No more government - boo hoo!

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Would you care to dispute the facts? Even address them?

Let's imagine that you and I are married, and we agree to a budget that you develop.

Then let's imagine that you lose your job; and we stick to our budget, but start putting everything on a credit card. We wouldn't have had to do that, but we bought you a very expensive suit to go on interviews.

8 years later, we are still putting everything on the credit card; because while you got a job, it didn't pay as well as the original job, and we still stuck to the original budget. At that point we decide that since you are more responsible for the condition than me, I will set the budget from now on.

18 years later, we are still putting everything on the card and now interest is killing us.

Where should the blame for the current condition be placed?

A) On you, for losing your job.

B) On you, for not adjusting the budget to meet the new conditions.

C) On me, for agreeing to it.

D) On me, for not adjusting the budget to meet the new conditions.

E) On you, for agreeing to it.

F) On both of us for agreeing to the expensive suit.

G) On both of us for not adjusting the budget to meet the new conditions.

[lookout123]

Silly UT, the obvious choice is W.

[Fair&Balanced]

Lets look at it another way and focus on the federal budget and debt reduction.

A Congressional Research Service report last year put the cost of permanently extending the Bush tax cuts, particularly on the top bracket, at $5+ trillion over the next ten years:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/40488953/B...Cuts-crs-10-27

The Democrats have agreed to $30+ billion in savings for the short term budget resolution. The Republicans refuse to consider any tax increases.

In the longer term, the Republican proposal (Ryan's proposal) would lower the tax rate even more, down to 25%

To deal with the debt honestly will require both significant spending cuts and tax increases, with the most effective, and least harmful to most Americans, tax increase being to end the Bush tax cuts on the top bracket.

As Ibram also noted, the issue holding up the current deal is not spending cuts, but policy issues, particularly the attempt by the Republicans to prohibit the EPA from implementing Clean Air Act regulations and in their words, "addressing the issue of government funded abortions" and Planned Parenthood, despite the fact that no federal funds are used for abortion.

[Fair&Balanced]

Undertoad and Lookout:

I'm curious as to where you stand on the sacrifices that need to be made in order to address the long term debt.

Do you believe we can address the debt issue only with spending cuts?

Does it matter if those cuts disproportionately impact the middle class and working poor with little or impact on the wealthiest Americans?

[Undertoad]

Does it matter if those cuts disproportionately impact the middle class and working poor with little or impact on the wealthiest Americans?

This form of argument is called poisoning the well.

[Fair&Balanced]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

This form of argument is called poisoning the well.

Would it help if I list some of the major spending cuts in the current resolution?

Significant cuts to SNAP (food stamps), Head Start, community health centers, HUD low income housing programs, veterans housing assistance, job training for the unemployed...

Where is the shared sacrifice?

[Undertoad]

It doesn't stop being poisoning the well through clarification.

[Fair&Balanced]

OK. Lets put that aside, even if I disagree with your characterization.

Do you believe that the debt can be effectively addressed with spending cuts alone? No tax increases?

[infinite monkey]

Here is a list of other debate terms for those of you who are following the letter of the law of respectful and thoughtful debate

Because, seriously, that's funny. Ask the whores who whore the whore and a spending whore whore whore debaters. Is that straw dick? Slippery dick? Naw, it's cute, isn't it?

http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html

[Undertoad]

Of course it can.

Did you mean to ask if I believe that it should be addressed that way?

[Fair&Balanced]

Never mind.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Let's imagine that you and I are married, and we agree to a budget that you develop.

Then let's imagine that you lose your job; and we stick to our budget, but start putting everything on a credit card. We wouldn't have had to do that, but we bought you a very expensive suit to go on interviews.

8 years later, we are still putting everything on the credit card; because while you got a job, it didn't pay as well as the original job, and we still stuck to the original budget. At that point we decide that since you are more responsible for the condition than me, I will set the budget from now on.

18 years later, we are still putting everything on the card and now interest is killing us.

Where should the blame for the current condition be placed?

A) On you, for losing your job.

B) On you, for not adjusting the budget to meet the new conditions.

C) On me, for agreeing to it.

D) On me, for not adjusting the budget to meet the new conditions.

E) On you, for agreeing to it.

F) On both of us for agreeing to the expensive suit.

G) On both of us for not adjusting the budget to meet the new conditions.

Much better than:

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Oh look everybody, a progressive think-tank says it's all W's fault.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Fair&Balanced

Never mind.

He's a slippery one, that toad.

[Ibby]

Here, I'll say it without the setup and thus without the well-poisoning.

The Republican spending plan puts massive emphasis on cuts to government support to the middle- and working-class, and uses the "budget" as a cover for ideological non-budgetary attacks on rights like abortion, as well as to defund separately-passed environmental, consumer, and financial regulation, all while cutting taxes to the wealthiest bracket.

The Democratic plan cuts less from programs that directly benefit the poorer members of our society, cuts slightly more from Pentagon spending, and actually still KEEPS the bush-era tax cuts in effect, and still cuts the same amount of money from the overall budget.



it. is. not. about. costs. and it certainly isn't about jobs, or the economy. it's baldly ideological, almost entirely on social or pro-corporate grounds. You can debate the merits of those ideologies all you want, but to argue that the issue at hand is the size of the deficit is a flat-out lie.

[Ibby]

And yes, while I do acknowledge that my characterizations of the positions are a little biased... the democrats have basically caved and compromised on so much at this point, that going off of the offers on the table, it's really mostly fair to say that the democrats aren't standing up for much more than what I described.