How can the GOP be brought back to being a more moderate party?

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That's my point: The Democratic Party has become the generally centrist party, usually center right, while the GOP has become the conservative party. There is no real Liberal party anymore.

You think a party dominated by the Progressive Caucus and rapidly losing the Blue Dogs is more conservative than a party dominated by the Democratic Leadership Council?

Do you think the Democrats are too much to the left socially, or on fiscal issues? AFAIK, Democrats were willing to compromise on entitlement cuts, whereas Republicans balked at tax increases. Whether or not the Democrats are liberal on fiscal issues, they are certainly more willing to compromise.

As for social issues, I hope the Democrats keep pushing more and more. And then some more. Though they are being pussies, as usual. At least they got DADT repealed. Someone should grow a pair and try to get gay marriage instituted. Though maybe it's prudent to wait a little longer. I thought they were going to stop cracking down on Medical MJ, but that's not happening. Yup, bunch of pussies.

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As for social issues, I hope the Democrats keep pushing more and more. And then some more. Though they are being pussies, as usual. At least they got DADT repealed. Someone should grow a pair and try to get gay marriage instituted. Though maybe it's prudent to wait a little longer. I thought they were going to stop cracking down on Medical MJ, but that's not happening. Yup, bunch of pussies.

You're surely not suggesting they push those issues in the midst of massive unemployment during an election year are you? That's a powerful recipe for an electoral disaster.

No, that shouldn't be the only thing on their agenda, lol. There's no reason why they can't do both at the same time. For the economy, you need to reform the tax code, reduce entitlement spending, while at the same time increasing spending on infrastructure, and education after destroying the teacher's unions (or at least things like pay based on tenure, ugh). And of course those tax reforms should be raising revenues. Do you think either of the parties will support/institute that? I don't think so.

And I do understand pushing for Gay marriage right now would hurt the Democrats in the industrial Midwest, which is the swing region. It would not be helpful politically but I don't give two sh**ts. They should be doing the right thing.

And no, the Republicans should not be pushing their bigoted social agenda against the gays and their anti-sharia law campaign based on stoking fears in the American public.

And most of their anti-immigration rhetoric is all about making people angry at the Mexicans, rather than actually solving the problem of too many illegals coming in while at the same time realizing that for a few jobs like farm work they are needed. Not needed for flipping burgers or construction work though. Neither party is able to articulate this, and the Republicans just fall back on anti-immigrant rhetoric to gain votes. When they are in power, they are more than happy to supply that cheap labor to their donors.

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AFAIK, Democrats were willing to compromise on entitlement cuts, whereas Republicans balked at tax increases. Whether or not the Democrats are liberal on fiscal issues, they are certainly more willing to compromise.

I personally don't believe that making a minor change to the calculation of COI growth for social security and laying out medicare and medicaid cuts already accounted for in Obamacare constitutes much of a compromise against $120-150 billion a year in tax increases($1.2-1.5 trillion+ over 10 years) that take affect immediately. But maybe I'm just weird.

The Democrats come kicking and screaming about even ANY cuts in spending in the budget or appropriations process. And when they do finally agree to cuts its a small amount in the 10s of billions that are mostly just some tinkering around some unspent money sitting in some agency account. I don't call that compromising either. But again maybe I'm just weird.

The spending cuts: taxes ratio in the $4 Trillion plan speaks for itself. And yes, cuts should be loaded towards the back since we are in a recession currently, but of course so should the tax hikes. Grover Norquist scares the sh**t out of me, due to his no tax pledge. He has pretty much ruined California, and now has his sights set on America.

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In a generation or so the GOP will have to become more moderate on social issues and more open to minorities (especially Hispanics) or it will be doomed to permanent minority.

You have to be careful there. It depends on *which* social issues you are referring to. If you're talking about gays, well sure polling data is pretty one sided on that front. But if your talking about abortion, not so fast. For the last 30 years abortion polling has trended in 1 direction and only 1 direction and that is towards more people calling themselves pro life.

So if we were strictly to follow the polling trends the GOP would have to become more moderate on gays and the *Dems would have to become more Pro-Life.* I don't see any Dems on here or anywhere else that are advocating or rooting for that.

Opinion of Abortion is static, I think. Young people aren't overwhelmingly pro-life or anything. They are about the same, perhaps a little more liberal than earlier generations. Which will likely get a bit more pro-life with age. So yeah, stasis.

AFAIK, Democrats were willing to compromise on entitlement cuts, whereas Republicans balked at tax increases. Whether or not the Democrats are liberal on fiscal issues, they are certainly more willing to compromise.

I personally don't believe that making a minor change to the calculation of COI growth for social security and laying out medicare and medicaid cuts already accounted for in Obamacare constitutes much of a compromise against $120-150 billion a year in tax increases($1.2-1.5 trillion+ over 10 years) that take affect immediately. But maybe I'm just weird.

The Democrats come kicking and screaming about even ANY cuts in spending in the budget or appropriations process. And when they do finally agree to cuts its a small amount in the 10s of billions that are mostly just some tinkering around some unspent money sitting in some agency account. I don't call that compromising either. But again maybe I'm just weird.

The spending cuts: taxes ratio in the $4 Trillion plan speaks for itself. And yes, cuts should be loaded towards the back since we are in a recession currently, but of course so should the tax hikes. Grover Norquist scares the sh**t out of me, due to his no tax pledge. He has pretty much ruined California, and now has his sights set on America.

Well again seeing as that I actually read what those supposed "cuts" are I will not let those ratio's speak for themselves. The vast majority of them are "cuts" already accounted for in previous legislation and budgetary assumptions. They are accounting gimmicks nothing more. Its also interesting that estimated "interest savings" gets added to spending cuts side of the equation. I mean its just a joke.

Seriously, Dems that can't seem to find any place to cut expenditure by any sizeable amount scare the sh*t out of me and those are the people that have ruined California not Grover Norquist.

Also cuts that are "loaded to the backend" are cuts that never actually materialize you do know that right? As long as baseline budgeting exists in the US congress "backloaded spending cuts" never actually happen.



Read my post on LBJ's thread. If this is the attitude the Dems and their supporters want to take fine, if we don't find a way to cut $1 trillion dollars a year($10 trillion over the next decade) in government spending then the majority of our social welfare state that many Americans count on will be gone in a decade. So you feel free to defend stupid gimmick deals like the one mentioned above, but when you look back on this 10 years from now you'll realize how stupid your were.

I do not defend the gimmicks. Not one bit. But will Republicans ever agree to tax hikes? That is just as troubling as these gimmicks. You cannot cut $1 trillion dollars a year. Revenue has to be added. And real cuts need to be made. Is that so hard to understand?

As for Grover Norquist, with his retarded little Prop 13 plan he has completely screwed over younger generations. On the other hand if you bought a property in the 1970's in California, you pay low as hell property taxes and can just rent it out without any worries and rake in the dough. A normal person can't even buy a house at current prices and people don't have an incentive to sell since they are paying property taxes on valuations based on when they bought it. So they just rent it out if they are not living in that property.

And yes, if Republicans do stick to their no new revenues pledge (even after tax reform) then yes they will ruin the country. You already described why that is, so thanks for that!

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Opinion of Abortion is static, I think. Young people aren't overwhelmingly pro-life or anything. They are about the same, perhaps a little more liberal than earlier generations. Which will likely get a bit more pro-life with age. So yeah, stasis.

Not flat. Last I checked was probably about 6 months ago. Polling on issues like that are very slow moving, but it isn't flat. If you compared polling on the issue in 1970 to today you wouldn't believe the change that has occurred its seismic, but if you compare it to 2 years ago its minor. And the pro life side stays at their best polling numbers for a long time and then retests new highs.

I do not defend the gimmicks. Not one bit. But will Republicans ever agree to tax hikes? That is just as troubling as these gimmicks. You cannot cut $1 trillion dollars a year. Revenue has to be added. And real cuts need to be made. Is that so hard to understand?

As for Grover Norquist, with his retarded little Prop 13 plan he has completely screwed over younger generations. On the other hand if you bought a property in the 1970's in California, you pay low as hell property taxes and can just rent it out without any worries and rake in the dough. A normal person can't even buy a house at current prices and people don't have an incentive to sell since they are paying property taxes on valuations based on when they bought it. So they just rent it out if they are not living in that property.

And yes, if Republicans do stick to their no new revenues pledge (even after tax reform) then yes they will ruin the country. You already described why that is, so thanks for that!

I think you'll see Republicans willing to agree to moderate tax increases when serious cuts and entitlement reform is laid out in front of them. They were willing to do that deal in 98 with Clinton when they started talking about real entitlement reform, but Lewinsky broke and killed the backroom negotiations.

Most conservatives would be more than okay with tax increases for structural entitlement reform. But barring that they aren't giving an inch. And they shouldn't.

Barring a plan like Paul Ryan's yeah you probably can't cut $1 trillion in spending or at least it isn't very politically viable. But you can't raise $1 trillion in revenues a year either.

California was screwed long ago by its profligate spending. On that note, do you know who Michael Lewis is? Like his writing?

I'm not talking about the fiscal crisis in California. But it's not that big a deal due to balanced budget amendments. At least we don't have huge debts to worry about. That being said it's a concern.

Another bigger concern is the basic unaffordability of living in California. Thus employees demand bigger wages. Employers just realize it's cheaper to pay someone in Texas, or somewhere else, and move there. Republicans would love to say it's omgz taxes, and that is a factor, but the cost of living is out of control. In today's globalized economy, that's just not going to fly. And prop 13 is a big factor in it, as well as highly conservative (don't get confused by the word now) land use policies.

No, I don't know who Michael Lewis is.

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Sure, I would like to read it. What does it say about California generally?

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http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/11/michael-lewis-201111


Starts off as talks about Meredith Whitney's prediction of municipal bankruptcies. He than joins the Arnold on a bike ride which is kind a little funny. It then moves to attending a city council meeting in San Jose where this wealthier city is dealing with a very rough mess on its hands. Interviews the mayor. Then heads off to Vallejo to see what life is like in a bankrupt city. Then goes off on this lizard brain tangent(which is a little weird) and then kind of summarizes and concludes.

You can tell throughout the article that Lewis is trying to keep people entertained who otherwise wouldn't sit through a 7 page article. But it also paints a very good and personalized picture of what is going on in a lot of municipalities in California. Not saying I agree with everything in the article nor do I expect you to, but it is still a very worthwhile read regardless of the side of the fence you sit on(which is quite rare these days).

Excellent article. Thanks. Sorry I didn't have time to read it earlier, I have been pretty busy the last few days. I actually just saw Michael Lewis's interview with Jon Stewart as well, where he gave a more global view of how f'ed we are.

I already knew about the problems of these unions but this article opened my eyes a little bit more. There is almost nothing to be done, especially at the local level. These people just run the show. And people just don't pay attention. They can just be like "the big bad politicians are trying to beat up on the poor police and firefighters", or at the state level those lovely teachers and "peace" officers. It's just too ridiculous. The peace officers btw control the Republicans here. Meg Whitman tried to cut some deals for them while going after the Teachers. No one takes it seriously, it's all just a political game of how to hurt the other side more. And just look at the kind of people your Republican electorate elects here. Why wasn't Campbell nominated, huh? He's as fiscally conservative as any of the other candidates but I guess he wasn't socially crazy enough for the Republican electorate. I would voted for him in a heartbeat. I actually did vote for him in the primary, as DTS voters can, but to no avail. The Megasaur was too strong. Maybe things will be better with the top two, but who the hell knows. Absolutely ridiculous!

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