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Yeah, but if there was a revolt, it scares me to imagine who might end up in power. That is how the Nazi party came to power, right when the country was in the crapper.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:Let it happen.

People are not happy as is. Just look at the occupy movement.

Congressfolk shutting down the government is just going to poke that bear.

And you do not want to give a pissed off bear a target.

If there is actually a shutdown and they aren't just trying to make us sweat (business as usual) I give it a week, Tops.

We'll either have a congress scared straight by a very large and very angry mob, OR we will have an all new congress of people scared of what said angry mob did to the previous congressfolk.
This won't happen because all they want to do is make us worry and sweat it out.

Then, at 2 minutes to midnight, boehner and Obama will have a secret meeting that saves the day. For the next couple days all you will hear is how great one is and how the other one is the devil, followed by the next big issue where congressfolk will play the "I'm going to take my ball and go home" card when someone doesn't get their way.

This happens on such a regular basis that you can almost set your watch to it, just like the Nutter that keeps predicting the end of the world every few months.

That is actually pretty much what he have now. Say what you want about the Tea Party caucus governing like with an "I don't care what make sense, I was send here for X and I will do X no matter how bad it might be". The current congress is EXACTLY what people voted for. And that is the sad truth. All ideology, no compromise.

When you can fit the platform of both parties on a bumber sticker, you know that we are screwed. We don't have political ideologies anymore, we have slogans.

Here's a nice chart, Congress is polling lower than Paris Hilton, the IRS, the Airline industry and Nixon during Watergate.




They are however above Fidel Castro.

I wonder how Hitler polls?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/15/1036696/-Open-thread:-The-congressional-popularity-problem-in-one-chart?via=blog_1


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Kid_Kyoto wrote:Here's a nice chart, Congress is polling lower than Paris Hilton, the IRS, the Airline industry and Nixon during Watergate.




I wonder how Hitler polls?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/15/1036696/-Open-thread:-The-congressional-popularity-problem-in-one-chart?via=blog_1


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Honestly, he might actually poll higher then 8%, I mean, at least there are some people that like him still. How bad is that thought? The man tried to exterminate an entire race of people, and yet, Id bet he rates higher then our Congress. I really want to just shoot all of our Congress dead sometimes. Then at gun point, see who has the balls to say they want to step up. The few that stood up and said they would, well I bet they would be many times better then the saps we elected currently.

Im honestly amazed that people just keep voting these idiots in, then complain about it. Heres a new idea....... STOP IT!

KingCracker wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Here's a nice chart, Congress is polling lower than Paris Hilton, the IRS, the Airline industry and Nixon during Watergate.




I wonder how Hitler polls?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/15/1036696/-Open-thread:-The-congressional-popularity-problem-in-one-chart?via=blog_1


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Im honestly amazed that people just keep voting these idiots in, then complain about it. Heres a new idea....... STOP IT!

I have seen a chart that compared the turnover rate in our Congress to the turnover rate of politicians in Soviet Russia. According to it our congress has higher reelection rates than a country with no real opposition to vote against. Of course my google-foo is weaksauce today, so I can't find the source. But honestly it would not surprise me at all.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Here's a nice chart, Congress is polling lower than Paris Hilton, the IRS, the Airline industry and Nixon during Watergate.

Looks accurate, actually.

Time to clean house in 2012. Send the fethers a message.

KingCracker wrote:

Im honestly amazed that people just keep voting these idiots in, then complain about it. Heres a new idea....... STOP IT!

What's the alternative? Last time I voted, I had the choice between the idiot in the suit that would get voted in, and the idiot in the suit that wouldn't. That's the only difference I can see. Show me a reasonable candidate for anything that won't get railroaded into obscurity by the media (Buddy Roemer) or made to look like an absolute lunatic (Ron Paul).

It's one of the reasons why I don't vote anymore. I'll get off my ass and vote if you show me someone worth voting for.

I refuse to vote in Primaries because they make you declare "republican" or "democrat" I will not, ever. I think for myself, I make my own decisions for myself.

If pro is the opposite of con, is congress the opposite of progress?

Lately, yes

daedalus wrote:What's the alternative?

That's the thing. People like the guy in their state, or at least they hate the other guy so much they vote against him. They make think about congress in general and say they disapprove, but they keep voting their own guy in, over and over again.

Last time I voted, I had the choice between the idiot in the suit that would get voted in, and the idiot in the suit that wouldn't. That's the only difference I can see. Show me a reasonable candidate for anything that won't get railroaded into obscurity by the media (Buddy Roemer) or made to look like an absolute lunatic (Ron Paul).

Ron Paul is actually a lunatic though. He's so enraptured with the purity of his ideology he lost any interest in whether it'd actually work decades ago.

sebster wrote:
Ron Paul is actually a lunatic though. He's so enraptured with the purity of his ideology he lost any interest in whether it'd actually work decades ago.

Well, at least he is consistant.

Lord Rogukiel wrote:If pro is the opposite of con, is congress the opposite of progress?

while that is catchy...really catchy. I think regress is the opposite of progress. And if anything congress is stagnant...which may be worse.

d-usa wrote:

Iur_tae_mont wrote:Let it happen.

People are not happy as is. Just look at the occupy movement.

Congressfolk shutting down the government is just going to poke that bear.

And you do not want to give a pissed off bear a target.

If there is actually a shutdown and they aren't just trying to make us sweat (business as usual) I give it a week, Tops.

We'll either have a congress scared straight by a very large and very angry mob, OR we will have an all new congress of people scared of what said angry mob did to the previous congressfolk.
This won't happen because all they want to do is make us worry and sweat it out.

Then, at 2 minutes to midnight, boehner and Obama will have a secret meeting that saves the day. For the next couple days all you will hear is how great one is and how the other one is the devil, followed by the next big issue where congressfolk will play the "I'm going to take my ball and go home" card when someone doesn't get their way.

This happens on such a regular basis that you can almost set your watch to it, just like the Nutter that keeps predicting the end of the world every few months.

That is actually pretty much what he have now. Say what you want about the Tea Party caucus governing like with an "I don't care what make sense, I was send here for X and I will do X no matter how bad it might be". The current congress is EXACTLY what people voted for. And that is the sad truth. All ideology, no compromise.

When you can fit the platform of both parties on a bumber sticker, you know that we are screwed. We don't have political ideologies anymore, we have slogans.

Yes its the Tea Party's fault. Its the Tea Party's fault that Congress, when controlled by Democrats, started a first ever tradition of not even trying to submit a budget. Reid had the opportunity to address it prior to the Republicans coming into power, but didn't want to.
You have budget problems, blame the guys who skipped out of town to get votes instead of doing their ing jobs.

Besides it won't shut down, the automatic provisions come into effect if nothing's done. Sadly, it won't be shut down.

Frazzled wrote:

d-usa wrote:

Iur_tae_mont wrote:Let it happen.

People are not happy as is. Just look at the occupy movement.

Congressfolk shutting down the government is just going to poke that bear.

And you do not want to give a pissed off bear a target.

If there is actually a shutdown and they aren't just trying to make us sweat (business as usual) I give it a week, Tops.

We'll either have a congress scared straight by a very large and very angry mob, OR we will have an all new congress of people scared of what said angry mob did to the previous congressfolk.
This won't happen because all they want to do is make us worry and sweat it out.

Then, at 2 minutes to midnight, boehner and Obama will have a secret meeting that saves the day. For the next couple days all you will hear is how great one is and how the other one is the devil, followed by the next big issue where congressfolk will play the "I'm going to take my ball and go home" card when someone doesn't get their way.

This happens on such a regular basis that you can almost set your watch to it, just like the Nutter that keeps predicting the end of the world every few months.

That is actually pretty much what he have now. Say what you want about the Tea Party caucus governing like with an "I don't care what make sense, I was send here for X and I will do X no matter how bad it might be". The current congress is EXACTLY what people voted for. And that is the sad truth. All ideology, no compromise.

When you can fit the platform of both parties on a bumber sticker, you know that we are screwed. We don't have political ideologies anymore, we have slogans.

Yes its the Tea Party's fault. Its the Tea Party's fault that Congress, when controlled by Democrats, started a first ever tradition of not even trying to submit a budget. Reid had the opportunity to address it prior to the Republicans coming into power, but didn't want to.
You have budget problems, blame the guys who skipped out of town to get votes instead of doing their ing jobs.

Besides it won't shut down, the automatic provisions come into effect if nothing's done. Sadly, it won't be shut down.

I'm was not trying to say it was their fault, I was just trying to show that they are just the latest group that puts the ideals of a party/ideoogy/slogan above the ideals of a country. The only thing the Tea Party did was that they did not sugarcoat their goals. No fancy campaign promises of compromise and bipartisanship. They said that they would never compromise if they win, and that is what they are doing. So while pretty much the whole mess in congress is responsible for this mess, the Tea Party Caucus must be applauded for actually sticking to their campaign promise there. Everybody else ran on "we will work together to make this country work" and then just did the same old partisan politics. The Tea Party ran on "our way or nothing!" and they are actually sticking to it.

Not saying that this is right or wrong, but you cannot say that the Tea Party Caucus is not delivering what they promised, so I think for that particular group it is stupid that people are surprised.

Both parties have to compromise in order to have a compromise. That is the definition of compromise. You can't solely blame one party for not compromising, by doing so, you are taking a partisan stance whilst bitching about partisan stances.

dsteingass wrote:Both parties have to compromise in order to have a compromise. That is the definition of compromise. You can't solely blame one party for not compromising, by doing so, you are taking a partisan stance whilst bitching about partisan stances.

How am I blaming one party?

I am freely admitting that both parties are to blame.

d-usa wrote:So while pretty much the whole mess in congress is responsible for this mess, the Tea Party Caucus must be applauded for actually sticking to their campaign promise there. Everybody else ran on "we will work together to make this country work" and then just did the same old partisan politics. The Tea Party ran on "our way or nothing!" and they are actually sticking to it.

I wasn't disagreeing with you, my bad if I used "YOU" incorrectly.

Nerivant wrote:Congress seems to be making no progress.

Jihadin wrote:Going to avoid watching the news this week and nail out some BF3

Same. I'll be ignoring the "impending collapse of the American way of life" drivel and hammer out some more Skyrim.

I'll likely be playing both! Well. No. Thats not likely. Skyrim has totally replaced BF3 for the foreseeable future, but it'll be there in my heart.

Not saying that this is right or wrong, but you cannot say that the Tea Party Caucus is not delivering what they promised, so I think for that particular group it is stupid that people are surprised.

Dirty politics and idiocy is what they campaigned on and it's what they're delivering. That said the entire republican party campaigned on (borrowed) populism, so the teaparty isn't the real stumbling block here. It's the rest of the republican 'resistance' movement.

Hurray! Hurray! congress passed a budget!

Till December 16... don't work too hard guys.

And between now and then we'll have SUPER CONGRESS (they have capes and secret decoder rings and everything) who have till Thanksgiving (that's this Thursday) to make a deal or everyone's budget get slashed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supercommittee-at-impasse-as-deadline-approaches/2011/11/18/gIQA77kWZN_story.html

Is that before they all go back home for the holidays and we still pay them?
Why don't we cut their pay until they do their jobs?

dsteingass wrote:Is that before they all go back home for the holidays and we still pay them?
Why don't we cut their pay until they do their jobs?

Because very few member's of Congress depend on their Congressional salary for prosperity.

dogma wrote:

dsteingass wrote:Is that before they all go back home for the holidays and we still pay them?
Why don't we cut their pay until they do their jobs?

Because very few member's of Congress depend on their Congressional salary for prosperity.

Also, don't pay changes have to go through Congress for approval?

Or is that just the President's pay?

it still blows my mind that the Fed Reserve is a for profit private company


they are as federal as fed ex

dsteingass wrote:Is that before they all go back home for the holidays and we still pay them?
Why don't we cut their pay until they do their jobs?

I think it would hurt them more if you put campaign contrabutions limits in and effiectly got rid of the lobbiests in washington. Then again im Canadian the 52nd state ( we used to be the 51 state, but you guys like Mexico better now...) >.> <.< [/sarcasm]

dsteingass wrote:Both parties have to compromise in order to have a compromise. That is the definition of compromise. You can't solely blame one party for not compromising, by doing so, you are taking a partisan stance whilst bitching about partisan stances.

I'm not sure that's true. Leaving aside the politics of the situation, if I wanted pizza for dinner, and you wanted hamburgers, and I said 'okay, we'll make two stops and get both' and you said 'we're only making one stop and if dare suggest it be anything other than hamburgers I will eat your children' then we won't have reached a compromise, and I'm pretty sure it was mostly your fault.


I think the big issue, and it's one very few people in the US seem willing to consider, is the idea that a political system dependant on compromise between two large, political parties is inherently disfunctional. When there's just two parties you're inevitably going to end up with a system built around conflict, and the fact that the two parties were able to compromise for so long is ahistoric. The US is now becoming like the rest of the world, with the two major parties bringing its members under more strict control, and deadlock seems inevitable.

A situation where a party wins office and thereby wins the the right to govern for the length of their term is much more stable, but unfortunately that's not the constitution you've got, and there's zero chance of that changing any time soon.

Platuan4th wrote:
Also, don't pay changes have to go through Congress for approval?

Or is that just the President's pay?

Its both.