Xfinity News: Jindal: GOP must stop being 'stupid party'

[Predicto]

Going back to the original subject, it should be made clear that Jindal was not talking about making the GOP's policies less shortsighted and regressive, just that politicians have to stop being so blunt about admitting what the GOP platform really says and means.

Jindal said:

I am not one of those who believe we should moderate, equivocate or otherwise abandon our principles... This badly disappoints many of the liberals in the national media, of course. For them, real change means: supporting abortion on demand without apology, abandoning traditional marriage between one man and one woman, embracing government growth as the key to American success, agreeing to higher taxes every year to pay for government expansion, and endorsing the enlightened policies of European socialism.

What a bull :pooh: characterization of "those liberals in the national media." :doh:

More importantly, it shows that Jindal isn't concerned with any of the GOP's policies - just with how they are being presented. "Stand for the same stupid things, just don't come across as so stupid when you do so."

[Larry]

Well, we've heard that strategy (keep pushing the same ****, just don't be honest about it) before.

Heck, I think I heard it from W.

[Riggo-toni]

I think parts of his middle east foreign policy for a short time were probably good and necessary.

His foreign policy with respect to the Soviet Union was probably very bad from the start. He completely over estimated the threat of the Soviet Union even pre-Gorbachev.

The last 4 years were pretty blah to down right brutal.

While he certainly did overestimate the Soviet threat, the same could be said of every other post-war President outside of maybe Eisenhower. Furthermore, he always found the right balance between keeping Gorby engaged, but never blinking.

I actually think economically his 2nd term was better - the combination of the 86 tax reform act coupled with the Gramm-Rudmann act cut the deficit nearly in half. Miller was the best budget director the GOP has had since Chuck Colson, as opposed to Stockman and dastardly Dick Darman (the absolute worst pre-GWB) who botched it his first term. Unfortunately, all the progress he made was undermined by Poppa Bush, who in his first budget in 89 intentionally cooked the books to sabotage Gramm Rudmann so he could justify breaking his no new taxes pledge. Whereas Reagan took out 10,000 pages of costly regulation, GHB added 20,000 more. Just as John Major undid most of Thatcher's work, the Bush family are whom I hold responsible for undoing Reagan's legacy and turning the party into a bunch of Neo-Nixonian theocrats.

Reagan should also get credit for starting the Uruguay round of GATT talks and proposing NAFTA, though both accomplishments would take until the Clinton administration (my 2nd favorite President of my lifetime) to materialize.

[twa]

Since when is Stupid considered edgey?

Perry didnt drive anyone crazy. Everyone stood in awe that someone could be that dumb and be the Governor of a large state and a candidate for the GOP

Cruz is stupid now?

as far as Perry ya left out prosperous , it ain't stupid if it works.

[DCranon21]

If Jindal is talking about stop being stupid. Look at this piece of legislation that is being introduced in Arizona.

Public high school students in Arizona will have to “recite an oath supporting the U.S. Constitution” to receive a graduation diploma, if a new bill introduced in the new session of the state legislature is passed and signed into law. The measure, House Bill 2467, was offered by Rep. Bob Thorpe ®, a freshman tea party members who also backs a bill preventing state enforcement of federally enacted gun safety laws.

But guess who warns against this?

Constitutional experts warn that both proposals are unconstitutional. As American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona Public Policy Director Anjali Abraham explained, “You can’t require students to attend school … and then require them to either pledge allegiance to the flag or swear this loyalty oath in order to graduate. It’s a violation of the First Amendment.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/26/1500011/arizona-bills-require-public-school-students-to-recite-loyalty-oaths/

This is a stupid bill that is trying to be passed in Arizona.

[Riggo-toni]

Arizona is as Arizona does....

[thebluefood]

There must be something in the water in Arizona.

[Jumbo]

I didn't watch it, but on my xfinity home page there's a video titled "Fox Says Goodbye to Palin" so maybe someone's listening to Bobby. :pfft:

---------- Post added January-26th-2013 at 02:02 PM ----------

Arizona is as Arizona does....

---------- Post added January-26th-2013 at 02:02 PM ----------

Arizona is as Arizona does....

[PeterMP]

While he certainly did overestimate the Soviet threat, the same could be said of every other post-war President outside of maybe Eisenhower. Furthermore, he always found the right balance between keeping Gorby engaged, but never blinking.

I actually think economically his 2nd term was better - the combination of the 86 tax reform act coupled with the Gramm-Rudmann act cut the deficit nearly in half. Miller was the best budget director the GOP has had since Chuck Colson, as opposed to Stockman and dastardly Dick Darman (the absolute worst pre-GWB) who botched it his first term. Unfortunately, all the progress he made was undermined by Poppa Bush, who in his first budget in 89 intentionally cooked the books to sabotage Gramm Rudmann so he could justify breaking his no new taxes pledge. Whereas Reagan took out 10,000 pages of costly regulation, GHB added 20,000 more. Just as John Major undid most of Thatcher's work, the Bush family are whom I hold responsible for undoing Reagan's legacy and turning the party into a bunch of Neo-Nixonian theocrats.

Reagan should also get credit for starting the Uruguay round of GATT talks and proposing NAFTA, though both accomplishments would take until the Clinton administration (my 2nd favorite President of my lifetime) to materialize.

1. Carter might have over estimated the Soviets, but he did so to a much less extent. Just look at their priorites in terms of foreign policy.

2. Reagan clearly was the person that brought the religious right into the Republican party. He took the Goldwater coaltion, which wasn't enough to win elections and added the religious right to win elections. Bush (I) was never comfortable with them with him.

3. How much of the regulations were tied to issues with the S&L crisis and similar issues (which the '86 tax reform also contributed to)?

4. Nobody believes that Gramm-Rudman had much of an impact beyond bringing the deficiet to the forefront in terms political understanding.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/02/gramm-rudman-a-bad-idea-whose-time-has-come-again/303805/

[Burgold]

I didn't watch it, but on my xfinity home page there's a video titled "Fox Says Goodbye to Palin" so maybe someone's listening to Bobby. :pfft

Everyone complains that the Republicans are making a mistake by ignoring growing minorities and yet people in this thread are cheering that some in the GOP are trying to abandon the stupid? Crazy.

:evilg:

[Riggo-toni]

1. Carter might have over estimated the Soviets, but he did so to a much less extent. Just look at their priorites in terms of foreign policy.

2. Reagan clearly was the person that brought the religious right into the Republican party. He took the Goldwater coaltion, which wasn't enough to win elections and added the religious right to win elections. Bush (I) was never comfortable with them with him.

3. How much of the regulations were tied to issues with the S&L crisis and similar issues (which the '86 tax reform also contributed to)?

4. Nobody believes that Gramm-Rudman had much of an impact beyond bringing the deficiet to the forefront in terms political understanding.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/02/gramm-rudman-a-bad-idea-whose-time-has-come-again/303805/

For all its flaws, Gramm Rudman was working until Bush's 89 budget threw it under the bus. It was working during Reagan's 2nd term because his budget director stuck to it. Bush intentionally broke it because he was a Keynesian through and through and truly believed he could spend his way into reelection and then take his austerity lumps his 2nd term. This is exactly what his 90 budget did, raising spending by over two and a half dollars for every new tax dollar, and it ended up aggravating a credit crunch, ruining a fragile economy, and blowing a hole through the deficit.

Bush may not have been "comfortable" with the religious right, particularly since he originally ran as a pro-choice candidate, but he threw in all his cards with them in 92 and went coast to coast seeking endorsements from televangelists and such, to the point where an aging Nixon warned him to stay away from fanatics. He subsequently completely surrendered the 92 convention to Buchanan, Quayle, et al. Quayle in his autobiography said something along the lines of the 88 election victory being a disappointment in principles for him, but the 92 campaign being a moral triumph. Yes, Reagan courted the pro-life position (despite having signed abortion into law as governor of CA prior to Roe v Wade, and he did get support and endorsements from the Moral Majority (who had supported Carter, but abandoned him in droves after his tax reform efforts threatened to end exempt status for many of their business interests), but he never sucked up and surrendered to them any where near the level that Bush did in his pathetic 92 campaign. To win a national election, you have to have one large group that you give moderate lip service to, but almost completely ignore or even partly screw over when it comes to governing, knowing that they will vote for you anyway because they fear the alternative more. Reagan managed to do this with both the religious right and organized labor and to some extent, even with the gun lobby. Clinton and Obama have done this with the African American vote (Remember Sister Souljah, or Jesse Jackson's caught on mike comment about wanting to kick Obama in the nuts). Bush figured he could do this with the economic conservatives. The drivel about his 1990 budget being such a worthy compromise is idiotic revisionism - if it were such an enlightened deal, why did the deficit soar to record highs by the time GHB left office. Bush, who had never won an election without Reagan's coattails to ride in on (much like Romney, who lost every election he ever ran in until he had the luck of following an extremely successful and popular GOP governor in William Weld), completely overreacted to Buchanan's strong 2nd place showing in NH, and then mortgaged everything on social conservatism. Reagan threw a few snowballs; Bush started an avalanche.

The S&L crisis was unquestionably aggravated by a drop in liquidity thanks to a higher capital gains rate under the 86 reform, but ultimately the well-meaning but purely idiotic building tax credit is far more to blame (not to mention of course the primary reason - the simultaneous sudden deregulation combined with an increase is deposit insurance limits). It was always going to create the inevitable bubble it did. Too bad we didn't get rid of that credit sooner, or better still, never created it at all.

[PeterMP]

For all its flaws, Gramm Rudman was working until Bush's 89 budget threw it under the bus. It was working during Reagan's 2nd term because his budget director stuck to it. Bush intentionally broke it because he was a Keynesian through and through and truly believed he could spend his way into reelection and then take his austerity lumps his 2nd term. This is exactly what his 90 budget did, raising spending by over two and a half dollars for every new tax dollar, and it ended up aggravating a credit crunch, ruining a fragile economy, and blowing a hole through the deficit.

Even Rudmann doesn't believe that Gramm-Rudman was working. See the piece in the Atlantic I posted above. Congress was just playing games to circumvent the caps in place by Gramm-Rudman.

The fact of the matter is that Bush did a better job of controlling spending than Reagan despite fighting a real war and having a recession as part of his 4 year term and dealing with the S&L crisis.

Total under Reagan spending increased over 10% a year (from 1980 to 1988) and for Bush that comparable number was 7.44%, and that's despite the fact that Reagan's second term had all years of positive economic growth. If you look at his first term, where there was negative economic growth some years (so more comparable to the Bush recession), spending increased by even more (from 1980-1984 over 11% growth in spending a year).

What killed Bush in his budgets was not having the same increase reciepts, but that was tied the recession and the decrease in GDP and changes in tax repciepts from the Reagan tax policy, including the 1986 tax deal that was suppossed to be revenue neutral, but wasn't and ended up costing $8.9 billion.

http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1632/reagans-tax-increases

[mcsluggo]

I can Barely even conceive of the amount of hero worshiping self-delusion necessary to come to the conclusion that Reagan was in anyway better at managing the budget than Bush Senior

I realize that Reagan has been fully canonized and deified and could not possibly have done any wrong under any circumstance ,..... but jeez people

[Larry]

I can Barely even conceive of the amount of hero worshiping self-delusion necessary to come to the conclusion that Reagan was in anyway better at managing the budget than Bush Senior

I realize that Reagan has been fully canonized and deified and could not possibly have done any wrong under any circumstance ,..... but jeez people

Actually, it's not hard at all.

All you have to do is:

1). Everything good which has happened, anywhere in the world, during Reagan's presidency, or at any time since, is because of Reagan.

2). Everything bad which has happened is Somebody Else's Fault.

3). See? The man was a diety.

(The same formula has been applied, although with slightly less fervor, to every republican since).

[PeterMP]

Actually, it's not hard at all.

All you have to do is:

1). Everything good which has happened, anywhere in the world, during Reagan's presidency, or at any time since, is because of Reagan.

2). Everything bad which has happened is Somebody Else's Fault.

3). See? The man was a diety.

(The same formula has been applied, although with slightly less fervor, to every republican since).

To me the biggest obstacle w/ the GOP in becoming not the party of "stupid" is taking an honest look at the history of its "successful" people and that starts first and fore most with Reagan.

[Jumbo]

I only got to watch the first 6-7 minutes, but you have to see this hysterical "insiders club" :pfft: view as to how "they" and their primary appendage are going to "change the stupid."

:ols::ols:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-february-5-2013-ray-kelly