Evening Point and Laugh
“If we have to allow moderate Republicans have a say, being in power is not worth it.”
Earth to Dana. When conservatives were in power, the only part of the conservative “agenda and beliefs (enacted) into policy and law” were the belief that it would be a good idea to attack Iraq for no reason, and the only real policy enacted was the policy of reducing taxes for millionaires. Hip hip hooray! The country is clamoring for more conservatism.
Hold it… I thought of one more agenda item. The conservative policy of taking a budget surplus and plunging the county into record debt. You guys did a great job enacting that policy.
“If we have to allow moderate Republicans have a say, being in power is not worth it.”
Maybe he should practice that and go away. I won’t mind.
Dana would rather let John Carney represent Delaware than allow Mike Castle to chair an actual committee.
And so would I, of course.
See, X, we can find common ground with conservatives. We also both want them to be a small, regional, powerless party. Mission accomplished!
Don’t forget, Republicans got the small-government intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, as well as small-government interference in the Florida recount.
http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/tax_hikes_coming_in_2011_090424.html
taxes are going up
…and that has to do with this post, how?
Signed,
that old gum under your shoe (that will be sticking on you forever)
I simply can’t fathom that Protack thinks he should be elected to something.
even vice-chair
More point and laugh: the results of excessive teabagging.
Awww…so sad Cassandra.
Does that mean Burris’ has stopped twittering?
Judging from Mr Smitty’s comment, he never checked in to read the original, Jason’s “shorter” version lacks nuance, at best.
But the fact is that the Republicans tried being the moderate go-along-to-get-along Democrat Lite party, and all it got for us was a seemingly permanent minority status. When we elected moderate Republicans to the presidency, we got managers like Dwight Eisenhower, who didn’t do very much, or Richard Nixon, who had a fierce reputation as a conservative but responded to inflation with wage-and-price controls, who gave us the Environmental Protection Agency and supported Affirmative Action, who was hated by the Democrats but governed little differently from how they would have governed.
Now, one thing is certainly true: the Republicans demonstrated no fiscal discipline. We enacted the tax cuts for which the American people voted, but we didn’t show discipline on spending. About the only fortunate thing to come out of that is that President Obama has just demolished any credibility you might have claimed on deficits and fiscal responsibility, projecting trillion dollar deficits throughout his first — and hopefully only — term.
What the GOP needs to do is get back into a fiscally responsible mode: to insist on spending cuts, massive spending cuts.
When were Republicans the moderate, get-along-with party? I must have missed that. I remember: Clinton impeachment, “majority of the majority” and nuclear option.
And… when were they ever in a fiscally responsible mode?
when were they ever in a fiscally responsible mode?
In years when they were not actually in power.
who gave us the Environmental Protection Agency
Horrible.
And even then all they wanted was to just eliminate programs that they didn’t like, cf Social Security or Medicare.
One of the things that we’ll have to keep reminding these guys is that that fiscal responsibility also includes some basic honesty in telling taxpayers exactly what services and agencies they will no longer have access to. It is very easy to say CUT everything but not so easy to develop a budget to actually govern by that way. Which is the failure of the GOP at the national level — they never had any real support for the kind of cuts they keep flag-waving on. AND even they couldn’t get past the politics of bringing home the bacon.
Good point, Cassandra. Their rhetoric now is very simplistic and childish and I suppose that’s why people aren’t buying it anymore. Republicans have been telling us for years that we can get money for nothing (cut taxes = revenue growth, it’s magic!) but now their complete failure is obvious to everyone.
Do you get the feeling Republicans are getting really confused as to who their heroes are anymore? I’ve heard them praising Hoover and now Nixon? LOL.
“Richard Nixon, who had a fierce reputation as a conservative but responded to inflation with wage-and-price controls, who gave us the Environmental Protection Agency and supported Affirmative Action, who was hated by the Democrats but governed little differently from how they would have governed.”
Spoken like someone who did not live through the period.
Back then, Dana, “conservative” was used as a measure of how vigorously one intended to fight the Communist menace. Nobody was more “conservative” than Nixon in that regard.
Beyond that issue, everyone in the game understood that the previous incarnation of conservatism was dead. Republicans,who came in two flavors (Midwestern Taft-style isolationists and Eastern Rockefeller pro-business types), had no illusions about a modern society embracing the parochial notions of the uneducated God squadders of the backwoods, and they didn’t even have to pretend, because the peckerwoods were all Democrats back then.
You can blame the GOP’s current situation on Nixon, who most certainly did NOT govern the same way his Democratic contemporaries would have.
Follow the link from the Flying Fucktard and you’ll find the horrors being contemplated by Kiplinger’s:
Boosts in top marginal rates from 33% and 35% to 36% and 39.6%. No change in the other marginal rates seems likely.
A higher rate on capital gains and dividends, but only for those in the top brackets. They will probably be hit with a 20% rate, though it could go a little higher.
Caps on itemized deductions for top earners. Obama’s push to limit the value of deductions at 28% ran into a wall of opposition from charitable groups, but he’s not giving up. Some way of curtailing the tax break still seems likely by 2011.
No repeal of estate taxes, but count on an exemption of at least $3.5 million, and it could be set as high as $5 million if the Senate prevails. Estate tax legislation will include spousal transfers, making the exemption $7 million or more for couples. The estate tax rate will be capped at 45%, the same as it is now.
More easings for the alternative minimum tax, but no repeal.
It should be pointed out that, even with these predicted increases, most of these rates are lower than they were under Reagan.
That moron thinks the comment “taxes are going up” means something.
2000 rates. Scary!