Why do people still support the Obama administration or the Democratic Party?

[justdra]

The simple answer is look at the alternative. You can't claim to look out for the american people when you are always trying to cut anything that helps them when they are down. You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you can't even afford boots.

 

[BostonPirate]

I think this election is going to be decided by people like you and me, rad pug.

We see where the problems are, and we dont really identify with either party. we don't agree on the solutions it would seem, but thats what is going to make or break the GOp and the Dems this time out...

they need to convince us, the ones that dont trust either side completely, that they have real solutions, and you and me?

we don't sound like easy people to convince at this point.

 

[construct]

The fact that the independents are where elections are won should come as no surprise to anyone. My guess is that it's been that way at least since Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party.

 

[Kulindahr]

I just don't know what to do about this. I don't know what any American can do. The deck is stacked against anyone who isn't filthy rich. Only the rich have a voice. And the deck is stacked against anything that might change this.
Things won't change until there is some significant structural change in the way Washington (and, increasingly, the world) works. And the deck is stacked against that, too.

This triggers a memory of something I caught on a TV at the store the other day. This guy was holding forth that someone who is known to be wealthy, like a net worth of at least fifty million, is forty times more likely than an ordinary citizen to be passed up the line when calling a senator or the president. Then he said that there are generally three levels to be passed up before you actually get to talk to "the man".

So a wealthy person is 40*40*40 = 64000 times as likely to get to speak to one of our really important elected officials than an ordinary citizen.

Which in effect means that politically, a wealthy person is 64k times as important as an ordinary citizen.


So far, Obama isn't helping much on that count.

Nor do I hold out much hope for it changing unless we can get a majority in the Senate who are committed to a constitutional amendment stating that only citizens and legal residents who are members of the species homo sapiens have any political rights whatsoever. Get 61 Democrats in the Senate and a similar number of the House and we might actually get the deficit and debt dealt with, but I really don't expect them to do what's right and get the Republic back to its roots where every human was to have an equal voice.

 

[Kulindahr]

Why support them?

Because the two-faced whore in Washington, the "Re-Elect Us!" Party pretending to be Repulbicans and Democrats, won't allow any actual patriotic Americans with good sense to break in. So we elect the Democrat face of the whore, and get one horrid set of results, so we throw them out and elect the Republican face of the whore -- but since they're both the same whore, they don't fix anything (case in point: the thrice-damnable "USA PATRIOT" Act), they just add to to the pile of crap.

 

[evanrick]

im certainly not supporting democrats as they try and make themselves "look responsible" and getting mired down in details over a GOP created disaster.

the dems are just playing into the GOP hands if democrats start dismantling what took decades to create.

 

[evanrick]

PS: Democrats controlled both houses of Congress at the time of the financial collapse.

And George Bush was president on 9-11, so can place all blame on Bush for 3000 Americans dieing? nice try.

 

[star-warrior]

 

[BostonPirate]

Bush signed that stuff. what does it have to do with Obama?

You gone partizan?

heres adjusted per GDP...

so if your deficit graph is correct, then it supports economists assertion that the Bush republican policies are the ones that caused the balloon of the debt because the deficit has remained stable as its portion of the GDP.

THAT WOULD MEAN WE NEED TO RAISE TAXES

 

[bankside]

mapiyu, star warrior's graph in post 33 shows the full deal. The President, by agreeing to steep cuts, IS trying to stop the madness of the ridiculous levels of basic spending agreed to by George W Bush.

Take away Bush's military spending, which should be done now. Take away Obama's emergency economic stabilization spending, which is done now.

And that would give you room for a lot of budget cuts without affecting the things that really matter; things that democrats like Clinton have always supported, back down closer to Clinton's level of expenditure.

Obama's not dropping the ball on this one, he's just returning your country to an even keel.

 

[bankside]

Actually the Economist is one of the most objective publications going.

 

[star-warrior]

Map, you quoted The Economist to us. Big mistake.

Economics rags are usually right-leaning.

It would be better if you could find a more unbiased source. You'll find that both righties and lefties both trust the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14258888

This is where the above graphic hails from.

 

[BostonPirate]

numbers are being cherry picked.

As a purely scholarly endeavor, lets consider these two graphics....

and this one....

The ceiling gets hit, but what does it have to do with the real gov't spending.

The loss of revenue is the key here. Its simple. IF you take a paycut at work willingly for personal reasons, do you live more cheaply, borrow money to make up the difference, or find a suplemental income?

If you want healthcare, you suplement your income. If you do not, you are placing yourself at risk of catastrophic debt by not paying the extra bit of money for the insurance.

America needs to decide if it needs to create MORE stuations where corruption will run rampant, the kinds that brought us halliburton, enron, and the BP oil spill.

 

[BostonPirate]

then we have this bit of reality to add to those considerations above.

So lets justify these real numbers, and how they are used to serve two different partisan agendas versus what the truth is, and its political inconvenience.

 

[star-warrior]

The perspective I get as an outsider is, Obama's 'new costs' is smaller than Bush's tax cuts...

 

[Just_Believe18]

$5.9 Trillion: Added to the deficit

Next?

That is not an accurate statement, Laika. You can't blame him for that high of a number when most of it is an extension of Bush era tax cuts and wars.

 

[bankside]

I think it is outlandish to consider a tax cut as a cost. The absence of revenue is not a cost. Costs are counted against real programs, services, or infrastructure, otherwise it becomes meaningless.

 

[MoltenRock III]

The USA is circling the drain and Republicans do everything they can to accelerate it, while Democrats merely try to slow the descent into oblivion. It will be sad if Obama never signs a single Progressive bill into law before his term is over.

 

[Zaphod]

I continue to support the Democrats, to the extent that I do, because the other side is worse. This is hardly a ringing endorsement.