Got any good gargle?

[YardleyLabs]

Well sure, but incurring a deficit of $1.9 trillion doesn't count because, as the Republicans argued at the time, it's just giving us back what is already "ours". In fact, since we really got the money from China, it's like we actually made a $1.9 trillion profit.What could possibly be wrong with that? Why are you whining so much? But that socialist freak in the White House is going to steal our money back if he doesn't agree to extend the cuts and add another $2 trillion plus to the deficit. Sure, we had to make the cuts expire to avoid violating the law that prevented us from using reconciliation to pass a bill that added substantially to the debt after ten years. But heck, we got rid of that law as quickly as we could so Obama has no excuse for not incurring $2 trillion in additional debt. Maybe Switzerland will lend it to us this time. I hear the Chinese are already a little qweezy from the bank bailout.

EDIT: Just for a little context. The cost of the tax cuts is equivalent to the cost of the entire Medicaid program. Thus, the cuts could be extended after January 1, 2011 by simply eliminating Medicaid nationwide. Of course, that would actually double the total number of people without medical coverage to almost one third of our entire population (Closer to 40% of all children) and, in the process, would bankrupt much of our health care industry. Alternatively, we could cut all defense related spending by 25%, or all non-defense related spending by almost 40%. Each of these actions would simply offset the cost of extending the tax cuts without doing anything to reduce the current deficit. If all three were done -- elimination of Medicaid, 25% reduction in all defense related spending, and a 40% reduction in all non-defense discretionary spending -- the effect would be a 60% reduction in our current deficit and we would still have to allow the tax cuts to expire.

[Henry V]

I think it's very unfortunate that you blindly parrot Obama/DNC talking points. ...

Oh the irony. An accusation about "talking points" in a thread started by someone who, as usual, is just regurgitating RNC talking points (note: I would include a name in front of RNC if someone could let me know who the republican leader is).

Want proof?; Check this video out. http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-s...to-task-2010-3 The "shove it down our throats" talking points piece starts at about 5:30 with the best stuff a minute later. The first five minutes simply exposes FOX news so you may not be interested in that part.

[dnf777]

Well sure, but incurring a deficit of $1.9 trillion doesn't count because, as the Republicans argued at the time, it's just giving us back what is already "ours". In fact, since we really got the money from China, it's like we actually made a $1.9 trillion profit.What could possibly be wrong with that? Why are you whining so much? But that socialist freak in the White House is going to steal our money back if he doesn't agree to extend the cuts and add another $2 trillion plus to the deficit. Sure, we had to make the cuts expire to avoid violating the law that prevented us from using reconciliation to pass a bill that added substantially to the debt after ten years. But heck, we got rid of that law as quickly as we could so Obama has no excuse for not incurring $2 trillion in additional debt. Maybe Switzerland will lend it to us this time. I hear the Chinese are already a little qweezy from the bank bailout.

EDIT: Just for a little context. The cost of the tax cuts is equivalent to the cost of the entire Medicaid program. Thus, the cuts could be extended after January 1, 2011 by simply eliminating Medicaid nationwide. Of course, that would actually double the total number of people without medical coverage to almost one third of our entire population (Closer to 40% of all children) and, in the process, would bankrupt much of our health care industry. Alternatively, we could cut all defense related spending by 25%, or all non-defense related spending by almost 40%. Each of these actions would simply offset the cost of extending the tax cuts without doing anything to reduce the current deficit. If all three were done -- elimination of Medicaid, 25% reduction in all defense related spending, and a 40% reduction in all non-defense discretionary spending -- the effect would be a 60% reduction in our current deficit and we would still have to allow the tax cuts to expire.

Jeff,
You oughta know by now that the only thing more impossible to get across than a fact, is a handful of facts that refutes the righties distorted talking points!

[luvmylabs23139]

Why would I be dumb enough to trust anything out of the DUMS mouths? I have a CPA and I can and do run the real numbers. BUMMFACE would be in jail for his creative accounting. He makes ENRON look good.

[YardleyLabs]

Why would I be dumb enough to trust anything out of the DUMS mouths? I have a CPA and I can and do run the real numbers. BUMMFACE would be in jail for his creative accounting. He makes ENRON look good.

What numbers are you talking about?

[Hew]

Oh the irony. An accusation about "talking points" in a thread started by someone who, as usual, is just regurgitating RNC talking points (note: I would include a name in front of RNC if someone could let me know who the republican leader is).

Want proof?; Check this video out. http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-s...to-task-2010-3 The "shove it down our throats" talking points piece starts at about 5:30 with the best stuff a minute later. The first five minutes simply exposes FOX news so you may not be interested in that part.

Ah, yes...another John Stewart video from Henry. The favorite source of the ADHD-addled under-30 crowd who prefer that their "news" be fed to them in comedy pill form without all those pesky details that make it soooooo BORING. Maybe you can give me a synopsis of the video, Henry. And could you throw in a graph or a chart while you're at it? It's just not news without a graph or chart, right?

[paul young]

ummmm.....i think he already did that, Hew.-Paul

[Goose]

Here's our petulant President speaking out against reconciliation in 2005:

"A change in the Senate rules that really, uh, I think would change the character of the Senate, uh, forever. Uhhh, and what I worry about would be th-th-that you essentially still have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply majoritarian, uhhh, absolute power on either side, and that's just not what the Founders intended."

You leftists need to stop thinking about big numbers because they just make dizzy. The CBO scored a bill full of keynesian gimmicks, fraud, hocus-pocus and smoke and mirrors. It's nothing more than a big ol' bag of dog turd produced by the democrats. The true cost of this bill is in the trillions and it's a bill that would make the boys over at Enron proud...or Bernie Maddoff!

We live in Cuba now.

[Buzz]

The "shove it down our throats" talking points piece starts at about 5:30 with the best stuff a minute later. The first five minutes simply exposes FOX news so you may not be interested in that part.

Hew, this synopsis is just for you, again...

[YardleyLabs]

Here's our petulant President speaking out against reconciliation in 2005:

"A change in the Senate rules that really, uh, I think would change the character of the Senate, uh, forever. Uhhh, and what I worry about would be th-th-that you essentially still have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply majoritarian, uhhh, absolute power on either side, and that's just not what the Founders intended."

You leftists need to stop thinking about big numbers because they just make dizzy. The CBO scored a bill full of keynesian gimmicks, fraud, hocus-pocus and smoke and mirrors. It's nothing more than a big ol' bag of dog turd produced by the democrats. The true cost of this bill is in the trillions and it's a bill that would make the boys over at Enron proud...or Bernie Maddoff!

We live in Cuba now.

Actually, the context in which he made his comments was completely different and was not related to the reconciliation process at all. As noted in the ABC news story on the quote:

In 2005, then-Sen. Obama was not talking about the use of reconciliation rules; but rather about a larger rule change, what came to be known by opponents as the “nuclear option,” and by supporters as the “constitutional option.” (Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., originally coined the "nuclear option" terminology but then stopped using it.)

At that time Senate Democrats had been blocking some of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees through use of the threat of a filibuster; of 57 nominees for the U.S. Court of Appeals, 42 were confirmed, five never received hearings, and 10 were blocked by threat of filibuster. Democrats said this was nothing compared to 60 or so nominees of President Bill Clinton for whom Republicans refused to even hold hearings.


Republicans responded by threatening to raise a point of order to – for all intents and purposes -- declare the filibuster unconstitutional for judicial nominees, which they could have done with a majority vote. Senate Democrats, in turn, threatened to all but shut down the Senate. The showdown was avoided by a compromise created by the so-called “Gang of 14” Senators.

“I would like to think that this is something that we could sort out,” then-Sen. Obama said. “And I think that the way to sort it out would be for this administration to do what every administration previous to this one has done; which is to say, ‘Here are a set of nominees. Let's run them by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, figure out which of these judges generate the most heat, are considered most out of the extreme, and then let's work out what the list is of judges who in fact can gain some bipartisan support.’ I mean, that's what every president has done up until this point.”
[http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...-scrutiny.html]

Effectively, after receiving Senate concurrence on 95% of all judicial nominees, the Republicans decided that they had to have an "up or down vote" on the remaining 10 where Democrats had threatened a filibuster. The leadership stated that they would force a vote by having the President Pro Tem rule that judicial nominations were not subject to filibuster. There was actually no legal basis for this. Rather, by having such a ruling made, the only vehicle for protest under Senate rules is to challenge the ruling of the Chair. Such a challenge is then subject to a simple majority vote where a tie vote results in defeat of the challenge and upholds the ruling of the chair. It is not subject to legal review because, under the Constitution, the Senate has exclusive responsibility for its own rules and those are not subject to judicial review, no matter how arbitrary or capricious.

As a consequence, invoking such a strategy opens the door forever to arbitrary rule by the majority party under any and all circumstances. For example, as Senator Bunning was conducting his one man filibuster over the last week, the chair could simply have ruled him out of order and called for a vote on the matter rather than call for a cloture vote as required by the rules of the Senate. If challenged on his ruling, a simply plurality of Senators voting to support the ruling of the chair would force a vote. Of course, doing this would make mockery of the rules and, in the words of then Senator Obama, forever "change the character of the Senate".

By the way, the National Press Club appearance by Obama was a discussion of the projected shortfall in social security.

I find your statement that "You leftists need to stop thinking about big numbers because they just make dizzy. The CBO scored a bill full of keynesian gimmicks, fraud, hocus-pocus and smoke and mirrors. It's nothing more than a big ol' bag of dog turd produced by the democrats." We'll ignore the fact that the estimates you are criticizing come from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, considered authoritative by both Republicans and Democrats. I would love to see the documentation supporting any of your assertions.