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US Politics: all assertions sourced, or your subsidy returned


DanteGabriel

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Term limits: this means that a *LOT* of once 'safe' democratic or republican party seats automatically become 'unsafe'. Canny older politician forced to quit, not so canny younger politician sticks foot sideways in mouth and looses election. In support...witness the absolutely abysmal republican record of dealing with women.

In some cases, it becomes feasible that third party or even independent candidates could win national level seats despite vehment opposition by both parties (because the old hands cannot participate in the races and the new establishment candidates are...'flawed' ).

Those are political considerations. The intent is to eliminate the permanent ruling class in DC, which the framers never intended. 12 years in each chamber or 12 years combined have been proposed limits.

Now...as to the balanced budget thing...this might be what it takes to destroy the absurdity of the 'Lafer Curve'. True, ever since Obama took office, the republicans have been making nonsense claims about being the party of fiscal responsibility, but prior to that, dogma according to Lafer held that budget deficits were utterly unimportant, and republicans acted accordingly. Hence, imposition of a mandatory, unavoidable balanced budget requirement automatically negates a key part of the Lafer dogma: which means a republican controlled government, to avoid constitutional crisis will *have* to raise taxes *and* make draconian cuts to favored republican programs like defence.

Depends on how the BBA is worded. Here is Sen. Mike Lee's version for example:

http://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=39d388ab-fdce-462f-87cc-61e7b4a3baa5

SECTION 1. Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year.

SECTION 2. Total outlays shall not exceed 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending prior to the beginning of such fiscal year.

SECTION 3. The Congress may provide for suspension of the limitations imposed by section 1 or 2 of this article for any fiscal year for which two-thirds of the whole number of each House shall provide, by a roll call vote, for a specific excess of outlays over receipts or over 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending prior to the beginning of such fiscal year.

SECTION 4. Any bill to levy a new tax or increase the rate of any tax shall not become law unless approved by two-thirds of the whole number of each House of Congress by a roll call vote.

SECTION 5. The limit on the debt of the United States held by the public shall not be increased, unless two-thirds of the whole number of each House of Congress shall provide for such an increase by a roll call vote.

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Those are political considerations. The intent is to eliminate the permanent ruling class in DC, which the framers never intended.

Surely then the amendment should look at restricting lobbyists as well as legislators?

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Malt,







Surely then the amendment should look at restricting lobbyists as well as legislators?






And meddle with freedom of speech and association? Sacrilege! Destroy the power of the government to do fuckall to help anyone, and there won't be enough money in Washington to bother restricting lobbyists. Why that wouldn't be enough to also make term limits unnecessary is beyond me, but I suppose there's gotta be something.


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Those are political considerations. The intent is to eliminate the permanent ruling class in DC, which the framers never intended. 12 years in each chamber or 12 years combined have been proposed limits.

I don't know what the framers intended, neither do you, and neither does anyone else. They're dead anyway, so it falls to us to decide how we want to run our country. Personally, I don't see much empirical evidence that a high turnover rate in Congress does us much good. Lots of congresscritters lost their seats in 2010, but there aren't many who'd seriously argue this improved the House as a whole.

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#1: People vote basically based on the economy and partisan affiliation. If a Republican from a conservative district is pushed out of office by term limits he'll likely be replaced by another. Most politicians just don't make the kinds of gaffes it would take to swing an election in a safe seat district.

I'd still argue it opens the door to opposition candidates a little wider. And less experienced candidates are far more likely to make the sort of blunders that would cost them elections. Witness the 'legitimate rape' thing.

#2: Republicans do not *have* to raise taxes or cut defense. They can always cut social spending, right?

At that point they start running into major opposition from established 'power blocks'. Gut Social Security, and the AARP will stand against them, and previously loyal voters will go for the other guy. Of course, many republicans are stupid enough to do this.

SECTION 3. The Congress may provide for suspension of the limitations imposed by section 1 or 2 of this article for any fiscal year for which two-thirds of the whole number of each House shall provide, by a roll call vote, for a specific excess of outlays over receipts or over 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending prior to the beginning of such fiscal year.

SECTION 4. Any bill to levy a new tax or increase the rate of any tax shall not become law unless approved by two-thirds of the whole number of each House of Congress by a roll call vote.

SECTION 5. The limit on the debt of the United States held by the public shall not be increased, unless two-thirds of the whole number of each House of Congress shall provide for such an increase by a roll call vote.

And there goes the Hastart rule.

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term limits and a balanced budget amendment are the main focus of the proposed convention, and both enjoy overwhelming majority support amongst the populace

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/poll-75-percent-want-hill-term-limits-86378.html

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/07/21/rel11b.pdf

First, those two are by far not the only 2 issues discussed. The topics discussed also include:

Spurred on by Mark Levin and others, there is a grass-roots conservative movement to convene an Article V convention of the States to amend the Constitution by enacting so-called "Liberty Amendments" that would eliminate the popular election of Senators, require a balanced federal budget, prohibit the federal government from any activity conducted by the states (including healthcare), effectively eliminate the commerce clause and the general welfare clause, enact term limits on judges and enable the States to overturn judicial decisions, impose nation-wide voter id laws, and enshrine several other far-right hobbyhorses as Constitutional imperatives.

(Source: Daily Kos).

That is a what's what list of conservative wish list. The Convention made no pretense that this is a right-wing movement, not the least of which is basing the concept of Mark Levin's book. The over all push of this convention is to devolve power from the Federal government back to the state level. It is not a premise that any of the blue states will find appealing. This is red meat for the right-wingers and a trial balloon for the preseidential hopefuls, with little relevance to the politics of the day.

Second, the polling results cited are less than imppressive. Both of them were of limited sampling size (around 1000 adults surveyed), and the poll on supporting balanced budget amendment showed that the support was about the same since 1994.

Third, to reduce the insider culture of politics, enforcing bans on revolving doors between Congress (not just elected officials but staffers too) and lobbying groups and on unlimited campaign contributions will probably do more than enacting term limits. As usual, the right is tackling the problem from the wrong side.

So, yeah.

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That "balanced budget amendment" is really "republicans win, no compromise amendment". How the fuck can you try to justify 2/3 majority requirement for tax increase in an amendment that's supposed to be about balancing the budget? Ideology that's how.

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That "balanced budget amendment" is really "republicans win, no compromise amendment". How the fuck can you try to justify 2/3 majority requirement for tax increase in an amendment that's supposed to be about balancing the budget? Ideology that's how.

the justification would be it should take more than a majority to confiscate a person's wealth

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As I said...ideology. There is already taxation, increasing the tax doesn't change the principle of the thing.



Keep going down this road and forgetting the lessons of the past and you'll see what a majority confiscating a peron's wealth actually looks like, it sure as shit isn't the IRS.


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I'd still argue it opens the door to opposition candidates a little wider. And less experienced candidates are far more likely to make the sort of blunders that would cost them elections. Witness the 'legitimate rape' thing.

Sure, you can argue that, but I don't see any evidence to support the claim that a high turnover of elected officials results in better policy.

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here comes the Doc Shock



http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/994951f8-5e71-11e3-8621-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mvzWzKPI




Amid a drive by insurers to limit costs, the majority of insurance plans being sold on the new healthcare exchanges in New York, Texas, and California, for example, will not offer patients’ access to Memorial Sloan Kettering in Manhattan or MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, two top cancer centres, or Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, one of the top research and teaching hospitals in the country.




Families kicked onto the exchanges that were sending their kids to Cedars-Sinai and MD Anderson for cancer treatment will no longer be able to.



This is the sort of thing that ends in pitchforks and torches.


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This is the sort of thing that ends in pitchforks and torches.

This is the sort of thing you hope ends up in pitchforks and torches, because, just like when you were cheering for bad jobs reports, you actively root against your own country's prosperity when a Democrat is President.

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here comes the Doc Shock

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/994951f8-5e71-11e3-8621-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mvzWzKPI

Families kicked onto the exchanges that were sending their kids to Cedars-Sinai and MD Anderson for cancer treatment will no longer be able to.

This is the sort of thing that ends in pitchforks and torches.

If you want to go to one of the two top cancer centers in the country, then can't people buy a plan that lets them? The article says the "majority" of plan don't include them, which implies that some do.

Edit: Seems like the talking points about the ACA recently is that since private insurers aren't including 100% of providers in the country in their plan, then... um, then something about Obama being awful, or something like that.

Unless you're just trying to say that people are stupid and don't understand that smaller networks keep premiums down.

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Sorry, paid wall article, so I won't be reading it.

But realistically, the plans that offer top-tier treatment centers and hospitals will likely go up in price. That part isn't surprising.

Well, to me, at least, it isn't.

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Sorry, paid wall article, so I won't be reading it.

But realistically, the plans that offer top-tier treatment centers and hospitals will likely go up in price. That part isn't surprising.

Well, to me, at least, it isn't.

People are dumb, at least the people falling for this rhetoric are dumb. Narrow network plans have been around for quite a while (like... HMOs). I'm like, 99.99% sure that Kaiser Colorado doesn't cover MD Anderson either. I wonder if that's also Obama's fault.

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The transcript of an epic David Simon speech on inequality is here.

Great speech. A lot of what is tumbling in my head, as well, about the place of capitalism in our world. To quote:

Socialism is a dirty word in my country. I have to give that disclaimer at the beginning of every speech, "Oh by the way I'm not a Marxist you know". I lived through the 20th century. I don't believe that a state-run economy can be as viable as market capitalism in producing mass wealth. I don't.

I'm utterly committed to the idea that capitalism has to be the way we generate mass wealth in the coming century. That argument's over. But the idea that it's not going to be married to a social compact, that how you distribute the benefits of capitalism isn't going to include everyone in the society to a reasonable extent, that's astonishing to me.

And so capitalism is about to seize defeat from the jaws of victory all by its own hand. That's the astonishing end of this story, unless we reverse course. Unless we take into consideration, if not the remedies of Marx then the diagnosis, because he saw what would happen if capital triumphed unequivocally, if it got everything it wanted.

And one of the things that capital would want unequivocally and for certain is the diminishment of labour. They would want labour to be diminished because labour's a cost. And if labour is diminished, let's translate that: in human terms, it means human beings are worth less.

From this moment forward unless we reverse course, the average human being is worth less on planet Earth. Unless we take stock of the fact that maybe socialism and the socialist impulse has to be addressed again; it has to be married as it was married in the 1930s, the 1940s and even into the 1950s, to the engine that is capitalism.

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Liar, liar pants on fire. This dude couldn't lie straight in bed



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/12/05/after-denying-they-had-met-white-house-now-says-obama-lived-with-uncle/




The White House acknowledged Thursday that President Obama lived with his uncle for a brief period in the 1980s while he was a student at Harvard Law School -- despite previously saying there was no record of the two having met.


"The president did stay with him for a brief period of time until his apartment was ready," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement. "After that, they saw each other once every few months, but after law school they fell out of touch. The president has not seen him in 20 years, has not spoken with him in 10. "


Onyango "Omar" Obama faced a deportation hearing earlier this week following a drunk-driving arrest. During the hearing, he said that the president had lived with him while he was a student at Harvard.




I guess when he said 'they'd never met' technically it was true because meeting someone is not the the same as living with them.


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