BryanM wrote:This whole concept of cherry picking who "deserves" aid or not is ineffective, and borderline retarded.
I don't think that's what the disagreement is. The current batch of "neoliberal" or libertarian / whatever Republicans generally argue that private charity is enough and that if benefits are ever appropriate that they should only be for a short while. They obsessively focus on low taxes as the major (although mainstream economics research doesn't support it at all) contributor to creating and sustaining jobs. They also distrust government (though I'll agree it's cherry-picked or selective, as you'd say) and want it to be smaller (again with loopholes big enough to drive a secret economy through). So for them, the major question is whether there should be a governmental framework or capacity for charitable works.
9/11 responders who were told the air was a-ok.
In those first minutes, hours, and days, there were other pressing matters than doing air quality checks. This is not really a Republican vs. Democrat issue; fire services for a long time have not been properly equipped to check whether a situation is hazardous. Even situations they are familiar with can be unpredictable (so last weekend two Chicago firefighters died in a warehouse collapse, rather like one that happened in 1962). After 9/11 there was a renewed focus on safety for first responders, with some thoughtful reports issued; but from what I can tell paramedics (for example) are lucky just to get body armor, let alone the firefighter have access to an expensive laboratory of testing equipment - besides, some of the chemicals they routinely might be exposed to may have one time been deemed safe, and so are unpredictable in their appearance; or may be dangerous and due to regulatory weaknesses not been deemed unsafe.
The actually issue is that Republicans, somewhat reasonably, questioned whether the $700 billion (which is down from over a billion dollars) would be a good investment in the future. What isn't reasonable is that they have not been ballsy enough to question soldiers' benefits, have recently destroyed the DREAM act which would likely be a great investment in the future, and of course have just forced one of the notorious compromises of our time, getting $700 billion dollars worth of tax cuts for the wealthiest slice of society, many of whom don't need them. More about that in a second.
What makes things worse is the debating tactic; you know, sometimes when a tactic is used to society's benefit, or in any case that society prospered, people tend to look the other way. There is a (in my view not terribly) amusing anecdote in former House Speaker Tip O'Neill's autobiography about Lyndon Johnson supporters giving the balls of protesters a 'twist' - I'm serious, it's in the book. But people aren't questioning Johnson's Great Society program. I couldn't say if Lyndon Johnson's sort of "power at all costs" approach rubbed off on Congress or whether it has usually worked this way (probably the latter) but there certainly is too much willingness to talk up principle on the one hand and then use a procedural motion to block something you wouldn't really want to admit to doing in polite company.
So basically, it wasn't reasonable at all to suggest that the "future" of American somehow was tied up with the firefighter's version of what has been called by some Republicans, probably even by those who don't wear flag lapel pins, a "sacred obligation" to help America's defenders - when they are soldiers, anyway.
This has
gotten Republicans called out before (epic speech on the House floor).
Homeless war veterans who lost their puppy.
Not sure what you mean here, this sounds like a dismissal almost. There has been some movement to adopt K-9 dogs back with their handlers and to avoid their being abandoned in-country, like many dogs were in Vietnam.
Assholes who were lucky enough to be under 99 months on their unemployment when Obama caved to the fascists.
It's nowhere near 99 months - 99 months would've gotten somebody through much of the Great Depression. The number you're referring to is 99 weeks of unemployment insurance. Debbie Stabenow, one of "my" Democratic Senators (from my state), introduced the Americans Want to Work act to extend the unemployment insurance of those who have hit that 99 week mark (99 weeks is just short of two years) by 20 months. Around mid-December, unemployment insurance got an extension for somewhere around a year (through 2011, up to 99 weeks), without extending benefits for people who have hit 99 weeks (that I can tell - this isn't completely straightforward). So about 13 months of unemployment insurance benefits. The Republicans got two years guaranteed of extension to the Bush Tax Cuts. MoveOn.org has a good chart showing how the two things add up
here. It's not really close. As far as I can tell, what the problem was is that the Democrats got a bundle of things, about seven, which sounds like a lot; Republican benefits add up to two things, one of which dwarfs the amount of cost the Democratic side of the pledge adds.
Where I will agree is that the Democrats haven't been saying something like "I want the Republicans to stand here and say that they think it's worthwhile to spend $700 billion dollars that's not coming back into the economy when we're only sparing $250 billion for benefits that are vitally important to the survival of the middle class." Something like that, I think, would be good. The smaller of the two Republican benefits (the super-political Estate Tax) is bigger by itself than probably half of the things on the Democratic side.
Unfortunately, no matter what the President says, Republicans can stand there and say "That's great, but we won the election." It's hard to say that if fighting bankers and the rich as hard as FDR did would make a difference, but it might make a difference in the next election. I'd say that many people are thinking that Obama's problem is that he's trying to appear too much the statesman and not calling out people on the simple things in a way that people understand. He doesn't want to embarrass the nation on the world stage, but many will point out that Republicans need to be challenged on some of the ideas they're offering which come straight from the right wing of American politics.
About that deal, though, it's not Obama's fault that his electoral base "caved to the fascists" by not voting. Some of that is due to the lack of a voting holiday and some is due to poor people simply not otherwise being able to get to the polls (even not being allowed in some cases). It definitely has been the case that the Republicans have taken their "mandate" and run with it much further than what polled voters even wanted - the Republicans just think they know better than everybody else (although arguably the Republicans could say the same of the Democrats, but last I checked Democrats didn't say that they were responding to what people wanted, instead going for what people needed, whereas Republicans have made the argument that they got a mandate to roll back even some popular parts of the health care bill, for instance). Unfortunately, politics is becoming more expensive, and on top of that it's becoming more important for every midterm election to be a battle as well, because if you just vote in a great President but leave him without a base in Congress two years later, as happened to Clinton, I think Carter, Reagan, and even FDR, they aren't going to be able to accomplish much.
So maybe you wanted a fascist-style dictatorship, but the U.S., for better or worse, does not work that way. Obama "caved" because come January some Republicans are probably going to try to overturn even this (except that it physically can't happen) and put in something that the President and Democrats will like even less. The Republicans have become a very strong ideological bloc; ideologically they don't even really represent the predominantly older, whiter, more middle-class electorate that gained them seats this time around, but they just don't give a fuck and they are going to play the game the way they see fit. Democrats have had a lot of internal divisions; normally, this allows a strong political debate and for compromises that (so it was thought) help move everybody more in a progressive direction. It's not great that unemployment was only
Single mothers. It's biased to say they need help, while group X over here doesn't.
It's interesting to note that among the people I've met who are most opposed to benefits for the poor are people who work with them. One person told me that, from working with "indigent" people on aid issues, that it has made them more conservative and that it "doesn't mean they are poor," and another has been frustrated that sometimes couples seem to play a game with not marrying to game the system (apparently). Of course some people have dodges set up, I suppose, if the system is predictable.
What is most offensive is how some Republicans have, in the past at least, focused on and attack these cases of "abuse" of the system (though you can't say they are all fraud), setting up myths of the "Cadillac Welfare Queen" and helping lead the discussion in popular society
like this:
“It really gets me when they say ‘you lazy people,”’ says [Theresa] Christenson, who lives on $1,720 a month in unemployment insurance benefits and what’s left of her dwindling 401K. “They have no idea how depressing that is when you have been beating your head against the wall, trying to find work. Every time I see that or read it, I just start crying. They have no idea.”
To be fair, I'm not sure where any politicians have been saying that recently. I've heard ordinary people say similar things often enough, of course.
It's retarded, because by the time any help is offered to these "deserving" groups, it's already months or years late. A net that everyone is inside, would be preemptive and actually helpful.
Welcome to the wonders of benefits that you have to apply to! It's much simpler with something like Medicare, where if you're a certain age you get in. Until recently the VA, for example, has usually been years late with benefits for veterans with obvious disabilities, so that sort of bureaucratic inertia is not uncommon, unfortunately. The VA has been tackling it though, even with two wars on, so the problem isn't with the bureaucracy but with the lack of political will in Washington to get it done.
