same. While in Iraq? I’ll bet that for the people, most of them are gonna do better “owning a piece of the store.” Than letting the real lunatics BINGE.
Of course, the Saud’s want a piece of the oil pie! And, that’s what creates the animosity. And, leaves Bush “cold” to helping the shi’a.
That things muck along?
Well, you don’t have a functioning UN.
So things, by definition, muck along.
You want outcomes? The idiots who scream to “pull the troops out” aren’t even lucid. It’s like you found this old-old age home; with hippies, who were none-too-with-it back in the good ole days.
Can a senator emerge who’d be competitive for the presidential race in 2008? So far, it isn’t the first place you’d go look. IF you were looking FOR talent.
On the other hand, everything that’s done for show is done the way Charlie Chaplin (who was a very cheap bastard); built his home. He refused to pay carpenters. So he just hired the guys who built the sets.
That means when you opened a door the handle came off in your hands.
And, in the unlikely event you pressed your hand against the wall, the wall came tumbling down.
The senate’s no different.
Every one of those suited up ego’s is trying to find ways to “distinguish” themselves.
And, the only way you know it’s a new year is that you look at the calendar.
As to the posturing, what do you expect from the donks? They have an inexperienced black man running for their nomination. And, pelosi, who came to the majority chair because she’s “served more time in congress” than any other donkey critter. She comes from San Francisco. Hardly a place you’d call representative of mainstream America!
How did the democraps fall into such bad straights? The party of the “working man” went to haaarvard? Who gives a massa2shits, anyway?
More Democratic broken promises…
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nov. 10, 2006:
“Election’s over. The only way to move forward is with bipartisanship and openness and to get some results. And we’ve made a commitment — the four [Bush, Durbin, and &?] of …
Congress could have done more.
They could have passed the permanent ban on death taxes. The dems say this is a benefit for the rich. That is not true. The children of farmers have to sell their land and small business inheritors have to either sell or mortgage to the hilt.
They could have passed a bill to save medicare. The dems say it is not in trouble. We shall see what they say now that they are in control. I’ll bet it is a different story since they would get credit.
They could have installed more judges in the lower courts. Arlen Spector was a disaster.
They could have repealed McCain-Feingold. This most egregious piece of hypocrisy needs to go. I was astonished when the SC said it was legal when it patently was not. But I’ll bet I was not as astonished as Mitch McConnell. This is outright loss of free speech blatantly so.
There might be more SC justices within the next two years. How much of a chance do you think Bush has of putting a conservative in. None. I”ll bet Stevens and/or Ginsberg retire now that the dems are in control. That was what they were waiting for.
They could have done a lot but they let the dems run rings around them. Denny Hastert complaining about the FBI searching Jefferson’s office like a congressional office is sacrosanct. That was the impression he gave and it was a disaster. That was one of the reasons the republicans lost. People just gave up after that.
Pelosi and the Democrats tell the Republicans to sit down and be quiet…
I read this story with great interest today.
Democrats To Start Without GOP Input
As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline R…
For CNN the story is honing up about what they did to protect Saddam Hussein’s regime while it was in power but now to ……
focus on who taunted him just before death
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/03/saddam.execution/index.html
Their LEAD story is on this.
Aj
I wish to note a strange conundrum in our law making system.
In the great wisdom of our legislatures they passed a law called Sarbanes-Oxley that place many requirements on CEO’s of corporations to state they have completely reviewed and certified the financial documents put forth by their corporations in the aftermath of the Enron and Worldcom/MCI debacles.
Despite the major financial displacements here, they don’t hold a candle to the 300,000 a day still being paid out by our government in the many year old war on poverty.
Even the smallest corporations are held to these requirements.
Call me a bit of a curmudgeon here, but when was the last time a government congressional representative was held to signing a statement that he fully understood and vouched for a several hundred page document that he voted on to make a law.
Did he realize the thousands of pages of federal regulations that would be generated to support enforcement of that law?
Did he realize all the modified or new state laws and regulations that would have to be passed to insure compliance with the federal mandate?
A part of the problem with our system of government that goes so often overlooked.
As a further comment it has been one of the driving forces of the wave of private equity firm buyouts of prior public traded companies, since when they go private they no longer come under Sarbanes-Oxley and you can realize an immediate 6 – 60 million per year straight drop to the bottom line.
This is why merger and acquisition activity has been so high on Wall Street this year.
A lot of companies have been removed from the stock exchanges in multi-billion dollar deals leaving fewer companies for investors and mutual funds to invest in.
Also another effect has been that this year we had a very small number of initial stock offerings in the US market , due to most of the IPO’s being moved to overseas exchanges to avoid the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley.
All the law of unintended consequences.
This is not something that operates in isolation. It has major effects on long term and short term investors.
I can give a perfect example with myself. My tax attorney has already gave me the news that this quarter when I file my taxes, due to the mutual funds I hold and Exchange Traded Funds that have had some of these buyout companies making up their content that I have incurred a major tax liability due to having to recognize long term capital gains.
Most of the companies that were taken private sold for anywhere from a 8 to 24 percent premium over stock prices at the time of the deal, and this doesn’t even account for appreciation of the stock over the years I have held them.
The personal impact to me is that my check to the tax people this quarter will go up in the area of eight figures.
Ok tell me how I got a tax cut.
Merl – My sympathy on your loss and my congratulations for being smart enough to have made that kind of money. It’s certain the left would like to see the stock market crash and if investors are hurting this much, they’ll simply move to other investments that aren’t taxed as heavily. That would hurt the market and help Soros and friends in their determination to destroy the dollar as the world currency.
Like I’ve said before we are safer when congress is NOT in session.
Erp
I have long term holding accounts spread over multiple institutions for the sake of diversity. I have a extremely large portfolio of tbills and tax free municipal bonds.
My day trading account is a hobby with me that is just a distraction.
On a trading day my open positions vary all day long, I tend to do about 100 or more trades a day due to my trading style.
Most days my peak investment because of the limits I place on my account and draw out any surplus, tends to be just a little north of 2 million a day.
On an average day I tend to clear anywhere between 20 to 40 grand by the time the smoke clears.
Congress can still be civil and respectful while not knuckling down the dems. This is possible. I don’t want them to act like the democrats but would like to see them support each other when falsely accused or even over nothing like the Lott debacle. AAfter all no demanded anything of Byrd when he said the n word. The republicans are very quick to ask people to step down on the flimiest accusations. Look at the republican ethics rules that a leader has to step down when indicted by a grand jury when the democrats don’t have this rule. The democrats made such a fuss about the republicans changing this that the republicans caved and reinstalled it. This was the ground work for the DeLay indictment. I doubt that there would have been an indictment if they had not reinstalled this rule. There would be no point.
Barbara you are so right. Dems don’t have the rule about stepping down on indictment, I don’t even think they have to step down on conviction!
Merl, Good man.
Merlin
The Sarbanes-Oxley bill is a perfect example of a group of people enacting a law on something they know nothing about and therefore do not understand the repercussions of same. The idea that a CEO has to understand and sign off on financials that take an accounting department with hundreds of people to do all the transactions is insane. I was in acconting for 35 years and know how impossible it is that he/she would know all facets of the financials and there are literally millions in some corporations. It would be impossible for the CFO to do so either with so many people under his supervision. It is easily understood why so many companies are going private or out of the country. This will be a loss for the economy and the funny thing is that congress will never recognize this. This is not the first time congress has passed a bill that is detrimental to the country.