Obama slams Republicans for threat to blow up entire economy

[Coito ergo sum]

Funny how the self-proclaimed "fiscal conservatives" throw a juvenile tantrum and shut down the government, potentially reducing GDP, then pass a bill to retroactively pay government employees. All the while, they complain about government deficits (which are falling). Cognitive dissonance anyone?

Except that the Republicans did not shut down the government. They passed a budget that included funding for everything except Obamacare, and the Reid led Senate Democrats allowed the government to shut down rather than pass that. Are they throwing a juvenile tantrum too? Or, is their action fully justified because you agree with them?

[Coito ergo sum]

Maybe before October 1 next year the Republicans can attach an amendment to the budget insisting that the President have Joe Biden hanged from the Truman balcony. Then they can gripe about how the Democrats refused to even consider their proposal and therefore shut the government down.

Because I honestly think that the President would sooner consider that amendment than this one to defund the ACA. It would do less damage -to the country and to the administration- than what they proposed this year.

That doesn't have any real relation to what is going on. There have often been incidents of legislation through appropriations, where funding for one program or another has been held up. This is not unusual. However, in this case, the Democrats did not wish to talk about the budget for Obamacare, because they need to ram it through as quickly as possible so now they are pretending that this is some strange occurrence. The House controls the constitutional purse strings, so to speak. All spending bills originate in the house. The House has taxing and spending power, and it is up to the House to decide on behalf of the people what money will be spent on. If it determines a program is not ready, then it can defund it. It happens all the time.

[Ian]

Funny how the self-proclaimed "fiscal conservatives" throw a juvenile tantrum and shut down the government, potentially reducing GDP, then pass a bill to retroactively pay government employees. All the while, they complain about government deficits (which are falling). Cognitive dissonance anyone?

Except that the Republicans did not shut down the government. They passed a budget that included funding for everything except Obamacare, and the Reid led Senate Democrats allowed the government to shut down rather than pass that. Are they throwing a juvenile tantrum too? Or, is their action fully justified because you agree with them?

Both the House and Senate actions were fully justified. Neither is constitutionally illegal.

This is a showdown, plain and simple.

But if we're going to insist that blame be placed on someone, then it is 100% on the Republicans. Not mostly them, not technically them... 100% them. They had the initiative, generating and insisting on this budget amendment, knowing perfectly well that it would never get past the Senate let alone the President. They didn't have to do that. And they still have the initiative in keeping this mess going: Boehner could call a vote on a budget without the amendment right now and it would very likely pass, but he still hasn't.

[Ian]

Maybe before October 1 next year the Republicans can attach an amendment to the budget insisting that the President have Joe Biden hanged from the Truman balcony. Then they can gripe about how the Democrats refused to even consider their proposal and therefore shut the government down.

Because I honestly think that the President would sooner consider that amendment than this one to defund the ACA. It would do less damage -to the country and to the administration- than what they proposed this year.

That doesn't have any real relation to what is going on. There have often been incidents of legislation through appropriations, where funding for one program or another has been held up. This is not unusual. However, in this case, the Democrats did not wish to talk about the budget for Obamacare, because they need to ram it through as quickly as possible so now they are pretending that this is some strange occurrence. The House controls the constitutional purse strings, so to speak. All spending bills originate in the house. The House has taxing and spending power, and it is up to the House to decide on behalf of the people what money will be spent on. If it determines a program is not ready, then it can defund it. It happens all the time.

First, quit griping about your interpretation of how it was passed three and a half years ago. It took a long time to pass - the public was debating and having town hall meetings on it for almost a year prior. And my interpretation is that the Republicans walked away from the process not too long after it began in 2009: they could have influenced it more, but they opted for an attempt to block it wholesale so they could claim that it was "rammed through" if that didn't work, even though nothing about it fit that description. It was passed by a majority, and I'm sorry if your grapes are tasting sour ever since.

As for the rest, you're right: the House holds the purse string. Nobody is saying that it is illegal what they did, only that it was stupid and reckless. See my post right before this one.

If you want a better analogy, picture a Democratic House insisting on a budget which cuts the DoD budget by 50%... and then blaming a Republican Senate and Republican President for obstruction for refusing to consider it. Technically, yes, the Senate is what is blocking such a budget from going through, but the initiative was with the House. Unacceptable means unacceptable - and knowing it beforehand means you're the one initiating the stunt.

[subversive science]

The Republicans added well over 100 amendments to the ACA in committee, and then refused to vote for their own version of healthcare reform. Democrats would have preferred single-payer, but Obama start to the right of the middle with a plan developed by the Heritage Foundation. Now a few well-funded radicals are holding the country hostage because the passing of legislation, a Supreme Court decision, and an election did not go their way. So yes, Republicans get all of the blame, even those who don't want the shutdown but keep voting for it.

[subversive science]

I posted this over at the other place but it pisses me off so badly I have to post it again.

So, the non-working exchanges are still not working, and it only cost us $634,320,919 to build a non-functional fucking web system. Of course the original contract was for only $93,000,000, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say there were probably a few cost overruns, eh? As of 2010 the most expensive website in the entire fucking world was recovery.gov, the website built to track spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Irony thy name is Federal Government). It cost $18,000,000 to build. I thought that was fucking ridiculous, but this takes it to a whole new universe of incompetence and, frankly, outright theft. There is no possible way, no fucking way in heaven, earth or hell that you can spend a half a BILLION dollars on a computer system that doesn't fucking work.

I was an IT project manager for over 20 years, building insurance systems that did effectively what the exchanges do, which is to compare personal data with a set of policies and determine which are a suitable fit, do the premium calculations and track the customer. We actually went a fuck of a lot further than the exchanges do. We also did policy and claims administration, government required reporting, full double entry accounting, webmail, agent and agency administration. Our systems were multi-tiered, bringing together PCs, mobile devices, large server farms, all communicating via satellite protocol to mainframe systems and keeping 3 separate database systems in synch (MySQL on the PC, Oracle on servers and DB2 on the MF). These systems were fucking complicated, far more complex than what they're trying to pull off. I would estimate that the largest such system we built probably cost in the vicinity of $10 to 12 million all in, and we were up and running in less than 3 years from design to rollout, with a maximum staffing level of maybe 60 people.


http://www.examiner.com/article/obamaca ... n-to-build

Amazing how private contractors offer low bids knowing that they will still recoup all cost overruns.

...even when the deliverable is non-functional.

[Seth]

First, quit griping about your interpretation of how it was passed three and a half years ago.

Er, no, I will not.

It took a long time to pass - the public was debating and having town hall meetings on it for almost a year prior.

Which were pointless because Reid and Pelosi wouldn't release the text of the document for anyone to look at prior to passing it into law.

And my interpretation is that the Republicans walked away from the process not too long after it began in 2009:

Yes, when it became clear that the democrat party wasn't going to negotiate, or even let Republicans into the committee chambers, much less the public, and that they were going to ram through whatever they wanted, the Republican said "Hey, your tar-baby guys. You get to get stuck to it, not us." Good for them.

they could have influenced it more, but they opted for an attempt to block it wholesale so they could claim that it was "rammed through" if that didn't work, even though nothing about it fit that description.

Absolutely and completely false.

It was passed by a majority, and I'm sorry if your grapes are tasting sour ever since.

And all the spending bills passed to the Senate have been passed by the majority. So what? The Senate is doing just what you claim the Republicans did; stonewalling.

As for the rest, you're right: the House holds the purse string. Nobody is saying that it is illegal what they did, only that it was stupid and reckless.

It's neither because the House is doing its job, it's the Senate and the President who are refusing to negotiate.

If you want a better analogy, picture a Democratic House insisting on a budget which cuts the DoD budget by 50%... and then blaming a Republican Senate and Republican President for obstruction for refusing to consider it. Technically, yes, the Senate is what is blocking such a budget from going through, but the initiative was with the House. Unacceptable means unacceptable - and knowing it beforehand means you're the one initiating the stunt.

Why is it you think that the Senate is supposed to get its way in this matter? Or the democrat party? Just because Obamacare was passed into law DOES NOT mean that the House is obliged to fund it. That's why they hold the purse strings. It's to force bipartisanship and proper debate and negotiation so that approximately half of the population of the United States are not effectively disenfranchised by the other half.

The democrat party had their chance to be rational, effective leaders, but instead they went insane with power and tried to ram through every progressive dream law thought up since 1912 while they were in command of both houses. Well, they made a lot of new laws, including Obamacare, and they did it while thumbing their noses and giving the finger to half the population by saying "fuck you, you conservative assholes, we're in charge now and we're going to teach you a lesson." So they did.

Which caused them to lose control of the House, which went to the Republicans precisely so that they can do exactly what they are doing right now: derail the democrat party party train by defunding their outrageous partisan laws. It's not a fucking coincidence that they lost the house...and will probably lose the senate as well.

So, they are being hoist on their own petard right now. They created this animosity and fractured government and now they are going to get to live with the consequences, one of which is that they can't continue with their profligate spendthrift ways while the House is held by the Republicans.

[Seth]

Amazing how private contractors offer low bids knowing that they will still recoup all cost overruns.

...even when the deliverable is non-functional.

The first short story I ever wrote was about this exactly. I'll see if I can dig it out.

[Ian]

Just because Obamacare was passed into law DOES NOT mean that the House is obliged to fund it.

This was the only thing about your post that was remotely accurate or reasonable. True: the House did not have to fund it. But they knew perfectly well that the Senate and President would never in a century accept a demand to completely defund it. And while you can whine that it is the Democrats who are refusing to negotiate, it is also the Republicans who have thus far refused to budge from their demand (translation: they also have been refusing to negotiate).

And legal as it is, it is in fact stupid and reckless. the ACA was passed by a majority in the House. It was upheld by the Supreme Court. And if you're wondering why the Republicans didn't attempt such a bold move one year ago, it was because they were hoping to win back the Presidency. They couldn't do it, so here they are, resorting to extortion. I doubted many of them were even bright enough to consider that it might backfire on them, as nowadays they live in as much a fantasyland of wishful thinking as you do.

[Tero]

Uh, yes to the first. But, you seem to have confused me with someone else regarding the "gun enthusiast" nonsense. I don't own a gun, and i never have. I've contemplated getting one, and I've talked about that here. But, am in no sense an "enthusiast"....unless a cigar aficionado could be one who never smoked a cigar.

But, when truth or lack thereof are only means to ends, it's not surprising that you care so little about the accuracy of your statements. You know what's right in the end, so who gives a fuck how you get there, right?

You must get that gun. You are not a credible libertarian or republican without one.

[subversive science]

For the past five years Obama has tried to compromise, the Republicans have acted like compromise is a bad word. Now that they are in a weak position, they are crying "Why won't he compromise?" all while holding a gun to the head of our country.

Well, you know what? We don't negotiate with terrorists.

[Ian]

Terrorists are more rational. When they take hostages, they tend to make demands that could actually be met. And they like to have a viable exit strategy.









(I totally paraphrased that from Andy Borowitz today. He's the man. )

[klr]

So, any chance this mess is going to get resolved any time soon?

[Ian]

Fuck if I know.

I'd feel more confident telling you what North Korea is going to do next week than telling you when a budget/CR will finally get passed.

[pErvinalia]

How long can this go on? Isn't there some sort of constitutional tie breaker that can force government to resume being a government? Or could this theoretically go on without an end in sight?