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(07-23-2018, 08:30 AM)FBT Wrote: Who cares how she won?  The fact that she won immediately catapulted her into star status among your buddies on the left.  They were tripping over themselves trying to catch lightning in a bottle, and then she opened her mouth and offered up not just blatant ignorance, but almost a sense of pride in how little she actually knows.  But, she checks off the boxes for identity politics that libs base their entire world view on, so they'll back her.  They don't have a choice now.

While I have plenty of left wing friends, I'm not a liberal myself.  Believe it or not, it is possible to be friendly with people you disagree with.  I'm proud of this.  You should try it sometime.
As for getting catapulted into star status, initially it looked like a "David beats Goliath" story.  She knocked on doors herself, and defeated a longtime incumbent.  It's the kind of feel good story that catapults folks from left and right to stardom.  Remember David Brat?  Same thing.  
As for the Democratic Party, "They don't have a choice" because by New York State law her name will appear on hundreds of thousands of ballots with the word "democrat" next to it.  any attempt to disown her because she's saying bad stuff now would be futile.
This is similar to, but smaller than, the problem Republicans had in 2016 and still have today with Trump.
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I have friends and family from all over the political spectrum.

You keep deflecting with the "I'm not a liberal myself" line, but your words tend to betray you more often than not.

Republicans didn't have a problem with Trump.  The establishment did.  The very fact that he won is a testimony to how people in the middle have been completely ignored by the elite on both ends of political discourse.  The truth is, republicans are fine with Trump based on the latest polling numbers showing that he's holding on to more than 90% of his base at this point in his presidency.  

Occasio-Cortez winning provided the democrat party that's racing as far to the left as possible these days with a face they could trot out there to sell the Bernie Sanders brand of politics.  Over the past week or so, it's gotten to the point where she's showing up in elections in other states.  So much for some insignificant congressional candidate from NY.  The democrats are so desperate to find someone who checks off all the boxes in their eternal quest to satisfy identity politics that they'll embrace whatever ignorance comes flowing out of her mouth.  "I actually talked to, like, a Nobel winner!"

Democrats don't care about substance.  They care about placating the various minority groups, and resisting Trump.  That is literally their entire platform for the mid-terms, and I get the feeling it's not going to go well for them.

(07-24-2018, 12:30 AM)JagNGeorgia Wrote:

(07-23-2018, 11:46 PM)TJBender Wrote: In more ways than one, she's the Democratic Party's Trump. Way off in left field, no experience, views that are way off of most of the party (and most of America), and appealing so strongly to a select few that they will turn out in droves to get her elected.

I couldn't disagree more.

She's gotten a lot of support from leaders in the DNC. Her views are being supported by her party--at least a lot of it.

Besides, I don't believe Trump's views reflect those of only a "select few". Trump received 62 million votes, and he's only getting more popular. The left can't seem to grasp the idea that Trump shares a lot of views that are popular with a lot of Americans. It's their way in minimizing his impact. The sooner the left starts catering to SOME of these views, the sooner they'll learn to beat him. Instead, they keep pushing further left, and that's how you end up with a Sanders or Ocasio Cortez.

The DNC is being forced further to the left because of her.  This is not some anomaly.  

(07-27-2018, 03:08 PM)StroudCrowd1 Wrote: This is truly painful to watch.

https://mobile.twitter.com/DailyCaller/s...frame.html

It's not painful to watch.  It's revealing inasmuch as she can spout her ignorance in front of an audience and a host, and nobody bothers to challenge a single thing she says even though I would think that at least a few people there would have enough common sense to recognize that she is completely clueless.  

This woman has an economics degree, and she doesn't know the first thing about economics.  

(07-27-2018, 04:00 PM)mikesez Wrote:

(07-24-2018, 06:34 PM)pirkster Wrote: The fatal flaw in that analogy is that Trump won by winning the middle - flipping 9 million 0bama voters.

9 million is about the number first time voters Obama brought out in 2008.
I'd guess these are mostly the same people and they just crave a celebrity vibe.  I'd guess they have no ideological opinions.

So, you're saying that people who were hoodwinked by the king of the teleprompter readers turned tail on the democrats and voted for Trump?  We should just ignore the fact that the rust belt completely flipped for Trump.  This was all about the ignorant masses that Obama brought out to vote in 2008?


Much like your fellow libs have done before, I think you're misreading what actually happened in the Trump election.  While I'm sure there was a small % of voters who were just looking at the "celebrity vibe", I think the overwhelming majority of those who supported Trump did so because he represented a complete deviation from the normal politically correct candidate who says all the things we want to hear but delivers on very little.  Trump touched a nerve in the heartland that completely changed the dynamic of the election in 2016.  He said things that reverberated with people who had grown accustomed to being ignored, or taken advantage of for their vote by professional politicians.  He represented the anti-establishment in a way that no other candidate in that election cycle came close to, and he irritated the very people in the establishment who have been guilty of making all sorts of promises in the past that were never realized.

(08-01-2018, 06:42 PM)jj82284 Wrote: Tax rate cuts aren't inherently revenue negative and more often than not are revenue positive.  At current we are seeing record highs in tax revenue.  The problem is baseline budgeting and automatic spending increases of 8% in some cases.  

There's no amount of running that a public bakery can't cancel out.  Moreover, with an income tax increase and a carbon tax and static scoring she didn't even cover the renewable energy infrastructure part of her platform and the question was about "Medicare for all".

Spot on.  Baseline budgeting creates an ever expanding government with guaranteed increases.  When a politician proposes slowing those increases down, naturally the liberals come howling in to tell us how their benefits are being cut.  It's a clever political ploy to perpetuate the spreading of fear among the masses. 

(08-01-2018, 11:02 PM)lastonealive Wrote:

(08-01-2018, 06:45 PM)pirkster Wrote: Tax cuts don't "add" to a deficit.  Spending is the driver of deficits.

You can't have what you can't afford.

If you want to confiscate more revenue, you don't raise tax rates.  You add payroll by creating jobs.  If you aren't working/contributing, you're leeching and a burden.

We must always remember that earnings are just that - they belong to the individual who earned them (not the government.)  Taxes are a legal form of transferring rightful earnings from the earner to those who did not earn them.

It's glaringly clear that our current and projected spending is simply unsustainable.  Federal government spending is the only "unsustainable" item that should ever be uttered by anyone until it's fixed.

Many ways to reduce costs and build revenue. Not sure cutting back the welfare state and infrastructure is the answer. Reducing revenue prior to cutting expense definitely isn't any kind of answer.

Infact abolishing the states and just having a federal government and local government areas would probably be the most efficient cut in expense. No real reason for so many layers of government in a world of the internet.

Yes, let's remove local and state governments from the equation, and just deal with one central power dictating how we live our lives.  God knows we don't want the ability to have a more direct say in how we are governed on a daily basis.  Just let the federal government rule all.  How Soviet of you.

(08-02-2018, 12:09 AM)lastonealive Wrote:

(08-01-2018, 11:10 PM)StroudCrowd1 Wrote: I love how socialist solution to all problems is to tax the rich more.

What's wrong with taxing the rich and corporates?

So you would prefer to take services from the poor?

The way libs whine about people paying their fair share, why are we targeting the rich, who actually create things with their wealth?  Let's tax the poor too.  Since 90% of tax revenues come from the top 1% of earners in this country, and we're setting records for tax revenues on a monthly basis even after the Trump tax cuts, we might as well start looking at where we can get more revenue.  I say tax the poor.  They're the ones that receive those services you're so concerned about them losing, so if they want them, they can pay a little more for them. 

Seriously, I actually would prefer to take services away from the poor in order to break the cycle of generational poverty.  The only way to get someone back on their feet is to push them to do so, and if they understand that the government assistance is not a finite thing, and that there is a deadline, it might actually spark them to try to improve their life situation, and based on the opportunities that are available right now, that would benefit the poor, and add to the taxpayer roles overall. 
 

(08-02-2018, 07:59 AM)mikesez Wrote:

(08-02-2018, 07:22 AM)copycat Wrote: If we are having a discussion about deficits then you have to include all aspects.  Since the biggest reason for our out of control deficit is spending then you have to enter it into the discussion.

Did Congress discuss cutting spending while they were discussing Trump's tax cuts? I don't think they did. Why should we?
In fact, Congress admitted that those tax cuts would increase the deficit by 1.5 trillion dollars. They budgeted for that.  As they moved dollars around, the idea was to keep the total right about there.  
Do we really think that we know the budget better than they do?
All else being equal, tax cuts increase the deficit.

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(08-02-2018, 07:14 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote: No, we understand that you think you can create just the right amount of tyranny to create freedom. It's really what all your takes boil down to when you read them.

The question was for pirkster.  I already know the answer from our resident John Galt cosplayer.

Congress did actually discuss cutting spending during the tax cut debate, but they balked at doing anything other than the tax cut because it wasn't politically expedient to start "cutting" government programs as part of this effort.  In fact, the speaker of the house was consistent in saying that the tax cut was only the first phase of the plan, and that spending cuts would be the next component.

The CBO projected the increase of the deficit as a result of the tax cuts.  Revenues have actually increased, but so has spending.  This is the same CBO that also said ObamaCare was deficit neutral.  Go figure.

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