Author Topic: Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage  (Read 787 times)

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Offline Cincinnatus

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Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage
« on: December 18, 2013, 09:00:06 pm »
Another excellent piece from the Canadian Free Press which deserves to be read in full. It's all about honesty and keeping your promises, not dissing your bedrock supporters.

Excerpts:

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Republicans in the United States just damaged their chances of winning elections in 2014, while trying to increase their chances.  That is what is wrong with the Republican Party:  A total failure to properly diagnose or understand the Party’s circumstances cripples it.  What Ronald Reagan saw so clearly, Republican insiders cannot grasp.

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Here’s the problem:  Campaigns are not won on election day.  They are won during the entire year leading up to election day, by the mostly-conservative grassroots activists who help raise money, organize, pound yard signs along the highway, make phone calls, set up meet-and-greets and coffees, and other events.

Candidates do not win or lose elections.  Republican insiders do not win or lose elections.  Campaign consultants do not win or lose elections.  Thousands of unpaid volunteers win the campaign for the candidate, especially on the Republican side.  Those volunteers vote with their feet and decide anew each and every Saturday morning whether to stay home or get out there and campaign for the candidate.  Every unpaid volunteer faces the temptation to just stay home instead of leaving the house and getting in the car.

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With the sequester broken, there is no enforceable restraint on deficit spending in future years.  Spending will increase $45 billion higher in 2014 and $63 billion over the next two years.  But most of all, the restraint against future spending increases is gone.  Republicans will not be able to re-impose the deficit reduction discipline hard-won in the 2011 Budget Control Act sequester.  The sequester required enormous work and political capital.

So if the Republicans win next year we will fly off the cliff at 80 miles per hour.  If the Democrats win we will fly off the cliff at 100 miles per hour.  Neither party is willing to avoid driving off the cliff. GOP leaders have destroyed any motivation for unpaid campaign volunteers to get up on Saturday morning and do unpaid work for Republicans who lied to them.  Worst of all, anything Republicans say to try to fix the situation will be viewed with skepticism

Conventional wisdom endlessly repeats that there is a clash between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives.  Wrong.  In fact, the GOP’s problems come from fiscal conservatives who spend money like drunken sailors and constantly grow the government.  Social issues are not the problem.  The problem is that GOP fiscal conservatives vote like fiscal liberals.

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What keeps the Republican Party in the minority is the widespread perception that “there’s not a dimes’ worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.”  That gives people the excuse to do nothing, which they were already inclined to anyway.

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There is already a natural tendency toward apathy.  Let’s see:  A typical voter could (a) go fishing with his daughter, or (b) spend Saturday knocking on doors for a Republican candidate who lies to him and breaks his campaign promises and who will insult his conservative beliefs if elected.  Tough decision.  Spending time with your family suddenly sounds like a better choice than making phone calls, pounding yard signs beside the road, knocking on doors, or helping organize campaign events.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/59928 [emphasis added]
We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid ~~ Samuel Adams

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage
« Reply #1 on: December 18, 2013, 09:13:26 pm »
They are all amnesiacs, they are repeating what through the GOP out of the senate and congress in 2006. SPENDING! 
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline GourmetDan

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Re: Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage
« Reply #2 on: December 18, 2013, 09:17:53 pm »

The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party.


"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan

Offline Rapunzel

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Re: Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage
« Reply #3 on: December 18, 2013, 09:33:05 pm »
The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party.

Please get some new material......... :thud: :thud:
�The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves.� G Washington July 2, 1776

Offline GourmetDan

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Re: Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage
« Reply #4 on: December 18, 2013, 09:45:41 pm »
Please get some new material.........

And those who constantly complain about how 'stupid' the GOP is, how they constantly making the same 'mistakes' don't need 'new material'?

I suppose staying on that path lets people think that if they just elect the 'right' people, the problem will be solved.  That's been the belief and the focus of much effort for decades and yet some still can't open their eyes and see the real problem.  It's not a 'bottom-up' problem.

It's a 'top-down' problem and those perpetrating it are quite content for the populace to continue tilting at windmills.  It has worked for decades and looks like it has plenty of life left in it.


"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan

Offline sinkspur

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Re: Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage
« Reply #5 on: December 18, 2013, 10:17:11 pm »
Silly article, as is a lot of what comes out of the loony Canada Free Press.

Obamacare is going to be the issue in 2014, not the deficit or the debt. The GOP increased their chances of taking the Senate and holding the House with this budget bill.

Or, the die-hards can stay at home and not vote so they can spend another two years bitching and bellyaching.

That's what they'd rather do anyway.
Roy Moore's "spiritual warfare" is driving past a junior high without stopping.

Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage
« Reply #6 on: December 18, 2013, 10:32:24 pm »

My commentary on winning elections and the reality of "bedrock supporters".
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Oceander

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Re: Paul Ryan’s Deal Throws away 2014 Advantage
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2013, 03:44:53 am »
I'm curious:  why is it that anyone thinks that some law passed by one Congress that "limits" the debt will somehow bind future Congresses - or even the same Congress at a later point in time - when all that future Congress need do is pass another law lifting the limit, or getting rid of it entirely.

Debt ceilings are just fancy distractions that have no real teeth whatsoever.