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PoliGAF 2013 |OT1| Never mind, Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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RDreamer

Member
I guess Walker is indeed rejecting the Medicaid expansion. Saw a news story on it on my lunch break. His excuse is apparently that he doesn't trust the federal government to hold up their end of the bargain, and that would leave the state on the hook... yeah...

It comes off rather weird. It's like "I'm not going to help you now... for free, because sometime in the future I think I may have to actually help you, and lord knows I don't want to do that."
 
And if you are, they probably still don't care at all

They document that you sent it in and if you ask for a response you will get one, as long as you are a constituent of the state the politician represents

It's why those "Call Eric Cantor/Boehner/Pelosi/etc" campaigns mean absolutely nothing when out of state people call
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
I guess Walker is indeed rejecting the Medicaid expansion. Saw a news story on it on my lunch break. His excuse is apparently that he doesn't trust the federal government to hold up their end of the bargain, and that would leave the state on the hook... yeah...
As opposed to the state being on the hook now anyway?
 

izakq

Member
Can the Republicans be Saved From Obsolescence - NYT Magazine article

Great article on how the tech. and social media was used in the 2012 elections and just how wide that gap was between Republicans and Democrats, among other things.

“Then, once people think we’ve gotten them through the worst,” Jacobson said, “we pile on more — just the way Obama did.” He put up Slide 26, titled, “Running Up the Score.” “Obama was the very first candidate to appear on Reddit. We ask our clients, ‘Do you know what Reddit is?’ And only one of them did. Then we show them this photo of Obama hugging his wife with the caption ‘Four more years’ — an image no conservative likes. And we tell them, ‘Because of the way the Obama campaign used things like Reddit, that photo is the single-most popular image ever seen on Twitter or Facebook.’ Just to make sure there’s plenty of salt in the wound.”

Exhibit A is the performance of the Romney brain trust, which has suffered an unusually vigorous postelection thrashing for badly losing a winnable race. Criticism begins with the candidate — a self-described data-driven chief executive who put his trust in alarmingly off-the-mark internal polls and apparently did not think to ask his subordinates why, for example, they were operating on the assumption that fewer black voters would turn out for Obama than in 2008. Romney’s senior strategist, Stuart Stevens, may well be remembered by historians, as one House Republican senior staff member put it to me, “as the last guy to run a presidential campaign who never tweeted.” (“It was raised many times with him,” a senior Romney official told me, “and he was very categorical about not wanting to and not thinking it was worth it.”)

A few days after the Moffatt gathering, the R.N.C.’s chairman, Reince Priebus, announced that the committee would conduct a wide-ranging investigation — called the Growth and Opportunity Project — into the ways the party was going astray. To guide the investigation were familiar names, like the former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, the longtime Florida operative Sally Bradshaw and the R.N.C. veteran Henry Barbour. Erik Telford, the 28-year-old founder of the RightOnline bloggers’ convention, told me that he found himself wondering aloud: “Do you want an aggressive investigation from people who’ve built their careers on asking skeptical questions? Or do you want a report from people who are symptomatic of what’s gone wrong?”

And some choice words about Rubio from David Plouffe.

But, I asked Plouffe, wasn’t the G.O.P. just one postmodern presidential candidate — say, a Senator Marco Rubio — away from getting back into the game?

Pouncing, he replied: “Let me tell you something. The Hispanic voters in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico don’t give a damn about Marco Rubio, the Tea Party Cuban-American from Florida. You know what? We won the Cuban vote! And it’s because younger Cubans are behaving differently than their parents. It’s probably my favorite stat of the whole campaign. So this notion that Marco Rubio is going to heal their problems — it’s not even sophomoric; it’s juvenile! And by the way: the bigger problem they’ve got with Latinos isn’t immigration. It’s their economic policies and health care. The group that supported the president’s health care bill the most? Latinos.”
 
To me at least, propping up Rubio should seem like a slap in the face to the Latino community. It's like saying, "Hey Latino's! We're betting you're not going to pay attention to the details and just love us because he can speak spanish." It just feel very very cheap.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
To me at least, propping up Rubio should seem like a slap in the face to the Latino community. It's like saying, "Hey Latino's! We're betting you're not going to pay attention to the details and just love us because he can speak spanish." It just feel very very cheap.

That's always been the gop's modus operandi.


Need to appeal to Hispanics? Hey, look we got Marco Rubio!

Need to appeal to women? Hey, look we got Sarah Palin!

Need to appeal to the Blahs? Hey, look we got Herman Cain!
 

kehs

Banned
To me at least, propping up Rubio should seem like a slap in the face to the Latino community. It's like saying, "Hey Latino's! We're betting you're not going to pay attention to the details and just love us because he can speak spanish." It just feel very very cheap.

I think Rubio realized that halfway through his rebuttal.
 
I guess Walker is indeed rejecting the Medicaid expansion. Saw a news story on it on my lunch break. His excuse is apparently that he doesn't trust the federal government to hold up their end of the bargain, and that would leave the state on the hook... yeah...

It comes off rather weird. It's like "I'm not going to help you now... for free, because sometime in the future I think I may have to actually help you, and lord knows I don't want to do that."

More like: I'm not going to take federal assistance for my citizens now because I and my party in the near future will viciously slash the federal government's assistance in the future, leaving the state on the hook.
 
That's always been the gop's modus operandi.


Need to appeal to Hispanics? Hey, look we got Marco Rubio!

Need to appeal to women? Hey, look we got Sarah Palin!

Need to appeal to the Blahs? Hey, look we got Herman Cain!

Imigration was the only issue both dems and repubs stood up for during the SOTU too. At least the only one I noticed.
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
Rubio's watergate has done enough to make him look stupid. He suffered big time.
Ironically, the whole water thing has distracted people from the fact that his speech contained absolutely no substance. He still managed to contradict himself, though. "Government is bad. Except for how it allowed my parents to stay here, allowed me to go to college, and provided healthcare to both my parents."

He should have just said "fuck you, I got mine," chugged the water, and dropped the bottle to the floor as he walked off.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/lautenberg-i-wont-run-for-re-election

Lautenberg: I Won’t Run For Re-Election

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) will not seek re-election next year, the Star-Ledger reported Thursday:

“I am not announcing the end of anything. I am announcing the beginning of a two-year mission to pass new gun safety laws, protect children from toxic chemicals and create more opportunities for working families in New Jersey,” Lautenberg told the Star-Ledger. “While I may not be seeking re-election, there is plenty of work to do before the end of this term and I'm going to keep fighting as hard asever for the people of New Jersey in the U.S. Senate.”​

According to the Star-Ledger, the 89-year-old senior senator will make a formal announcement on Friday in Paterson, N.J.
 

pigeon

Banned
Don't think anybody mentioned this yet:

ppppolls said:
You can add Louisiana to the list of states where Hillary Clinton might be competitive with a 2016 Presidential bid, at least at this stage. She has a 46/44 favorability rating in the state and has 3 points lead over Jindal (48/45) and Rubio (46/43) in hypothetical match ups. She ties Ryan at 46.

I doubt this will hold up til 2016, but wow, I can't even imagine a campaign in which Louisiana might be in play. Nor am I particularly sanguine about Rubio's chances to become the anointed candidate if he's losing to Hillary in one of the reddest states in the country. Not that Ryan or anybody else is doing much better, apparently.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/02/louisiana-miscellany.html
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Booker could have handled this a whole lot better; he'll be blamed for this instead, and disliked the minute he arrives in the senate.

Lautenberg is 89 years old and was widely expected to retire. Dems will rally around their nominee and embrace whoever that is. If that is Booker, they're not going to side track one of the few black Senators in the body because he had the gall to announce his run for office a few weeks before a dinosaur announced his retirement.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
So Rube-io just came out against both Obama's min. wage hike suggestion, and the idea of minimum wage in general:

"I don’t think a minimum wage law works," Rubio told Charlie Rose. "We all support — I certainly do — having more taxpayers, meaning more people who are employed. And I want people to make a lot more than $9 — $9 is not enough. The problem is you can’t do that by mandating it in the minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws have never worked in terms of having the middle class attain more prosperity."

Good job, clown.
 
Lautenberg is 89 years old and was widely expected to retire. Dems will rally around their nominee and embrace whoever that is. If that is Booker, they're not going to side track one of the few black Senators in the body because he had the gall to announce his run for office a few weeks before a dinosaur announced his retirement.

I agree Lautenberg should have retired, but Booker earned himself no friends by effectively pushing Lautenberg to make the decision. This plus his decision not to challenge Christie makes him look like quite the opportunist.

Politics is for big boys though so it's not unprecedented. Getting into the senate is tough, not everyone has the door opened due to things going 100% their way (ie the sex scandal that opened the Ill seat for Obama).
 
So Rube-io just came out against both Obama's min. wage hike suggestion, and the idea of minimum wage in general:



Good job, clown.

LOL, but a lot of minimum wage earners are part-time middle class wives for the sole purpose of improving their middle-class life.

Of course, a lot of data seems to indicate the minimum wage would help a lot.


This "minimum wage hurts jobs" meme is annoying. That's only true under a scenario where businesses don't have monopsony power. But they do.
 

FyreWulff

Member
So he wants minimum wages enforced by unions? I mean, that's what would happen without a law. Free market unions would form and require minimum payment before you can use one of their workers.

The Republicans(tm): We Want More People Off Welfare, But They Can't Earn Too Much When They Get Off It(sm)
 
LOL, but a lot of minimum wage earners are part-time middle class wives for the sole purpose of improving their middle-class life.

Of course, a lot of data seems to indicate the minimum wage would help a lot.


This "minimum wage hurts jobs" meme is annoying. That's only true under a scenario where businesses don't have monopsony power. But they do.

The Review of Economics and Statistics did a pretty big study on it, which I've brought up many times in business classes to the disdain of conservative classmates. Matty Y with the run down
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox...earch_the_case_for_a_higher_minimum_wage.html

Anti minimum wage rhetoric is rather impressive and sounds legit on face value to many people, but it's simply not true. Some businesses would certainly downsize, but most wouldn't. More importantly it would virtually serve as a stimulus for the public, giving them more spending money.
 
The interesting thing is that because of economy is still down and a ways off of full-employment, a big minimum wage hike would probably increase jobs.

By raising the minimum wage you create a lot more disposable income which increases Demand for goods and services which in turn increases the need to hire workers to full that Demand. Thus, more people are hired.

During times of full-employment there may be an argument against it, but with 8% unemployment and corporations hording cash, the best thing you can do is get more money into the hands of the working class. Minimum wage would accomplish this.

The Review of Economics and Statistics did a pretty big study on it, which I've brought up many times in business classes to the disdain of conservative classmates. Matty Y with the run down
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...imum_wage.html

Anti minimum wage rhetoric is rather impressive and sounds legit on face value to many people, but it's simply not true. Some businesses would certainly downsize, but most wouldn't. More importantly it would virtually serve as a stimulus for the public, giving them more spending money.

I've actually read all those papers and a handful more.

There's very little data in the US showing minimum wage laws would hurt. And the reason is simple: there's no perfect information and workers are grossly underpaid to begin with, in all fields.
 

FLEABttn

Banned
The anti-minimum wage argument is a "small government" argument posed as an economics argument.

They don't like the idea of the government telling you how much you have to pay your employees. If inflation via increased labor costs were really their concern, they'd ban yearly COLA raises.
 
I wonder if the minimum wage issue could spur 2014 turnout, since it obviously won't be passed with a GOP House. Seems like the perfect opportunity for a non-partisan PAC to send out a pledge for, to get incumbents and challengers on record.
 

Gotchaye

Member
The anti-minimum wage argument is a "small government" argument posed as an economics argument.

They don't like the idea of the government telling you how much you have to pay your employees. If inflation via increased labor costs were really their concern, they'd ban yearly COLA raises.

I'd say that it's an anti-labor argument posing as either a small government or economics argument. Rubio's against raising the minimum wage because big Republican donors are against the minimum wage. They're against the minimum wage because they have to pay the minimum wage. They're happy to argue that the minimum wage is also bad for labor, but they don't really care whether or not this is true.
 

Crisco

Banned
Eh, it seems more like a political grenade than anything else. Just another chance for the GOP to show off how crazy they are. I don't think it's an actual legislative priority.
 

RDreamer

Member
The interesting thing is that because of economy is still down and a ways off of full-employment, a big minimum wage hike would probably increase jobs.

By raising the minimum wage you create a lot more disposable income which increases Demand for goods and services which in turn increases the need to hire workers to full that Demand. Thus, more people are hired.

During times of full-employment there may be an argument against it, but with 8% unemployment and corporations hording cash, the best thing you can do is get more money into the hands of the working class. Minimum wage would accomplish this.

The other point is that now's a great time in that because of the recession a lot of businesses have cut employment to the bone. Their labor is at minimum. A lot can't simply fire someone because they're forced to pay them more. If they did, then stuff just wouldn't get done.
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
Eh, it seems more like a political grenade than anything else. Just another chance for the GOP to show off how crazy they are. I don't think it's an actual legislative priority.
This applies to pretty much everything they do these days.
 

Crisco

Banned
I mean, raising minimum wage is one of those things that sounds good on paper, but isn't really a great idea policy wise. However, you sound like a real asshole if you come out against it. Obama is playing the GOP like a fiddle with this one.
 

Gotchaye

Member
Might there also be some hidden benefits to raising the minimum wage for jobs that can't easily be outsourced?

If a higher minimum wage means that McDonalds' across the country have to shut down because they can't afford to pay their staff that much, that's bad.

But it's not necessarily bad for them to have an incentive to look for less labor-intensive ways of doing the same jobs. Maybe they do cut back on the number of people employed at each location, but maybe they also invest in technology that lets that smaller number of people accomplish the same amount of work.

Lots of McDonalds' locations in France seem to have managed to substantially scale back on the number of people they keep around the main counter by putting in these nifty touch-screen consoles for ordering food. You punch in what you want, swipe your card, and take a ticket before you have any contact with the employees.

This sort of adjustment would surely be painful in the short-term - it's fewer jobs, after all - but encouraging productivity growth is always going to be a winner in the long-term.
 
I agree Lautenberg should have retired, but Booker earned himself no friends by effectively pushing Lautenberg to make the decision. This plus his decision not to challenge Christie makes him look like quite the opportunist.

Politics is for big boys though so it's not unprecedented. Getting into the senate is tough, not everyone has the door opened due to things going 100% their way (ie the sex scandal that opened the Ill seat for Obama).

If Booker had taken your advice, he may have just won reelection! Truly a political moron.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
I mean, raising minimum wage is one of those things that sounds good on paper, but isn't really a great idea policy wise. However, you sound like a real asshole if you come out against it. Obama is playing the GOP like a fiddle with this one.

It's actually really great policy wise. Why is it not good? Multiple studies have been posted in the last page or so showing it would be a net positive for the economy.
 

Snake

Member
It'd be unmanageable and not at all practical.

In the current relationship between the federal government and the states, yes absolutely. To be clear, in the scenario I was imagining, the equal division of the states implied an already far more centralized government, where the states were administrative divisions as opposed to self-governing entities.
 
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