[Ludi]

Here is the Republican plan for what they will do if they regain the House:

Some of the points in the plan:

Permanently extend all the Bush tax cuts, including those on the wealthy.

Cancel all unspent stimulus money. As of today, about $258 billion of the $814 billion stimulus is unspent.

Repeal the Obama health care bill, replacing it with Republican proposals, including limits on malpractice lawsuits.

Block Obama's plan to move detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the United States.



The pledge draft: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http ... 222010.pdf

So I guess they aren't all that serious about the deficit, if they're going to extend the tax cuts....

[Plantagenet]

Stopping Obama from wasting the last 250 billion of his porkulus money seems like a good start to me.

That will cut Obama's budget deficit from ca. 1.3 to ca. 1.05 Trillion right there.

[Sixstrings]

Here is the Republican plan for what they will do if they regain the House:

Some of the points in the plan:

Permanently extend all the Bush tax cuts, including those on the wealthy.

Cancel all unspent stimulus money. As of today, about $258 billion of the $814 billion stimulus is unspent.

Repeal the Obama health care bill, replacing it with Republican proposals, including limits on malpractice lawsuits.

Block Obama's plan to move detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the United States.



The pledge draft: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http ... 222010.pdf

So I guess they aren't all that serious about the deficit, if they're going to extend the tax cuts....

I actually agree with all that except for tax cuts for the wealthy and the GITMO thing. It's un-American to hold those prisoners forever without trial (where's the Tea Party on this, aren't they the uber-constitutionalists???). I don't have any sympathy for real terrorists by the way, but some of those prisoners were just turned in for the bounty. And some were more every day enemy combatants rather than hardcore terrorists. These people need fair trials, it's the right thing to do.

Overall though, pretty weak platform the Republicans are putting up. Same old, same old. I think they may win Congress, and am pretty sure they'll win the next presidential election (my early guess would be Mitt Romney). Republicans will only make everything worse of course, so that by around 2014 the country will be in a terrible mess.

Gonna be a rocky ride folks, from the frying pan into the fire we go.

[Ludi]

I think they may win Congress, and am pretty sure they'll win the next presidential election (my early guess would be Mitt Romney). Republicans will only make everything worse of course, so that by around 2014 the country will be in a terrible mess.

Gonna be a rocky ride folks, from the frying pan into the fire we go.

I guess that's what folks want. A lot of Democrats are saying they aren't going to vote, in order to punish the Democrats for not doing what they want. Some Republicans seem to be interpreting this to mean the non-voters want the Democrats to be more like the Republicans, when it's actually the opposite - voters and non-voters would like the Democrats to be much less like the Republicans. But the Democrats may interpret not voting to mean the constituents want Democrats to move to the right, and the country will keep moving more and more right....

[Sixstrings]

A lot of Democrats are saying they aren't going to vote, in order to punish the Democrats for not doing what they want.

Well the Dems are lucky I'm in Florida, because Rick Scott is so distasteful I MUST vote against him. The Dems could run Mickey Mouse for governor and I'd pull the lever, anybody but Scott.

I'll also be voting Charlie Crist for Senate (independent).

[Plantagenet]

We need to just break into two countrys....and see who survives.

Not a good idea-----You democrats already tried that in 1860 and it didn't work out very well for you

[PrestonSturges]

The Republicans have shot themselves in the foot. Their right wing policies have failed miserably so the answer must be move further to the right. I will be amazed if a single tea party candidate is elected. We need to just break into two countrys, one left and one right and see who survives.

The parasite red states can't survive with massive infusions of cash from the blue states. Alaska elected palin and it takes in $5 in federal money for every $1 of taxes paid. Sounds like a bunch of socialist welfare types to me.

[Sixstrings]

I am really not clear on who was which in 1860...please enlighten me...My impression is the north was Dems since they wanted to end slavery and give everyone a fair chance and the south was repubs since they wanted the rich slave owners to have the control and the ability to repress the masses...am I wrong...

Oh no, Democrats were always the party of the SOUTH and Republicans the NORTH. Republicans represented business and industry, which was mostly in the North. Abolitionists were also in the North, and they were Republicans.

Democrats represented the Southern agricultural plantation economy. So for many years, politics were very factional -- Repubs in the North, Dems in the South. This also has to do with states rights issues; the Northern states had always been more federalist than the South. And so Republicans were for strong federal government, Democrats for states' rights.

After the civil war, blacks were very loyal to what had in fact been the abolitionist party, the Republicans. For the first time in history, blacks got elected as Republicans -- I think there were even a few in Congress. It didn't last long though and the racist Democrats put blacks back in their "place."

The parties didn't flip ideologies until the Civil Rights era, when Southern Democrats felt betrayed by the Dems' pro-civil rights policies. I guess that really started with Roosevelt, a northern Democrat. But of course Johnson was a Texan. Anyhow, I guess it was with Barry Goldwater that Republicans really started courting the racist vote.

This culminated with the Reagan and Bush eras, when the Southern white Christian vote fell solidly into the Republican camp.

From an historical perspective, it's fascinating how the parties flipped like that. What was the party of the North became the party of the South, and vice versa. With all this Tea Party populism going on, I wonder if there might be another flip coming. Strange as it may sound, Republicans could become the party of labor. The Dems are certainly shifting toward a party of elites -- they're all "corporatist" democrats now, they surround themselves with the Wall Street crowd and party in the Hamptons.

[Oakley]

I don't think it really matters which wing of Plunder and Control Party has a majority, the Republicans or the Democrats.

If localization is so good for food production and living conditions, maybe localization of politics is the answer too. We probably are at the point where the complexity that comes from having one size fits all centralized government is bad, and the solution seems to me to be the dissolution of the federal government. It is bankrupt anyway. It is beyond control of ordinary citizens. It is corrupt and self serving.

There is too much division between red states and blue states for us to reach civil solutions so lets just divorce and go our separate ways.

[efarmer]

The Republicans represented business in the North and objected to slavery on several grounds including
moral and the fact that free labor was a disadvantage for businesses that had to pay wages and compete in areas of the nation that did not have slave labor. Lincoln was a Republican Moderate.

After Johnson signed the civil rights act in the 1960's the bastion of political racism in the American South was the very powerful Southern Democrats and they objected and defected to the Republican Party and led to a resurgence of Southern political clout for Republicans which brought Richard Nixon to power in 1969.

Sort of like a dog that decides to eat a toad, and finds that they foam at the mouth and have a hard time keeping him down later. I have often wondered if Lee Atwater and Karl Rove would have any place in the Republican party if Republicans had not decided to eat the Southern Democratic Toads so they could win the South.

Oakley, I do not believe the American people are as polarized as the media, corporate sponsors, and the Red and Blue teams like to pretend when they hold their pageants.

[Sixstrings]

The parasite red states can't survive with massive infusions of cash from the blue states. Alaska elected palin and it takes in $5 in federal money for every $1 of taxes paid. Sounds like a bunch of socialist welfare types to me.

Preston, just to be historically honest, please remember that Northern capitalists have been carpet-bagging the South since the end of the civil war. They use the South as a source of cheap, non-unionized labor. That's why to this day the South is not a balanced economy, because Northerners set it up this way.

It's not as bad as it once was, with Texas having oil and so many Northerners having moved to Florida. Georgia and Tennessee are good transportations hubs. But even now, so many years after the civil war, the South still isn't the financial or industrial equal of the North and California.

You see the same thing in the European Union -- the poorer nations are in the south, the rich in the north.

[Plantagenet]

I am really not clear on who was which in 1860...please enlighten me...My impression is the north was Dems ... and the south was repubs...am I wrong...

Yes, you've got it just backwards.

The Republicans were the anti-slavery while the Democratic party was the pro-slavery, pro-treason, pro-sedition party.

The Democrats in the south set up the Confederacy and seceded from the Union in order to preserve slavery, and in the north many Democrats labeled themselves as "peace Democrats" and argued in favor of making immediate peace with the Confederacy. The peace Democrats in the north were popularly nick-named the "Butternuts" or "Copperheads," and their calls for "Peace" were seen by many as treasonous support for their fellow democrats in the Confederacy.

[dinopello]

Wow, a 21 page plan ! That a big plan.

And, prominently on page 21 is the Republican's is the first and total mention of their pledge on energy...

We will fight to increase access to domestic energy sources and oppose attempts to impose a national “cap and trade” energy tax.

[PrestonSturges]

Jon Stewart just spent a couple minutes on the GOP "Pledge" contrasting today's announcements with clips from the last 15 years, and the GOP promises no change whatsoever. The guy that you dumped 2 years ago shows up at your door saying "I haven't changed, and I'm still going to try to f*** your sister. So what's it going to be baby, I ain't got all day."

[Plantagenet]

The democrats just cancelled their scheduled vote to repeal the Bush tax cuts.



Looks like the "Pledge" caused the democrats to lose their nerve and cancel the vote......

[Tanada]

The GOP are fools, all they needed was a 1 line pledge "We will follow our oath to uphold, defend and protect the constitution and make sure the Federal Government complies with it."

21 pages is just a bunch of lawyers putting in phrases that they can use to weasel out of doing what they claim they are going to do to get elected.

[dinopello]

21 pages is just a bunch of lawyers putting in phrases that they can use to weasel out of doing what they claim they are going to do to get elected.

They threw in a lot of traditional Republican spending that I'm sure they will have little trouble passing since it benefits a lot of states in both D and R land. Like their pledge to "fully fund missile defense". Vague choice of words on that. What does "fully fund" mean ?

[Ludi]

There is too much division between red states and blue states for us to reach civil solutions so lets just divorce and go our separate ways.

This is really nonsense. I live in Texas, considered one of the reddest of red states. But 43% of Texans who voted, voted for Obama in '08. Democrats are beginning to feel comfortable enough to even put campaign signs in their yards. So, over 40% of Texas voters should be completely disenfranchised because the majority happen to be Republicans? Utterly idiotic.