If I were John Boehner, I’d say: “Clearly there’s no mandate for small government in the election results. So, if you milquetoast pantywaist sad-sack excuses for the sorriest bunch of so-called Americans who ever lived want to vote for Swede-sized statism, it’s time to pony up.
no wookin furries mate.
de mo’s got it all figured
just keep yappin, print mo money
dontcha no climate change threatens our very existance?
“Americans love Big Government as much as Europeans. The only difference is that Americans refuse to admit it.”
Oh GOD THIS. This to the this. This should have been evident for a long time. It should have been evidence since Goldwater was defeated (stop blaming my generation for everything). It should have been obvious during the ’00s when American conservatives learned to love big government. Slowest uptake ever.
This is why the GST is the best thing ever and the tunnel-vision focus on tax cuts by the US conservative movement-usually cutting them for government-dependent middle class types- has been yet another mistake by the ever feckless US Conservative movement. The GOP should just let the tax cuts expire.
If the Republicans in Congress, allow the debt ceiling to be lifted as high as B. Hussien wants it to be raised, what is the purpose of having Republicans in Congress?
Boehner and other RINO members of the jellyfish breed are sent to Washington to ensure the patronage
due their backers keeps flowing during Democrat rule and turns into a flood during Republican occupation
of the White House. Any party that campaigns for the presidency with lackluster choices like McCain or
Romney at a time when the country is led by a teleprompter reading economic moron assisted by a senile
political hack as vp and loses twice in a row has very serious credibility issues.
Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan could have torn those two apart in a real “Damn the torpedoes, bare knuckles
campaign”. It might have given the moneybags east and left coast RINOs the vapours and temporarily
closed their purses but if you fight to win big that can change.
We are sometimes a bit smug in Canada, but the truth is that if we didn’t have our natural resources (latest number I heard was 20% contribution to GDP), we would be in very bad shape.
There is absolutely not doubt that the US is screwed, and it’s not Romney’s fault, or the Republicans’ fault. It’s the left wing nuts and their thoroughly arrogant King Obama who are to blame.
It will get much worse in the US before it shows any real signs of getting better, if ever.
1) America has TONS of natural resources.
2) This is absolutely the Republicans fault. They were responsible for massively increased spending during the Reign of Bush. And it’s Romney’s fault for being a terrible terrible candidate.
PS This article by Steyn also nicely demonstrates the ‘all bark no bite’ promise of new media. Legacy media is still king of the hill.
GOP were always go slower, a bit, socialist.
Hoover started the New Deal. FDR ran against Hoover spending.
Reagan? Read Stockman’s, Triumph Of Politics.
Bush. No New Taxes
Bush II. Bush+Hasteret+Lott spending.
It’s Kabuki theater for voting Bubba’s.
GOP were always go slower, a bit, socialist.
Hoover started the New Deal. FDR ran against Hoover spending.
Reagan? Read Stockman’s, Triumph Of Politics.
Bush. No New Taxes
Bush II. Bush+Hasteret+Lott spending.
It’s Kabuki theater for voting Bubba’s.
GOP were always go slower, a bit, socialist.
Hoover started the New Deal. FDR ran against Hoover spending.
Reagan? Read Stockman’s, Triumph Of Politics.
Bush. No New Taxes
Bush II. Bush+Hasteret+Lott spending.
It’s Kabuki theater for voting Bubba’s.
LAS I look forward to you taking Mark Steyn on…
Everything Mark Steyn says in this article has been obvious to anyone paying attention for quite some time, but the widespread belief that Washington is an inexhaustible cornucopia of largess remains intact.
No one seems convinced that the repayment of federal debt is a real obligation. It’s just a number. It has nothing to do with me.
“Screw rich people, make ’em pay for more stuff for me.”, seem to be as far as most citizens economic thinking goes.
If LAS knew what it was talking about, it will be the first time.
Cheers
“Weepy” will roll over and beg to have his belly scratched by the Chimp in Chief. After all, if he does NOT do that, he won’t get another golf match. And one surely must keep one’s priorities straight in these trying times.
Brilliant piece! He does a great job illustrating the comical unseriousness of the proposed budget nicks.
I’ve been saying for years that there’s no real constituency for limited government. In fact I issued a spirited guffaw whilst reading a recent Mises.org piece in which the writer talked about the resurgence of Austro-libertarianism while also pointing out that the State is bigger than ever!
I also found the post-election cries “but we’re a centre-right nation” chuckle-worthy.
America desperately needs a 3rd party, or more accurately a 2nd party alternative to the Republocrats.
If they don’t get a deal done and cliffmagedon happens it will be real bad news for Canada. Our economy as a whole is already tettering between slow growth and recession. Not getting a deal done will certainly put us into a fairly significant recession.
The CBC will blame Harber and W.
LAS at December 2, 2012 2:35 AM
Spending was NOT massively increased during the Bush Administration. You parrot the main stream media line blindly, without thinking. However Bush did have the 9/ll problem, which was generally paid for as we went. If you are comparing the latter Clinton momentary surplus with the Bush years,the Clinton momentary surplus was abetted by the phony tech bubble profits and a republican congress. Bush was closing in on a balanced budget in his second term. However the taker morons in The US elected a dhimpcrapt congress that promptly went into a spending binge. Most of the spending went to the dhimocrapt cronies in wall street (Notice I said dhimocrapt. I think the ensuing years have shown that wall street is NOT republican). I know that I am just a senile old man, but even I can remember this much before you takers rewrite history, as you have done in the past.
I do think the conservatives are making a mistake by blaming this on obama. How can you blame a person that votes present and does nothing? The real culpret is that dastardly crooked dirty harry reid. We should blame that small section of takers in nevada for our problems. BOYCOTT NEVADA!
What should the GOP do? Pass the Simpson-Bowles recommendations in the House, which deal with tax reform and entitlement reform, and fling the whole thing to Obama. Obama will veto it. Remember, this committee was set up by Obama; he ignored their analysis. Then what will he do?
What does Obama want?
He wants to tax the ‘rich’, that amorphous set of people believed to do no work for their money but to simply receive their largesse from their counter cookie jar. Real life result of taking this money? There will be no money left to Invest in businesses. That means a no-growth and even falling economy.
Obama defines as ‘rich’ anyone making over 200,000 a year. Real life result of taking their money? Most of these are small businesses who file as individuals. Taking their profits will mean they won’t be able to pay for Production and employment costs in their businesses. Economy moves into recession.
Obama wants a ‘second Stimulus’. He’ll use this tax money to pay off people loyal to him.
And, he wants an open and unlimited debt ceiling. So, he’ll borrow more and more and more, to expand the Entitlement Population in the US. Disastrous, for Obama has no means and no intention of dealing with paying off the debt.
This expansion of the Entitlement Population by Obama, which includes unionized public service and food stamps, welfare etc, got Obama elected for a second term. They are dependent on Him.
Then, ObamaCare is reducing the size of businesses, which means fewer jobs and less production and less, ah, profit to take in taxes.
What will Obama do? Will the Democrats wake up and realize that Obama is only about Obama?
Lot to be said about the GOP not fielding a team capable of beating Obama and the Demos. How many voted GOP simply because they were the best of a bad lot.
A bigger issue might have been the realization that no matter who was POTUS the USA economy was going down. If that was the case then the GOP made a big mistake not incorporating the Tea Party and Ron Paul into their campaign. This election could have established bonafides for 2016.
The biggest agent for the left around the world is the media. It actively promotes a politcal agenda and filters the ‘correct’ content to people who are very willing to believe it. While the MSM has been challenged the education system has not. Educator unions control teaching content and in many cased school boards and staff hiring. They are active politicans!
ET, each night CNN has this amusing section “It’s been xxx days since America lost it’s AAA credit rating. What are we doing to get it back?”
All of the conversation during the section however fails to acknowledge that far from getting it back, everything the US is doing is making things worse.
It’s more than just Obama’s failings. None of them, Congressional Democrats and Republicans or the White House are serious about the problem. Even with taxation, it’s all just fiddling around the margins. Tax hikes on the upper income earners will do virtually nothing.
The Republican demand for increaing revenues by closing loopholes is also delusional. Never in its entire history as the US ever simplified its tax code. With a severely divided Congress, it’s not going to now either.
If the US wants to raise funds by taxation it needs a 3-5% VAT. Steyn is right, American style taxation and EU government spending cannot continue.
So when will the US agree to fix its fiscal problems? When it starts to resemble Greece.
Steyn is a wizard with words with the intellect of a Thomas Sowell and the O’Rouke humor he lays it out perfectly, but only those not in power have the capacity to laugh, those who caused all this have no sense of humor, when your robbing a bank, you don’t take time out to laugh. If Bohener had any decency he would turn tail and tell the Americans the truth, here’s your man, you voted for him, enjoy your decision. John instead plays golf with the devil, smiles for the cameras etc. In this age of political correctness, which is the kind way of saying your a millie, men have been emasculated, turned into touchy feely wimps instead of calling bulls..t, they tolerate stupidity and evil and have long given up chivalry, reminds me of another culture. Have a strapadictomie there John, do it for the children, be a man, don’t cry, grab the wheel and turn the ship of socialism around for real Americans, cause steerage passengers are driving right now.
The best thing the GOP can do is let the rollercoaster go over the top and start hurtling down. The shock will stun everyone but will take time to take effect. About a week or two is all it will take for the two parties to get the message from the electorate to do their job. At first the GOP will be blamed but if they develope a back bone and fight back pointing out it is the DEMOCRATS that are the problem the heat will be redirected. By the time the unemployment rate reaches 10-12% the politicians will be jumping and even the media might be doing their job.
Kent, exactly.
The GOP should throw it back to the Obama Gang and stop co-habiting with the Democrats. Stop talking and watch what happens. Whoever is blamed is irrelevant; both parties should move outside of politics.
My thinking is the other way. The Rep’s should go on TV (all channels) Tell the American people they will step aside, and let O-dumber have what he wants.
With the understanding they will vote (present) on the bills, just like O-dumber did most of the time.
I’d give the US about one year, may two before we find ourselves staring Greece in the face.
Hopefully, American will wake up from this, if not. We are doomed any-way.
Jean-Claude Junker (Prime Minister of Luxembourg) telling the cold hard truth in an absentminded moment: “when it get serious, you have to lie”
More recently, when quizzed on why everything seems to be going so wrong in spite of all efforts:
“We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we have done it.”
So there you have it. Politicians know the problem and its enormity. They just don’t know how to rectify it and stay in power. Instead, they have ALL chosen to kick the can down the road in the vain hope that when the implosion occurs, they will be well clear of the stage.
The problem is that the people who vote for big, expensive government aren’t the ones who pay for it.
As the sage observed, democracy is two wolves and and lamb voting on what to eat for dinner.
Folks, to hell with analyzing Bush and the past. That thinking gets you no-where. Just look at the financial numbers first and foremost – the situation is dire. Then look at the current players: Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Geithner. Never before have such an utterly useless, arrogant and corrupt bunch of fools been running the shop. Meanwhile those in the country who know how to fix the problems are ignored.
America is in for a long, and quite possibly irreversible decline. None of us wants to believe that because we all remember the once-great country, but the sun may well be setting….
It may soon be time to write an obituary for the USA…sorry….but at some point the forces that want to ruin a country simply outnumber those who want to keep it great.
To follow on from my previous email, see this quote from Geithner today:
Republicans “are in kind of a tough position,” Geithner told Fox. “We may have to give them a little more time. … But what we cannot do is figure out what works for them.”
I rest my case folks. The man’s arrogance is only surpassed by Obama’s. These people are not leaders in any shape or form. The sun is setting…….
If you are looking for blame, start with Goldman Sachs.
The USA has passed the point of no return. The only solution is to devalue the funny money greenback and force everyone – the productive and the idle, to start over. If done now, the issuance of one new dollar for every ten old ones would probably do the trick. If they persist in running the printing presses, they’ll eventually end up like Germany in the 1920s or France in the 1950s. In a country where almost everyone above the age of ten is armed, that could lead to an “interesting” situation.
Republicans will cave, they always cave. With the exception of the Tea Party members, all politicians are statists. Bush did increase the size of government – TSA, changes to Medicare, no child left behind, defense spending, escalating the drug war and other such programs. Voters that didn’t directly vote for a continuation of this did so indirectly by staying home (lots of R’s didn’t vote).
There are two schools of thought about how the US economic slide will progress. First, a dramatic earth-shattering event that creates the opportunity for reformation and renewal – USSR, Iceland, Germany and Canada(?). Second, a long slow stagnation and decline like Japan. I’m leaning towards the second scenario because of the way the US government works (or doesn’t work) and the comfort with printing money.
The US has the opportunity -some manufacturing jobs are returning due to low energy costs (fracking) and productivity of American workers, the US has the capacity for creativity and innovation like no other country in the world – but the unproductive parts are getting in the way. The unproductive class that is the most damaging is not the poor, btw, it is the regulators, planners, lobbyists, special interests and all the other folks that make DC the richest place in the US. The occupiers were partially right; it is the 1% (the governing class and their cronies) not Romney’s 47% that are the problem.
More people did not vote than voted for Obama. Those who did not vote were primarily saying the contest is a charade so why bother, nothing changes under either puppet party. The election results are by no means a mandate for the current congress to pursue any agenda.
On the positive side, I think that some US states will succeed and possibly even secede. I know the conventional wisdom is that secession is insane but look what is happening in Europe. Scotland, Catalonia and Flanders are all in the process and they may be the tip of the iceberg. If it can happen over there, it can happen over here. Not Quebec though, they’ll never set the ROC free.
LC Bennett, on your point of succession, I have an unproven theory that the brain of the human species is not engineered to function well in groups that get too large *unless* the regime running the place is somewhat totalitarian.
You see this effect in companies as they grow larger, and I think we are seeing it now in the USA.
I agree with ET, the GOP should refuse to be part of this budget farce. As far as raising taxes for the “rich” making over $200K/yr, forget about it, even at that aggregiously low range, the Dems won’t come anywhere near their tax and spending plans. Think more in terms of $100K/yr or possibly lower as the US economy continues to implode under the weight of its debt levels.
The middle class will bear the cost of continuing spending and Obamacare, make no mistake about that. There simply aren’t enough “rich” people and, notwithstanding the resultant loss of investment and consumption expenditure (and I believe tax revenues themselves), the middle class average Joe and Mary Sixpack will get shafted here.
Though the GOP ran a lacklustre campaign, they did succeed on some level in convincing Americans their choice would be between big or limited government. The choice, though not overwhemlingly, was for big government.
The only truth in the last POTUS election was Romney’s 47% comment. The Dems are trying to increase that political constitutency with consumption spending and ever increasing debt levels and the GOP should have no part of it, lest they be milquetoast Obama once again.
Just because the Dems and MSM think the GOP should be nice and make a deal doesn’t mean they should. If they roll over now they make themselves irrelevant to the political decision-making process unless they can force real concessions which are badly needed if the US has any chance of riding out the demographic tidal wave headed its way.
It is December already, and I have not yet heard any announcement of the latest US unemployment numbers. Should be interesting since there was so much noise over the last two months announcements.
In Obama’s narcissistic world everything is quite simple, as he is the best President the USA has ever had, or likely to ever have, do everything his way and everything will come up roses. On negotiations over the so called “fiscal cliff” the only thing he asks that the Republicans bring to the negotiation table is co-operation. In other words they should vote for every thing he asks for. As others have already stated they should vote “present” so they cannot subsequently be accused of voting for the disastrous plan that the Democrats and Obama seem determined to go down.
Spending was NOT massively increased during the Bush Administration.
YES IT WAS. Stop lying.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/01/if-you-dont-think-spending-is-at-the-roo
You parrot the main stream media line blindly, without thinking. However Bush did have the 9/ll problem, which was generally paid for as we went.
STOP LYING.
MND: we’re not that far behind. We don’t have a real alternative at the federal level either. It’s statists all the way down.
Going over the fiscal cliff is likely the best tool they have to work with. Given the deceit in the game, attempting to do the right thing is not an option.
Steyn’s point was that voting Americans “enjoy” the welfare state but pay the most progressive taxes on the Planet. Reverting to Clinton tax rates pulls in much of the so-called 47%. The likely recession will validate what the GOP has been saying about higher taxes. The key for the GOP after this would be to keep the rates higher for all tax payers up until such time as real spending reductions can be put into play. It’s simple, Obama thugs want his electorate to get a free ride and “think” that its paid for by the rich. The Republicans need to turn that around and say by living with a more inclusive tax system (including higher taxes on the rich) we’re still going broke and the economy stinks. If the electorate still wants big government by mid-terms, its all Greek.
The lights are going out all over the Western world. The left sees the power from uniting under one party the way it is in the US with 8 to 10% more conservatives in the popular vote than in Canada. Once that is actualized, it’s all over, here as well.
Given that I see no appetite for kinetic revolution and the ideological one called liberty is far into the margins, I concur with LC Bennett, the result is likely a slow decline a la Japan but with a debt bomb detonation eventually destroying currencies and private wealth thus denominated. Gold and Silver will have to be kept secret and hidden along with guns and food because if known about in the official economy it will all be confiscated by the state. The state will not collapse as some think. The natural base state of humanity is serfdom under various statist “isms”
We wonder why the vast majority of the Jews were (relatively) passively herded into the cattle cars. By then, it was too late and every remaining day of life as a slave was “safer” than the certainty of the bullet by fighting. Has the world really changed or is it just all about faith in moderation and the time frame?
“I have an unproven theory that the brain of the human species is not engineered to function well in groups that get too large *unless* the regime running the place is somewhat totalitarian.You see this effect in companies as they grow larger, and I think we are seeing it now in the USA.”-TJ
I agree that countries eventually get too large for strong central government. But totalitarians power is limited. They generally end when the revolutionary leader dies (Cuba and Venezuela are good ones to watch).
I’ve reconsidered my secession theory. A la Quebec, Texas and other rich,successful states probably only require a believable threat of succession to get concessions that transfer power from DC to the state.
Comme la Quebec, comme les Etats Uni.
Down la septque.
Republicans should make it clear we don’t support Obama’s out of control spending but there is nothing we can do because the people of the US gave him the manadate to throw the US off the fiscal cliff. Do nothing to help him govern, just sit back and let him wear his ugly policies like a hair shirt.
I have an unproven theory that the brain of the human species is not engineered to function well in groups that get too large *unless* the regime running the place is somewhat totalitarian.You see this effect in companies as they grow larger, and I think we are seeing it now in the USA.
-TJ
A very important observation TJ.
In these pages I have often pointed out the loss of states rights which resulted from the change to elected senators (intead of being appointed by the state houses). This and the Fed and the income tax caused this massive dysfunctional centralization.
Similarly, at one time SCOTUS was only one opinion — not THE LAW.
The loss of nullification (the ability of states to reject federal laws, and juries to decide on the constituionality of laws) was also a major factor in this black hole disaster.
Me No Dhimmi, yes great points.
The European Union is another good example – it is collapsing under its own weight, and the only way they can keep it plodding along is to put more bureaucrats in charge who will interfere more and more with the lives of ordinary people.
I sometimes think that this might be the essence of what distinguishes conservatives from the left. Conservatives prefer to have the world built out of smaller societal groups that can experiment with ideas, whereas the left is very much into large groups and the accompanying group-think that is required to make such large groups pseudo-functional.
Thus for example the left recognizes that they need to have a stronghold on education and they actively discourage free thinking among the young generation. This is the very thing we see today in schools. The commies were of course good at this.
“This is why the GST is the best thing ever and the tunnel-vision focus on tax cuts by the US conservative movement-usually cutting them for government-dependent middle class types- has been yet another mistake by the ever feckless US Conservative movement.”
LAS, 2:01a.m. — Please confirm, if you would, that you actually mean this statement.
Why yes David Southam I did in fact mean that statement which is why I wrote it.
Who sponsers your blog? All the time you spend on this you can’t have a career. Someone pays for you Kate.
Then this statement is necessarily true:
“If LAS knew what it was talking about, it will be the first time.”
I don’t actually mean that it is technically true, because he’s known what he’s been talking about for a long time (with minor mistakes along the way, as a general rule…)
The United States is not even remotely prepared to undertake the necessary first step in tax reform, which Michael Wilson did in the late 80’s in Canada — tax reform based on a program of lower rates and a broader base. That included the GST, which destroyed the old Progressive Conservative Party.
There are five things that the Mulroney government did that started the turn-around in Canada in the mid-eighties (in no particular order):
– Fiscal restraint;
– Overall tax reform, as described;
– the GST;
– Bank regulatory reform; and
– Trade policy
Notwithstanding, it still took 25 years, with both Conservative and Liberal governments, under better circumstances, to get somewhere even close to where we need to be.
I absolutely do not believe that the USA can do it.
P.S.: as a reminder, I absolutely do not support legalize, regulate and tax. I’m even a bit skeptical about the GST — you gotta starve ’em!
“Who sponsers your blog? All the time you spend on this you can’t have a career. Someone pays for you Kate.”
“Sponsors”.
If you visited here more often you’d know that Kate is sponsored by a consortium of the Tides Foundation, Suzuki Foundation, Imperial Oil, Greenpeace, CNOOC, Shell Oil,and the Saskatchewan Government Employees Union.
This is how Kate can afford the hottest one-ton dually diesel Dodge 4X4 in the Province.
I’m convinced she earns every cent of her multi-million dollar grant.
Way to go Kate.