"a No Tax Pledge is way, way radical..."

Errrr...that's funny, because the "no tax pledge" essentially means "keep the Bush tax cuts in place..." which is *exactly* what Obama signed a couple years ago and said you can't raise taxes during a bad economy. I guess you forgot how "radical" it was when Obama was supporting it? The ignornace, lack of historical context, and absolute vacancy of thought in this country is astounding.

As for "completely blew the election"....uhhh....nobody *blew* the election. It was 51% to 49% and the congress stayed essentially as it was. There was no win, there was no loss...there was stagnation.

Take a deep breath and get a grip.

The Republicans ought to give the Democrats everyting they want.....fuck it all..let the business owners start *really* firing people to cover excessive costs of government regulation and putting people down to part time. Then consumer spending will plummet...hell, we'll be in a full blown depression in two years. The Republicans need to just step aside and let this train wreck come to a complete stop. The real problem is that for the last two years the Republican-held congress was effective enough to stop any further damage, but not strong enough to implement change...thus we have existed under, essentially, half of Obama's firt 4-year grand vision...i.e. really nobody's plan at all, except some hybrid mess. So...get the hell out of his way...give him all his taxes and all his regulations....it'll either drive the country to it's proverbial knees....or Obama will be vindicated. But someone's vision ought to be implemented...

@Krellin

Politicians shouldn't be making pledges like that. It makes them appear inflexible and unwilling to compromise. There's a difference between not believing in something and refusing to ever do it your entire career.

Exit polls showed 60% of voters felt taxes should be raised. That is a mandate. Yet republicans keep their heads in the sand.

I agree pledges like that shouldn't be made, but they also shouldn't be taken too seriously. It's not as if politicians are know for staying true to their word.

What will probably happen is that the tax cuts will expire but will then be lowered on all but the very rich. That way Obama can say he kept middle class taxes low and Republicans can say they voted for a tax cut. Of course, that doesn't really solve the crises of the structural trillion dollar deficit, insolvency of medicare and social security, but it may just patch things up until we get another burst of actual governance in early 2017.

"Exit polls showed 60% of voters felt taxes should be raised. That is a mandate."

Even I agree taxes should be raised. But to be anything but symbolic (in the absence of huge spending cuts and entitlement reforms) they have to be raised on everyone who pays income tax, and the deductions that middle class families now depend on need to be slashed. People like the idea of Bill Gates having one less ivory backscratcher, not losing the ability to deduct their mortgage payments.

It's easy to say raise taxes, quite harder to actually do it in a way that doesn't lead to revolt or ruin.

when was the last burst of actual governance? Was it in early 2001 when the budget surplus was thrown in the trash in favor of tax cuts?

It was early 2009, and then something like it in the Obamacare ordeal. Presidents only get a few months to get anything done.

This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for the "Mute thread" feature and my new understanding that to truly enjoy webdip, one must mute the krellin-bait. Bye guys. Have fun with the circle-jerk. Imma go play diplomacy now.

Why do you assume the worst?

@krellin .. as abge and others have said, any pledge is too much. That's my point.

@dub .. you're the best to talk of krellin bait. Agreed.

@santa/invictus .. I can agree on both ends… essentially saying the President can't get anything done ;)

Hopefully the GOP will actually strap up their belts and do this crazy thing called compromising for at least a little while. Then once their vote count goes up or they get a President, it'll go away again. The votes will go back down and it'll start all over. A new political cycle.

"Even I agree taxes should be raised. But to be anything but symbolic (in the absence of huge spending cuts and entitlement reforms) they have to be raised on everyone who pays income tax, and the deductions that middle class families now depend on need to be slashed. People like the idea of Bill Gates having one less ivory backscratcher, not losing the ability to deduct their mortgage payments."

Isn't that great! Invictus agrees! The point is YOUR PARTY DOESN'T AGREE. They are stonewalling Obama although he is perfectly willing to make cuts and has offered to make cuts in the past. You can live in a fantasy world where your party is reasonable, or you can come into the real world where they are utterly opposed to compromise.

That's just not true. Bill fucking Kristol is up for compromise. Boehner's up for playing ball. What else do you want, they all become Democrats? A compromise has to come from both sides, especially since it's a simple fact that there are still more Republicans than Democrats in the house.

As for Obama offering these magnanimous cuts, he also increased the demand for tax hikes at the last minute during the debt ceiling crisis, which forced Boehner (always the guy for compromise) to back out and scuttled the hoe for a grand bargain. There's blame on both sides, don't pretend otherwise. There are Democrats just as unreasonably opposed to entitlement cuts/reforms as Republicans unreasonably opposed to tax rises.

Boehner will NOT play ball, he has said specifically he will not accept raised taxes.What fantasy land are you living in? The only "Ball" Boehner is willing to play is a "compromise" that involves spending cuts, and well... we won't let the country go over the catastrophic fiscal cliff. Its stonewalling like always, no matter what you try to make up.

Everyone in the US was well aware of the sort of tactics the Republicans use in congress, and yet after the last round of elections they still have the majority. That also is a mandate and in reality the only one that matters.

If you don't like it move to Saudi Arabia. Mandates are illegal there.

There are two ways of trying to come out of a recession. One is to tax higher and spend more to stimulate the economy and the other is to tax less and let the private sector create the jobs. Both are valid ideas, but you have to go all out for one or the other, its no good doing it half-assed. In the UK the Tories are cutting spending and taxes and we have to hope it will work, there is no point hoping Labour had won and try resisting every tax or spending cut.

In the US you should do the opposite let the winning party raise taxes nd spending and hope it works.

The pledge is too much? Give me a break....it's bullshit political rhetoric. Are you equally upset that Obama has "pledged" to raise taxes, no matter what? BoTh side are rhetorically incalcitrant, so why is your feigned outrage only directed at one side?

And...exit polls, really? YOU want the governmentpolich set by *exit* polls? Yes...maunder should just turn US governance over to Twitter....

But as I said - give the Dems what they want 100 percent if that is what people want.... Abge - you'd get to stay living with ma and pa.for a while.longer...there would be no jobs to leave for.

Yeah, I don't appreciate pledges either way. I don't have a clue what he's pledged.. maybe it's because he doesn't make himself a point of attention through it. I don't hail and bow down to Obama either you know. I hate him more and more as the cycle of getting nothing done because nobody on either side will compromise goes around. Giving anyone what they want won't work… both sides need to teach themselves to compromise, but the GOP, specifically the Tea Party, has the furthest bridge to cross right now.

Perhaps all you that voted Obama back in to office should go back and review his.pledges and.promises from 4 heard ago: a few include Close Gitmo, cut the deficiet in , and reduce unemployment if he got stimulus...lie, lie and lie. Where is your outrage?

I definitely believe in this "let them fuck up scenario". It can be very powerful. I would be a great proponent of a left-wing government in the Netherlands for the same reasons, rather than the left-right mix we have today. These guys know so well how to run the country, by all means give them a chance to do what everyone knows they'll do: make a mess of it.
You can just watch the left wing elite blow up the economy and in two/three years you vote the right back in and go back to business as usual.
+1

-1

The day the right puts its popularity over doing what's best for the country is the day we lose our reason for existing.

And, just for reference… "As for "completely blew the election"....uhhh....nobody *blew* the election. It was 51% to 49% and the congress stayed essentially as it was. There was no win, there was no loss...there was stagnation."

I'm not talking of what happened. I'm talking of what should have happened if the GOP had even taken a shot to appeal to minorities and women… it would have been a shoo in.

Agreed, Octavious. Either side,

The truly radical position in this debate is the position that says a 1.4 trillion dollar annual deficit is reasonable and sustainable. Oh sure, raising the taxes of the 1% will cut that deficit a bit, but not in a meaningful way.

I think the GOP - and yes, even the Tea Party - would compromise if tax hikes were part of a comprehensive and meaningful plan to balance the budget. That's the catch - the Democrats have no intention of balancing the budget. Obama threw Simpson-Bowles in the trashcan before the ink dried - he obviously isn't interested in long-term reform. He's interested in scoring political points through class warfare, and as long as he wants class warfare he'll probably get it.

Tax hikes just don't work.

Roosevelt tried them and we were in a depression for 12 years.

And they blew the election by nominating a moderate; they should've nominated a conservative. History shows that Moderates (i.e. Landon, Wilkie, Dewey, Ford, Dole, McCain, Romney) lose, while Conservatives (i.e. Coolidge, Eisenhower, Reagan) win.

"The day the right puts its popularity over doing what's best for the country is the day we lose our reason for existing. " Who said anything about popularity? I said the right should get out of the way and let the democrats fully implement their policies. This would demonstrate them to be the failures we believe, or the success Obama claims they would be, instead of the half-assed NON-policy our government runs by currently.

By the way, "popularity" is generally dictated by people's pocket-books, not political rhetoric. If you govern well, you will be popular, so by *all means* the Republicans should be doing what will, in the long run, make them popular.

As for "they nominated"....Uhhh, the Republicans had about 30 debates, and the people of the country had a chance to vote in the primaries. This assinine notion that some back-room deal of political insiders nominated Romney is childish at best, paranoid and delusional at worst.

@bo_sox, would've, could've, shoud've...doesn't matter. Democrats had 8 million FEWER voters than last time around, Repubicans had 2 million fewer. A *real* analysis of the vote demonstrates that the nation as a whole has shifted to the right over the past 4 years. "The GOP shoul dhave done...." what? what should they have done? mor attack ads that the mainstream media would refute? what?

no...what is needed is for the American electorate to get their collective heads out of their asses, on *both* sides of the political spectrum. Bottom line is, *nobody* won this election. Obama is still in office, Republicans kept the house and can still fillibuster the Senate....there was absolutely *no* mandate for anyone, and there will be *no* change in how this country is governed...meaning neither party turned out the voters.

You need to stop listening to political talking heads and look at what actually happened.

"You need to stop listening to political talking heads and look at what actually happened."

That is what actually happened. Romney should have won.. his own campaign knew it. They lost states that they thought they should have won. Obama's gameplan worked better. As they say, his "get the vote out" style worked. Campaigning is a gameplan… there is strategy to it and Romney's strategy failed. When you say nothing will change, I agree completely. However, Romney should have the White House.

@Octavious,

In a country that is not generally governed by coalitions like yours, I completely agree. But in a coalition country, or a country with strong opposing branches of government such as the US, it could be very wholesome for one side to abstain from voting on certain measures they're against, or to give space to the other side, and to oppose the consequences of their policies rather than the policies themselves.

This happened in the Netherlands during the late 1970s, when Labour, despite having the plurality in Parliament, didn't yield many of its principles and let the right wing govern the country instead. It's very effective, because if you can demonstrate that the mistakes of that government are exactly what you warned for to begin with, you could get re-elected. Labor didn't win the subsequent elections.

PS It has nothing to do with popularity, it has to do with what knellin said at the beginning, that it's good when there are two opposing strains of thought that dominate the resolution of a problem, instead of sustaining the mutual opposition, let one side have its way (in this case the executive branch), show that that leads to the decline of the economy and then get reelected to do what you already thought was best.

"Romney should have won" Says who? Ridiculous statement. Obama was the better campainger, the better organizer - it's his strength, and he won because he was supposed to because he was better at convincing the ignorant masses.

So you agree then… he won because of his campaign strategy. You agree that Romney should have won but underestimated Obama. You just say it differently because you can't come to grips with your party losing.

Romney should have won, except that he was a moderate who failed to address fundamental issues and suggest substantive change. Think of all the important issues that NEITHER candidate brought up! So, in the absence of clear alternatives, people stuck with the incumbant. Not surprising at all. I'm not sure why Romney's people were so confident. He was a lousy candidate on the issues. I'm glad I didn't throw my vote away on him.

Of course he won becuse of his campaing strategy. therefore Romney should *not* have won, because he didn't have a strategy that worked...i.e. he is another failed republican politician. You fantasy about what he should have done or not done, etc, is irrelvant given that we know what he *did* do...and therefore he lost. You can make any conjecture you want that he "would have won" if he had only just done "a, b,c..." except, just like budgets and taxes don't exist in a static world, niether to campaigns, and whatever Romney did, Obama and his media allies would have countered.

it is what it is...get over it.

i.e. budget comment...I reference that because you, being somewhat conservative, understand (I presume) that change in tax policy is *not* static on the economy, and thus when morons in the CBO and Congress and in the media make budget projections based upon a "static" economy and what happens when you raise and lower taxes, you are smart enough to grasp that businesses and economies *change* when taxes are raised or lowered....business fire people, quit investing, etc when taxes are raised, thus increased tax rates can in fact lower total taxes collected.....likewise, campaigns are not static....get that through your head. If you believe one thing (taxes and dynamic economies) then believe the other (campaigns are fluid). Stop whining.

It is not the *campaings* that were at fault, it is the self-uneducated voters that are the problem.

Why is it that you think you see *all* the truth behind the campaings, etc, and "knew" what was the right way to vote, end yet the vote turned out differently? it isn't the campaigns that caused the win/loss...it's the stupid voters. Without a voter being educated and what you believe is the truth, you can never win. Everyone who cast a vote this year heard the arguments of both campaigns - it would be virtually impossible not to this past year - so they didn't make their decisions based upon the campaigns...they made it based upon their *personal* judgement of the arguments presented...meaning the fault lies with the voters that are too stupid to grasp reality....reality that 16 Trillion...or is it soon $9 Trillion??? Is just too much debt to sustain? The stupid voteres who are literally too ignorant to understand that is you 100% confiscated the wealth of the "1%" you wouldn't even put a DENT in the deficeit, and thus the "tax the rich" argument is the most blatant and dangerous lie ever told, etc....until the moronic voter in America is able know and believe actual facts, conservatives will never win another big election. And the problem is that most Americans are indoctrinated with these lies starting in Kindergarten in the public schools, and have it reinfocred every night between 5PM and 11PM with the bs they pump in to their heads on the TV. It's a lost cause...and possibly a lost nation....just how Obama wants it...

Come now, I don't think we need to impute diabolical motives to Obama. Mere short-sighted incompetence is sufficient to run personal, business, or national finances into the ground.

And in response to the first post - of course the republicans are criticizing one another. That's what the losing party always does for a few weeks or months. A bit of historical perspective also helps - how many of us remember how George W. and others were talking about a "permanent Republican majority" after the '04 election? And how W. believed he had a mandate to change social security? How quickly things change.....

Hey Krellin, don't you think you should never express a political opinion ever again?

Hey Krellin, know the base to which your out of touch party is trying to pander?

It's you.

Just keep recycling those FM radio talking points, buddy, it'll guarantee a Clinton victory in '16.

YJ +1000

krellin is going through what a lot of people are going through. He's at the intersection of the haphazardly constructed right-wing fantasy world and reality. The dissonance between the two is no doubt quite confounding.

Inconveniently for him, his pathetic rationalization that the public is "literally too ignorant" to really get it is an indication of how absurdly he and his ilk are now missing the point.