The Two Party Challenge

[azbob]

Here's a test you can try.

Over the past eight years, name six things the federal government has done to improve our country.

To make it bipartisan, stipulate the following:
a) to appease Democrats...The Obama inherited a huge mess created by Bush
b) to appease Republicans...The Obama had his first two years with full control of Congress and did not accomplish anything
c) to appease all...the last two years have been a stalement with everyone at fault

Here's the challenge...you can't name what you consider to be social improvements. Admit it, that's the first thing that came to mind...gay marriage, the Dream Act, contraception, etc. Maybe that's what the media wants you to pay attention to?

Anyway, I'll spot you ObamaCare as if you believe in that you think it will have a positive economic impact someday.

That leaves five improvements that have impacted the economic health of our country over eight years. Don't bother with the excuses and what if's.

I admire you if you can do this off the top of your head...near impossible. Go ahead and cut and paste if you want.

When you do, just ask yourself why you are going to vote for someone in November who is going to continue what has gone on for the past eight years?

Give it a try.

 

[Duff Miver]

Here's a test you can try.

Over the past eight years, name six things the federal government has done to improve our country.

To make it bipartisan, stipulate the following:
a) to appease Democrats...The Obama inherited a huge mess created by Bush
b) to appease Republicans...The Obama had his first two years with full control of Congress and did not accomplish anything
c) to appease all...the last two years have been a stalement with everyone at fault

Here's the challenge...you can't name what you consider to be social improvements. Admit it, that's the first thing that came to mind...gay marriage, the Dream Act, contraception, etc. Maybe that's what the media wants you to pay attention to?

Anyway, I'll spot you ObamaCare as if you believe in that you think it will have a positive economic impact someday.

That leaves five improvements that have impacted the economic health of our country over eight years. Don't bother with the excuses and what if's.

I admire you if you can do this off the top of your head...near impossible. Go ahead and cut and paste if you want.

When you do, just ask yourself why you are going to vote for someone in November who is going to continue what has gone on for the past eight years?

Give it a try.

Fuck the last eight years, I'll do the last 3.5:

Made health care more available to all Americans.
Killed Bin Laden.
Ended the Iraq war.
Enacted the Lilly Ledbetter Act.
Repealed Don't Ask/Don't tell.
Expanded loans for small business.
Doubled spending for alternative fuels.
Raised fuel economy standards.

There's eight in 3.5 years. I can give you a hundred more.

Now it's YOUR turn.

Name on thing the azbob has done to improve this country.

Too tough, eh?

 

[bleedingpurple]

Azbob...,

I know a few on here have posted on how detrimental Obama care will be financially weather that Happens or not only time will tell. Being a health care worker, I know it's going to save lives and that is my focus. I feel some republicans would see a person die to save a hundred bucks or two.

Muff gave a good start. You ask something like what over the past years would you still vote Obama? Why would I vote for a party who the previous 8 years before Obama did absolutely nothing for this country and created a fuckkng mess? Why do you try to fool everybody and say you are libertarian?

 

[hedgehog]

Azbob...,

I know a few on here have posted on how detrimental Obama care will be financially weather that Happens or not only time will tell. Being a health care worker, I know it's going to save lives and that is my focus. I feel some republicans would see a person die to save a hundred bucks or two.

its not about money its all about the government having control over you and running our lives. We already pay too much in taxes as it is

 

[bleedingpurple]

its not about money its all about the government having control over you and running our lives. We already pay too much in taxes as it is

Well spend less on other things I guess. Heath care should be one o the top priorities. Government controls many aspects of your life but ensuring everyone has health care is not an aspect that bothers me.

Everyone SHOULD have health insurance. You are going to need it.

 

[azbob]

Hedgehog's point IS the point...the government should not be dictating this level of detail regarding how people choose to live their life.

Bleeding...you are missing the intent. I'm not asking why you would still vote for The Obama...I'm suggesting that based on the record over eight years, why would you vote for either party (you might notice the title of the thread). Reading should include comprehension as I attributed the "mess" to a republican not a democrat.

Healthcare IS a top priority based on the percent of GDP devoted. The problem is, the money is lost, spent on the wrong stuff and sent to Washington to be allocated. Every step of the way our taxpayer dollars are siphoned off and a very small percent actually creates value for a patient. Giving more money to the government does not improve care.

Duff...go ahead and list your hundred...you listed eight and already drifted into social re-engineering which may be a valid accomplishment but, we are discussing economic impact.

To answer your question, I have paid my taxes so people can get healthcare and you can get food stamps.

 

[Duff Miver]

Hedgehog's point IS the point...the government should not be dictating this level of detail regarding how people choose to live their life.

Nor should the government allow citizens to shirk their societal responsibilities.

Health care is a good example. Everyone will need some at one time or another. If you're a multi-millionaire, you can self insure. Otherwise YOU need to pay for a healthcare policy.

Showing up at the ER and passing your health care costs on those those who do pay should stop. That alone will reduce the cost of health care. Medicare can be used for those who have absolutely no way to pay.

You pay taxes? BFD, Only because it's mandatory.

Let's try you again, the azbob: What have you done voluntarily to benefit your country?

 

[bleedingpurple]

I had you mixed up with Ssd, Ssd has been in other threads pushing for the republican vote and I thought it was you that's why I was confused by the title of this thread.

Sorry

 

[azbob]

No worries BP...we can get SSD to vote for Gary Johnson too.

Duff, your note, "Showing up at the ER and passing your health care costs on to those who do pay should stop."

I agree with that but, when 50% of Americans pay no income tax and the IRS is enforcing the penalty for those who don't have a policy...who do you think will end up paying...WE the taxpayer. Do you think millions of Americans who drive with no car insurance, who don't work and perhaps don't care, will suddenly chip in to buy a policy when NOW when they get sick, they get care for free?

Let's not get stuck on healthcare again in this thread as it is avoiding the issue and the question regarding our economy. You think ObamaCare will help the economy...I don't...time will tell if he is re-elected.

The question is why would you vote for either major candidate based on the economic results of the past eight years?

 

[Duff Miver]

The question is why would you vote for either major candidate based on the economic results of the past eight years?

There will be only two candidates on the ballot who have any conceivable chance of being elected.

Yes, there will be Green Party, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist and other fringe party candidates, but none of them will garner more than 2% of the vote.

If you vote for either Romney or Obama, you might influence the election. If you vote for anyone else you may as well stay home.

Gary Johnson may be a fine fellow, I don't know enough to have a solid opinion. It doesn't matter whether he's Jesus Christ incarnate because his vote count will be laughable.

 

[THE KOD]

- If the furnace in your basement stopped working, and you hired a company to repair it, what would you do if several of the workers came upstairs, told you they couldn't figure out how to get the furnace started, and then began pointing fingers at each other and saying:

"It's his fault."

"No, it's his fault."

"If he'd listen to me, we could get this job done."

"He tries to stop me every time I'm on the verge of fixing your furnace."

You'd probably stand there slack-jawed, hardly believing what you were witnessing. Then you'd say:

"I don't want to hear you guys blaming each other. I'm paying you to do a job. Just go back down there and do it, or if you can't, get out of my house."



Or if you had a leak in your plumbing, and the plumbers emerged from under your sink to tell you:

"I'm sorry -- I can't work with this man. He undoes everything I'm trying to do to get your pipes back in shape."

"So typical of him to put the blame on me. He's got it exactly backward. I know how to stop the leak -- he has no idea. And he never has."

You'd tell them that this is not what you hired them to do. Why are they wasting your time and money telling you that it's the other guy's fault that the water is still dripping onto your floor? You'd ask them to keep their personal animosities to themselves and figure out a way to complete the job they'd agreed to do, or else you're not going to give them a cent.

You'd be well within your rights. When work needs to be done, you hire people who promise that they know how to do it, and you expect to get what you paid for. You are the employer; you are the boss.

But in one area, this doesn't seem to be the case.

In politics and government, almost all Americans agree on the tasks that urgently need to be completed.

A few of them:

? Creating jobs so that finding meaningful employment can stop feeling like pursuing an all-but-unattainable luxury.

? A fair solution to health care, that compassionate people along every station of the right/left continuum can live with and be proud of.

? Fixing the fallout from the big-bank machinations and the mortgage crisis that have cost so many people their homes.

Addressing these problems is a task beyond any of us as individuals. So, in the same way we hire workers to repair the furnace or plug the leak under the sink, we hire workers to fix the big national problems.

They have lofty titles and work in buildings made of white marble. We hire our presidents, our members of Congress, and, indirectly, our justices of the United States Supreme Court.

And maybe it is time to remind ourselves -- and to remind them -- that they are, in fact, hired hands.

They are being paid to do a job. They are not being paid to tell their employers -- the citizens -- why they can't get the job done, or why they can't get along with the other hired hands who are supposed to be working beside them.

Only in politics and government, when the hired hands come up short, are they allowed to get away with flicking spitballs at each other as the country waits for results -- spitballs in the form of purportedly clever attack lines packaged and issued by advisers, meant to wound the other side, yet doing nothing to further the completion of the jobs at hand.

Whether, individually, we are conservatives or liberals or somewhere in the middle, we have a right to expect the people who have been hired to solve the country's problems to do just that, and to spare us the name-calling and blame-shifting. We wouldn't accept that from electricians or auto mechanics; there is no reason to accept it from men and women with federal titles.

There is a self-congratulatory phrase that political pros like to throw around: "Politics ain't beanbag." But these days, that's what it increasingly can feel like: a childish game played by people so enamored of the game itself that the playing of it pushes aside the real-world consequences.

Those real-world consequences matter -- they matter desperately. And the people who should be the demanding employers -- the citizens -- are tossed about in the heavy waves of the political storm, as if they are mere bystanders who have no standing in all of this.

There is another phrase, used as the title of a song by the young Bob Dylan in the years before his name became known all over the world. In a different context from the issues we face now, Dylan called his song "Only a Pawn in Their Game."

It would be hard to blame Americans today if they sometimes identify with that phrase.

But they shouldn't have to settle for feeling like pawns.

And this is not a game
..............................................................

This is the real problem.

Its a pity really .

 

[bleedingpurple]

I don't know for sure if this will help the economy, it has a chance. I don't think it's going to be the doom and gloom that MAGS and a few others think. If it does fail, we will have a long reign of republican office.

 

[bleedingpurple]

Of course you wouldn't vote for any of the candidates. This is the shit they give us.

 

[Cie]

I don't know for sure if this will help the economy, it has a chance. I don't think it's going to be the doom and gloom that MAGS and a few others think. If it does fail, we will have a long reign of republican office.

I don't pretend to know how this will affect our economy going forward, but a buddy of mine, who practices health law in Atlanta and whose father is a recent president of the AMA, tells me that it will not be pretty. Once he and I talk next week, ill share his opinion with the board.

 

[azbob]

KOD...agree with your analogies and thoughtful post but, that approach was put in place in the 1990's and here we are.

It is now time to call another person to fix the furnace...another plummer to stop the leaks and then pass term limits.

 

[THE KOD]

I don't pretend to know how this will affect our economy going forward, but a buddy of mine, who practices health law in Atlanta and whose father is a recent president of the AMA, tells me that it will not be pretty. Once he and I talk next week, ill share his opinion with the board.

It will be interesting to see what he says but I think I already know

more doom and glloom.

The American Medical Association has been part of the problem for many years.

Doctors are going to quit, its going to take a month to get a appointment, no Gen prac anymore, yada yada yada

 

[THE KOD]

KOD...agree with your analogies and thoughtful post but, that approach was put in place in the 1990's and here we are.

It is now time to call another person to fix the furnace...another plummer to stop the leaks and then pass term limits.

I have been howling for term limits most of my life and here we still sit with the same old milliionaires making our laws , collecting huge pensions, top rate medical plans.......

Look at this Rangel election for just a example

one of the bigger crooks and it looks like the election might have been tampered with

who would know that might happen ?

he should have been gone 10 yrs ago

 

[azbob]

Part of the term limit package is for the president to serve for one six year term. Here we are in a most crucial time for the country and the president is most concerned with re-election (it's the same for a Republican).

Incumbents will never vote for term limits so we are pretty much screwed until they die and then their wife takes over the seat...what a way to run the country.

Rangel is high on the incompetence list matched only by his criminal activity. He is the Marion Barry of the House.

 

[Tora!Tora!Tora!]

,,,

,,,

Fuck the last eight years, I'll do the last 3.5:

Made health care more available to all Americans. : MORE DEAD WEIGHT THE TAXPAYER GETS SADDLED WITH
Killed Bin Laden. NEGATIVE. SEALTEAM 6 AND DELTA KILLED THE P.O.S.
Ended the Iraq war. WAR WAS OVER HE JUST PULLED SOME TROOPS OUT
Enacted the Lilly Ledbetter Act.ONLY GAVE AMBULANCE CHASERS ANOTHER AVENUE
Repealed Don't Ask/Don't tell. WOW! ONE STEP BELOW CURING CANCER.. :142smilie
Expanded loans for small business.THEN TAXED THE SHIT OUT OF THEM :0074
Doubled spending for alternative fuels. SOLYNDRA AND THE DEVASTATION OF COAL POWER GENERATION AT A EXPONENTIAL COST.. YOU ARE A BUFFOON
Raised fuel economy standards. OH BOY!.. I CAN GET 2 MORE MPG FOR $10,000 MORE AND HIS ECO FREAK POLICIES MAKE ME PAY $4 A GALLON.. SUCH A DEAL!!!



There's eight in 3.5 years. I can give you a hundred more.

Now it's YOUR turn.

Name on thing the azbob has done to improve this country.

Too tough, eh?

What a putrid list of "Accomplishments" :mj07:

 

[hedgehog]

I don't like the government telling me what to do on any issue...I would rather have anarchy than all these bullshit laws we have now

Live and let live...I am a libertarian more than a republican but that is the party that I vote for