Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Ghengis Jon]

Warren might be dropping out if she doesn't have a strong NH showing. She just cancelled $355k in advertising for SC and Nev.


picture.jpg

[iam416]

IMHO, the most reasonable (ie not extreme) candidate is Amy K. Not sure why she is consistently hovering so low.

The merit-based answer is that she isn't a great politician. She's adequate, but not great. I've watched her several times in debates and come away thinking here answers were fine, but that she wasn't able to take the next step and bend the policy answer back to a relatable anecdote or the like. Mayor Pete does that pretty damn well. Bernie has his schtick, but he's a bad politician. He's captured the Marxist wing of the D party, but he's not expanding his support. They like for his ideas. Warren sort of has her own thing, and I think she's a pretty good politician (I initially thought she was awful--I was wrong), but she's stuck in the Bernie lane and those motherfuckers won't budge.

Kloubachar also suffered from same paralyzing fear every other D suffers from -- they refuse to, as Hannibal says, punch left. She's can go hard after someone when she wants to, but she won't do it to Bernie. And the thing is that the first person to really go hard after Bernie will assume the true mantle of "center lane" D -- the saner option to the Marxist, Sandinista-loving, Soviet-honeymooning, Castro-worshipping, Maduro-praising, every commie country is better than the US option that is currently in the lead.

The first D that has the balls to do that -- fuck, man -- I may even donate to their fucking campaign.

Now, the D Party-line answer is MISOGYNY!!! Well, if it were anyone other than the Ds being so rampantly sexist. Heh.

[Jeff Buchanan]

........Asked in an interview with CNBC if cuts to entitlements would ever be on his plate, Mr. Trump answered yes.

Well, I'd be in favor of this. Moves away from a government that doles out free shit resonate with my view of government.

See my comment above.

The president has already proposed cuts for some safety-net programs. His last budget proposal called for a total of $1.9 trillion in cost savings from mandatory safety-net programs, like Medicaid and Medicare. It also called for spending $26 billion less on Social Security programs, the federal retirement program, including a $10 billion cut to the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which provides benefits to disabled workers.

Let's look at reality here. We're talking about budget proposals and I'm assuming, since the original article you posted about came out in December 2016, that these proposals involved US Government Budgets in the past and during the Trump presidency. So, let's look at how the threat of cuts has actually worked out.

Well, during Trump's presidency, $9.1 Trillion has been added to US debt and that despite budgets sent to Congress that proposed significant reductions in entitlement outlays. But guess what, the D controlled House put most of them back in. In order for the Senate (and the president) to avoid government shut downs, the Senate rubber stamped the House budget.

So, if history is an indicator, it's hard to eliminate or even reduce free shit once it's in the budget. The real solution would be to not keep finding new ways to give stuff away in the first place. That's hard because lobbyists are hugely active in promoting all sorts of legislation that involves freebies that benefit the industries they represent from tax breaks to out right subsidies and benefit pay-outs.

Ahhhh, America.

Bottom line: stop worrying about threats by Trump to cut entitlement programs. I'd be all for them if they could get passed Congress but the reality is that they won't.

[iam416]

The Ds would have to catastrophically shit the bed for the Rs to be able to do anything to entitlements.

The problem with SS is that it's billed as something personal to you. It's forced savings. If you put money in, you get it out. So, it's really hard to means test it -- even if that makes a ton of sense. If it were touted as elderly welfare -- which is where it's value is -- then it'd be much easier to touch.

But, the reality is that only Ds can do SS. If the Rs do it, no matter how sensible, they'll get crushed politically.

[Hannibal]

Or you could just raise the cap for Social Security taxes and at the least you can put it off OR actually have it funded totally.

Theoretically this could put a dent in the unfunded liabilities, but you are further screwing over people who already are screwed over by SS. The net tax/benefits of SS are already progressive, and that is on top of progressive income taxes and every other means tested government program. I also doubt that it would be enough. You're going to have to raise the retirement age gradually over the next 20 years or cut benefits significantly. That has to be on the table for the program to work. Look at life expectancy and average retirement length in the 1930s compared to now. For the most part, people haven't adjusted their retirement age expectations, despite skyrocketing medical costs and longer life expectancy. You can now theoretically work 42 years from age 18 to 60 and then be retired for 30 years from 60 to 90. That means that you are living without earned income for over a third of your adult life. Most people don't have enough retirement savings to last half of that time. It's unrealistic to expect an economy to be able to support this on a massive scale.

[Cody_Russell]

Warren might be dropping out if she doesn't have a strong NH showing. She just cancelled $355k in advertising for SC and Nev.

We are becoming the movie Idiocracy. Gonna need some Brawndo.

[Hannibal]

It's a two man race between Sanders and Biden now. Buttigieg has no chance. "Surging" means that he finishes in third (or maybe second at best) everywhere else except for this home state. Bloomberg has no chance.

[AlabamAlum]

[Dr. Strangelove]

Tonight will be interesting to see if Amy K or someone else decides to try and take Pete down kamikaze style. Saw some reflection that 4 years ago in the last debate right before NH, Chris Christie massacred Marco Rubio, who never recovered. Christie had zero chance of winning the nomination but he decided to fuck over Rubio on his way out.

Also saw someone speculate that Pete winning NH would be better for Biden than Bernie winning. Biden has been losing voters to Pete in NH but they're less likely to shift Pete's way in NV & SC even if Biden is 3rd or 4th again. Problem is can Biden hang onto what he has if he's a 4th place finisher in back to back contests?

[iam416]

If the putative center of the D party eats their own then we might as well start hunkering down for the Bernie Bros-MAGA Steel Cage Strap Match that will drive me to full on misanthropy. It'll be nice to finally share an interest with Alabam"Alum". Outside of our love of Central Ohio geography and neighborhoods.

[Whitley]

It's a two man race between Sanders and Biden now. Buttigieg has no chance. "Surging" means that he finishes in third (or maybe second at best) everywhere else except for this home state. Bloomberg has no chance.

Biden is toast. He only has 9 million on hand. Horrendous showing in Iowa not doing better in NH. His two big arguments are: 1) I am electable (hard to be electable when you are fourth in a caucus), 2) I can get POC (in Iowa Bernie got 43% of that vote)

Biden is in serious trouble the 2 most recent polls (Suffolk and Emerson) both have Biden in 4th place @11% (trailing Bernie by 13 and 21 points respectively). He needs a strong third (he is not winning this primary) to staunch the bleeding and that seems like a small chance right now. His donors are getting nervous, Biden doesn't have a deep committed amount of voters.

[Dr. Strangelove]

If the putative center of the D party eats their own then we might as well start hunkering down for the Bernie Bros-MAGA Steel Cage Strap Match that will drive me to full on misanthropy. It'll be nice to finally share an interest with Alabam"Alum". Outside of our love of Central Ohio geography and neighborhoods.

Maybe, maybe not. Biden's decline in the NH polling has almost exclusively benefitted the other moderates. Not Bernie really. If Bernie's support stays stagnant (certainly no guarantee of that) it benefits the moderate camp to wound each other to the point the others start dropping out.

On a very fun note, California's system is all mail-in and they have already started voting. It will likely be a long time before a victor is officially declared there. On top of that, Texas Dems are already warning that they doubt they will be able to declare a winner on Election Night thanks to new delegate calculations they will have to do. So it could take days if not weeks to know the results from Super Tuesday's two biggest states.

[Whitley]

Tonight will be interesting to see if Amy K or someone else decides to try and take Pete down kamikaze style. Saw some reflection that 4 years ago in the last debate right before NH, Chris Christie massacred Marco Rubio, who never recovered. Christie had zero chance of winning the nomination but he decided to fuck over Rubio on his way out.

Also saw someone speculate that Pete winning NH would be better for Biden than Bernie winning. Biden has been losing voters to Pete in NH but they're less likely to shift Pete's way in NV & SC even if Biden is 3rd or 4th again. Problem is can Biden hang onto what he has if he's a 4th place finisher in back to back contests?

Finishing in 4th place in NH would destroy the electable argument. I doubt Sen Kloubacher goes after Pete in that way, if Tusli was on that stage I could see it. The establishment Democrats don't know how to deal when punches come from the left, because they think they are the left.

[iam416]

Maybe, maybe not. Biden's decline in the NH polling has almost exclusively benefitted the other moderates. Not Bernie really. If Bernie's support stays stagnant (certainly no guarantee of that) it benefits the moderate camp to wound each other to the point the others start dropping out.

Bernie is a champion primary candidate. Get that rock solid, unflinching 30% and dominate crowded fields. So, maybe. But, whoever emerges in the saner, not full-on fucking Marxist lane needs to emerge with enough force to push everyone else out. With Bloomberg popping in for Super Tuesday I just don't see it. The Ds may not want Bernie, but unlike 2016 when it was just the PAH v Bernie and she rather decisively whipped his ass, it's now a Royal Rumble and Bernie has the support to win that sort of battle.

On a very fun note, California's system is all mail-in and they have already started voting. It will likely be a long time before a victor is officially declared there. On top of that, Texas Dems are already warning that they doubt they will be able to declare a winner on Election Night thanks to new delegate calculations they will have to do. So it could take days if not weeks to know the results from Super Tuesday's two biggest states.

This will all make fantastic fodder to mock the Ds and their hatred of the EC.

[Hannibal]

Biden is toast. He only has 9 million on hand. Horrendous showing in Iowa not doing better in NH. His two big arguments are: 1) I am electable (hard to be electable when you are fourth in a caucus), 2) I can get POC (in Iowa Bernie got 43% of that vote)

Biden is in serious trouble the 2 most recent polls (Suffolk and Emerson) both have Biden in 4th place @11% (trailing Bernie by 13 and 21 points respectively). He needs a strong third (he is not winning this primary) to staunch the bleeding and that seems like a small chance right now. His donors are getting nervous, Biden doesn't have a deep committed amount of voters.

You might be right about Biden, but he's going to get some nice optics boosts in the next few weeks here when he wins Nevada and South Carolina.