Election Results: A Speaks Perspective

[speaks]

I am dissapointed that the Republicans Swept the house in such large numbers. I feel that anyone making less than $500,000 a year or so that votes Republican is voting against their own interests. There are some that vote on 'moral' issues. My mom will basically vote for whomever promises to outlaw abortions, despite the fact that Roe v. Wade is

Comments

[kingfrog]

I feel that anyone making less than $500,000 a year or so that votes Republican is voting against their own interests

Certainly, making more than $250k/year and voting Democrat is voting against one's own interests...unless you're actually IN Congress. Interesting note that the bulk of Congress' richest people are Democrats...you know, the party of the "little people."

But I don't vote by my personal wallet usually. If that were the case, I'd run myself and not vote for any of these jokers, because at the end of the day, BOTH parties are currently run by Progressives who think they should spend as they like and take my money to pay for it.

Right now, my hope is that Congress is completely unable to come together and do anything substantial. Every time Congress DOES get together, it costs us all our money or freedom. Let's give gridlock a chance!

[logiphage]

Certainly, making more than $250k/year and voting Democrat is voting against one's own interests

Everyone needs jobs, so everyone voting for a democrat trifecta is voting against their own interest.

Let's give gridlock a chance!

Hear hear!

Although I'll be happy if the house defunds Obamacare.

[chapel_of_words]

Although I'll be happy if the house defunds Obamacare.

If only someone had pointed that out months and months and months ago...

http://chapel-of-words.livejournal.com/320833.html

Also see last comment on 3-26. The great thing is Americans get to change their mind, even if the GOP does unfund parts of it, if the Americans turn out not to like that, they GOP will get tossed out on their hineys in 2012. It's a self-correcting system.

=)

Tim C.

[logiphage]

I'm very pleased this idea has gotten into the mainstream.

I used to date the chief of staff of LA appropriations committee and was talking to my boss about the latest appropriations committee antics. He was shocked, when he understood the implications of the story I was telling. (and I assumed as a very well educated person, he already knew)

He said "You mean they can pass legislation then just not pay for it?! That would be like promising my kids a trip to Disney World then us loading up the car and saying, 'Ok, who's going to pay?'"

[martinhesselius]

Interesting article --
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/

You'll have to ask an economist if it's accurate.
I mostly just work with science-type researchers, not those kind of dollars.

[chapel_of_words]

Read that article this morning, it has numerous facts that are inherently inaccurate, and even more assumptions that are grossly erroneous. Chief amongst them is that by artificially taking the market price at two fixed dates in time (Obama's inauguration and the election) and then comparing the difference can speak to the relative or qualitative "good" that one has done while in office. By the same token one could arbitrarily take a measure, such as unemployment, at two fixed points and say that Obama has been without question "bad". Neither measure is a good indicator to the health of the overall economy (though employment may be closer than stock market share prices); and certainly the connection to the qualities of a president are more tenuous, though many falsely aruge we can use those proxies to "keep score

[logiphage]

Thanks Tim, saved me the trouble.

Short answer, sorry Bushbama, bailouts and nationalizing industries is not capitalism. For that matter currency is not necessarily capital (cough QE2 cough).

As for GovMo their 'profitability' received a huge boost from government subsidies like cash for clunkers and now with the Volt, clearly a hybrid, being classified as an 'electric car' for purposes of tax break. So much of what GovMo counts as 'profit' is funded by taxpayers. Certainly we hold the risk.

I'd go one further and point out that most people don't realize that the Tea Party probably started in concept on the vote for TARP.

Yep.

It was Santelli's rant that was heard round the world, but the fury for that rant, and for many Americans, was established with TARP. Lots of teabaggers are small business owners and bailing out banks and Wall Street was an assault on capitalism, and be sure Bush was not exempted from the fury.

[chapel_of_words]

Don't forget GM has received special treatment in taxation. Typically a business can carry forward losses against future taxes, *unless* they go bankrupt (where the process wipes away the debt/loss). GM got to go bankrupt, shed the bad assets, but retain the losses for carry-forward tax treatment as if they still had the debts on the books.

Tim C.

[chapel_of_words]

Again, I think Fiengold would disagree that he was in a gerry-mandered district for Republicans. And Angle, crazy as she was, getting that close to a 26 year veteran Senate Majority Leader...only O'Donnell was a blowout. As I said in the LJ, there were 12 House Democrats and 3 Democratic Senators removed by Tea Party candidates; and 41% of those exit polled show either strong or moderate support for the Tea Party. That's an incredibly strong showing for a movement that didn't even exist in the last election cycle nor any centrally organizing committee that can credibly claim leadership over the whole.

As for the rest. Well I think some of those comments are being made in the heat of the moment so we'll pass them by for now.

Tim C.

[ladyapple27]

LOL-aren't the Tea Partiers outraged as well? C'mon, everybody, let's rage!

I don't look at party affiliation when voting; I look at individual platforms and records. I didn't vote a straight ticket.

[chapel_of_words]

I couldn't stand in the same room with the amout of mysogyny, racism, religious intolerance and homophobia that the Republican Party attracts.

Okay I'm going to hell...but there's a Catholic joke in there somewhere...

Tim C.

[speaks]

Yeah... Sorry about that.... Maybe next pope we'll get our act together.

[kingfrog]

The Pope's a Tea Partier!

[logiphage]

I am glad that the Tea Party Movement for the most part was repudiated.

Hehe is that how it feels?;) If that's being repudiated, repudiate us moar:D

If Obama can't fix the mess in 2 years, fuck him

Not so. Much as I disliked Bush he did turn the dotcom recession around in short order with tax cuts. At the time I was a dutiful NPRBot and was sure this course was going to create a catastrophe.

(for the record I don't think borrowing to fund tax cuts is good in the long run)

Obama, like FDR, has made things much worse. Obama signed off on more spending in his first year than Bush spent on the entire Iraq war. Not that I think we're doing anything useful in Iraq worth a trillion bux, but lets not pretend Obama isn't spending the wealth of unborn generations of America's at a rate unprecedented in US history

[logiphage]

Oh I meant to add.

I came to the conclusion that they haven't been Fiscally Conservative in my lifetime

You can't be more right. But that's where we teabaggers come in:)

[kingfrog]

Reagan was more Conservative in that regard than anyone else...I do remember government shutdowns over the additional spending tacked by Congress into the budgets he proposed.

[logiphage]

I pretty much only remember Reagan as the buffoon the MSM portrayed him to be. It was only later when I read stuff he wrote that I realized how smart he was.

I do believe he was well intentioned. I also believe he was co-opted pretty quick. He did dishearten fiscal conservatives who aren't "you must comply" social conservatives. People who don't consider themselves anything as radical as 'libertarian' but consider themselves good people, religious, but don't think it's American to go around passing 'dogooder' sodomy laws, who hate abortion but aren't convinced government is the wrong tool to stop it. They are very concerned about the money though. I think they tried to come back under Perot and had their hopes bashed again by a crazy protectionist loon. To a lesser extent the Governator appealed to them in California and their hopes were dashed againNow they are back in the tea party, and it's not an accident there is no definable leader. A leader would be convenient, but leaders sell out or go ballistic, and we don't really need one