"Better than the Republicans" is an awfully low bar.
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Cheerful Charlie
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Trump is not a republican conservative, he co opted the republican party. Traditional conservativs have been leaving congress. Latest is Romney.Huh??? Did you not experience the Trump administration, or all recent Republican administrations? They spend like drunken sailors and then when not in power complain about spending.
Jude Wanniski and the Two Santa Claus Theory.
As polical pundits gave been saying for years, the republican party as it was no longer exists.
Trump is in a category of his own, he is not a republican conservative.
Trump gave the U.S. record deficits. $7 trillion dollars. The other great deficit creators were Reagan and Bush. Bush had a GOP Senate and House. And left the U.S. with a massive crisis with the housing crisis. This caused deficits the GOP tried to blame on Obama.
Derec
Contributor
Both sides have faults, so why not?
That's quite disingenuous, even for you. The big jump in the deficit was due to COVID spending. So deficit jumped in 2020, and came down in 2022. You can't blame or give credit to particular presidents for that.
What Biden can be blamed for is caving to the left-wing of his party and wanting to spend additional $3.5T in non-infrastructure spending on top of COVID and bipartisan infrastructure spending.
Isn't he doing that with the student loan forgiveness racket? Ok, not a trillion or two, but $400G (G=billion) is not chump change either.
How much of that is due to Biden's policies and how much due to economy still readjusting after COVID. Btw, Trump had pretty low unemployment too: 3.5% in January 2020.
Inflation went up due to the Pandemic supply chain disruptions and also due to Pandemic spending, that was continued longer than it should have. Note that inflation would have been worse had B3 passed. And inflation came down due to Fed's aggressive monetary policy, and not anything Biden did.
Dems held the purse strings until January. Biden did want to pass a $3,500,000,000,000.00 Spendapalooza not-infrastructure bill that among other things wanted to make Pandemic extension of child tax credit permanent. Only the bravery of Manchin and Sinema stopped that irresponsible bill.
Biden is also forgiving student loans by executive fiat, not going through Congress, even though his second plan will cost hundreds of billions.
Derec
Contributor
FIFY.
I think Biden post-Pandemic deficit is still higher than Trump pre-Pandemic deficit. And that is even without the $3.5T in B3 spending.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
Which part eliminated paygo?
bilby
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Because they're not even remotely similar in either qualitative or quantitative terms.
EVERYTHING has faults. Are you agnostic about whether to eat the sandwich made with turkey that's a little dry, or the sandwich made from pig manure? Does your choice of which to eat require long and careful thought, discussion, and consideration?
Both sandwiches have their faults, so why not?
Derec
Contributor
They are far closer than your shitty analogy suggests.
Jimmy Higgins
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It really depends on what you are talking about.
Similar:
Both sides have a tendency to pay homage to the ultra wealthy and big business. Both sides likely have enriched themselves through manageable levels of grift. Both sides really really support the Military Industrial Complex. Both sides meddle in others' foreign affairs.
A bit different:
Democrats have historically been about raising taxes and increasing spending (or maybe returning it to levels from some previous year?). The Republicans just cut taxes, let the deficit try to justify cutting spending. That rarely happens, as they don't have the guts for the actual cuts. More recently, taxes were so vilified by the GOP, the Democrats have been less likely to try and defend spending increases with tax hikes.
More different:
Some really love to say how the Democrats are the war party. But in reality, full blown military deployment, that was under W, and the Democrats were vilified by the GOP and the right-wing media for not supporting it.
Really different:
The majority of the GOP in the US House supported throwing the 2020 election to the House of Representatives for a vote, instead of certifying the vote. The Dems certified the vote in 2017. The justices appointed by the parties are extremely different, heck the justices appointed by Ford and previous were much more moderate than those the GOP have nominated since. And since late W, the GOP nominees have been getting so radical, they are incompetent. But SCOTUS doesn't mind, like the radical judges there argue against technicalities like "standing".
2020 and beyond is sufficiently confused by Covid spending that it's not a reasonable indicator. Look earlier on your chart. 2001-2008, positive slope. 2009-2016, negative slope. 2017-2019, positive slope. The trend is even more pronounced if you move the brackets over by one as each budget was actually pretty much determined in the previous year.Both sides have faults, so why not?
That's quite disingenuous, even for you. The big jump in the deficit was due to COVID spending. So deficit jumped in 2020, and came down in 2022. You can't blame or give credit to particular presidents for that.
What Biden can be blamed for is caving to the left-wing of his party and wanting to spend additional $3.5T in non-infrastructure spending on top of COVID and bipartisan infrastructure spending.
Foot, meet bullet.
Elixir
Made in America
Methinks our “I’m not a trumpsucker” has been bingeing on bad sammiches again.
Jimmy Higgins
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It does get tiring, the false equivalences and all. I'm not happy with the Democrats, but their brand of moderate politics is the only game in town. That any one can consider them a liberal party is fantasy. And it isn't even on-topic. An OP is about how the Government can't pass a budget these days, in large part right now because of divisions in the Republican Party, because they've elected Rep. Tarr and Rep. Fether among their ranks.
Yes, the Democrats could support McCarthy, but the reality is, McCarthy invented the House of Representatives filibuster, which would interfere with even the Dems saving the day... just to get a bloody continuing resolution on spending.
Yes, the Democrats could support McCarthy, but the reality is, McCarthy invented the House of Representatives filibuster, which would interfere with even the Dems saving the day... just to get a bloody continuing resolution on spending.
Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
When the government is "shut down", essential services will continue. How is it decided what services are essential?
In particular, I hope DoJ's efforts to put the nation's most heinous and notorious criminal since Al Capone behind bars is deemed essential.
In particular, I hope DoJ's efforts to put the nation's most heinous and notorious criminal since Al Capone behind bars is deemed essential.
Yes, DOJ is exempt from shut downs.
This is flat out untrue. In reality it is the Republicans that spend like drunken sailors when they control the purse strings and then whine about spending when they don't. A half hour of research would have made this clear to you had you cared enough. One big reason we have the corrupt dysfunctional government we have today, dominated by a corrupt, allegedly criminal figurehead who controls a handful of stupid, corrupt elected representatives is that so many Americans are too apathetic to read the newspaper and actually research the facts. Your post being a good example of this behavior.
Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
I had to echo this post. It is very true, and very apt for understanding American political dysfunction.
Jimmy Higgins
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There isn't much to report, it appears we are headed for a shutdown, as McCarthy shifts from trying to make a deal with the sociopaths in the party to trying to make this Biden's fault. The truth is, I doubt there is a version of a continuing resolution bill that could get on his desk that he'd veto.
The GOP can't even get a continuing resolution passed, and it appears that the only solution available is a discharge petition, where it is completely taken out of the hands of the Speaker. The trouble we have here is that there isn't anything to really negotiate. Gaetz is effectively doing what he did during the Speaker votes, deciding when to stop being a dick. And currently, he isn't the only dick. The dicks in the House are making demands that require substantially untenable concessions... just for the continuing resolution. So, this could just stop and go away once they accept that, or this could go on until a discharge petition can move forward, but I believe that could take around a month.
The GOP can't even get a continuing resolution passed, and it appears that the only solution available is a discharge petition, where it is completely taken out of the hands of the Speaker. The trouble we have here is that there isn't anything to really negotiate. Gaetz is effectively doing what he did during the Speaker votes, deciding when to stop being a dick. And currently, he isn't the only dick. The dicks in the House are making demands that require substantially untenable concessions... just for the continuing resolution. So, this could just stop and go away once they accept that, or this could go on until a discharge petition can move forward, but I believe that could take around a month.
Elixir
Made in America
One of the defining characteristics of an “I’m not a trumpsucker” is their eager willingness to gorge themselves on shit sandwiches.
southernhybrid
Contributor
Don't blame Republicans for heading towards a shutdown that will hurt a lot of average Americans. They have vitally important things to do this week, like digging up some dirt on Biden, even though they've been digging for that dirt for years and haven't found any yet. Gotta keep digging. The master wants a Biden impeachment or two. Keeping the government intact can wait because this is too important. /s
Politesse
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Halting the government is a strategy, not an accident. They want the country to feel desperate and angry, because they know they can spin it as Biden's fault.