Mirror, mirror on the wall, who was the most "childish" of them all?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So, let me get this straight.  Democrats now are focusing attention on the timing of debt-ceiling raising measures over the next two years, and tearing into discretionary spending with a bunch of wishful thinking, so they can forestall entitlement cuts until the next election?  Or, per what Barney Frank said, they're ok with taking revenue enhancements off the table so long as they can trade a slightly higher eligibility age for Medicare and Cost of Living Adjustments for Social Security for means testing and higher co-pays?   

In other words, they're bargaining away revenue enhancements over the long term so they can wall off entitlements for one and a half years?  They think that's a win?  Wow, I really can't watch anymore. 

As I said, all sides of the politics have degraded and thus self-preservation is priority number one. Atleast the tea party cares somewhat about ideology and has a real motivation to force something to be done on this, though admittedly that motivation makes deal making more impossible. Ironic that we are in a situation where the only thing that is making it possible to deal with this issue, also has a side effect, making compromise impossible.

When you consider the character and priorities of these people, were it not for hitching it to debt ceiling, nothing would get done for sure till it's too late. Considering the crap they are now arguing over, nothing may be the result anyway. Either way, why stop watching now? It's not like this revelation should be anything new. Putting the best policy at the back of the bus has been standard procedure in Washington for a long time, the front seats are occupied by selfist political interest.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Don't worry, Anvi, Reid's plan won't pass the House.  Even if it did, revenue will be enhanced in 18 months when Bush cuts expire.

By the way, all, I don't think rejecting short-term is because it helps Obama's re-election as much as it is an effort to say that's enough playing with the ing ceiling for the 112th.  Look at how all-consuming this thing is.  The worst, least-productive congress in history.  I can't recall a party winning back a chamber and becoming so deeply unpopular so quickly.

Whats different? In the 111th all they did was pass three deeply flawed bills that cause more problems then they solve, and a bunch of useless jobs bills that tossed a little money around in the hope that it would trick enough voters in actually thinking they were doing something about jobs, in way that was cheap, easy and had no political price to pay. Actually doing something on jobs, whether it's spending on infrastructure (requires ponying up larger sums), education reform (pisses off the teachers union), tax code reform (someone is going to have to run counter to their rhetoric, most likely both parties), energy independence (see infrastructure),  or fiscal solvency (entitlement reform and tax hikes, you want to bite that bazooka) all bare a price. The 111th ran around doing things in certain ways to ensure that some of their bills got passed, even if content was thrown under and to ensure that they did everything possible to avoid loosing their majority. And in the end, they ended up loosing it, anyway.  I hardly call that being productive.

It didn't help that Obama was absolutely incompetent in working with even his own party members in congress. The lesson: next time a guy promises a change in the political discourse, and he has only been in the Senate for 4 years, RUN AWAY!!! He is either hopelessly naive and foolish, or outright lying to get elected. Either is disqualifying in my opinion.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ok, dear Democrats, rant alert:

My worry, Joementum, is about what can possibly pass both chambers anymore.  I mean, it's a perfectly good thing to argue about what is the best method for reforming entitlements.  But, the thing is, they do have to undergo some reform, that bullet has to be eaten.  Over the long term, there is no viable way to protect those programs without revenue enhancements; you can't bargain those away and justifiably claim that those programs are being protected.  After rejecting $800 billion over the next ten years from Boehner, after trying for the $1.2 trillion from the Gang of Six and coming up short, is it even possible to go back for revenue enhancements after you've said; "no, you can have them all so long as we can wall off entitlements till the next election"?  Since the GOP didn't want any revenue enhancements in the first bloody place, I doubt it.  I mean, come on, the leveraging of the debt ceiling, for all the hue and cry, was a huge bluff by the GOP; they can't let the deadline pass without raising the ceiling; their leaders have said it multiple times, and even the most unrealistic of budgets, Cut, Cap and Balance, had a debt ceiling lift too, since even that plan requires more borrowing.  Without more money in the very, very near future, the Democrats, for all their bluster about defending entitlements, are putting them in grave danger in the easily foreseeable future.  This Reid-Polosi move was a terribly, terribly bad one.  A stronger president would never have let them go there.   

Rant ended.  Going to bed.  Can't watch anymore.  Good grief. 

This a point I was hoping someone else could make, since it would undoubtedly be more eloquent then what I could manage. Reid and Pelosi must have made a political decision in a backroom early this year that they were going to try and take away the GOP advantage among seniors by exposing the tea party and GOP as whole and their plans to change those programs. So they put on their armor and got on their horses to become great knights in shining armor, coming to the rescue of the seniors and their Social Security and Medicare. A damned great strategy for winning Florida for Obama in 2012, but a horrible one for actually reforming those programs to save both them and their recipients from even more drastic sacrifices down the road. Politics first, policy second. In so doing doing our two knights became shockingly hilarious proponents of shining counter-productive policy with more concern for the politics then actually trying to protect the seniors.

Atleast Obama was smart enough not to do that as well, that is to say unless it was a pre-planned strategy of him not doing so, to be the new Clinton triangulating his way to a second term and only this time with a revived Dem House.