McConnell has lost his mind.

[F-Sharp]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offered what may be the most concise summary of conservative constitutionalism ever spoken — America must rewrite the Constitution to force conservative outcomes because we the people consistently elect lawmakers who disagree with Senator McConnell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPCY...layer_embedded

I read an interesting comment today on one of the Yahoo! articles today talking about the debt ceiling debate, and McConnell's proposal to pass along the authority to raise the debt celing to the President. The comment read, "Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is like going to a car dealer, finanacing a car, then refusing to make the payments. Then blame the dealership for selling it to you."

McConnell, and the rest of the GOP have clearly lost their minds, and we are hopefully bearing witness to the collapse and utter implosion of the Republican party.

Some of his comments today included:

"I refuse to help Barack Obama get reelected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy..."

"If we go into default he will say Republicans are making the economy worse," he concluded. "And all of a sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy."

Co-ownership? I have bad news for you McConnell, your majority party are the ones who passed the legislation that is responsible for this crisis. If you couldn't pay for it, why the hell did you write and pass it?

Remember folks, that it is Congress that controls the purse springs in this country, not the President.

Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution:

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States"

It's their job to write and pass legislation that their constituents, the President and the Senate approve of to solve financial problems. In this, they have clearly failed on all counts.

$160 billion this year alone for two pointless wars in the middle east? For bejezzus' sake, that is a $31 billion hike from the year previous!!! Congress did manage to cut $75 billion from unemployment insurance programs desperately needed by a portion of the 9% of the population who are currently out of work. Actually it's more than that. That number doesn't account for the folks who are no longer eligible to collect unemployment or who flat gave up trying to find a job.

Refusal to cut $20 billion dollars in oil subsidies from our budget? Will someone mind telling me just what companies like Exxon/Mobil, who made $30.4 Billion dollars last year, or Chevron who made $19 billion need government subsidies for? Congress did however manage to cut $8 billion from Veteran's benefits and pensions this year.

Finally, let's not forget the $858 Billion in tax cuts they fought tooth and nail to extend. To this day, they still refuse to let this corporate welfare expire. And now they're threatening to cut our Social Security and Medicare to pay for it.

Anyone else see an obvious pattern here? They've done all this, but not managed to introduce one single jobs bill in two years? As they say, "Get the fuck out of here!"

There's no co-ownership here McConnell, you and our corporatista party own it lock, stock, and barrel.

[gfejunkie]

Sounds more like to me that some Republicans have finally found themselves a spine and are remembering the message that the American people sent last November. That is to say, get this debt ceiling and spending under control or else join the ranks of the unemployed.

Cut, cap, and balance. The new mantra. Get used to it.

[F-Sharp]

Originally Posted by gfejunkie

Sounds more like to me that some Republicans have finally found themselves a spine and are remembering the message that the American people sent last November. That is to say, get this debt ceiling and spending under control or else join the ranks of the unemployed.

Cut, cap, and balance. The new mantra. Get used to it.

Quite the opposite. Nothing but a bunch of cowards trying to skip out on debts they passed in to law, and afraid of standing up to the Tea Bagger extremists who they've managed to let overrun your party...and you've apparanetly bought their bullshit hook, line, and sinker.

[Guest040616]

In order for McConnell to lose his mind, he would first have to find one to lose!

[Txfishkiller]

F-Sharp

at least you have an opinion, most people that voted for our socialist Pres. , voted solely on emotion without having any knowledge of his background and influences. Obummer is a pure socialist thru & thru. Our country has the highest corp. tax rate in the developed world. All of their employees pay income taxes. Without corporations there are no taxpayers. Its funny how Obummer and his rightious indignation attacked the evil "big corporations" pointing the finger with one hand, while reaching behind his back to take the campaign cash. Socliasism works fine until the "other guy" runs out of money. Sure if you want to be like Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, Cal and Venzuala, you and Sean Penn quit bitching and move there. Its funny how the Obamacare is so great, that 1,900 waivers to opt out has been granted to many of those evil corporations in LIberel Democrat districts. Obamacare is so bad that companies are laying off NOW to avoid the future slice that the new taxes will take in 2014. You are either misinformed or suffer from intellectual denial.

[Txfishkiller]

F-Sharp-why don't you point out GE, Microsoft, HP, Google NBC and CNN also benefit from the same tax breaks that the oil co's get. GE did not pay taxes in 2010. the 2 pointless wars were to clean up the shit Bill Clinton left when he had UBL three times and chose to be a pussy. we were attacked on 9/11, because UBL did not think the USA had the balls to do anything, but now he;s dead. so on your logic, if wars cost too much we had better not go there. By the way March was the deadiest month in Afgan, where was the body count CNN ran when GW Bush Pres??

[Club Fun Guy]

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution. I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing."

-Thomas Jefferson 11/26/1789

[Booth]

The war in Afghanistan is debatable. The war in Iraq is not. You mention that "2 pointless wars were to clean up the shit Bill Clinton left etc etc.." but I fail to see what Clinton had to do with the fiasco in Iraq. Care to explain?

Originally Posted by Txfishkiller

F-Sharp-why don't you point out GE, Microsoft, HP, Google NBC and CNN also benefit from the same tax breaks that the oil co's get. GE did not pay taxes in 2010. the 2 pointless wars were to clean up the shit Bill Clinton left when he had UBL three times and chose to be a pussy. we were attacked on 9/11, because UBL did not think the USA had the balls to do anything, but now he;s dead. so on your logic, if wars cost too much we had better not go there. By the way March was the deadiest month in Afgan, where was the body count CNN ran when GW Bush Pres??

[F-Sharp]

Originally Posted by Txfishkiller

F-Sharp

at least you have an opinion, most people that voted for our socialist Pres. , voted solely on emotion without having any knowledge of his background and influences. Obummer is a pure socialist thru & thru. Our country has the highest corp. tax rate in the developed world. All of their employees pay income taxes. Without corporations there are no taxpayers. Its funny how Obummer and his rightious indignation attacked the evil "big corporations" pointing the finger with one hand, while reaching behind his back to take the campaign cash. Socliasism works fine until the "other guy" runs out of money. Sure if you want to be like Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, Cal and Venzuala, you and Sean Penn quit bitching and move there. Its funny how the Obamacare is so great, that 1,900 waivers to opt out has been granted to many of those evil corporations in LIberel Democrat districts. Obamacare is so bad that companies are laying off NOW to avoid the future slice that the new taxes will take in 2014. You are either misinformed or suffer from intellectual denial.

Since I grow tired of responding to this type if ridiculous conjecture and completely unfounded opinion, I will simply leave you with this...

[theaustinescorts]

Originally Posted by gfejunkie

Cut, cap, and balance. The new mantra. Get used to it.

I agree. All Federal spending should be brought to levels from the Eisenhower administration.

But that will not be enough to balance the budget.

Tax rates must also be increased at the top to the levels we had under Eisenhower, and so far keeping the W. Bush tax cuts on the upper levels is non-negotiable for the GOP [on the grounds that doing so will limit growth].

Federal spending has remained at about 20% of GDP since the late 1950s, and only spiked to 22% in the last few years.

The problem is that whereas in the past the Federal government collected close to 20% of the GDP in taxes, recently the share of the economy collected in taxes from the Federal side has decreased to a new low of 14% or so.

Look it up.

The CRISIS isn't that the Federal government is spending more than it used to.

The CRISIS is that it isn't collecting as much in taxes as it used to.

Personally I'd like to see the Federal role decreased dramatically, to spending and collecting around 16% of GDP.

But now's not the time for radical reforms like I'd like to see personally.*

Now's the time to simply return to the spending and collection levels which supported our credit rating in the past, and then we can work on reducing the Federal role.

*My budget would slash defense spending by 80%, eliminate Homeland Security, the Dept. of Education, the ATF, the DEA, raise the retirement age by three years, turn all non-violent felons out of prison, etc, etc. [I would not sell off public lands so they can be bought by banks with fiat-created money!!!!!].

I would also eliminate the corportate income tax, but put a sales tax on all speculative trades in public markets, and increase the top tax rates to Eisenhower levels. Income taxes should be paid by individuals, not companies.

If these things were done THE DEBT WOULD BE PAID OFF...all 15 trillion of it.

ps.....

When Kennedy took office the Federal government took 20% of the GDP in taxes. After he increased defense spending [something Eisenhower wouldn't do] defense spending shot up to almost 50% of Federal spending, and was almost 10% of GDP.

ps....

The rich pay most of the taxes now because they have all the money. The only place to collect more taxes is from the rich because they have all the money. People who are not rich [or do not know them] don't understand this. In this country the rich have all the wealth. Working people, even if they are high income, don't have anything compared to the rich. Four percent own 60% of it all.
You could soak them and soak them and soak them and they would still have it all.

A few of the rich have been engaged in a huge propaganda/disinformation campaign which has succeeded in convincing conservatives that government is bigger today than in the past [not true] and that taxes are higher today than in the past [not true] and that only the rich create jobs [not true]. They are laughing at the rest of us.

[Sternomancer]

"...at least you have an opinion, most people that voted for our socialist Pres. , voted solely on emotion without having any knowledge of his background and influences."

I don't know about most of his voters, but there were definitely some voting without any substance to their choice which you can see at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8

I tried to stay neutral on Obama and just see what happened. The total disregard for the majority of the country not wanting the health care reform and just hamfisting it through with wheeling and dealing put him in the negative for me.

[F-Sharp]

Originally Posted by Sternomancer

I tried to stay neutral on Obama and just see what happened. The total disregard for the majority of the country not wanting the health care reform and just hamfisting it through with wheeling and dealing put him in the negative for me.

Seems to me that people were pretty split on the healthcare issue. He's had the majority at times, and it's dipped below 50-50 at other times. It's been my personal observation that the majority of the people who are against the healthcare initiative don't understand it in the least. If someone can't be bothered to understand something before forming an opinion on it, I could care less how they feel.

If I were to ask you what the healthcare plan was and who was paying for it, are you capable of providing a detailed response? You're not exactly clear if you're for or against it, just not happy with the quickness in which Congress pushed it through...? If you are against it, what's your reason(s)?

As for repeal, only about one in four say they want to do away with the law completely. Among Republicans support for repeal has dropped sharply, from 61 percent after the elections to 49 percent now.

Incidentally, where are you getting your information that "the majority of the people who are against the healthcare initiative"? These links seem to tell a very different story:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/...n7251893.shtml

"As for repeal, only about one in four say they want to do away with the law completely. Among Republicans support for repeal has dropped sharply, from 61 percent after the elections to 49 percent now."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...avorable_N.htm

By 49%-40%, those polled say it was "a good thing" rather than a bad one that Congress passed the bill.

Even Fox News polls have it opposed at 55%, hardly a majority given the question they asked pollers. "Based on what you know about Healthcare...." See my comments above about that.

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/...h_Care_web.pdf