Dems cast Rush as spokesman for GOP

[Ddrak]

link

President Barack Obama's team is helping lead an effort to cast Limbaugh, a polarizing, conservative talk radio show host, as the Republican Party's new face, using campaign-style attacks against a high profile target.

This is a pretty smart political move. It feeds Rush's ego so he'll accept it and actually try to fill the role cast for him, but his popularity is very polarizing and he certainly doesn't command a majority force of Americans.

Dd

[Partha]

If the GOP does not get a handle on this real soon, they'll be a rump party for at least a generation, and might be reduced to a regional party for good.

[Embar Angylwrath]

If the GOP does not get a handle on this real soon, they'll be a rump party for at least a generation, and might be reduced to a regional party for good.

I'm hoping the GOP is torched by this, so a new GOP can arise from the ashes. The GOP needs to get back to the fiscal conservatism that defined it, and leave the social conservatives to form their own party.

[Partha]

Without the SoCons, the FisCons will never get anywhere near power again.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Without the SoCons, the FisCons will never get anywhere near power again.

I don't know about that. I can see Blue Dog Dems and fiscal conservatives getting together.

[Lurker]

Ddrak,
You make it sound like Rush isn't the face of the Republican Party; as if Democrats are trying to force him into a role he doesn't already hold. When Rush speaks the party parrots his talking points. Party members that speak against him are pressured to publically apologize within hours. Democrats are taking full advantage by pointing out reality.

I don't know about that. I can see Blue Dog Dems and fiscal conservatives getting together.

What fiscal conservatives? In the Senate there are nothing but fiscal lunatics left and the House is even worse. Hell, 36 out of 41 Senators voted to replace all stimulus spending with tax cuts in the Recovery Act. That's batshit crazy. There are no fiscal conservatives remaining on the right. All that's left are people with no grounding in economics who think that tax cuts are the panacea for everything, reality be damned.

Anyone stupid enough to think that the way to respond to our current economic crisis is by Government tightening its belt (just like a family would do!) is a moron, not a fiscal concervative.

[Ddrak]

It's a tough line to draw. I don't think the GOP really agrees with everything Rush carries on about (hell, he puts out the RINO thing often enough), but they're too scared shitless of him to do anything but parrot along behind him. The Dems are playing a game of forcing the GOP into either fully committing to Rush's insanity or tossing him out.

I'm with Embar - hopefully it will cause the GOP to rethink it's entire party beliefs and toss out the SoCons and form something to attract more FisCons.

Dd

[Lurker]

Again, who are these fiscal conservatives on the right you are talking about?

Pushing tax cuts and reduced spending in our current environment isn't fiscal conservatism, it's fiscal insanity.

[Ddrak]

Again, who are these fiscal conservatives on the right you are talking about?

Yep - that's the exact problem.

Dd

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Again, who are these fiscal conservatives on the right you are talking about?

Pushing tax cuts and reduced spending in our current environment isn't fiscal conservatism, it's fiscal insanity.

No, fiscal insanity is 9000 earmarks and 1.21 trillion in spending resulting in future increased taxes.

[Partha]

Again, who are these fiscal conservatives on the right you are talking about?

Pushing tax cuts and reduced spending in our current environment isn't fiscal conservatism, it's fiscal insanity.

No, fiscal insanity is 9000 earmarks and 1.21 trillion in spending resulting in future increased taxes.

Perhaps we should have it like the 50's, that Golden Age where everyone had a house with a white picket fence, a good job, and everything was well maintained.

Oh, yeah, and the rich had a 90% marginal tax rate.

[Embar Angylwrath]

@ Lurker

How about telling us what you think should be done, instead of taking potshots from the peanut gallery. Obama's plan is horrible, and its saddling huge amounts of debt on subsequent generations. Pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into weak banks is absolutely the wrong way to do this. Those banks need to fail. Shareholders should bear the brunt of the losses, not the taxpayers. When those banks fail, other, stronger banks will be there to take a part of the carcass, and move forward. That's how the free market is supposed to work. And it WILL work, if we stop fucking with it.

Spending money, taxpayer money on private institutions is so wrong at so many levels. Obama is nationalizing the banking system, he's just doing it piecemeal, a bite here, a chomp there. Do we really want our financial system nationalized? Do we really want capitalism politicized? Hell no.

Spending taxpayer money on infrastructure is good. Roads, bridges, power grid, water systems, that sort of thing.. because the taxpayers benefit directly from that, and investment in infrastructure usually has a really good payout. But subsidizing losses on mortgages, car loans, credit card debt and student loans? For fuck's sake, where does it end? The US has already dropped over a trillion dollars on this, with no end in sight. The 2010 budget is over a trillion dollars. Those are mind-bending amounts of money. And Congress can't resist the temptation to add pork to everything. They bitch about banks spending lavish amounts of cash after taking TARP funds (and they should), but then engage in the same behavior by tacking on pork projects at a time when we as a nation are hemorraging so much money that this will take decades to recover from.

This madness has to end. Throwing money at bad banks hasn't changed anything, except the amount of debt we carry as a nation. The financial crisis hasn't eased, it got worse. There's not a damned thing the government can do in the financial sector to change what has to happen. Weak institutions MUST be allowed to fail, shareholders MUST bear the cost, and when that happens, what emerges from the ashes will be a stronger financial system.

[Harlowe]

Lately, I've had this feeling of dread for our country honestly. For one, Obama's stimulus package scares the shit out of me, but more importantly, politically - I feel sick that the GOP feels so utterly powerless and beholden to a fucking repulsive, hate-mongering human being like Rush Limbaugh. I mean what the hell, every other week I am reading about a politician that felt they needed to publicly bend over and take one up the ass for that worthless glob of flesh. You can bet Reagan would not have kissed that bloated drug addict's flat, flabby ass cheeks. If the Dems start behaving that way for someone like Michael Moore, then I think we're due for the seven horsemen of the apocalypse, because it's obviously the end of days.

I'm am honestly hoping Embar gets his wish, so I'm with Embar and Ddrak on this one even though I have no clue where that leadership is going to come from there. Not when they place so much importance on the opinions of a low-life radio talk show entertainer.

[Lurker]

Congress can't resist the temptation to add pork to everything. They bitch about banks spending lavish amounts of cash after taking TARP funds (and they should), but then engage in the same behavior by tacking on pork projects at a time when we as a nation are hemorraging so much money that this will take decades to recover from.

I assume you are talking about the Omnibus bill with 9000 earmarks. Some comments.

Earmarking money is not the same behavior as a bank taking taxpayer money and going to the Super Bowl or a health spa.

The number of earmarks and dollar amounts were many times lower than prior years. Not all earmarks are pork since many of the projects are worthy, and eliminating all earmarks wouldn't result in much savings since they don't allocate new funds, they just dictate how the funds should be spent.

And thanks in large part to Obama, we have much greater transparency and we know who requested the earmarks and for what purpose.

Throwing money at bad banks hasn't changed anything, except the amount of debt we carry as a nation. The financial crisis hasn't eased, it got worse.

You don't know that. You have no idea how much worse things could be right now if we had taken no action.

Do we really want our financial system nationalized? Do we really want capitalism politicized?

Without Government help the worldwide banking system will take decades to recover. Do you really want to live through a decades long Depression? Also, when a bank fails a lot more than just stockholders are affected and the Government has to pay on insured deposits. You have no idea if that would be cheaper and less catastrophic.

I'm not sure what you mean by the second question.

Obama's stimulus package scares the shit out of me

Which parts?

I'm with Embar and Ddrak on this one even though I have no clue where that leadership is going to come from there.

Leadership? Nevermind leadership, I don't know where the rank and file "fiscal conservatives" are going to come from. Can someone point out a single "fiscal conservative" on the right, because all I see is a group of fiscal lunatics agreeable to any amount of Government spending as long as the money is for tax cuts and not investment or social programs, or the even bigger lunatics that say we need to cut spending during this crisis.

[Harlowe]

Which parts?

Primarily the price tag.

[Kulaf]

Nice to see some of you coming around to the "WTF is he spending money on that for" side of the fence.

[Harlowe]

I never firmly believe any politician knows best or "must have a good reason for their decisions" purely based on what party they are affiliated with and they certainly won't ever willingly get a blank check from me.

[Lurker]

Primarily the price tag.

The scary part is that it likely isn't big enough since they are trying to fill a 2 trillion hole in lost demand with 800 billion in spending.

Nice to see some of you coming around to the "WTF is he spending money on that for" side of the fence.

What do you mean? Embar is against putting Federal money into banks because he doesn't understand what happens when a bank fails (hint: the Feds take over the bank and have to put more money into the bank when they try to transition it), and Harlowe has sticker shock on the first round of recovery spending. Even with Harlowe's response, I don't see where people are "coming around" the way you describe it.

[Harlowe]

Yeah I wouldn't exactly call it "coming around" to those viewpoints. I think it's a healthy concern about where all the money is going and the size of it.

Sort of off topic, but still on the economy, Jon Stewart's roasting of CNBC was a thing of beauty. Good lord I love this man. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index ... ial-advice

[Embar Angylwrath]

What do you mean? Embar is against putting Federal money into banks because he doesn't understand what happens when a bank fails (hint: the Feds take over the bank and have to put more money into the bank when they try to transition it), and Harlowe has sticker shock on the first round of recovery spending. Even with Harlowe's response, I don't see where people are "coming around" the way you describe it.

Embar is against putting Federal money into NUMEROUS banks, banks that have bad management, made bad decisions, and now are looking for a hand-out, so they can continue the same practices. Do you see how surreal this is? You're advocating we support Big Evil Banks with taxpayer dollars. You're supporting giving taxpayer money to shareholders in banks. Do you see how upside down you are in this? You want the government to underwrite credit card exposure for gods sake. Car loans. Student loans.

Also, your statement in a previous post about how this would be a whole lot worse without the intervention... that's just pure speculation. I could say that we'd be a whole lot better off without the TARP, and it would be just as reliable as your statement. What I'm illuminating is the fact that the economic crisis has worsened even with the monetary infusions in the banks. If you remember, all the hype around this was that the infusions would loosen credit. That comes from the policy makers, and it has yet to happen. All the banks did was take that money and sit on it, using it to pad the balance sheets.

I own a business. I have first hand knowledge of what is happening in the financial markets. Businesses need credit to function. That credit isn't there anymore, and my company has a fucking strong balance sheet, with less than 10% debt as a percentage of annual revenue, and most of that debt secured by assets. Our D&B rating would make banks throw money at us in normal times.

The little known secret is that regional banks are doing just fine, thank you. They did what traditional banks alwys did, loaned money on rational criteria. They didn't get involved in trading weird securities. Let those regional banks pick up the pieces of the failed banks.

Why are you so afraid to let the bigger banks fail?