Who will take on Obama in 2012?

And that's all well and good, though discussing which Republican candidate has the best shot is a bit different. And, of course, it's less positive about Romney than it is "look at the crazy candidate Republicans might nominate instead of Romney." Even in this alleged defense you tell me the best Republican option "isn't very likeable and is an opportunist," for crying out loud. And choosing one Republican over another isn't really a positive statement about either.

I'm thinking of things like the Ryan plan. Or the debt-ceiling negotiation. Other major news events that figure to either help or hurt one party more than another. Your opinion of these things has been that the Ryan plan is some major albatross around the neck of the entire party and that it's going to cost them dearly. You also think Republicans are going to overplay their hand on the debt-ceiling and that is going to hurt them, too. On the major party faceoffs, you've consistently suggested that the Republicans are dooming themselves (or will doom themselves).

Now, if you honestly believe it each and every time, that's fine. But after awhile it starts to feel less like analysis and more like a description of what you'd merely like to see happen.

So, your defense of Democrats is that they're not obligated to fix a problem until someone starts complaining about it?

Either they had no idea there was a problem (would that even be possible?), or they knew and just decided they could get away with not caring about it. Neither speaks well of them.

Well, I made a few, so I don't know which you're not following. So I'll summarize both of the major ones. I dunno if I can make them much plainer, but I'll try:

First, I say Democrats aren't dealing with Medicare. You say that claim is false. Then you go on to say that they will deal with it. This means that they haven't, and my initial claim is not false.

Second, you have, in other discussions, opposed various Republican plans or ideas (or Republicans in general) and, when questioned as to why, you've suggested that you believe they want to do away with far, far more than they say they do in terms of government programs. That their plans to fix this or that are just sliding their foot in the door to dismantle the whole thing. In some cases, I pointed out, this contradicts their votes, actions, and public statements. You believe they're hiding the true extent of their positions. Speculation, in other words.

Now we have a scenario where you are speculating about Democrats and how they really do want to deal with entitlements, even though they haven't done so and nothing in their actions seems to support the idea that they will. What very little light we have at the end of the tunnel is basically being forced on them by a Republican majority and an increasingly debt-concssous electorate.

So, my point was that in both cases you are "reading between the lines" (those were your words, not mine) and speculating about each party. You speculate that Republicans are secretly much "worse" than their actions indicate (insofar as your ideology is concerned), and you speculate that Democrats are secretly much more proactive and responsible than their actions so far have indicated.

It is one thing, in other words, to simply favor one party over another. I do that with Republicans. But it's another thing to do so based on some hypothetical view of them that may not exist in reality. If you support Democrats based partly on filling in the gaps of our knowledge with positive speculation about them, then you're not supporting the actual party, you're supporting what you merely hope or think they might become.

Well, if they did both: how does the Ryan plan do it? What rhetoric did they employ that makes reform much more difficult down the line? Also, does this mean that you're conceding that Democrats have done this, but are merely contending that Republicans have, too?

I doubt it was an issuing of hiding things; I don't think they even had a plan in the mid-terms beyond budget reduction, which the Ryan Plan achieves. That, of course, is a point I've been harping on for awhile: that any attempt to talk about Ryan's Medicare reform outside of the context of the budget is nonsensical.

And any worthwhile reform of Medicare is going to feel like a radical departure. If it isn't a fundamental structure change like the one proposed, then it obviously isn't going to change the fundamentals of the program.

And it's not as if Democrats wouldn't have complained just as loudly and just as often if they had merely proposed massive cuts. It just would've changed the specific way they vilified them, so I don't buy this as an explanation. The way they approached reform only modified the demagoguery. As you say, the Democrats are not stupid. They know they can scream and shout and talk about how the big mean Republicans are cutting things and changing things. But the fact remains: only one party is attempting to deal with these things. The other is being dragged kicking and screaming to even short-term band-aid solutions like simple cuts. Democratic supporters can pick: either they fail to grasp the seriousness of the problem, or they fail to address it adequately. There is no third explanation.

This is a very easy thing to merely claim.

Can you explain why the polls you produced should be taken seriously when they leave out the entire reason the reform was being proposed in the first place? That's the divide between the polls that is most significant.

Agreed. The public agrees there's a problem when you present it to them, but often want to have it both ways. And yet again, I will point out that this is why entitlement programs are dangerous. Because people feel entitled to them. Shocking, right?

There's no way this is correct. Just above you even pointed out that the public acknowledges the problem but doesn't like the solutions in reality. Lots of perfectly decent proposals are hard to defend for a variety reasons, the two most prominent probably being that a) there's an opposition party practically dedicated to making the reform side pay for its reform attempt and b) reform usually means cuts to things people have been, rightly or wrongly, reliant on or expectant of.

I don't think it at all follows that a necessary thing cannot also be hard to defend.

And what part of this can't I use to describe ObamaCare? It also reduces Medicare and justifies it by replacing it with new rules and subsidies. So it's a travesty when Republicans propose it, but essential when Democrats do it?

For lots of reasons. For one, it doesn't address subsidies properly, which means that raising the retirement age could merely increase the number of people getting subsidies, which is just swapping one kind of cost for another. From what I understand it also might put additional strain on private employers' as long as people are already getting coverage from their work.

But, most of all, despite these issues it only saves $600 billion...spread out over an entire decade (funny how they always use do that, to make the number seem ten times as big as it is). The fundamental problem is that health care is expensive, Medicare contributions do not cover it, and we continually have to make up the difference. Anything that does not address this fundamental insolvency is a temporary solution. And temporary solutions are often more dangerous than no solution, because they give people political cover by creating the illusion the problem has been addressed. This is why you'll see Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich vote against things they actually like, because they feel they don't go far enough and they don't want the book closed on the issue for a few election cycles if it's not done right.

You've said this sort of thing before, and my response now is the same as it was then: you cannot divorce ideology from the solutions it produces. There's no distinction there. If your ideology is that entitlement programs cripple budgets (though that's more of an empirical fact than an "ideology"), then your solution to massive budget deficits will be to reform them so that they don't. This is not an criticism, it's just how thought works. And it might even be backwards: it's just as likely (and I made this exact same point in the Sowell discussion) that the beliefs about budget solutions are the things that lead someone to adopting a given ideology. People only assume otherwise (without evidence, of course) when they want to criticize someone's politics. Though you'll notice it doesn't even accomplish that goal. This has nothing to do with whether or not it's a good idea. We seem to fall into that pitfall a lot.

I dunno what you think an "ideology" is, because it seems to me that trying to distinguish it from one's political ideas and solutions is like distinguishing between a building and its individual bricks.

I've been having a look through the The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (pdf)...

And that's true. But what's also true is that 3 of the 4 dissenting Republicans disagree with you (along with the 6 Democrats) about F&F being the primary cause of the Crash. Here's their preferred bete noire...

Nobody seems to disagree that F&F played a definite role in facilitating the sub-prime mortgage market. (And I get your point about how their taking on risk 'insulates' other market players, to a degree). But your dedication to them being the key cause of the Crash, and more importantly your refusal to acknowledge any level of market failure beyond 'the state made them do it', speaks to a fairly powerful bias, I'm afraid.

What's intriguing about F&F's role is they do seem to have been late to the game when it comes to the truly risky sub-primes. The purchase stats & anecdotals in the main report suggest they 'met the market' in that sense. (Have a graph in lieu of more details for now... )



Your three Republican friends define it thusly ()...

On the former we can clearly discern government culpability, but the latter is a market move, and one that F&F only moved into grudgingly (& even then not to meet it's government remit/targets - merely to remain competitive). We could add various other market missteps to the above, but I'll see what your response is to what's there.

Ah, and this is the one we still have hanging elsewhere. And I've only left a synopsis dangling really. There's loads of details on how, yes, many of the industries involved messed up their credit risk assessments, and various other corollary assessments to boot. Why you find it quite so impossible to believe I'm not sure. But let's chew over the details there or here, by all means

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I think at worse you're creating a straw boogie man and at best are worrying over nothing in your continuous portrayal of Perry as a viable candidate much less Republican nominee for President. I cannot for the life of me see what would make him attractive. He ain't the backwoods Johnny Reb you like making him out to be, but I can't see him bringing anything to the shaping of a Republican victory.

I think the Republicans should nominate a nice, safe, likeable guy who doesn't say anything that would ever upset anybody and then let Obama sink himself. I mean, where's Jerry Ford when they really need him!

By the way, I'm a far cry from a right-winger and have only Unionist sentiments about Civil War history, and I've known members of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans who are no more weird or racist as those who can trace their ancestors to the pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock or folks who take pride in ancestors who were hanged as witches in Salem.

It doesn't matter what Rick Perry is really like. He can be portrayed like a nut job in commercials.

I guess then you think yawn inducing Pawlenty should be the Republican candidate.

I think the odds have dropped a little bit that Perry will run. I find it hard to believe, but there is a poll that shows he is in a dead heat in Texas at the present time with Obama, actually a few points behind.

But if he runs, he probably wins South Carolina and they always pick the Republican candidate (but there can always be a first time when they pick wrong). Right now Michelle Bachmann is in the lead there and even if they pick her she ain't going be the nominee unless Republicans are suicidal.

Obama isn't as unpopular as you think he is. Of the guys with their hat already in the ring, only Pawlenty (with a lot of luck), Romney, and Huntsman could beat him. The rest are dead in the water. Perry only if we double dip. As bad as the economy currently is, the misery factor isn't as great as it was in 1980 when we had inflation and recession, and a totally mismanaged hostage crisis.

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Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15
I don't understand what you are saying. I said the economy was bad and Obama was beatable if the Republicans put up the right candidate, but the ascendancy of the tea party has made that difficult. Their victory in the last election has made victory in a presidential race more difficult. Unless the economy gets worse, which would make any Repub viable, they are not going to win with boring Pawlenty or a Texan to the right of George Bush like Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann. Romney has the best shot in a general election because of his focus on the economy and his business background and he is a good debater. He isn't very likeable and is an opportunist, but his flaws will be less important in a two man race.

And that's all well and good, though discussing which Republican candidate has the best shot is a bit different. And, of course, it's less positive about Romney than it is "look at the crazy candidate Republicans might nominate instead of Romney." Even in this alleged defense you tell me the best Republican option "isn't very likable and is an opportunist," for crying out loud. And choosing one Republican over another isn't really a positive statement about either.

My Reply:
If this was 2008, I would be criticizing the Democratic candidates just as much. I didn't even vote for Obama in the primary. I voted for Hillary Clinton and I wasn't thrilled by her, but thought she would have been stronger in a general election.

Back to Yoda:
I'm thinking of things like the Ryan plan. Or the debt-ceiling negotiation. Other major news events that figure to either help or hurt one party more than another. Your opinion of these things has been that the Ryan plan is some major albatross around the neck of the entire party and that it's going to cost them dearly. You also think Republicans are going to overplay their hand on the debt-ceiling and that is going to hurt them, too. On the major party faceoffs, you've consistently suggested that the Republicans are dooming themselves (or will doom themselves).

Now, if you honestly believe it each and every time, that's fine. But after awhile it starts to feel less like analysis and more like a description of what you'd merely like to see happen.

My reply:
I do feel that way and it is analysis and many Republicans share the same concerns and there is a recent news report that the House Leader has privately told that to his members, that they will get blamed if there isn't a debt reduction deal and they have to compromise, citing what happened under Gingrich. The reality is this: thanks to the last election, the Republican Party has gone sharply to the right and it creates problems for them. Obama, despite expectations because of his voting record as a Senator, is not at the far left of his party. This has pissed off many of the hard liberals, but hey don't control the party apparatus. Obama is now asking for more cuts, has dropped big tax increase demands on the wealthy, and has focused on tax loopholes like private jet depreciation, ethanol subsidies, and a few other things. He will drop some of these if Republicans meet him half way and agree to something that increase revenues. If they don't and trigger a debt crisis when so much has been given to Republicans, they will be blamed by voters, no question. Ironically, if they just agree to some token revenue increase they will have won a victory mostly on their terms, but the tea party's ideological rigidity may make them squander a political win.
Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15
They weren't punting if it wasn't being discussed by the media or either party.

So, your defense of Democrats is that they're not obligated to fix a problem until someone starts complaining about it?

Either they had no idea there was a problem (would that even be possible?), or they knew and just decided they could get away with not caring about it. Neither speaks well of them.

My reply:
That's the way system works. Nothing gets done until it is publicized. The bank meltdown was a walking time bomb before it happened and neither party proposed anything that would have prevented it, including the McCain mild reform of the Macs and Maes.


Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15
I'm not following your point.

Well, I made a few, so I don't know which you're not following. So I'll summarize both of the major ones. I dunno if I can make them much plainer, but I'll try:

First, I say Democrats aren't dealing with Medicare. You say that claim is false. Then you go on to say that they will deal with it. This means that they haven't, and my initial claim is not false.

Second, you have, in other discussions, opposed various Republican plans or ideas (or Republicans in general) and, when questioned as to why, you've suggested that you believe they want to do away with far, far more than they say they do in terms of government programs. That their plans to fix this or that are just sliding their foot in the door to dismantle the whole thing. In some cases, I pointed out, this contradicts their votes, actions, and public statements. You believe they're hiding the true extent of their positions. Speculation, in other words.

Now we have a scenario where you are speculating about Democrats and how they really do want to deal with entitlements, even though they haven't done so and nothing in their actions seems to support the idea that they will. What very little light we have at the end of the tunnel is basically being forced on them by a Republican majority and an increasingly debt-conscious electorate.

So, my point was that in both cases you are "reading between the lines" (those were your words, not mine) and speculating about each party. You speculate that Republicans are secretly much "worse" than their actions indicate (insofar as your ideology is concerned), and you speculate that Democrats are secretly much more proactive and responsible than their actions so far have indicated.

It is one thing, in other words, to simply favor one party over another. I do that with Republicans. But it's another thing to do so based on some hypothetical view of them that may not exist in reality. If you support Democrats based partly on filling in the gaps of our knowledge with positive speculation about them, then you're not supporting the actual party, you're supporting what you merely hope or think they might become.

My reply:
Social Security was in crisis in the nineties and the Democrats put a fix in that at the time was thought to be a permanent solution. The Democrats have a good track record of trying to fix problems. If both parties had not become so partisan they both could have worked together to fix Medicare, but the Republicans chose an approach no Democrat would support. You never mention the lieberman plan (which is bipartisan, I can't remember the Republican senator who is also part of the proposal. If the Republicans seriously wanted to reform Medicare instead of use the budget crisis as cover to do away with it, why didn't they come up with something like that? Harder for Democrats to attack, and would have been supported by some Democrats?
I am not aware of any quotes you have cited or examples that contradicts the current group of Repubs in Congress have a strong dislike for entitlement programs and are committed to doing away with them if they can.

Ideology that is rigid and unbending is bad politics and the Ryan Plan is bad politics. Politics is the art of the possible and ideology that is not flexible to some extent makes a politican ineffective. It is fine for Ron Paul and Dennis the Menace as lowly congressmen to be ideologically pure, but neither are congressional leaders and a whole bunch of them would make governing impossible.

Originally Posted by will.15
It doesn't matter what that poll said way back when because the train has left the station and if it was asked again you would not get the same result.
This is a very easy thing to merely claim.

Can you explain why the polls you produced should be taken seriously when they leave out the entire reason the reform was being proposed in the first place? That's the divide between the polls that is most significant.



Here is a very recent poll that proves my pont. The poll you cite currently means nothing:

GOP Divided Over Benefit Reductions

July 7, 2011
As policymakers at the state and national level struggle with rising entitlement costs, overwhelming numbers of Americans agree that, over the years, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have been good for the country.
But these cherished programs receive negative marks for current performance, and their finances are widely viewed as troubled. Reflecting these concerns, most Americans say all three programs either need to be completely rebuilt or undergo major changes. However, smaller majorities express this view than did so five years ago.
The public's desire for fundamental change does not mean it supports reductions in the benefits provided by Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Relatively few are willing to see benefit cuts as part of the solution, regardless of whether the problem being addressed is the federal budget deficit, state budget shortfalls or the financial viability of the entitlement programs.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 15-19 among 1,502 adults, finds that Republicans face far more serious internal divisions over entitlement reforms than do Democrats. Lower income Republicans are consistently more likely to oppose reductions in benefits -- from Medicare, Social Security or Medicaid -- than are more affluent Republicans. 
On the broad question of whether it is more important to reduce the budget deficit or to maintain current Medicare and Social Security benefits, the public decisively supports maintaining the status quo. Six-in-ten (60%) say it is more important to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are; only about half as many (32%) say it is more important to take steps to reduce the budget deficit.
Half (50%) of Republicans say that maintaining benefits is more important than deficit reduction; about as many (42%) say it is more important to reduce the budget deficit. More independents prioritize maintaining benefits over reducing the deficit (by 53% to 38%). Democrats overwhelmingly view preserving current Social Security and Medicare benefits as more important (by 72% to 21%).
The public also opposes making Medicare recipients more responsible for their health care costs and allowing states to limit Medicaid eligibility. About six-in-ten (61%) say people on Medicare already pay enough of their own health care costs, while only 31% think recipients need to be responsible for more of the costs of their health care in order to make the system financially secure.
When it comes to Medicaid, just 37% want to allow states to cut back on who is eligible for Medicaid in order to deal with budget problems, while 58% say low-income people should not have their Medicaid benefits taken away. And most say it is more important to avoid future cuts in Social Security benefits than future increases in Social Security taxes (56% vs. 33%). 
On Social Security and Medicare, there are substantial differences of opinion by age. People age 65 and older are the only age group in which majorities say these programs work well; seniors also overwhelmingly say it is more important to maintain Social Security and Medicare benefits than to reduce the budget deficit. Those 50 to 64 also broadly favor keeping benefits as they are. Younger Americans support maintaining Social Security and Medicare benefits, but by smaller margins than older age groups.
Lower income people are more committed to maintaining benefits across all three major entitlement programs. This income gap is particularly wide when it comes to allowing states to cut back on Medicaid eligibility: 72% of those with family incomes of less than $30,000 oppose allowing states to limit Medicaid eligibility to deal with budget problems, compared with 53% of those with higher incomes.
GOP Base Divided over Entitlement Changes

The GOP's internal divisions over entitlement changes are seen particularly in views of whether it is more important to maintain Social Security and Medicare benefits or to take steps to bring down the deficit.
Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 63% of those with family incomes of $75,000 or more say it is more important to take steps to reduce the budget deficit; a nearly identical percentage (62%) of Republicans with incomes of $30,000 or less say it is more important to maintain Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are.
The income gap among Republicans and Republican leaners is about as large as the difference between GOP supporters of the Tea Party and non-supporters. Among Republicans and Republican leaners who agree with the Tea Party, 57% view deficit reduction as more important than preserving Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are. Among Republicans and leaners who do not agree with the Tea Party, just 36% say that reducing the deficit is more important than maintaining benefits.
Democrats face no such internal divisions, as both high- and low-income Democrats prioritize maintaining benefits over deficit reduction; there also are no ideological differences among Democrats over this issue. Notably, the balance of opinion among low-income Republicans is similar to how Democrats view the issue

You don't have to convince me that, at least in this instance, it's true. Please do not mistake my question for the idea that you're always wrong. That would be an absurd thing for me to say. Rather, I'm saying that it can't always be right. That if everything you say is true, you must think the Republicans are making massive political mistakes, one after another, and not doing much of anything right, which stretches my credulity.

What's the last thing you think Republicans have done that significantly enhanced their electoral/political prospects?

Why was it "mild," exactly? And that reform is still one more attempt than the Democrats made, and Bush advanced something similar two years before, so I don't see how this provides Democrats with cover. It's certainly and obviously true that real change is very difficult and unlikely unless we force our leaders into it, but it is not true that Democrats are no different than Republicans here. They are particularly reticent to these changes. They haven't advanced so much as an allegedly "mild" attempt.

Did they, for example, advance any serious alternatives in the wake of shooting those two reform attempts down? I don't recall one. They didn't advance an alternative when shooting down Bush's SS plan, and some interest groups even claimed there was no crisis whatsoever! There are degrees of opposition, ranging from merely opposing a given plan, to opposing all plans, offering no alternatives, and employing rhetoric that harms future attempts. It's a scale, and the Democrats are way, way closer to the latter than the former. I don't think that's good. Do you?

You'll have to fill me in on this a bit, because I haven't heard of it and am not finding anything on it. Though I can say, right off the bat, that it seems a dubious defense to point to an instance of attempted reform that apparently wasn't at all adequate. If anything, it points to a refusal to accept the tough choices that reform entails.

There's really no point in arguing this sort of thing. There's lots of political turnover and shift in parties and circumstances. If you're placing your faith in Democrats based on some nebulous "track record of trying to fix problems," I can't talk you out of it. I can only point out the many, many ways in which they seem intent on fixing their gaze absolutely anywhere other than on the giant elephant of entitlements over the last decade. But I can't argue with one's simple faith in a political party, nor would I see much point in it.

I will point out, however, that you probably wouldn't accept these sorts of responses from me if you were showing me the various ways in which Republicans had failed to act.

I'll also point out that none of this changes my initial claim: they haven't addressed entitlements. I still can't figure out on what basis you attempted to contradict that. All I can come up with is that you didn't like the way it sounded, even though it's patently true.

I did mention the Lieberman plan. I explained that there were some simple concerns with it (not comprehensive enough, in other words), and that it doesn't save a ton of money, anyway.

There's a reason plans like that have bipartisan support: because they are timid and don't make fundamental changes. The very thing that makes those plans politically viable is the thing that makes them financially impotent. We'd have a united Congress on a "Everyone Loves Candy" resolution, too, but that would be a reflection of its lack of effect, not its bipartisan brilliance.

I think you'd first have to produce evidence of what you're talking about. I can't provide a defense to an accusation that hasn't been made explicit.

Sure, an inflexible ideology can make a politician ineffective. And an overly flexible one makes a politician pointless, because they no longer stand for anything.

There are plenty of areas in which politicians have to bend. There are social issues where every bit helps and you have to take what you can get. But this means nothing in the face of financial inevitabilities. You can't compromise on math. A reform that does not actually fix the fundamental problems with the system is not good governing. Good governing is advancing the kind of reforms that actually fixes the problem, whether it's politically popular or not.

It's not even necessarily a failure if it fails, either, because it can serve to make future reform more likely. It can move the Overton window and shift the debate. You mention Ron Paul, which is interesting because, for all his failures, he has succeeded in doing what I'm pretty sure was his goal all along: changing the debate. People are talking about fiat money a lot more now than they were before. And people are steadily coming to admit that something has to be done about entitlements. As sad as it is, that's actually progress. People will never accept a painful solution until you've shown them there's a problem and gotten them to accept it.

So we can take a short-term view and dismiss the Ryan Plan simply because it won't pass. But taking the short-term view is how we got into this position in the first place. I'm just glad one party has the chutzpah to go out and say what needs to be said, and to confront these looming realities. We'd probably be a lot closer to reform if both parties were more upfront about them. I'd take Democratic opposition to things like the Ryan Plan a lot more serious if their rhetoric were about their alternatives, rather than about scoring as many political points as possible out of their opposition.

Sure it does: because it's asking a different question than the Pew Research poll.

There are a few problems here, which I'll number so we can keep them straight. But thanks for posting this, because it definitely helps advance the discussion.

1) The Pew poll is just establishing what we both already agree on: that people want it both ways. That they acknowledge the problem but don't like the solutions. No argument there.

2) The Pew poll asks which priority people give: budget reduction or Medicare cuts. And it is definitely significant that they lean towards the latter. But, again, that's not the choice the Ryan Plan gives us. It is a budget, and the choice is between that budget and some other budget. Obama still refuses to submit one, but the rough, un-scored outline (he makes mention of changes that he still hasn't sent to the CBO!) is the only thing resembling an alternative. That's what the Gallup poll measured: one budget versus another. That's the actual choice we face in reality, not abstract prioritizations or stand-alone Medicare reform.

Now, don't get me wrong: the Gallup poll is old and I'm not referring to it as an authoritative or definitive source. I point to it only as an example, because it's the only poll I've seen on this topic that asks the actual question we are faced with in reality. The rest all try to isolate parts or measure general leanings. That has some value and maybe even some predictive power, but it's not the actual question we're confronted with.

3) The above is actually kind of generous, because Ryan's Plan, as you often point out, is a fundamental change to the way Medicare operates. It's not a mere cut, it's a reworking, so it wouldn't be accurate to say that it merely cuts Medicare, which is the question the Pew poll is asking. Which means the question is not a surrogate for approval of the Ryan Plan.

4) This poll came out yesterday. Yet you've been arguing this point for a couple of weeks now. Not that it changes the truth or falsity of what's being claimed, but what was all this based on before? A guess? It also doesn't explain why the polls that completely fail to mention savings were supposed to be even remotely valid.

But, again, you don't have to persuade me that people want incompatible things. And they might choose Medicare over budget cuts, too. But they can't forever, because as Medicare grows it makes its own cuts inevitable. That's another thing that never seems to find it's way into these polls. It is always implied on some level that we can keep Medicare the way it is, which isn't even remotely true.

Basically, it's an equation: the worse the problem gets, the closer we get to the public accepting cuts. Do you disagree with this? Because it seems inevitable to me. And if it is, then it only means that Republicans are ahead of the curve, and whatever political price they may pay will be temporary, and part of advancing the discussion to its inevitable end point sooner rather than later. How is that not a good thing?

is Mike Pence on the radar at all?

never heard of him till i caught this video.(from November 2010)

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"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

Ah, Gol revives the oddly dormant housing discussion! Huzzah. And what a fine return he makes to the arena, as well.

I just replied to Gol's Fannie and Freddie post above in the more relevant thread he linked to. You can read it here. It branches off slightly, so Will, if you'd like to revive your end of that discussion that'd probably be the best place to do it. But there are plenty of lines of discussion so if you want to stick to entitlements and the Ryan plan and all that, be my guest.

Following up on the debt-ceiling stuff. I know it was suggested earlier that any failure to come to a deal would apparently reflect badly on Republicans. At first I thought this perfectly plausible (if not highly compelling), but now I think there's really no way to say.

For one, it's easy to forget, but in the 90s it was pretty much Gingrich vs. Clinton, and Gingrich made some fairly serious political mistakes during the budget debate. Most notably all-but-admitting that he was pushing so hard because he had a personal grudge from some instance in which Clinton had slighted him by making him wait for a meeting, or something trivial. It was much more man-to-man, as opposed to now, where the Republican opposition is largely spread out.

For another, Obama's own rhetoric over the last couple of years has been making Republican arguments for them during this debate. He's on record as saying the "last thing we want to do is raise taxes," which makes any turnaround on this pretty potentially damaging, or at least exploitable.

Related to this is that Obama's current stance on the debt ceiling negotiations (based on what we can piece together, at least) contradicts his own debt commission. Pretty hard to make the case for raising taxes and doing other things that a) you said we shouldn't do and b) your debt commission did not recommend.

Nate Silver also has some interesting analysis suggesting that there's really no compelling reason to think either side would necessarily "win" in the event of a default, and there's just as much reason to think both sides would get plenty of blame. It's not an event with a ton of precedence, so there's an amount of guesswork involved to make forecasts to this effect untenable.

hope its rick santorum

That is hilarious you would change your mind because the latest poll shows the public would indeed blame the Republicans. Have you been paying attention to the press conferences with Obama saying he is willing to make hard decisions on entitlement programs for a large deal that would have to include some revenue increases? The Repubs look unreasonable and uncompromising, taking a my way or else approach. The Republicans are losing this and they know it which is why the Senate leader is trying to weasel out of the problem by giving Obama the power to lift the debt ceiling. And if that passes instead of a debt cutting deal he will be betting wrong the Obama will take the heat for raising the debt ceiling. It will look like to most Americans Republicans can't govern and the President is leading by doing what has to be done under difficult circumstances. And why are they in this mess? Because of the Tea Party people, most of whom like Michelle Bachmann would vote down a raise of the debt ceiling under any circumstances.

Here is the poll:

Q-poll: GOP will get blame if debt ceiling not raised

posted at 10:13 am on July 14, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Most analysts reviewing the latest Quinnipiac poll have focused on the fact that while Barack Obama remains seriously underwater on the economy, voters appear to trust him more than either party in Congress. The bigger takeaway, though, might be how voters see the potential outcomes of the debate over the debt ceiling. The Q-poll shows that Obama is, at least for now, edging out the GOP in casting the terms of the debate:

The president gets a 47 – 46 percent job approval rating, unchanged from the June 9 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. That tops a 64 – 28 percent disapproval for Democrats in Congress and a 65 – 26 percent disapproval for Republicans. Obama outscores congressional Republicans on several points in the deficit reduction battle:

• Voters will blame Republicans over Obama 48 – 34 percent if the debt limit is not raised;
• Voters say 67 – 25 percent that an agreement to raise the debt ceiling should include tax hikes for the wealthy and corporations, not just spending cuts;
• Voters say 45 – 37 percent that Obama’s proposals to raise revenues are “closing loopholes,” rather than “tax hikes”;
• But voters say 57 – 30 percent that Obama’s proposals will impact the middle class, not just the wealthy.

“The American people aren’t very happy about their leaders, but President Barack Obama is viewed as the best of the worst, especially when it comes to the economy,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling institute.

Obama’s approval rating on the economy is still mired at 38/56, hardly a good position for an incumbent looking for a second term. With another recession looking more likely, those numbers won’t improve much. Right now, 71% think we’re in a recession, but they still blame George Bush 54/27 for it; that’s 49/24 among independents. If we do hit negative territory again after two years of stagnation, though, Obama will end up owning it.
However, at the moment, Obama has a narrow lead over Republicans in trust on the economy, 45/38. The bullet points show a serious vulnerability for Republicans in staring down Obama to the point where market disruptions from debt-ceiling paralysis occurs, assuming such disruptions do occur. At least in this poll — and Quinnipiac has generally been a reliable, independent pollster — standing on the no-new-revenues pledge might end up with the GOP taking ownership of whatever follows.
This is, of course, exactly what Mitch McConnell warned about earlier this week. However, Quinnipiac never asks the straightforward question of whether the ceiling should be raised, as other polls have and routinely get 2-1 opposition. They do ask what worries voters more, that raising the debt limit would mean more government spending and debt, or economic disruption from a refusal to raise the ceiling. The fear of economic disruption barely edges the fear of escalating debt 45/43, which seems somewhat of an outlier considering the polls from CBS and The Hill over the last few months.
If this poll is accurate, then McConnell has good reason to worry.

The public at some point will accept cuts in Medicare because it will be better than the Ryan plan, which is practically no plan at all. They will never accept a five hundred dollar stipend to replace Medicare.

It doesn't matter if the Ryan Plan is tied in to a budget proposal. If you and the Republican Party really thinks if they can make that the focus for justifying the Ryan Plan Americans will accept it you and Republicans will find out different in the next election. Next election should have been one the Republicans could win and they have been doing everything so far to lose it. The economy stinks and it should under normal circumstances by a Republican year. But it looks like they will blow it by incredible stupidity.

Yoda:
4) This poll came out yesterday. Yet you've been arguing this point for a couple of weeks now. Not that it changes the truth or falsity of what's being claimed, but what was all this based on before? A guess? It also doesn't explain why the polls that completely fail to mention savings were supposed to be even remotely valid.




That is a recent poll, but I mentioned earlier but didn't provide a link an earlier poll that had the same reults. I found the newer one looking to link the older one.

I didn't say I changed my mind. I said I thought it was plausible, but now I think there really isn't enough information to say.

You sure seem to give a lot of credit to Democrats when they merely say they'll do a thing, whether their actions support it or not. As I pointed out before (and struggled to even get acknowledged, much less retracted as it should have been), saying they'll do something is not the same as doing it.

If you want to have blind faith in a party, that's fine. But that blind faith should not be confused with an argument, and it certainly can't be used to contradict me when I say "Democrats haven't dealt with entitlements."

And frankly, this is still being too generous. Why should they be commended for saying they'll cut them now, when our budget is in turmoil and a majority opposition is forcing them to do so? They've spent themselves in a corner and public sentiment and Congressional Republicans are forcing them to do what they should have done on their own, and you're saying that this is to their credit?

Yes, more terrible news for Republicans! There appears to be no other kind.

I'm not sure what these monologues are supposed to accomplish. If you're trying to persuade me of the idea that Republicans are doomed (again!), you'd do so more effectively by addressing the points I made in my last post about Obama's own quotes on the subject, his own debt commission, and the FiveThirtyEight article. As it stands you generally just ignore these things and list other reasons why Republicans are in trouble, and there appears to be no guiding principle as to which factors you find relevant and which ones you don't, except that the relevant ones are always those which portend bad things for Republicans.

Oh, McConnell definitely has reason to worry, partially because his alternate plan isn't going to get through. Lots of Republicans hate it, and I think they're right to.

There are, of course, lots of polls. Like this one which shows that people oppose using tax hikes as part of a deal by 21 points. Or heck, how about the poll you just produced that says 2 out of 3 people don't want it to be raised at all? By citing this poll you seem to be simultaneously arguing that people don't want the debt ceiling raised AND that they'll "blame" Republicans if they don't. But if so many people aren't sure they even want it raised, wouldn't that "blame" become "credit"?