"We're not going to be disrespected"Follow

Bad ***!

I would insist on concessions if I were Jbone, too. I mean, it's worked EVERY OTHER TIME. Whey on earth would you assume Obama suddenly won't cave this time? He's trained the GOP that this is the correct response.

I had to read that three times before I realized that you weren't talking about Jerry Lewis.

Jenny Lewis. The one Rilo Kiley show I saw sucked. Although that was mainly because they (venue? band? who hires this guy?) had a deaf ********** working the soundboard. All the Jenny Lewis shows I've seen though have been ace.

You're an enigmatic *******, Radar.

Jenny Lewis? The girl from that Nintendo movie with Fred Savage and his autistic brother?

I'm more worried about why you can identify the actors from that film. You need to get out more.

No. We can't. That's the problem. It's somewhat amusing to constantly hear the Democrats bemoaning the evil Republicans using some required legislative deadline as a means to try to force them to negotiate on some budget thing or other, given that the Democrats have steadfastly refused to even sit down to discuss such things *unless* there's some looming deadline hanging over their heads.

When the only thing that will bring you to the table is a crisis like this, you're kinda setting up the situation, aren't you? As I've said before, the Democrats have failed to pass a budget for 4+ years (even when they controlled Congress). The CRs (and deadlines to extend them) exist *because* we have failed to reach any sort of budget agreements. They are not unrelated subjects.

Put another way: If your claim was true, then we wouldn't be here right now. The reality is that the Dems have been saying for four years "Let's just pass a CR and we'll discuss budget afterwards", and then they don't discuss the budget until the CR is set to expire. Then they repeat the same argument. So no. If the GOP lets a "clean CR" go through, we wont get any budget negotiations from Democrats. And in 6 months or whatever time frame the extension lasts, we'll be back here again. And you'll make the same argument, having completely forgotten that it wasn't true the time before, or the time before that, or the time before that.

How many times must the GOP give the Dems the benefit of the doubt before they hold them to their word?

When the only thing that will bring you to the table is a crisis like this, you're kinda setting up the situation, aren't you?

Exactly. The very reasonable GOP is well known for it's a priori moderation of positions and pro active negotiating techniques. Their willingness to eschew obstructionism and govern fairly has given rise to them being referred to colloquially as "Clays" harkening back to days of the Great Compromiser himself. Noted GOP orator Shooter McGavin has frequently noted that the party as whole enjoys making things out of clay down by the bay because of the symbolic importance.

Um... Because it's the same thing I just explained to Alma that didn't work in the past and wont work today. Saying "we'll form a budget committee, but only if you agree to continue funding everything we want" isn't exactly a fair offer, is it? It's like saying "We'll discuss what we'll have for lunch after we eat lunch at my favorite restaurant". There's no guarantee that said budget committee will result in any sort of budget agreement, doubly so if the Democrats have already gotten what they wanted before anyone sits down at the table.

I'll repeat the same thing I said earlier about these conference committees (may have been in this thread, don't remember): The House rules require that the conference resolve whatever issue it's formed for within 20 days of members being assigned. Those who don't know this might take Reid's offer to "immediately seat members for a conference committee" as some kind of positive concession from him. But the reality is that by doing this, he's basically ensuring that nothing will come out of the conference. So he's not even offering something that might result in a budget agreement. He's essentially saying "give us what we want, and we'll give you nothing in return". But he's doing it in such a way that ignorant people will think he's making a fair offer.


That's reasonable politics, but that's all it is. Only the foolish and the ignorant would think it's a fair offer though. If he were serious about reaching a budget agreement, he would have gone through the process of negotiating such a conference, along with a full agenda, and all the pre-work required to make one work, and he would have done this months ago. Instead, he just tosses out a PR stunt designed to fool the masses, while doing nothing that will actually result in a budget deal.


At this point, the only thing that will work is some kind of actual funding reduction agreement as part of the CR. It probably doesn't even have to be that huge. But the Dems are trying to play this out in the media instead of actually trying to fix the problem. That'll work for awhile, but not forever.

Edited, Oct 9th 2013 11:21am by gbaji

They'll decide in a match of rock/paper/scissors.

I'd bet it was Monopoly.

And then there's the exploratory committee to decide on who will be the tophat...

Furloughed? Drunk? Bored? Any combination of the above? Why not drunk dial congress and yell at them? Website calls the office of a random member of Congress for you so you can vent. It even offers things to yell about!