“Principles of Either Side”??
The GOP principle is “Were not quite as bad as the other guys. Yet”.
Why would we consider any offer from the other side unless it was better than the default - better than the “fiscal cliff”. As harmful to the economy as the expiration of the “Bush tax cuts” might be, I am skeptical that a newly empowered Obama will offer anything remotely close to the moderate budget cuts in the scheduled sequestration. We should use the sequestration as a baseline. If the Democrats don’t like a particular cut in federal spending, they can propose a different cut that is more acceptable to both sides. I’m not terribly picky where they cut, as long as the cuts are deep enough. The truth is that the scheduled cuts are nowhere near as deep as we need.
Cut the Education budget? I’m okay with making that zero and certainly with the scheduled cuts.
Cut FEMA? Fine. Keep it for multi-state disasters, like Sandy, that are genuinely beyond the scope that the affected state could handle, not for every blizzard, tornado, and other routine problem.
What about defense? That is one of the legitimate (can we use that word after Akin?) functions of government, but even defense has lots of room for cuts. Negotiate on where to cut defense, if the Democrats will negotiate in good faith, otherwise accept the new lower baseline of sequestration as a gift that will help in keeping spending lower next year.
We need to look open to compromise and clearly articulate our openness to compromise, but we should only consider a “compromise” that is better for America than the agreed sequestration.
As both an engineer and business man ... you are absolutely right about competitive criticism.
That said, and in the same engineering spirit: I'm not sure you're an economist or student of social history or political history.
1 quarter (3 months) is like looking at intraday stock averages over the course of 15 minutes. It's meaningless.
The time it would take to measure a plan is far too long - maybe a year and a half ... and by that time, the program in place will have a flock of those who benefit by cottage industries around it's regulations, those profiting from distortions of the market, and so it will never be repealed, because by that time it will have a lobby.
We're past engineering solutions, business solutions, economic solutions. The reason is that this is not a presidency of making the US better, it's a presidency of installing an ideology that preserves it's perpetual existence.
These people aren't like us. They don't just have a 'worse plan.' The democrat party has a plan, but it is not related to the success or lack of success of the US. All you need to do is look at education unions, and that is a good model. No allegiance to anything other than self perpetuation.
Where you make your mistake (what you leave out) is that you are used to functioning in a business where the aim is relatively honest competition to be more efficient than your competitors. But your larger contextual assumption about that is wrong. That's not the game here.
You might as well be telling the kidnapper of your daughter that his tie would look better in a softer blue. It might be right, but it's not pertinent.
Of course, this all assumes that Obama wants to fix the problem, not make it worse. I think that’s a faulty assumption.
The house will approve ...with the following understandings...note to author, dims lie. It is what they do. It is what they are. That said, not a bad idea. The basic concept could be expanded to much legislation. Two problems, statutory instability due to long lead times for business and the dims will get what they want then sabotage the legislation in some manner. The dims are not interested in saving America. They are interested in changing America into a communist nation. Before the nation can be salvaged, the left must be defeated in detail. There can be no compromise with them.
As a trained engineer, I can say that the thesis demonstrates the limitations.of empiricism. It fails to account for evil. Marxist dogma. Etc.
But to return to the engineering-speak, the assumptions underlying the solution are flawed. Obama does not desire a positive outcome for the country. His guiding principle is the destruction of America. There is no.common ground, principled, practical, or otherwise.