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Suckered Time and Again [The T Word]
National Review ^ | 7/20/2011 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 07/21/2011 5:47:01 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross

One of the depressing features of the Republican Party is the way they get suckered time and again into playing on Democrats’ terms. The pathetic spectacle of grown men and women sitting around in meetings trying to agree “grand bargains” to save $43.7 bazillion in federal spending by 2023 before an allegedly looming deadline of August 2nd is almost too perfect a snapshot of Washington stupidity.

The rest of the world isn’t looking for a grand bargain by August 2nd. And it knows enough about the decadent state of US law-making to know that any such bargain would be voted through unread and begin to unravel by sun up on the 3rd. And getting Republicans to explain that not to worry, they’re not pushing seniors off the cliff immediately - that existing grampas will be grandfathered in – is a way to make the whole debt debate toxic. If we have to pretend that August 2nd is any kind of deadline, why don’t we simplify matters?

Here’s a newspaper headline from a yellowing cutting I found up in the attic:

U.S. Budget Deficit Hits Record $438 Billion For Year

Boy, those were the days! Flappers in rumble seats, wind-up victrolas, and deficits you could measure in billions. A more innocent age, lost in the mists of time. Gosh, you’d have to be pushing, oh, 12 even to remember it.

$438 billion was the record-breaking federal deficit in 2008. That’s all of three years ago. In 2011, it’s getting on for four times as big. What’s that got to do with anything happening in 2023?

Obama did that. The Democrats did that. “Trillion” is their word. They mainstreamed it, and very effectively, in nothing flat. But it’s not a fact of life. It’s a fact of their life, and they should be on the defensive about it. What do we have to show for the trillionization of government? The dead-parrot economy, the underwater property market, the flatline jobs market. But lots more bureaucracy and regulation.

Obama wants to demonize “millionaires”? Who’s he kidding? He and Harry Reid and Barney Frank are the first trillionaire politicians in American history, and they want us to accept that as the new baseline. Getting Republicans to sit around concocting meaningless plans for a decade hence is a good way to do it.


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: debtdeal; debtdealcavein; steyn; suckered; trillion
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Obama wants to demonize “millionaires”? Who’s he kidding? He and Harry Reid and Barney Frank are the first trillionaire politicians in American history
1 posted on 07/21/2011 5:47:11 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
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To: Servant of the Cross

The “T” word is Treason or Totalitarianism.

ANOTHER classic example of why...

...Legislatures (state and federal) can be part-time jobs with 1/10th pay, NO retirement, NO perks, NO insurance. Get a job. Pay for your own crap, you POS politicians.

...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness...

ALTER it.

It’s the socialism, stupid. DEFUND socialist collectives, foreign and domestic.


2 posted on 07/21/2011 5:52:12 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: Servant of the Cross
What do we have to show for the trillionization of government? The dead-parrot economy, the underwater property market, the flatline jobs market. But lots more bureaucracy and regulation.

Indeed.

3 posted on 07/21/2011 5:52:46 AM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: Servant of the Cross

The GOP candidate should pound Barkey over and over with this line.


4 posted on 07/21/2011 5:56:42 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Eh ?)
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To: Servant of the Cross

“They get suckered time and again into playing on Democrats’ terms.”

With a few exceptions, the Republicans don’t seem to know how to deal with psychotic Democrats who have become ardent
left-wing revolutionaries intent on “change”.

It’s also amazing how the Democrats can insidiously establish the premises upon which everyone debates and then poison and subvert the process at the same time. It’s absolutely amazing.

It’s like watching a bunch of 7th graders running wild in the halls of a middle school.

IMHO


5 posted on 07/21/2011 6:11:40 AM PDT by ripley
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To: Servant of the Cross
One of the depressing features of the Republican Party is the way they get suckered time and again into playing on Democrats’ terms

The only people being suckered are the rubes that think the Republicrats and Dumobcans are not playing on the same team. They know exactly what they are doing.


6 posted on 07/21/2011 6:20:25 AM PDT by Roninf5-1
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To: Servant of the Cross

7 posted on 07/21/2011 6:26:16 AM PDT by Iron Munro (The more effeminate & debauched the people, the more they are fitted for a tyrannical government.)
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To: Servant of the Cross

The GOP isn’t called “the stupid party” for nothing.


8 posted on 07/21/2011 6:26:18 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Servant of the Cross

There is no “pleasant” human solution to the mess we (and the rest of the world) are in. This will not end well.

In related news, I finally got a job near my new home/farm in central Kentucky. I drove one of our cars out from Seattle, including all our guns, a couple weekends ago.We’re putting the last of our stuff in a small “Pod” and driving our last car out there in a couple weeks.

Then, bring it on...

BTW, we found out there are roughly 30 turkeys nesting on our property. ;)


9 posted on 07/21/2011 6:27:55 AM PDT by RobRoy (The US today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: Roninf5-1
Yep. Here's another classic one .......


The Swimmer: "This dude really is a liberal at heart?! What a lame, but useful idiot."

10 posted on 07/21/2011 6:28:13 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: RobRoy

Here’s hoping you’ve got a nice mix of males/females! Or does a single male run roughshod over an entire herd of females...you know, like Obama’s doing with our economy?


11 posted on 07/21/2011 6:38:32 AM PDT by MarDav
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To: JLS

Ping


12 posted on 07/21/2011 6:44:58 AM PDT by knews_hound (Credo Quia Absurdium--take nothing seriously unless it is absurd. E. Clampus Vitus)
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To: Servant of the Cross
From 2001 thru 2008, the deficits equaled $2.002 Trillion. From 2009 thru the projected 2011 budget, the deficits will be $4.360 Trillion dollars. Congress was controlled by Republicans from 2001 thru 2006, when the Democrats took over so nobody has clean hands in this love affair with debt. All the proposals on the table have at least $1 Trillion in deficit spending as far as the eye can see even if you take $500 billion off the table today. Once again the Democrats have pushed ( rather willingly I might add) the Republicans to thinking and speaking on their terms.

All Federal spending should be rolled back to 2008 levels and cut from there and not where we find ourselves today. The Dems are controlling the debate, aided and abetted by LSM.

13 posted on 07/21/2011 6:47:51 AM PDT by cashless (Unlike Obama and his supporters, I'd rather be a TEA BAGGER thaln a TEA BAGGEE.)
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To: Servant of the Cross
What’s that got to do with anything happening in 2023?

This is something I've never understood about the American political system.

We constantly talk about what the effects of whatever tax scheme is being implemented 10 or 12 years out, as if it WILL remain in effect over this period.

Yet lobbying to change the scheme starts immediately after it passes, and almost nothing remains the same for more than a couple of years.

So why do we bother to talk about the 10 year effect of a policy, when we KNOW the policy won't be in effect for 10 years?

14 posted on 07/21/2011 7:02:50 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: RobRoy

“we found out there are roughly 30 turkeys nesting on our property”

Jeez, too bad you lost all those guns in a boating accident...straight to the bottom. :-)


15 posted on 07/21/2011 7:19:44 AM PDT by jagusafr ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...")
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To: TheOldLady; Rummyfan; Howlin; riley1992; Miss Marple; Dane; sinkspur; steve; kattracks; ...

Mark Steyn ping.

Thanks for the ping knews_hound.

Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.


16 posted on 07/21/2011 8:23:52 AM PDT by JLS (How to turn a recession into a depression: elect a Dem president with a big majorities in Congress)
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To: Servant of the Cross

“One of the depressing features of the Republican Party is the way they get suckered time and again into playing on Democrats’ terms”

That many times, Mark, “THEY” aren’t being suckered, we are.

You’re smarter than this.


17 posted on 07/21/2011 9:16:39 AM PDT by jessduntno (Liberalism is socialism in a party dress. And just as masculine.)
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To: jessduntno
“THEY” aren’t being suckered, we are.

BTTT, as we used to post.

18 posted on 07/21/2011 9:33:34 AM PDT by headsonpikes (Genocide is the highest sacrament of socialism - "Who-whom?")
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To: cashless
From 2001 thru 2008, the deficits equaled $2.002 Trillion. From 2009 thru the projected 2011 budget, the deficits will be $4.360 Trillion dollars. Congress was controlled by Republicans from 2001 thru 2006, when the Democrats took over so nobody has clean hands in this love affair with debt.

This is why you should put the time frame in better perspective. You compared 7 years of President Bush to three years of a Dem Congress. Better to compare apples to apples... GOP Congress to Dem Congress. I don't have the numbers in front of me so I can't do this part myself... but why don't you compare 3 years of GOP Congress (2003-2006) to 3+ years of Dem (2007-2011)... or just stop at 2010... it will still work.

19 posted on 07/21/2011 10:02:36 AM PDT by pgyanke (Republicans get in trouble when not living up to their principles. Democrats... when they do.)
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To: Servant of the Cross

I hope Allen West realizes we just might have to draft him for a higher office.

And soon.

If we want to win ANY of these CRUCIAL fights, we need a fighter ... not a Speaker who cries a lot.


20 posted on 07/21/2011 10:37:58 AM PDT by DNME (With the sound of distant drums ... something wicked this way comes.)
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