U.S. Politics: Feelings Trump Facts

[Martell Spy]

Will Donald Trump Be FDR or Jimmy Carter?

We’re on the cusp of either a transformative presidency or a party-killing failure.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/will_donald_trump_be_fdr_or_jimmy_carter.html

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 Holy Shit. That was quick...

 http://www.fark.com/comments/9429988/Annnnnd-its-gone-Senate-Votes-51-48-to-repeal-Obamacare

Keep in mind ME, once a piece of legislation passes both chambers the President has 10 days to sign it, veto it or send it back to the Congress, so even if they  passed a repeal today it would just be one last symbolic middle finger to the President.

12 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!

The Trump transition team, it is being reported on CNN, has told the House Appropriations Committee that they will be asking for funds to Build The Wall.

$38 Billion was the price tag, wasn't it?

 

9 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

HAHAHAHA.  So not taxpayers will pay for the wall, on Trump won't because he doesn't pay taxes.  Avoiding more bills....

I mean, how do his supporters continue to justify their support?  This was the centerpiece of his entire campaign.  It was obviously all bullshit, but these people believed it for whatever reason.

 

Never fear, Trump tweeted out that he'll make Mexico pay for it later.

9 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I wish it were possible to repeal and replace the Republican Party.

It already has been. It's the Tea Party now. The true Republican Party is dead.

[OldGimletEye]

http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2017/01/bias-against-those-from-less-wealthy.html

Quote

Here's a figure to illustrate the findings. The results show monthly returns in "basis points," which means that 20 is actually .2%. Fund managers whose parents came from the highest wealth quintile performed the worst, while fund managers whose parents came from the lowest wealth quintile performed the best.

Quote

"Indeed, in tracking career trajectories of mutual fund managers, they find that the promotions of managers from well-to-do families are less sensitive to their performance. In other words, managers who are born rich are more likely to be promoted for reasons unrelated to performance. In contrast, those born into poor families are fewer in number and are promoted only if they outperform. They also find that fund managers from less-affluent families who do make it into top ranks are more active on their job: they are more likely to trade and deviate from the market, whereas those born rich are more likely to follow benchmark indexes." 

 

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, LongRider said:

William J. Perry is 89, retired cold warrior who has he says become “a prophet of doom.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/william-perry-nuclear-weapons-proliferation-214604

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

[Commodore]

40 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Keep in mind ME, once a piece of legislation passes both chambers the President has 10 days to sign it, veto it or send it back to the Congress, so even if they  passed a repeal today it would just be one last symbolic middle finger to the President.

nothing symbolic about what they are doing now

and even what they did before was not symbolic, it set the legal and procedural precendent for what's happening now

reality hasn't sunk in yet for the left that this is getting repealed

[Commodore]

the fence is happening

as an engineer, interested to see what the design looks like. I imagine it will be similar to the Israeli fence that's been effective at keeping out the jihadis. 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/house-gop-trump-border-wall-233237

Quote

 

House Republicans and Donald Trump’s team are coalescing around a multi-billion dollar plan to make good on the president-elect’s campaign vows to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, according to top Republican lawmakers and aides.

Republican leaders, in tandem with Trump’s transition staff, are considering using a 2006 law signed by former President George W. Bush that authorized the construction of 700 miles-plus of “physical barrier” on the southern border. The law was never fully implemented and did not include a sunset provision, allowing Trump to pick up where Bush left off — with the help of new money from Congress.

Yet the plan could potentially provoke a showdown with Democrats over government funding. Republicans are considering whether to tuck the border wall funding into a must-pass spending bill that must be enacted by the end of April. GOP lawmakers and aides believe they could win a public relations war over the matter by daring Democrats — particularly vulnerable red-state senators up for reelection next year — to shutter the government over one of Trump’s most popular campaign pledges.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

18 minutes ago, Commodore said:

nothing symbolic about what they are doing now

and even what they did before was not symbolic, it set the legal and procedural precendent for what's happening now

reality hasn't sunk in yet for the left that this is getting repealed

If there is a zero percent chance of a piece of legislation actually becoming law, then yes, it is symbolic. 

And no, the left has accepted that it's likely getting repealed. Has the right accepted that it's going to be super politically damaging to do so?

[aceluby]

9 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Indeed.  That was my original point - the GOP doesn't wanna touch the incredibly popular provisions but has nothing to offer IRT paying for them.  I fully anticipate Trump being a Dubya retread in terms of "big government" Republicanism, which means traditional Democratic spending coupled with traditional Republican tax cuts.  It will fuck the economy like it did before - especially if the GOP Congress tries to screw around with the ACA like a teenager stealing his mother's wallet.  Again, without the racist Family Guy clip, good luck.  One can only hope the public recognizes this by 2020.

How many years of GOP explosive spending is it going to take for you guys to understand that it's the GOP that spends like there is no tomorrow?  Reagan did it.  Bush did it (and was ousted when he actually tried paying for it).  Bush 2 did it.  And it looks like Trump is on the same path.

40 years and you still think the GOP is good for the economy.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, aceluby said:

40 years and you still think the GOP is good for the economy.

But, but, but, it's the "Party of Business"!!!!

[mormont]

47 minutes ago, Commodore said:

reality hasn't sunk in yet for the left that this is getting repealed

I'm scratching my head at the idea that after left-leaning boarders spending chunks of the past three US Politics threads bemoaning the fact that the ACA is to be repealed, discussing what will happen when (not if) it is repealed, and worrying about the human cost of repeal, you have somehow reached the conclusion that they don't think it'll happen. That's... bizarre.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, mormont said:

I'm scratching my head at the idea that after left-leaning boarders spending chunks of the past three US Politics threads bemoaning the fact that the ACA is to be repealed, discussing what will happen when (not if) it is repealed, and worrying about the human cost of repeal, you have somehow reached the conclusion that they don't think it'll happen. That's... bizarre.

Indeed.

I think most of us know damn well the  Republican Party is going to trash the ACA, along with other important legislation, like Dodd Frank, and probably do a number on Medicare and Social Security too, and implement a legislative agenda that reflects their so called "conservative values" and right now there isn't damn thing us lefties can do about it, other than sit here in the cheap seats, watching this whole thing, and making snarky commentary as the "Party of Business" manages to muck things up.

[aceluby]

6 minutes ago, mormont said:

I'm scratching my head at the idea that after left-leaning boarders spending chunks of the past three US Politics threads bemoaning the fact that the ACA is to be repealed, discussing what will happen when (not if) it is repealed, and worrying about the human cost of repeal, you have somehow reached the conclusion that they don't think it'll happen. That's... bizarre.

Simple explanation.... is in the title of this thread.

GOP is fiscally responsible, not because of facts, but because it feels right.  Cutting taxes always brings in more taxes, not because of facts, but because they feel it should.  The economy is shit right now, not because it actually is, but because they feel that its.  Crime has exploded, despite facts showing it has actually decreased.

Reality has no place in the Republican party anymore.

[butterbumps!]

1 hour ago, Commodore said:

reality hasn't sunk in yet for the left that this is getting repealed

I'm fairly certain the only people surprised by this are the geniuses who voted for trump, confident he wouldn't actually do it despite how he said he would do it   

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/12/27/these-coal-country-voters-backed-trump-now-theyre-worried-about-losing-obamacare/?utm_term=.7b89ac0cb7fe

http://www.vox.com/2016/12/13/13901874/obamacare-trump-voter-health-insurance-repeal

[Kalbear]

16 hours ago, Tempra said:

Not a very excitng time to be a federal worker as Republicans are already planning to slash benefits. I guess they need to clear out space in the budget to overpay some federal contractors.

 

Remember how a few folks said Trump would be good for them because they work for the government and he'd be doing a lot more jobs? Heh. 

[TrackerNeil]

13 hours ago, dmc515 said:

To clarify, reconciliation bills - which have to be related to the budget - are not subject to filibuster and is how the ACA was passed in the Senate to begin with after Scott Brown was elected.

Not to seem like a smarty-pants, but I hear this all the time and it's not really true. The ACA passed the Senate 60-39, in regular order, over a filibuster. The House passed the same bill, then a bill was passed via reconciliation to make a few small fixes that the GOP had promised to filibuster. That's why Republicans today can't repeal the law root and branch via reconciliation, although they can certainly screw it up. 

Speaking of screwing up, this entire issue is a loser for them. Repeal will antagonize millions of a voters and the entire healthcare industry, but not doing so will piss of their voters. If I were the GOP, I'd pass a repeal that essentially keeps all of the ACA except for a few unpopular bits and renames it the Ronald Reagan Healthcare Goodies Act. Then I'd lie shamelessly and claim to have repealed "Obamacare." After all, the closed conservative information loop ensures that most Republicans will believe whatever they're told, so why not make use of that?

[Maithanet]

14 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Speaking of screwing up, this entire issue is a loser for them. Repeal will antagonize millions of a voters and the entire healthcare industry, but not doing so will piss of their voters. If I were the GOP, I'd pass a repeal that essentially keeps all of the ACA except for a few unpopular bits and renames it the Ronald Reagan Healthcare Goodies Act. Then I'd lie shamelessly and claim to have repealed "Obamacare." After all, the closed conservative information loop ensures that most Republicans will believe whatever they're told, so why not make use of that?

The problem with this strategy is that if they pass anything like that, then they are now holding the bag when it comes to health care.  Republicans have really really enjoyed blaming democrats for both the flaws of Obamacare and the many failings of American Health Care that Obamacare didn't address.  Being "the party of healthcare" is a horrible position to be in with a system as dysfunctional as America's. 

I'm actually starting to think that Republicans are going to try and do a full repeal Health Care plan that they know Democrats will filibuster, and then throw up their hands and declare that democrats won't let them do anything until they have 60 votes in the Senate.  This gives them two advantages:  They can continue to play offense on health care for the 2018 election, and they can get back to the issues they actually care about, like restricting abortion and cutting taxes. 

It is really obvious that Republicans do not have a solution for health care.  There are no small government solutions here.  So they'll stick with the Repeal phase as long as possible, and beat the democrats with the Obamacare stick all the while. 

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

I'm scratching my head at the idea that after left-leaning boarders spending chunks of the past three US Politics threads bemoaning the fact that the ACA is to be repealed, discussing what will happen when (not if) it is repealed, and worrying about the human cost of repeal, you have somehow reached the conclusion that they don't think it'll happen. That's... bizarre.

Exactly. There isn't a single person I know on the left that ever thought the ACA wouldn't get repealed as soon as the new Congress and Trump took over. The question has never been "is it going to get repealed" but "what are they going to replace it with and how badly are they going to destroy the insurance markets as they figure that out".

2 hours ago, Commodore said:

the fence is happening

as an engineer, interested to see what the design looks like. I imagine it will be similar to the Israeli fence that's been effective at keeping out the jihadis. 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/house-gop-trump-border-wall-233237

 

Fuck the design. I'm more interested in how they're going to get hundreds of thousands of tons of steal to some of the remote areas where the fence is going to be built. I'm interested in where they're going to get the money from and what they're going to cut to fund a $30+ billion dollar wall. I'm interested in how many families they're going to have to uproot or how many parks they're going to have to destroy in order to build a wall in terrain capable of handling it near the border, especially in Texas. This is going to be a mess and like the border fence in 2006, will be a complete waste of tax payer dollars that will never end up with a finished product.

[Mexal]

31 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Not to seem like a smarty-pants, but I hear this all the time and it's not really true. The ACA passed the Senate 60-39, in regular order, over a filibuster. The House passed the same bill, then a bill was passed via reconciliation to make a few small fixes that the GOP had promised to filibuster. That's why Republicans today can't repeal the law root and branch via reconciliation, although they can certainly screw it up. 

Speaking of screwing up, this entire issue is a loser for them. Repeal will antagonize millions of a voters and the entire healthcare industry, but not doing so will piss of their voters. If I were the GOP, I'd pass a repeal that essentially keeps all of the ACA except for a few unpopular bits and renames it the Ronald Reagan Healthcare Goodies Act. Then I'd lie shamelessly and claim to have repealed "Obamacare." After all, the closed conservative information loop ensures that most Republicans will believe whatever they're told, so why not make use of that?

The issue is that the few unpopular bits, especially the individual mandate, are the only way the law would work in the first place. The minute they repeal that aspect of it, they might as well repeal the whole thing. The entire law is predicated on getting enough healthy people into the risk pool. The expectations were always 2014 would be bad, 2015 slightly better but still really bad, 2016 closer to being ok, 2017 break even and 2018+ a chance of profitability. The minute they get rid of the individual mandate, the market collapses and they're going to piss off the insurance companies majorly because their premium rates for 2017 are already set. If healthy people start leaving the risk pool because they don't have to stay in it, insurance companies will lose a lot of money.

[Tempra]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Remember how a few folks said Trump would be good for them because they work for the government and he'd be doing a lot more jobs? Heh. 

Anyone who thought Trump would be creating federal jobs instead of private contracting jobs was sorely mistaken.

 

[all swedes are racist]

Lol