12 thoughts on “Unbundling The Issues”

  2. The ever-more strident Paul Krugman offers the president this sage advice: Hang tough and don’t make a deal with the Republicans in light of an “amazing victory.” It is better, Krugman argues, to parlay the political spoils by risking an economic breakdown than capitulate to “intransigent” Republicans. It is hard to know what to make of his now frequent hysterical excesses.

    — Richard Epstein, national treasure. 🙂

    1. I disagree with Krugman on this. Obama should have done this on his first term when he had more support but not now. Of course if the Republican party is unwilling to compromise he shouldn’t wait indefinitely.

      1. Obama’s idea of compromise is for the Republicans to sit down, shut up and give him everything he wants. Politics requires give and take. Obama only takes.

        1. I keep hearing this argument but I really doubt its premise. Even in the much derided Obamacare he switched from his original plan, which was to provide universal healthcare via a single-payer system, to a system which is much like what Republicans were originally proposing and Romney had implemented in Massachusetts. If the Republicans keep moving the stakes how can a compromise be reached?

          1. You can doubt it all you want but Woodward’s book tells what actually happened when they tried to negotiate a budget deal last year. They had an agreement worked out but then Obama came in demanding larger tax hikes. The deal collapsed as a result. “I won” says it all about him.

          3. The Republicans could NOT stop Obama, Pelosi and Reid. What is so hard to grok about that? Obama had a supermajority in both houses of Congress.

            The reason Obama could not jump to his dream of a single payer system in one fell swoop was that there were holdout DEMOCRATS….remember the bribes? Cornhusker for example? Louisiana Purchase?

            Ring a bell?

            He could only successfully bribe so far. So the Worker’s Paradise has to wait a little while longer.

          4. Obama only had 60 votes in the Senate for a few months in 2009 (and used it to pass health care reform). We’re talking about the debt ceiling/grand bargain negotiations in 2011.

            If you want another example of Obama-GOP negotiations, look at the 2010 lame duck agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts in exchange for the payroll tax break and unemployment benefits. Both sides won something, but the GOP got its top priority (continued low tax rates for the rich). Obama didn’t even get a debt ceiling hike, a big mistake on his part.

            Obama has been willing to give too much ground in the past. Hopefully he realizes how much leverage he has now, and won’t take a bad deal.

  3. The idea that we can fight issue by issue is a loser.

    disown the “Right-wing nut jobs” and “move to the center”

    Nut jobs is a smear. The way it’s done is find an issue some idiot on the right has given the left. Then label everybody with it.

    This is why issue by issue is a loser. It doesn’t get us where we want to be EVER and the ranks of the takers will always continue to grow.

    Is there a solution to this? Sadly, there may not be, but if there is it would be through education. People need to recognize bad arguments and see through them. This also means those putting out those bad arguments need to be destroyed. Completely destroyed. Otherwise you have to continuously fight the big lie. Romney discredited Obama on certain issues during the debates, but the very next day Obama was on the campaign trail repeating those same discredited issues. How are we doing on this? Liz Warren won, didn’t she?

    The other possibility is the object lesson of going Galt, but how do enough do that without frontiers? At best, you shorten the time to the fall, but that fall could still take generations during which we descend into chaos.

    At some point the government stops playing nice and just takes as it did millions of dollars in silver from that liberty coin guy in Idaho. …or bond holders in GM. This will only accelerate the closer to the fall.

  4. The other possibility is the object lesson of going Galt, but how do enough do that without frontiers?

    Singapore is calling, my friend…

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